A/N: Thankyou to everyone for their continued reviewing, you really make writing this fic worth while. It's great to know that you are liking the story, because I really enjoy writing it for you. I'm not sure if I'm getting back into my habit of glancing over a lot of details, but if I am, could someone just let me know so I can try and snap myself back into shape. Also, I'm afraid I'm going to have to drag this rescue thing on just a little more, but if you'll bear with me, at least it's a decent plot…half-decent…semi-decent…oh well, close enough anyway! Kudos to all my readers, even if you don't leave a review it's still great that you take the time to read this. Anyway, I don't think I have anything important to say, other than enjoy. So enjoy!

SGASGASGA

"Damnit!" John growled, kicking one of the beautiful Lantean walls. Ignoring the spike of pain it sent up his leg, he continued with his pacing. One of his teams was out there in the hands of the Wraith, or dead – a possibility he didn't want to consider – and he couldn't do a damn thing about it until they knew more.

The rescue mission had been a failure. By the time they had reached the planet it had already been completely decimated by the Wraith, and the lost men and women were nowhere to be found. Obviously Detronius' deal had gone sour. The fool deserved it, but Sheppard knew that his people probably did not. They should not have had to pay such a high price for the ignorance of their leader.

John still had a team on standby, ready to go as soon as there was any indication of where the missing personnel might be. Each hour that passed made John lose a little more hope of finding Reese's team alive. An hour on a Wraith ship could be practically an eternity, John knew from his various encounters. Not to mention that one of the captives was a pregnant woman, and another a scientist who was not really conditioned for fighting.

A little burst of static came across his headset, before Elizabeth's voice came across his radio, "Colonel Sheppard, could you please report to the control room immediately."

Sprinting, John made it to the control room from the gym in less than two minutes.

"You called?" he said to Elizabeth, only slightly out of breath.

"Colonel Caldwell just sent a message. He says that they have picked up a distress beacon on the Daedalus' main frequency, and that Hermiod believes that it is an anomaly because the Wraith do not use that particular frequency for some reason. They did a sweep of the space it was transmitting from and have found a hive ship in hyperspace, which they believe will stop to feed in approximately two hours on a planet we know to be accessible by Stargate. Caldwell wants to know what you make of it."

"Can you get me the gate address for that planet, I'll go get the standby team and a couple of 'Jumpers ready," Sheppard said, confounding Doctor Weir completely.

"John, we don't know what is making the transmission. There are probably thousands of other things that could be responsible."

He shook his head in reply, "It's Captain Webb." Elizabeth just raised an eyebrow and gave him a look that clearly meant 'explain'. "She did the same thing in Iraq. She was a POW there for a while and when she escaped she built a transmitting device and set it to the last frequency she knew the Air Force to be using. She's doing the same thing again."

Dr Weir wondered how he knew this, considering it had not been written on the personnel file she had received, and she was reasonably sure that as Expedition Leader she would have been given the up-to-date, comprehensive copy available. Still, if there was any hope that their people could still be alive it was worth investigating.

"Okay," she nodded finally. She tapped her earpiece to contact Colonel Caldwell. "Colonel Caldwell, how long would it take you to reach the point at which you believe the Wraith ship will leave hyperspace?"

"With our Asgard hyperdrive we should be able to make it inside of two hours. What are you proposing?"

"Colonel Sheppard has reason to believe that the beacon you picked up earlier was set up by our missing people. We want to launch a search and rescue mission."

Caldwell mulled it over for a minute, "You do realise that even if your missing people did set off that beacon, there's still only a slim chance of finding them alive and being able to successfully extract them from the hive ship."

"I understand that, Colonel, but we have to try. Are you willing to help us," Doctor Weir asked.

"Alright. But the second something goes wrong we're leaving. We don't have the necessary armament to take on a fully functional hive ship, and I will not risk this ship or the lives of my crew to go chasing after four people that may not even be alive."

It was Sheppard who replied this time. "Yes sir, we understand. I propose we park the Daedalus just outside of sensor range, then continue in with two cloaked 'Jumpers. I think one team to each 'Jumper, plus a medical team and a scientist that knows a bit about Hive schematics. I can have everyone ready to go in about ten minutes."

"Alright. We'll have the Daedalus ready to beam you aboard in ten minutes. Caldwell out."

"John?" He was already half way to the door of the Control Room when Elizabeth called his name, causing him to turn and face her. "Bring them back," she said simply. Nodding, he left to ready the teams.

The military portion of the rescue team would already be ready to go, and the medical teams were almost constantly on stand by, so all that was left was to get the scientist. For that, he would need to venture down into the heart of the geek stronghold: the labs.

Sheppard hadn't noticed the lateness of the hour until he walked into the usually busy labs to discover that even most of the scientific personnel (which in his opinion must have been able to survive on coffee, because they practically never slept) were in their quarters asleep. This left the main lab, which was usually a hive of activity and techno-talk, fairly quiet, with most of those who were still up either driven by coffee or doddering around on the aftermath of a coffee high. It reminded Sheppard of one of his favourite quotes: "A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems". Thinking of the quote made him think back guiltily to the amount of coffee he liked to drink (which incidentally happened to double when he had to do the accounting work for the military resources…well, he didn't have to do it – people at the SGC were employed for that – but he liked to do it anyway. I was about as close to real maths as he could get these days, which disappointed him somewhat).

"Hi Rodney!" he said with a forced smile. "Feel like coming for a quick trip?"

"Colonel, in case you haven't noticed, it's very early in the morning and I have very important things to be doing!"

"Such as…?"

"Sleeping! Besides, what sort of a 'quick trip' would you be doing at this hour!"

"Rescue mission. We think we've located Lt Reese's team aboard a hive ship, which we assume is going to come out of hyperspace in about two hours. We want to be there to meet it and see if we can extract our people, so I figured having a scientist along would be useful if we need to do something complicated."

Rodney snorted, but before he had a chance to reply to Sheppard's request, doctor Zelenka joined the conversation. "I will go," the Czech muttered, his thick accent gradually getting better as time went by. Sheppard just raised an eyebrow in response, and McKay was doing a nice goldfish impression. I was a rather well-known fact that Zelenka strongly disliked going offworld, especially when situations requiring guns and/or fighting arose. "Michelle Webb be my best student," he explained, "would hate for much learning to go to waste." Sheppard's other eyebrow rose to meet the other. Rodney simply continued to flounder.

"If you want to go I certainly won't argue. Grab your gear as quick as you can, we're leaving from the Jumper Bay in seven minutes. I'll explain the plan on the way. The trip should take about two hours, so we'll have plenty of time to iron out any potential problems you think we might have."

"You're volunteering for a rescue mission!" Rodney uttered in shock.

Sheppard went and got his gear, making sure he had everything he could think they would potentially need for a dangerous rescue mission such as this. Confident he had everything he would need, he headed for the Jumper Bay.

Once they were situated on the Daedalus, Sheppard explained the plan to Zelenka. He nodded at intervals, sometimes making suggestions or correcting things, until they were confident that they had a plan which would hopefully end with the extraction of their people from the hive ship. Eventually the conversation turned to why Zelenka had chosen to come on this mission, which John had to admit had surprised him, but left him with nothing but respect for the crazy-haired Czech.

"The Captain pays visits to lab in spare time and I teach her what I can. She will only come if she has excuse, though. I do not think she wants others to know of her liking of science," Zelenka explained. "Rodney does not like Captain Webb. He ignores her a lot, normal for Rodney, but still rude. He say that 'Goon Girls' have no place in science. I say the atmosphere have not enough room for his big head."

This made Sheppard grin. They were currently sitting in the Daedalus' mess hall, each sipping on their own cup of strong, military coffee. They still had half an hour before the Daedalus was due to drop out of hyperspace. John was enjoying the friendly banter with the little engineer, and couldn't help but notice how much more polite Zelenka was than Rodney. Less egotistical, too. It was a pity he didn't like to go offworld, because Sheppard could really do with someone less whiny than the hypochondriacal Dr McKay. Not that he would actually kick McKay off his team, but it would be fun to threaten him.

On that note, Sheppard drew himself back into the conversation, trying to ignore the growing dread in the back of his mind at what they might find on the other end of this rescue mission – if they found anything at all.

SGASGASGA

Thankyou for reading! Let me know what you thought of it by taking a few seconds to leave a review, please! Btw, if you have any good ideas on where I should take this, or any plot or character developments you might like to see, just drop me a line and I'll see what I can do. I'm open to criticism, though preferably construct, please!

Coming up:

Chapter 7 – Trying

"Somehow I think you believe that just as much as I do – which is to say, not much at all. Still, it's worth a shot. The Wraith on this ship don't seem to be particularly interested in us. They wanted to know the location of Earth, but it seems to me as though they want it more so for the diplomatic leverage it would give them, rather than just because they're greedy pigs who want to suck the life out of everyone on the planet…well, they are just greedy pigs, but I'm willing to be there's a bit of the first reason in there too."