ART-1 was gearing up for another exploratory trip through the stargate. The Daedalus had left that morning, but not before Mr. Woolsey and Annabelle McManus had paid the twins back for their pranks. To the amusement of the rest of their team, the twins were still sulking. "Still can't fucking believe she fucking did that," Murphy muttered as he half heartedly threw clean uniform pants in his brother's pack.

"Oh she's quite proud of herself," Conner said, annoyed. "And he was smirking fit to beat the devil himself when he left."

"You do not think that such an arrangement would be a good thing?" Teyla asked, only somewhat innocently. She knew perfectly well that neither of them thought that their mother marrying Woolsey was a good idea, but she did wonder if they would chose for their mother not to marry again at all.

Conner and Murphy turned to glare at her. "The day our Ma gets involved," Conner began.

"with that sort of stick up the ass," came from Murphy.

"no good, paper pushing," fumed Conner.

"tea totaling, bureaucrat," growled Murphy.

"we're taking up vows!" the twins snarled together.

The idea of the twins becoming celibate priests sent John and Rodney into fits of laughter. They'd watched Gretchen give her husbands a loving send off more than once. There was no way that either Conner or Murphy would voluntarily give her up. "I did not mean that Mr. Woolsey would be a good husband for your mother," Teyla said patiently, ignoring the laughter from John and Rodney. "I was inquiring to see if you were opposed to your mother finding another husband at all."

"Nah," Conner said, appeased. "Ma's been alone along time. Da was in prison for most of our lives. We'd be happy if she found someone."

"There's just no way in hell he'd be someone like Woolsey!" Murphy said firmly.

"She sure had you convinced," Sheppard smirked

"Aye, and nine years ago she called us up on our birthday and convinced us she was about to commit suicide just to torture us," Murphy said, peeved. That one had really freaked him out and in odd moments still did a bit even years later.

"She's damned good," Conner admitted. He closed up his pack and Murphy closed his. "We'll never out prank her. I'm just glad that she's feeling well enough to pull something on us."

"Giving her time off from watching that boy of your helped," Ronon said. "I don't think he stops until he falls asleep on his feet." They left the locker room and headed for the gate.

The twins smirked as they looked over their shoulders. "He doesn't," they chorused, proud of their oldest.

Saints-sga-saints-sga-saints-sga-saints-sga-saints-sga-saints-sga-saints-sga-saints

For once this wasn't a primitive world. The locals lived in an Ancient outpost, and although they admitted that they did not understand much of what the Ancients had left behind, they weren't as stupid about their explorations as the Genii had been. The chief scientist, a woman named Norina, turned out to be a lovely blue eyed blond, which in turn meant that John and Rodney were doing their best to out flirt each other again.

Rather than watch the display, Conner and Murphy wandered over to the observation platform window. There was no doubt that the outpost was of Ancient design and functional, but there was no welcoming presence here. Conner suspected that Rodney was right and this place was built during the war with the Wraith. The feel from the tech was very brisk and business like; and there was no AI present. All that could be seen out of the large window was more volcanic rock. "Wonder where the volcano was," Conner said to his brother.

Murphy just shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. He had never been that interested in volcanoes if they weren't in the process of erupting, that was the best part. His and Conner's science teacher had never completely recovered from having the twins in his class. "I wonder if Kevin ever managed to undo what we did." They snickered together. Their school had had a permanent volcano display set up in the science classroom, one that could be used to show just what happened when a volcano erupted. Murphy had managed to talk Conner into helping him make it a little less boring, not that it had taken much talking. Conner liked volcanoes, especially watching them explode.

They turned as they heard Norina introduce the chancellor to their team. There were the usual polite remarks, Chancellor Lycus thanking them for showing up and Colonel Sheppard doing his best to down play the fact that they were slightly hard to get in touch with. Conner and Murphy checked him out as they did everyone they came into contact with. It was almost a reflexive action at this point. The man was a bit paranoid and totally a politician, but they could work with that, or rather Teyla and Elizabeth could. All they would have to do is keep quiet and look menacing.

Chancellor Lycus offered a tour to Colonel Sheppard and his people while Norina and Rodney worked on the planet's fluctuating shield system. Sheppard accepted and Conner followed that part of the team while Murphy stayed with Rodney. Norina led Rodney over to their shield's control panels. Murphy fully expected that Rodney would be able to fix whatever was wrong with their shield generator within the hour. It wasn't like the man didn't do that sort of repair work on a regular basis back at Atlantis. Then there would be a party and they could go home.

Murphy wandered after them and began looking over the other panels of the control center. He expected to be bored out of his mind, at least until the party. He did not expect to see the danger and warning signs for an imminent volcanic eruption. "Cool," he said. He began whistling Jimmy Buffet's 'Volcano' as he started bringing up the planet's geographical information.

Rodney interrupted his flirting and laptop setup to stare. "I need the outpost information, not the geography of the continent, and why are you whistling that song? You don't usually like Caribbean music, you like that Molly group."

Murphy grinned over at Rodney. "Cause this says that there's a volcano about to go. If we're lucky, maybe Conner and I can take a puddle jumper over and watch it go. I hope it's gonna blast like St. Helens did rather than that one over in Hawaii."

"Only you and your brother would want front row seats to an explosion," Rodney muttered as he pushed Murphy aside. Just then there was a small earthquake, shaking the control center. Rodney yelped and ran for the nearest doorway. "That's not good," he said, when the shaking had subsided. "That was harmonic tremors."

"We've had several such tremors in recent days," Norina admitted. "I'm concerned that they may have something to do with our generator problems."

"Well if your generator is powered by geothermal energy like you say it is, then yes, there is definitely a connection," Rodney snarked. He couldn't stand scientists who didn't realize the obvious. "Find that volcano's exact location," he told Murphy. "It's way too close for my comfort." He reached up and tapped his radio. "Colonel, we've got a volcano eruption warning up here and we're all going to die."

"Whoa, Rodney, breathe and calm down," Sheppard said, waving to the others to make sure they were listening to their radios. "Take ten seconds, and just breathe. Now, do you know where the volcano is and how much time do we have to evacuate any people that are nearby? Just because we caught some tremors doesn't mean that we're in danger. It could be on the other side of the continent or out in the ocean or something."

Sheppard turned around, and herded his people and their tour guides, Chancellor Lycus and his two guards, back towards the elevators. No matter what the Chancellor wanted them to see this was far more important.

"I've got Murphy working on that. He reads casual Ancient much better than I do. I concentrated on technical Ancient," Rodney said, looking over Murphy's shoulder. "You could be right, no you're wrong, wrong, wrong and we're gonna die. Oh god, I'm never going to get that Nobel," Rodney whimpered, even as he was pushing buttons frantically on the consoles around him.

"Rodney, calm down," Sheppard said again, even as the Chancellor got huffy in his ear saying something about them manufacturing an emergency just to be able to take something from them. John wasn't sure what because he wasn't paying that much attention. Teyla and Conner would take care of the man and Ronon would deal with the guards if needed. "Remember, we have a functioning stargate. We can be back in Atlantis in just a few minutes."

"Right, right, we have time to evacuate," Rodney said, and calmed down slightly. He moved to shut down the shield.

"You can't do that! The Wraith will be able to cull here if you do that!" Norina protested, trying to drag Rodney away from the console.

Rodney jerked around to look at her. "How long have you had this running?" he asked, suddenly very quiet and calm.

"When we saw the increased Wraith activity on the long range sensors last year, Chancellor Lycus ordered the shield raised continuously," she said, suddenly uneasy at Rodney's lightening change from panicked to calm, not to mention his glare.

"And you let a politician make a scientific decision? What kind of moron are you?" he roared. "Shields are only for emergencies! They use a huge amount of power! Why didn't you realize something was wrong when the alarms started going off, and don't tell me they didn't!"

"I fixed the problem when the alarms went off!" she yelled right back.

"No you didn't! You just turned them off!" he yelled back.

"Rodney! It's not her fault she can't read Ancient!" Murphy chastised him. "She was doing the best she could with the knowledge that she has. You know perfectly well that there are always big educational gaps in the most educated society out here, although I almost agree with you about trusting the Chancellor."

"What's wrong with trusting him to do his job?" Norina turned on Murphy.

"He's paranoid," Murphy said bluntly. "That means he's not good at judging threats or how to react to them."

"Ah, so that would be why he's yelling about us trying to steal something," John said as he walked up to them. Ronon was carrying a gagged Chancellor and Conner was looking rather pleased with himself. Teyla simply looked amused. There was no sign of the two guards. "I have no clue as to what he's raving about Norina, but we don't have time to talk about it. Rodney, what are we looking at?"

Rodney yelled over his shoulder. "Get everyone off this planet now Sheppard! I think I've managed to slow it down a little, but there's no stopping it!"

"Rodney, I need a sitrep!" John snapped. He realized this was a true emergency from Rodney's reactions, but he needed to know what he was dealing with.

Rodney turned around, his arms waving. "Colonel, this isn't going to be like St. Helens or that volcano in Hawaii that just bubbles up. This is a super volcano like Yellowstone and we're standing right above the main magma chamber. Plus, this planet only has one continent. When this volcano goes, it's taking everything with it.

"Before you join me in cursing out the Ancients, it's not totally their fault this time. Super volcanoes can go thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years between eruptions. A lot of this," he waved at the consoles around him, "is dedicated to monitoring and dealing with it. They tapped into it to use the geothermal energy to build something. This is a manufacturing facility. What they were building, I haven't got a clue at the moment. I haven't had a chance to take a look."

"NO! NO! Don't tell them Norina! It's all a trick! Remember what Commander Kolya told us!" Lycus had managed to remove his gag when no one was looking.

"The mila poppaaem have placed Acastus Kolya at the top of their list of evil men," Teyla said flatly. "He is insane and he glories in bringing pain to others." She glared at Lycus as Ronon restuffed the gag in his mouth.

"I know that he enjoys the pain of others," Norina said softly. "I did not believe him then, nor do I now. I was the one who persuaded Chancellor Lycus that we had no choice but to appeal to the Lantians for help."

Rodney snorted. "Well it was his paranoia about the Wraith that accelerated this problem in the first place. Using the shield constantly caused too large of a power drain from the machines keeping the volcano stable. What's he so worked up about anyway? It can't be drones or he wouldn't be worried about the Wraith and he wouldn't know what to do with a ZPM if an Ancient descended and spoon fed him the instructions." The last part was loaded with scorn.

"It's a ship," Norina replied.