Richard Woolsey hit the delete button on his PDA repeatedly, relieved as the countless emails from Rodney McKay disappeared from his inbox. The man was incorrigible. Always badgering him incessantly over the same issues but this time the scientist hadn't stopped to consider the fact he would actually agree to his request.

Their last mission had lead them to an underground Ancient's lab which for all intensive purposes had been a bust. Most of the technology was either broken or had been moved else where no doubt due to the unsustainable living conditions on the planet. Fortunately they'd happened upon it's location at a time when the temperatures were withstandable but in a few months the ground would be swallowed by metres of ice. The only valuable information they'd managed to turn up was another gate address which McKay seemed to think was worth investigating.

The only problem was, they already had. About four months ago a team had travelled to the planet only to be met with an incredibly hostile defence force. Their side had retreated without getting anywhere near the ruins and the address had been subsequently locked out of the dialing system.

Now Colonel Sheppard and his team wanted to run a covert operation deeming it was worth the risk. He agreed of course. If they could get in undetected the possibility of obtaining a ZMP would definitely give them a highly sought after advantage but for some reason everybody had instantly assumed he would be opposed to the idea, which he wasn't.

Becoming alert to a second pair of footsteps behind him Richard slowed, raising his head with a tight smile as the Colonel in question appeared beside him.

"Mr. Woolsey." John nodded, neatly folding his hands behind his back as he fell into step beside the man. He'd been CC'd all Rodney's emails about their latest mission request and realising the scientist's eagerness may inadvertently cost them the go ahead, he'd wanted to get in and try to smooth things over first.

"I know McKay has a tendancy to be a bit pushy but-"

"Relax Colonel," Richard cut him off well aware of where the conversation he was heading, "I've already approved the mission. You're both right, I think it's worth the risk."

John looked surprised for a moment but quickly let it fall from his features. Since Colonel Carter's departure it had taken time to get used to the new chain of command and Woolsey was fickle to say the least. His decisions were unpredictable, half the time siding with rules and regulation then oddly throwing a curve ball into the mix. It seemed this was one of the latter occasions.

"Should I schedule a briefing?" He asked hesitantly, trying not to jump the gun. Aside from their last mission gate travel had been on the back burner this month and as much as some down time was a nice change of pace he was a man of action and sitting on his hands effectively doing nothing was sending him a little stir crazy.

Woolsey scrolled through his calendar, peering over his glasses to get a better look at the screen, "I have an opening at 1300 hours this afternoon."

"Really?" John slapped his hands together, "that's great!"

Richard glanced up with a hint of amusement lacing his features and John cleared his throat in an attempt to dull his excitement, "I mean, not that I don't enjoy the time to catch up on reports..."

"You'd just rather be out there kicking a little ass?" Woolsey filled in for him, already familiarised with the Colonel's inability to sit still for a lengthy amount of time. If term relax meant anything to him it was gaining five hours sleep as apposed to four.

Sheppard stopped walking presumably to go fill in his team and Richard paused, raising an eyebrow "oh and Colonel when you see Doctor McKay, tell him I need his help with something important in sector C, level 2."

John frowned slightly. It was by pure chance he'd overheard a few of the engineers in the mess discussing the said location. If his memory served the transporter was broken and people were needing to walk halfway across the city before they could locate a working one. "Sector C, isn't that-"

"Very important."

Woolsey watched him nod in understanding before turning back to his PDA with a smirk. Perhaps it would serve to teach McKay that there were other ways of alerting people to problems without the need for twenty-six emails.