CHAPTER TWO: DON'T PRESS THAT BUTTON

Getting into the jumper was easy. Exiting through the Gate was easy. Approaching the Wraith planet was not so easy. The level of difficulty sort of meandered away from comfortable linear progressions to take a devastatingly sharp turn at Exponential Curve Lane.

Lt. Colonel Sheppard shifted uncomfortably in his seat and gripped the jumper controls a little more firmly than usual.

McKay tugged at his collar. "We're cloaked right?"

Sheppard stared at him; his stare contained one very obvious message: "WHAT THE HELL KIND OF QUESTION WAS THAT? YOU THINK I'D PULL THIS JUMPER INTO ORBIT AROUND A WRAITH WORLD SO THEY COULD SHOOT US DOWN AND –" Honestly, it was just much simpler to say it with an angry glare.

Anyway, so Sheppard and his team began the adventure by flying the jumper into the vicinity of the Wraith planet. It was a darkened chunk of sub-par rock squashed into a planet-like shape. They probably had no atmosphere given that they could see sprawling cities taking up all the room; no distortion, no clouds, no nothing. It was a no-nothing sort of world. There weren't even any forests or lakes or oceans and it was actually kind of sad. There were some volcanoes, though; the Wraith seemed to like volcanoes at least.

"Where does the Wraith obtain all of their resources? Teyla eyed the planet on visual, thinking it to be a good time to start up discussions.

Sheppard was hoping that they wouldn't have a good time to have a discussion about it; a Wraith attack would have actually been more interesting.

But all of the hive ships were busy sitting on the planet, doing a lot of nothing. Many Wraith darts and other little ships they had never seen before zipped in and out of the planet, however. They sometimes came from out of nowhere and sometimes they came from what looked like a giant space station, spinning like a top in orbit around the planet.

"Oh my god, did you get a load of that thing?" Sheppard dropped his jaw and pointed out of the viewer to the space station. "There's…a space station sitting out there!"

"Yes? I've been saying that for the past five minutes," McKay sighed, taking more readings. He stopped trying to tell Sheppard of the things he was finding by that point.

"So, what exactly are we supposed to do? We're sitting here in front of the Wraith planet…how are we supposed to learn anything about them besides these scanty readings? I mean, I could have guessed their planet would be dark and hideous devoid of trees and water, because what would the Wraith want with anything nice looking?" He paused for a moment, in thought.

But McKay, always up for banter, turned and said, "Didn't you even listen to the rest of the briefing?"

"No."

"No?"

"I was distraught, Rodney. Don't you have that word in your vocabulary? Or that feeling in your nervous system?"

"Colonel, I don't think you're using the word distraught in any kind of correct context; distraught and surfboard, they're just two words that should never belong in the same sentence, okay? You are distraught over Lt. Ford's disappearance; you are distraught about no more coffee on Atlantis; you are NOT distraught over the destruction of a surfboard."

"There's no more coffee on Atlantis!" Sheppard dropped his jaw again, pretty much to the same extreme as before when he had spotted the Wraith space station; odd how there should have been a difference and yet there wasn't.

"Yes, well, let's get on with the mission, shall we?" McKay looked away quickly, barely hiding the guilt that plastered his face like the street bills of a city construction site's walls.

But Sheppard was feeling much too wretched about things now, too much to bother with the mission. First his surfboard was taken away and eaten on a perfectly crappy day, and now he discovers that coffee no longer exists on Atlantis. Revenge was usually a good outlet to fix such unhappy problems, but the former situation provided no easy way of going about it; where to find and destroy four angry pillows with munchy mouths? They were out there, somewhere, in the ocean, and Sheppard was going to find them. Telling himself this covered up for the obscene truth of the matter that he was not likely going to find them again. So when he finally realized that for the past few hours he had been deluded about the whole thing, he felt that inflicting his anger on Rodney for the coffee-problem was his best bet to rectify the whole thing.

"You're going to pay for that, Rodney." Sheppard gave him quite a frightening look and turned back to the controls.

"It wasn't me!" McKay protested, knowing exactly what Sheppard was babbling about.

"Don't lie, would you? It just makes it worse."

"Colonel? Doctor? Perhaps we should return to the mission," Teyla interjected, wanting to pound her head against the windows until they smashed and she could retreat into the vacuum (and silence) of space and far away from Sheppard and McKay.

"What mission! What are we even supposed to do!" Sheppard threw his hands into the air.

"Connect into their mainframe computer system! What I've been trying to do for the past few minutes before you started winding up your mouth!"

Sheppard slammed himself back against his chair, nestling himself into it, and closed his eyes. "Fine. Fine. Tell me when we're done."

"Done," McKay said with marked irritation in his voice. "Now, I turn it on."

The unpleasant view of the Wraith's grim little world was replaced by an even more unpleasant view of a Wraith hologram transmission. At least, that's what they were hoping. It didn't take any time to glare and snarl at them – which was usually the customary greeting practice of the Wraith. It began to talk…in a pleasant voice. It sounded like a BBC newscaster. More disturbingly, the three had just suddenly noticed that it was wearing a suit with a tie.

"Welcome to Anti-Atlantis, fourth colony of the Wraith Dominion and over 14,000 years old. Our National Anthem alone is a famous attribute of this homely world, and sings out, "Die Atlantians Die, for we are the 4th Colony." We're glad you've chosen our world for your business or holiday pleasures. We hope to graciously meet your needs. If you are arriving in pursuit of holiday vacation reservations, press 1. If you are arriving for a business rendezvous, press 2. If you are a 4th colony Wraith returning home, press 3. If you are of a different species registered under the Wraith Import Register, or do not know if you are, press 4.

Beep.

"What the hell did you just do?" McKay looked down at Sheppard's hand as it left the control consol. It had just pressed a button.

Sheppard looked up at him, startled. "Oh, sorry, it's just so automatic. You know? Listening to these automated services – you don't even think when it tells you to press the number buttons."

"Oh my god, don't tell me…"

"Hello! Wraith Import Department, how can we help you unidentified spacecraft 114 mark 2?" A cheery female Wraith responded – it was still a rather hoarse voice but in such a lilt that for a Wraith, it had to be cheery. "Your identification ID's are now in transit…Reading…Atlantian Puddle Jumper class 3V – oh, dear, but this is a bit of a problem."

"I'm – going – to –kill – you," Rodney uttered under clenched teeth.

"Hmm…well…not if they get to it first."