CHAPTER THREE

The city of Atlantis,
the Pegasus Galaxy.

John Sheppard stood there calmly on the last step of the staircase, looking across the Gate Room towards the Stargate itself, as one of the Gate technicians in the operations centre on the level above dialled in the address of the planet he was travelling to.

He was decked out in full combat garb – armed with a P-90 assault rifle for short- to medium-ranged offensive and defensive firepower, with a 8mm Beretta sidearm as a secondary weapon, and the quite unique Bowie knife for close-quarters fighting… a gift from the injured, and now departed, Colonel Dillon Everett.

He had been further briefed by an Athosian woman on the world he would be heading to, and the native inhabitants who lived in small villages all around their Stargate. The Athosians had been trading with these people, the Gizan, for the better part of five generations. They were an agrarian society like so many others across the entire Pegasus Galaxy, simple farming folk, who lived quite spartanly and tired to enjoy as much of their quiet existence as they could, with the threat of the indomitable Wraith forever-present.

The Lieutenant Colonel knew the score – he'd done enough off-world operations, and made contact with enough societies just like this one, to understand the type of environment he would be travelling into quite intimately. He was not interested so much in making contact with the people or setting up diplomatic relations with their leaders… not on this mission.

This time, it was all about one man – the Genii spy who wanted to defect.

Every ounce of John's being, every instinct that he had to guide him, said that this was a mistake somehow, that things were going to go to hell right from the start. But if that initial feeling of suspicion and mistrust was unfounded, if the Genii was the real deal and on the level… the benefits he could offer them all were too good to disregard.

But there was also the possibility that this guy, this intelligence operative, would be the greatest danger they had to deal with in a long while… a disinformation agent or saboteur could do quite a lot of damage to the Atlantis expedition, John knew and understood this. He'd be damned if he'd be fooled by this man's lies, though, if he lied – no way no how.

The final chevron locked, and the Gate's event-horizon erupted out of the centre of the circular ring, tearing across half the room in a bluey-white ball of destructive energy. The Gate's connection with the Gizan homeworld had been established, and the event-horizon stabilized after a few long moments of its usual disability.

Lt Colonel John Sheppard raced forward, his P90 up and at the ready, striding purposefully towards the strangely watery, almost translucent Stargate. Without pausing in his stride, he leapt through the event-horizon, and rode the wormhole connection through the stars and across the cosmos, to his destination, on the other side of the Pegasus Galaxy.

# A #

On a small world on the outer edge of
Sector 1146, the Pegasus Galaxy.

Kayne withdrew a strange, almost archaic totem-worship device from a small, very well-concealed alcove nearby, and placed it on the floor in front of him before sitting down and beginning to work away at the ancient panel on one of its faces. It had six sides, was made out of the darkest of black marbles, and was of distinctly Wraith technology, if one knew how to recognize it…

At one time, a small tribe of native humans on a small backwater jungle-world HAD worshipped it, believing it was significantly responsible for the Wraith staying away from their world. The Genii had identified it as something much more than an inanimate object of devotion, and had claimed it as their own, slaughtering the local inhabitants of the planet when they had tried to deny them their prize.

The front panel was filled with various symbols and Wraith numbers, strangely similar yet different than their current Wraith equivalents – their systems of measurement and recording had evolved over thousands upon thousands of years, to the point where they had almost regressed back to a more simplistic, primitive form of themselves, losing some of the old knowledge and mastery of certain powerful, arcane technologies over the aeons.

At least, that was what Kayne and a small cabal of his acolytes were beginning to ascertain, over a very long period of research, discovery, and observation.

Right at that moment though, it was taking all of Kayne's focus and concentration to hit the right icons in the right speed and combination to activate the device, the 'weapon', in the way that he desired.

He was dealing with a very powerful piece of alien weaponry, designed to render electronically-based technology completely and utterly useless over a very vast distance – but when it was put up to its most powerful setting, it could literally obliterate them all and easily destroy half of this planet they were on.

The Genii were not quite looking for something that extreme, at least not at that point in time – they were wishing to disable a few ships out there in the black void of space, leaving their enemies helpless and incapacitated so that the next phase in their operation could be activated.

Kayne was confident that the device would render all electronic technology – even Wraith technology – effectively useless, across two-thirds of the entire solar system they were in. Thus, he had also faked an Ancient distress beacon… and the Genii had only to wait and let all the targets they could have hoped for come right to them! It was a perfect plan… and so far, everything had been carried out fluidly, well within schedule.

At that moment, Commander Acastus Kolya came forward again, peering down at Kayne as he worked. "Activate the weapon as soon as you can, don't wait for permission from me."

"As you wish, sir," Kayne replied.

Then, by pressing on his radio-transmitter, Kolya was able to broadcast a message to all of his forces across the surface of the planet, "Genii Strike Force, this is Commander Kolya. Deactivate all electronically-operated devices now until further notice."

Once this order was broadcast and all operating units confirmed it, Acastus switched off his transmitter, and powered down his auto-pistol.

All the while, Kayne had kept his head down and carried on with his job, not even bothering to look up at Kolya even once.

He finally got the combination that he'd been after all the while. There was a loud humming sound, and then the device began to crack open up at its top, four slabs of its top-section slid away from the central point and, inside, the Genii technician could see a very bright, pulsing blueness… Kayne had to turn away sharply as the throbbing light suddenly exploded in intensity, and a wave of energy wafted through the entire room from out of the depths of the device.

A tingling sensation coursed through Kayne, as the blue wave of energy passed completely through him. It was almost like an electrical charge. Quickly it spread out from that point, sweeping through the entire structure, then (though no-one could actually see it) coursed upwards and outwards, quickly covering the entire planet and growing upon itself.

The field of blue energy ripped out across the span of space itself, until half the system was engulfed in its strange environment. The Wraith cruisers, and the Lantean star-ship, were well within its effective range… soon, Kayne knew, they would all be struck down, rendered worse than helpless by the Genii.

And his people would owe it all to him, Kayne – the man who'd found a way to use science, intelligence, and technology to triumph over the great powers of the Pegasus Galaxy.

# A #

On the outer edge of Sector 1146, onboard the USS Daedalus,
the Pegasus Galaxy.

It happened suddenly, violently, and was absolutely devastating, affecting everything and everyone all at once. Rodney had been expecting some sort of attack to come, but when it did, and when it struck them without warning and possessed such unmitigated savagery, it stunned even him.

One moment, they were moving through the dark nothingness of space at an incredibly fast speed – though to McKay, Ronon Dex, and most everyone else onboard the Daedalus, the inertial dampeners and gravity drives made it feel like they weren't even moving at all. The next, they came to a sudden stop; lights blew out all over the ship, consoles and computer relays, anything at all that had a microchip or was of some kind of electronics-technology, were destroyed – some even exploded into flames, or fizzled out, sparking all over the place.

The battle-cruiser even shuddered and groaned, as its military-drive engines fluttered out and the vessel started to float through space on its own accord, with its own momentum of travel propelling it.

Ronon was thrown off his feet by a jarring explosion that rocked through their level, and slammed his head viciously against a nearby table. McKay was sent hurdling across the room when the computer monitor he was peering at exploded – he got a deep cut down the side of his face, which gushed out blood all down the front of his face. He was thrown back in his chair, his head rolling back around his shoulders, and was knocked out cold for a minute or two just as Ronon was, while the worst of it passed them both by and tore through the rest of the vessel.

Dr McKay was the first one to slowly rise up out of his unconscious stupor. He slowly looked around the room through the red curtain of blood that billowed down across his face, and let out a low groan of pain as the throbbing intensity of his head wound washed over him. Rodney slowly raised his right arm up to his face and, using the long shirtsleeve of the Air Force flight-jacket he was dressed in, wiped the blood off his face as much as he could.

"Oh, well that sure wasn't pleasant…!" McKay said softly, then let his eyes sweep over the Officer's Mess again, til he saw Ronon lying sprawled out across the floor nearby. "Ronon! Ronon, are you okay?"

He rushed over to his friend as quickly as he could, and slowly grabbed hold of Dex around his broad, massive shoulders, lifting him up with a deep sigh and half-lifting, half-dragging him over to a nearby chair. The scientist managed, with a fair degree of difficulty that was matched only by his sheer determination, to hoist the much larger, bulkier man up onto the chair. Ronon was slowly starting to come back around, but he wasn't yet capable of being much of any help.

Once he'd seen to Ronon's care, and checked that he wasn't injured other than quite a big, deep bruise to the right side of his forehead, Dr McKay started to slowly move around the Officer's Mess. He could hardly see anything at all, as the only light illuminating the large room were from small electrical fires that had flickered up due to the damaged components all over the place.

He could tell that there wasn't a single electronic device working that had been operating before the 'event' – and Rodney could feel a cold, steely sense of foreboding curling up inside his guts. This looked quite a lot like some kind of electromagnetic pulse strike, at least when McKay looked around and took in the aftermath of the attack… but the Daedalus had been especially designed against such an assault.

Well, at least any type of EMP strike that they'd ever known or experienced, before that moment anyway…

It was his initial thought that they had been the victims of some strange, immensely powerful and disruptive EMP strike – and Rodney McKay could not shake that notion, could not come up with any other idea that could properly fill in all the gaps like the EMP theory could.

They had been suckered into a trap with the false Ancient beacon, had been lured in close enough so someone, or some group, could activate a powerful weapon of some kind and strike out against all the Daedalus' electronics devices – it had been a perfect plan, flawlessly executed.

Rodney had managed to see right through the charade, if only for a moment… but no one else had really backed him. Ronon had been swept up by the fear that permeated McKay, and he backed Rodney only because he knew the man was innately intelligent, though extremely arrogant.

Suddenly, from across the room, McKay heard Ronon Dex let out a deep groan, and open his eyes up slowly. The doctor moved quickly over to check on the big, broad fighter. He put a hand reassuringly on Ronon's right shoulder.

"Are you alright, Ronon? Can you see alright, your head isn't hurting too badly is it?" Rodney asked.

The scruffy-haired man rose up a little bit in his chair, flexed his shoulders, and twisted his head slowly from side to side, then back again. "Yeah Doc, I think I'm okay…" Dex grumbled. He slowly looked up at McKay. "What the hell happened to us?"

The scientist stared back down at Ronon, let out a deep sigh, and shook his head. "We got what was coming to us, Ronon… it's as simple as that." Rodney snickered almost self-reproachfully. "I should have done more – I COULD have done more, damnit. But now… I just don't know how we're going to get out of this."

Dex looked away. He didn't like what he'd woken up to at all, and the side of his head was really starting to hurt, as his bruise swelled up.

Then, suddenly and a little shockingly to both Dex and McKay, there was a bright shaft of light that shone in from the hallway beyond one of the exits from the Officer's Mess, and they could see three Air Force personnel half-staggering into the room.

One of them (the officer that was clutching the torch), Rodney recognized almost instantly as the Daedalus' Tactical Officer, Major Edward Norris. They all looked the worse for ware… but Norris especially. Somehow, McKay just couldn't bring himself to feel much in the way of pity for the military officer, who hadn't wanted to take him seriously when he had been right all along about the dangers of their plight.

"Dr McKay! We need your help here with this situation. No electronic device that was operating when we were attacked before is working now – they've been completely fried. We are not capable of establishing any primary, secondary or backup functions whatsoever, and we have been trying ever since the attack," Norris explained. "Look, Rodney, we know we should have listened to you now, that you were right; this had to be a set-up to get at us. But now we need to get the Daedalus operating again, or else we'll all just keep cruising dead through the void of space, utterly unable to move or defend ourselves."

Rodney groaned, and gave the bridge-officer the most reproachful look he could muster. "Look, I didn't cause this mess, you guys did – I warned the lot of you, way before this happened, but you military-types chose to ignore me and now, when everything's finally gone to hell in a hand-basket, you want MY help to get us out of the hole YOU dug us into!"

"McKay, we've lost five people in this attack already!" the Major snapped out. He sighed, tried very hard to pull himself back into line, but his face was still flushed read and contorted in rage. "We know we screwed things up now, but hindsight won't do any of us any good, okay? We have to try and get this dead vessel back to life, or at least get its primary functions operating again, and get us out of here right now before anything else happens! Now, HELP US GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Both Ronon and Rodney were taken aback by Major Norris' outburst, but they could hardly argue with or counter what he was saying. Dr McKay stepped right up to Norris, and stuck out his right hand. "It's okay, let's put all this behind us and get the hell out of here."

Ed Norris took Rodney's hand and shook it warmly. Then the men quickly filed out of the room, with Ronon Dex taking up the rear, staggering slightly on his feet as he went along. They had work – a great deal of work – to do, and they had to start straight away… it was time to get back some semblance of control, and get right on out of there.

# A #

The Gizan Homeworld,
the Pegasus Galaxy.

Sheppard came through on the other side of the Stargate, and took his first step out onto the homeworld of the Gizan. He had emerged out into the middle of a large, open clearing, that was surrounded on all sides by thick twisting trees and overgrown foliage of all descriptions.

John could tell that the path leading from the Gate was well-travelled – the footprint indentations were quite clear, and the ground was worn down to the dirt along a certain pathway that stretched off towards the trees.

As Lt Colonel John Sheppard moved cautiously towards the tree-line, his P-90 raised up to his eyes and held tightly against his shoulder, the Air Force officer suddenly caught some movement out of the corner of his vision and snapped around on the spot, quickly bringing up his assault rifle to aim the weapon at the possible danger.

There was nothing there… but John could not shake the notion that there HAD been something there just moments before, and that he was being observed right at that precise moment, by quite vicious, unfriendly eyes.

Colonel Sheppard couldn't shake the feeling as he continued on towards the trees, where they parted for the pathway to continue running off into the depths of the dark, shadowy bushlands.

Teyla Emmagan appeared soon after John began the journey in past the tree-line, and quickly joined up with her friend, colleague and commanding officer. She gave him a broad smile. "Colonel Sheppard, it is good to see you here," she said. "Malden and I could surely use your help with this man."

"So, Teyla, please be honest – what do you think? Do you believe this Genii operative's on the level, is being truthful? Or do you think this whole thing is an elaborate set-up?" Teyla Emmagan always had an ability to read people, to gauge the character of their personality and take stock of the inner depth of their soul. John Sheppard knew that, if anyone was going to see through any deception on the part of the Genii, it would be Teyla.

"I honestly do not know, Colonel – this man is a spy, an intelligence officer adept to secrets and lies. But there is a strange serenity about him, a peaceful centre that I believe is true, is real. If anything is real at all about this Genii operative, it is that he is sincere about what he is saying – at least, that is what my instincts are telling me." Teyla seemed somewhat sheepish when she said this, and Sheppard smiled at her lopsidedly, and gave her a slight nod of reassurance.

In the end, anyway, it would come down to him, the decision whether this was a legitimate approach or a disinformation operation.

They walked through the thick, oppressive forests for about four miles, until the path opened out into a large clearing that was filled with medium- to large-sized huts and wooden structures. This, Teyla Emmagan informed him, was the closest Gizan settlement to the Stargate. And it was also where the Genii spy had been operating from for the past seven years…

He was safely stored away with Malden, in a safe-house near the centre of the settlement. John thought that was a good move on Teyla's part, to leave the spy under the watch of either herself or her Athosian companion – it was never too much to apply prudent caution, when it was proper to do so.

There was that nagging feeling again that he was being watched… Sheppard snapped his head around, back towards the trees; back the way they had come. And again, he didn't see a thing to put credence to his concerns. But the feeling was there, was strong as ever – it knotted him up inside, the fear of the unknown. John didn't like it at all.

Something deep down inside told him, though, that the unknown wouldn't remain that way for long – that whatever was out there was about to reveal itself to him. The Colonel was determined that he would be ready, for any possible eventuality…