"This planet is perfect, Elizabeth," Rodney said. "It's small, and uninhabited – for the most part – and it has enough cover that we can hide that transmitter and make them have to actually come down and land to try and find Ronon, which means that the-"
"Wait a minute, Rodney," Weir interrupted, cutting him off and looking at the laptop in front of her that McKay and Teal'c had brought into her office. "What do you mean by uninhabited for the most part?"
"Well, it's an interesting place," Rodney said, looking over at Teal'c, who didn't say anything, obviously still allowing McKay to run the briefing as they'd discussed. "It's two planets. One little one orbiting another one – like a moon, only with atmosphere and all sorts of budding life; plants, trees, little bugs in the water…"
"But no people?"
"No. And no Stargate – although the big planet does have one – and people, but not a lot, and not enough to tempt the Wraith, we think."
"The Wraith do not require a Stargate," Teal'c said. "It is actually better for our purposes if they are limited to only one way on or off the planet we choose for our ambush site."
"That way the Jaffa can cut them off from their darts and wipe them out on the ground," Rodney said, obviously smug about the whole idea – which may or may not have been his.
"And if they come in something bigger than a dart?"
"Then we call in bigger guns."
"Like…?"
"Like something bigger," he said, annoyed. "They can't have anything all that big or we'd know about it. We've been keeping an eye on the telemetry of the darts that Colonel Mitchell captured before wiping out the majority of the Wraith, and nothing has shown up."
"They could be hiding…"
Rodney shook his head.
"Not a chance."
"And you don't think the people on the bigger planet would be in danger if we lured a ship full of Wraith into their neighborhood?"
"Elizabeth, Ronon said they've never come after him in anything larger than groups of six – and only a couple of times then. That was when they had all sorts of Wraith running around to spare. They don't have that luxury anymore and they're not going to be able to muster any kind of serious offensive."
She looked at Teal'c.
"You agree with that?"
He nodded.
"I do. Doctor McKay's assessment is correct."
He didn't exactly sound like he wanted to agree, but it was obvious it was true.
"Then that's-"
An alarm stared blaring outside the door, drawing all their attention towards the operations room. An instant later they could all hear the Stargate dialing in. Weir lurched to her feet and headed for the door, with Rodney right behind her and Teal'c well ahead of her.
"Jaffa, Kree!"
Two Jaffa were on guard duty with two of the SGC personnel and while they'd already snapped to attention when they'd realized the gate was activating they now straightened even further, their staff weapons pointing towards the still shielded gate.
Weir turned to the Lieutenant who slipped into the chair in front of the computer that controlled all the Stargate operations. The woman looked over at one screen, pressed a button and then looked at the other screen. Then she looked at Weir.
"It's Colonel Sheppard's IDC."
"Lower the shield." Weir said, heading for the stairs. "And call Doctor Beckett and tell him what's going on."
Behind her she could hear the alarms being turned off, and McKay and Teal'c following her down the stairs as the shield dropped.
"They're early," Rodney said, concerned. "Mitchell said two weeks…"
"They did not give an exact time frame for the operation," Teal'c corrected. She'd said at the most two weeks.
"They haven't checked in," McKay pressed, just certain something was wrong.
"They weren't planning on checking in, Rodney," Weir reminded him. Mitchell hadn't seen the need to keep running out of the woods to check in every day, especially with all the firepower she had with her. Elizabeth had agreed – although it had been reluctantly. She preferred to keep track of her teams when they were off world.
The gate whooshed open, and the three of them stopped well back, making room for the large party that was arriving. A moment later three Jaffa, a wolf and Teyla emerged. All of them were covered in dried and drying blood, scrapes, and dirt. After them came three more Jaffa, another wolf and Ford, all of them in the same shape as the others, and Ford looking tired as he nodded a greeting to Weir. He didn't have time to say anything, though, because there were still more people emerging and they needed to make room.
The next group was Ronon, Doctor Cain, three Jaffa and Kale – in wolf form. Even Cain was smeared with blood, but so far Weir hadn't seen any sign of serious injury. Not even a limp.
As Teyla moved over to greet Teal'c with a tired but satisfied smile, the final members of the party emerged through the gate. Mitchell and Sheppard were flanked by the remaining Jaffa, with Char in his wolf form leading the way. For the first time, Weir saw limping, and she frowned at the Light One who was obviously favoring his right foreleg – which would be his right arm if he were to change his form.
"Is he okay?" she asked Teyla, who was closest.
"It is a deep laceration," she replied, not concerned. "Doctor Cain has taken care of it, and Char assured us that he was fine."
As she was speaking, the Light Ones were changing forms, and Mitchell and Sheppard walked over to stand in front of Weir and the others. They both looked tired, covered with blood, and John had a nasty bruise on his forehead.
"Back already?" Elizabeth asked, frowning at all the blood – which was a vivid display of just how fierce their battles must have been.
Mitchell smiled.
"We're done."
"Already?"
"Turned out we didn't have to go far to look for the fight."
"Oh?"
"The cats brought the fight to us," Sheppard said, smiling despite the fact that his head had to be killing him. "Courtesy of Talon and the baby Goa'uld that the Jaffa are toting around."
"Explain," Teal'c said, uncertain of what he meant.
"The cats are like the Wraith," Rodney said, guessing the meaning before anyone could say anything. "They ate the Wraith and probably took on that same characteristic, which means they were attracted to Mitchell and the Jaffa the same way the Wraith were – are."
Melony nodded, but her attention was elsewhere, now.
Weir followed her gaze, and hid a smile when she saw that Carson had entered the room with a large contingent of his medical crew behind him. She could almost see him pale at the sight of all the blood on the returned group, but he did relax a little when he saw Mitchell with the group and everyone upright.
"Yeah," Sheppard answered, not bothering to hide his own amusement.
Mitchell dug an elbow in his ribs; realizing that she'd lost the thread of the conversation and pulling herself back into things with a wry self-depreciating smile.
"Don't make me toss you out a window, Colonel."
Weir grinned.
"I want you all to report to the infirmary," she said. "We'll debrief once I know you're all healthy under all that blood."