Elizabeth stood on the catwalk outside her office watching as the chevrons locked in and the 'gate created the wormhole, the familiar surge forward lighting the control room in blue for a moment before it dissipated. Below her stood John's team along with Major Lorne and the three new members of his team. During the siege all of the Major's team had been injured, subsequently transferring out of the expedition leaving Major Lorne with a team consisting solely of himself. Two of the new officers were marines and had come highly recommended from the SGC while the third was Navy officer from England who had the ATA gene. They all looked so young to her. Sheppard turned and gave her a brief wave before the teams headed through the 'gate. She waited a moment, watching as the wormhole blinked out and the 'gate became hollow before she headed back to her office. For now, everything seemed to be in their hands.

It was cold when they stepped through the gate, Rodney had said the planet had a similar day-night cycle to the planet Atlantis was on, so by his calculations the sun had only just come up. In front of them stood the remains of a village, long since abandoned judging by the way the wood had rotted on the exterior of the buildings.

"Alright everyone, fan out," Sheppard ordered. Around him the members of both teams began to move cautiously into the village, weapons pointed ahead of them. Rodney stayed back, a biosensor in hand. "You seeing anything on thing?"

"There's no one alive here, if that's what you're asking."

"What about energy signatures that'd indicate Ancient tech?"

"Nothing yet."

"Alright, let's take a look then," he said as he followed the others into the village ruins, ignoring the look McKay gave him. The paths that lined the village had long since been overtaken with grass, leaving only the occasional paving stone visible. As John and Rodney walked through the village the houses they passed became taller, the gardens around the fronts overgrown. Clicking on his radio, he reached out to Teyla. "Is it me or are there more homes here than we're used to seeing?"

"It is not you, Colonel," she replied, "It is rare to find so many homes, the Wraith do not often allow for such large communities."

"So there's a good chance that there's Ancient tech here."

"More than a good chance," Rodney interrupted, jabbing at the screen of his tablet. "I'm picking up energy signals North of here."

"Right," reaching for the radio on vest John clicked it again, "Major Lorne, your team remain here and conduct a complete search of the village, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla, regroup at the northern entrance to the village." Hearing a chorus of 'aye sir' he set off at a jog, grinning when he heard Rodney panting behind him. It took them a few hours to reach the source of the energy signature, a cave hidden half way up a slightly steep cliff and behind a nest of vines. Inside there was very little to see, only two rooms with some old technology. Most of the consoles had stopped working with age, causing Rodney to complain endlessly about how hard his job was.

"Can you power it up or not?" John asked impatiently.

"Yes I can, but it will take time. There's no magic button that says instant power is there now."

"Just get on with it." Heading back to the cave entrance, John looked back the way they'd come, seeing the village in the distance, the sun already tipping past it peak and heading towards the horizon. "Major Lorne, come in," he waited a moment for the other man to acknowledge him before speaking, "how's it going over there?"

"We've finished the search sir. There's a large burial site out east. Looks like it used to be a grave yard but there's an open grave there now, nothing but bones. Lieutenant Shann found a few skeletons in the houses too, poor girl tripped over a femur," he said with a chuckle and John smiled briefly. "Looks like Teyla's story might have been true," Lorne went on, "We've found what we think may have been the chieftains house. There's books stacked floor to ceiling but we can't read them. The language looks like Ancient, or something very similar. Where loading the MALP up now."

"Good work Major. When you're done have your team hold position near the 'gate. Hopefully we won't be too long here. Sheppard out." Clicking off his radio he went back into the lab, seeing Teyla and Ronon sat together in a corner talking quietly while Rodney punched keys on his tablet, the console in front of him illuminated. "How we doing Rodney?"

"I'm downloading all the data from the lab into my tablet, it should only take a few more minutes."

"Good job," turning to Teyla and Ronon Sheppard asked, "did either of you find anything?"

"There is some old equipment," Teyla commented, "much like that on Atlantis in the other room, however there doesn't seem to be anything that tells us what they may have been working on."

"They took everything with them when they left," Ronon interrupted bluntly.

"The only thing we did find was a similar substance to that which we believe Dr. Bonadan was working on. It was in a small storage container on the desk, however, there was a similar container next to it only it was empty."

"Alright, when Rodney's finished we head back to the 'gate." John watched as they both stood up and gathered their equipment before moving to the entrance of the lab. Hearing the scientist's exclamation, John turned round to see Rodney coiling wires up and stuffing them into his bag before standing up and looking at him expectantly.

"Well then, let's go."

The sun was beginning to set by the time they arrived back at the village and began walking through it, the dilapidated houses casting jagged shadows across the paths, adding an eerie quality to the evening. By the time Major Lorne and his team came into view, Sheppard's team was a little jumpy and grateful for the sight of other living beings.

"Took you long enough, Sir," Lorne joked when he saw them come into view before turning to his team, pointing at one of them to dial the gate while another prepared to type in an IDC. "Thought we were going to miss dinner." They all stepped back when the gate engaged before waiting for confirmation that the shield was down to drive the MALP through and head home. The lights were still on full brightness when they stepped through the gate and back into Atlantis. As always Elizabeth was stood waiting for them, the members of the teams instantly looking up to the catwalk where she stood.

"There'll be a debriefing in an hour," she stated, knowing the teams would want time to eat and shower before they discussed the mission. John watched as the three other members of Lorne's team nodded before heading down the hall, the two older marines teasing the young woman who was with them, she simply shook her head and gave as good as she got. Lorne followed them, Teyla and Ronon on his heels while Rodney muttered something about his lab and disappeared down a different corridor. Behind him, a group of SO's began unloading the MALP, looking curiously at the books before turning to Elizabeth as she came down the stairs.

"What do you want us to do with these ma'am?"

Elizabeth took one from the pile and opened the old, creased pages blowing the dust away before leafing through. "Put them in my office," she said before turning to John. "Did you find anything?"

"Found an ancient, Ancient lab," he said, eliciting a small smile from Elizabeth at his wording. "Rodney downloaded the data. I assume he's going to go through it before the briefing. Lorne's team found the books though. He said he thought they were in Ancient. Can you read them?"

"Perhaps." Suddenly she looked sad, "we found Ashlee Simms earlier. She was dead when we found her, but Carson says that she went through similar experiments to Bonadan."

"Well maybe now we've found something that can help us," John said, watching as the soldiers carried the books towards Elizabeth's' office.

In the hour until the briefing John managed to shower, eat and deliver coffee to Elizabeth who was sat translating the journals into something the rest of the expedition could understand. Rodney was the last to arrive, staggering into the control room with his nose pressed against the tablet he was carrying. "You need to see this," he said to no one in particular as he plugged the tablet into the screen in the room. Instantly the display on his tablet was mirrored on the screen, showing the biosensors with a time stamp in the bottom right corner. They waited patiently for him to explain. "This is from this morning, just before Samuels and Hicks disappeared, these are them," he said pointing to two separate dots in different parts of the city. "Now watch," as he hit play the two dots vanished.

"Where'd they go?" John asked.

"Here," Rodney pointed to two dots next to each other in a completely different part of the city.

"How is that possible? Only a second past," Lorne asked, clearly as confused as the rest of them.

Rodney let out a frustrated sigh before pressing play, "I don't know, but it happens four more times before they disappear right here," he said pointing at the dots that were now in Stargate operations. "It happens exactly the same the previous night, except there's three people instead of two. They travel across the city and then vanish when the reach the control room."

"It was in my office when Simms, Quill and Harris disappeared. I never saw them," Elizabeth commented.

"Well, I'm not surprised, they were only there for point five of a second," he said as he sat down at the table, looking round at everyone, "they left their quarters, and managed to travel around the city and disappear in two and a half seconds."

"Well, that's not normal."

"Well, obviously not Colonel state-the-obvious," Rodney snapped back.

"Rodney, John," Elizabeth said in warning, watching as they broke eye contact with each other, "what did you find on the planet?"

"Teyla's story seems to be true," John began, briefly describing the village, "Major Lorne can tell you more," he said nodding over to Evan.

He waited a moment, gathering his thoughts before he began, "my team searched every building in the village. We found the diaries in one of the structures near the centre, presumably the chieftains home. Shann found the remains of the chieftain behind his desk," he said with a smile. The two marines on his team began snickering and the lieutenant herself flushed slightly, but grinned none the less. "We had a look through the pages but couldn't decipher them. There wasn't much else of interest there. Just a lot of skeletons," he finished.

"We on the other hand may have found something of use," Rodney started, "the lab that was left behind had a database similar to the one here, only much, much smaller. I managed to download the data and have already begun going through it."

"Good, have you found anything yet?"

Rodney suddenly looked slightly crestfallen, "no, the translation matrix that Radek designed is very slow."

"I thought you designed that programme," John needled, enjoy the look on Rodney's face.

"Yes, well. Languages aren't really my thing," he muttered, casting a sideways glance at Elizabeth.

"Alright, everyone. Nice work." Looking briefly at her watch she carried on, "it's nine o'clock. That means we have about five hours before someone else disappears."

"If this sticks to the schedule it's been keeping," John added.

"Yes, well. Let's see if we can find anything in these five hours. Rodney, work on the database you found. Ask Zalenka to help. The rest of you, get some sleep." Standing up, she dismissed everyone, watching as they filed out of the room before heading back to her office to carry on translating the journals, sending some down to the language teams in the hopes they might find something she missed.