It had started out as a slow form of indifference. Slow like all the worst sorts of cancer were slow. The type that you never really saw it until it was too late, but after the shock and horror, one whose warning signs had been all too clear.

With the surprise changing of the guard at the SGC, new and sharply different policies were instituted. Suddenly Atlantis was no longer the favored child and the expedition was far down on the priority list for supplies, personnel and contact. Routine requisitions, which had before been filled promptly and generously, were now slow in coming and on the slim side. What new personnel were assigned to the City were the rebels, trouble makers and square pegs not fitting in the SGC's version of round holes. When the Atlantis expedition called in for their weekly check status reports, the Gateroom tech on the SGC side wasn't always ready for the data burst causing them to have to resend their report. And while there had been similar problems in the early days after contact had been renewed, the sheer number of them was extremely unusual.

Slowly, widespread notice started to be taken. Some had noticed before others and with notice, came action.

~//~

Rodney stared at the computer screen before him, thinking about the newest members of his staff. All three of them. As far as he knew, there were supposed to have been fifteen new science team members aboard the Daedalus, most slated for his team. He knew he had put in for them, had reviewed the personnel files, had talked (briefly) with his counterpart at the SGC about them, and waited for their arrival. This was the second month that the people he had requested had not arrived, and the ones who had shown up were not up to his standards.

In addition, mission essential equipment that had been repeatedly requisitioned was not present on the manifest. And that was worrying. The equipment had been urgently needed for a number of months because it was necessary to repair their Earth based computers. Without that equipment, interfacing with the Ancient data ports and consoles would be more difficult and uncertain, with a lower and slower rate of information exchange from MacGyvered workarounds. And when the next crisis of the week happened, those workarounds could, and likely would, lead to death and disaster for the unlucky bastards using them.

He had seen this pattern unfolding for the last eighteen months and had quietly begun to take steps in case of just this situation. But no matter what his intellect had told him of what lay ahead, he had really hoped he would never have put his contingency plans to use. Rodney knew he was not a people person. He didn't enjoy watching people go about their daily lives, rarely enjoyed talking to them, and understood their motivations even less. But this? This he understood. This was something that happened to unwelcome projects all over the globe. Slow starving of it resources and qualified personnel until it collapsed in on itself in defeat. Well, not his City, not on his watch.

With a snap, he closed the lid of his laptop and packed it up for easy transport. Looking over at Zelenka, he stated "I'll be in Elizabeth's office for the next few hours, Radek. Try to keep the new baboons out of the important systems while I am gone."
Snorting in agreement, Radek nodded and said "I will. See if you can get missing equipment ordered again? We would not want to have to go to Earth for shopping, yes?" and with that, he turned towards the three new members of the science team and started on the standard orientation lecture.

As Rodney walked out of the main lab, he reached up and toggling his earpiece, said, "Elizabeth? I need to speak with you about some issues that have come up after my review of personnel and equipment from the latest Daedalus run."

"Rodney! I was just about to call you. John, Carson and Col. Caldwell are here with much the same issues."

Grimly certain he knew what was going to be the main topic of conversation at this meeting, Rodney sighed and responded with a, "I'll be right there. And this is going to take a while, Elizabeth. You may want to break out the good coffee." With that, he was at the main transporter on the lab level and with an absentminded touch of the city map, selected the control tower, right outside the Gateroom for his destination. With his mind on the meeting ahead he didn't notice the sensation of transport, and walked into the Gateroom, determination crackling with every stride.

Making his way into Elizabeth's office, he saw the other senior staff members looked as grim as he felt. Seeing that, the faint hope that he had been incorrect, that his abysmal people skills had led him wrong again, died. This was not going to be good.


~//~

As usual, Elizabeth started off the meeting. After all it was her office, her city, and ultimately her responsibility. "Gentlemen, thank you for coming. Before we get into the supply and personnel situation here in the City, I would like you to hear what Col. Caldwell had to say when he met with me upon arrival. Colonel? You have the floor."

Looking up from his tablet, Caldwell nodded. "Thank you, Dr. Weir. Gentlemen I will be blunt. There seems to be something rather disturbing going on at the SGC, and thus extending over to Atlantis. I have no idea how much of this situation you all have noticed, but on this last trip the whole thing has gotten much more obvious.

"Each of you has at one point or another, approached me in hopes of finding out why certain supplies have not been delivered or if they are on the manifest, are present in severely reduced quantities. You have each asked why certain personnel have not arrived, or why they have arrived so late. Why leave requests for your people have been so slow in being approved or ignored all together. The answers seem to be in what happened when there was a change in power at the SGC.

"As you know, General O'Neill is no longer the head of HomeWorld Security, and he was replaced by a political appointee named Dr. Anthony Franklin. With his replacement at HomeWorld came the replacement of General Landry at the SGC. The new General has made it very clear that Earth and the Milky Way are the most important areas for the SGC to concentrate on. Given that, Atlantis has been officially shifted a step or two down on the ladder of priorities."

"We know all this, Colonel. Could you get to the point?" asked Rodney.

"I am getting there, Doctor, Please be patient. There is a reason I am going about this the long way," said Caldwell. After six years, he was well used to McKay's habit of wanting to get meetings over and done with so he could get back to his lab and his latest experiment. "Meanwhile, with the changes that have happened on the IOA board, the shift in attention has been both tacitly and overtly sanctioned. There is very little interest in what's happening out here in Pegasus, and this has led to a level of indifference that is both blatant and covert.

"I wish I had better news for you, but it looks like the folks in charge are starting to 'forget' you exist. And that has led to the latest situation. We knew when we started loading up for our trip out here that we were very, very light on essential supplies, so we basically went around and raided the SGC's emergency storerooms. We, meaning myself, Dr. Novak, and Chief Master Sergeant's Siler and Harriman, went through the supply lists that you had sent, and grabbed as much as we could fit aboard ship.

"We also made sure that we didn't update the computer manifest, so I am sorry if there was some concern when we transmitted them to you. I know it won't cover all the shortfalls, but it was all we could think to do. If this happens on the next run, we'll do it again. Per Harriman, the SGC has enough excess supplies to keep her running for the next 5 years at the least. And Siler stated that he could cover the raid as he was the one to sign off on any supplies being requisitioned.

"Obviously I can't move too far out of line, since that I want to I stay in charge of the Daedalus. Given that qualifier, I'll do everything in my power to make sure that you are all given as much help as I can. And my crew is backing me up on this. For us at least, you aren't forgotten are we aren't indifferent. We won't leave you out here alone and unarmed if we can help it." And with that, Caldwell pulled several paper lists from a thigh pocket of his flight suit and glancing at the names written on each, passed them over.

Taking the time to glance over the list he was given, Rodney was relieved to see the computer supplies that were so desperately needed for the Ancient/Earth tech merge were there. Siler was a mechanical genius, and he would have to remember to say thanks the next time he was on Earth. If he ever went back, that is. Maybe he could get an email out....

Setting his copy down, Rodney looked up to see Elizabeth studying him. Right... He had called her about this. "Thank you for thinking of us, Colonel. These supplies will make a big difference for the science division and the City." See? He had some social skills, rusty though they generally were. "Given what you have just said Colonel, I'm guessing that we're all going to be laying our cards on the table then?"

"That's correct, Rodney. And since you mentioned it and called me, you get to go first," and with a slight smile Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, waiting for whatever he had to say.

With a slight grimace at himself for 'volunteering', Rodney took a deep breath and began to lay his cards on the table, as he had so quaintly called it. "Right. To start with, the various science departments have been getting a lot of 'scientists' who, if they had ever seen Ancient technology, obviously didn't pay attention to it in class. Most of whom are either so painfully new their doctorates are wet, or are so hidebound that they don't remember how to learn. Given where we live and what we face every single day, not only is that unacceptable, it's dangerous. I have repeatedly requested specific personnel by name, have gone back to Earth twice in the last eighteen months for interviews and still have only gotten a bare third of the people I have asked for. With all of these factors working against us, almost every 'scientist' who has arrived has had to go through extensive retraining before Radek or I feel it is safe to allow them in any of the main labs by themselves.

"Obviously, this has slowed down progress for the science department as a whole, and stopped some projects in their tracks due to lack of qualified people to run them. Due to the added stresses placed on our more experienced people there has been a noticeable downturn in morale. Which in turn has caused even more stress, beyond what is normal for living here, to be passed down the line to our new junior morons. We have also had an upswing in minor accidents and a few incidences that have come very close to being fatal. And I don't just mean for the people who work in the labs.

"Because the new 'scientists' have to mentored by experienced personnel there has been a lot of resentment on both sides, which has led to further clashes both personal and professional. I know that I am not the easiest boss to work for, but this is behavior has moved beyond what I will tolerate in my labs. It is being dealt with, but the whole thing is not wining me any friends. And that is some of what is happening on the personnel front."

Taking a deep breath, Rodney moved onto the next item on his mental list of things that had to be discussed. This was going to be a tricky thing to bring up, because he has essentially cheated and while Elizabeth was very forgiving on some subjects, he had no idea how she was going to react to this.

"Onto mission critical equipment! As you all know the science departments are using as many Ancient devices as it has been possible to initiate. But not everything will work without an ATA carrier present and since that isn't always feasible, we still need to have certain items from Earth to make the equipment work as it should for everyone. Now, most of these items are ones we have in stock such as cables, laptops, monitors, diagnostic equipment and the like. When Radek and I noticed that the supplies were being shorted, I started padding our supply requests. A lot. We've always carried a surplus in case of an emergency, but given the uncertainties in getting requested items, I felt it best to make sure we had enough on hand to last for at least a year. Right now, thanks to Colonel Caldwell and his merry band, we are supplied for at least the next two years on the critical items and a bit longer on the non-critical items. If you have questions on specifics, let me know and I'll get back to you know as time permits."

Looking faintly pinched about the eyes, Elizabeth nodded, and turned to Carson. "Dr. Beckett? What can you tell us about the situation in your department?"

Looking up from his copy of the lists, Carson glanced over at Elizabeth. "Right, my turn is it?" with a sigh, he leaned his forearms on his knees and looked steadily at the others. "Medical an' the other related sciences all use a great deal of supplies that are not readily found here in Pegasus. While we also use a number of Ancient devices, most o' our everyday needs are met by goods from Earth. For the infirmary we get regular deliveries of drugs, surgical supplies, an' general first aid gear. This is not counting specialty items like birth control, testing supplies to diagnose the new diseases we come in contact with, special chemicals for other departments, Earth made medical machinery, scrubs, an' replacement gurneys for the infirmary again. The list is damn near endless. Botany, the genetics lab, the morgue, an' the like also have special needs that were not being fully met.

"Like Rodney, I noticed that we were havin' problems getting supplies that were needed. Unlike the hard sciences, we did not get shorted in the critical needs department, but non-critical items were either not replaced, or were few in number. After talking things over with my staff, I began padding my supply requests. I ha'e also been making sure that all my new personnel ha'e skills needed out here. We have gotten very lucky in that respect. Some of the people we ha'e been sent aren't who we asked for, but all of them have the abilities we need. I ha'e also been expanding the skill sets wi' in my departments. We now ha'e people who, with the right equipment, can make a most of the drugs we need for regular use plus they can teach, so those skills can be passed on.

"As far as the physical supplies of necessary drugs on hand, we ha'e enough to last a year a' the least, more once we get the equipment we need to start making our own here on Atlantis. For the other, non-perishable medical supplies, we have enough for up to two years." And with that, Carson nodded at Elizabeth, turning the meeting back over to her.

"Excuse me, Dr. Weir," and with an apologetic look aimed at Elizabeth, Caldwell turned to look at Carson. "Doctor Beckett, if you could make a list of what specifically is needed, I'll do my best to fill it. If I can't I'll hand it over to Sergeant's Siler and Harriman. Those two can and have, pulled off bigger miracles at the SGC."

"Thank you, Colonel. I'll get you that list by the end of today." Carson replied.

"Good. That's settled. Col. Sheppard? Do you have anything to add concerning the military here on Atlantis?" and Elizabeth looked over at John. Who had been very quiet as he had listened to others make their reports.

Staring at the ceiling of office, John sighed. "Elizabeth I have good news and bad news on this. We have several hundred military personnel, from at least five different countries, stationed here on Atlantis. Thankfully the SGC went in for a standard set of weapons, so we don't have five different types of ammunition to store and supply. Under normal conditions our standard level of supplies mean we have enough uniforms, boots, socks, underwear, and the like to keep the whole expedition clothed for the next five years. That's some of the good news.

"Moving over to the bad news. We have a very finite supply of tac vests, P-90's, pistols, radios, RPG's, claymores, ammunition, spare magazines for the P-90 and pistols, and ready made timers for our C-4. We do have several people who can make C-4 in quantity, which sounds better than it really is because while it is easy stuff to make, the quality of the mix can vary. The hard science departments should be able to rig us up some more timers when we need them, so that really isn't a worry. What is a worry is ammunition. Ammunition for our weapons is specialized and while I suppose we could reload, I really wouldn't suggest it. We had thrown around the idea of doing so, but when the SGC looked into the idea, it was shot down. Pardon the pun. The tolerances needed for ammunition are tight on the P-90 and the SGC didn't want to chance having primers and the like around. Not with our luck.

"Back to the good news. Rodney let me know his suspicions when he first made the connections that started his hoarding, and Lorne and I started our own version. While we couldn't increase our orders quite as quickly or as obviously as the other departments, we have managed to acquire enough spares on our critical list so we can reequip the whole base at least twice. We are also trying to get the SGC to ship us out some zats, but so far they are refusing. But ammunition is still going to be our critical bottleneck. Given that, we have enough ammunition to last 2 years at our current rate of use, and new policies have been put in place at the firing range for conservation purposes.

"On the manpower front, personnel know that something is up. Given the amount of supplies, there's no way we can hide the sheer amount of stuff we have on hand. Too many of my troops have been doing the inventories for us to keep that quiet. We have also been getting our fair share of the square pegs. The latest one was apparently on this run of the Daedalus; a 2nd Lieutenant J. O'Neill arrived with a couple of duffels and a letter to me from General O'Neill (ret.). General O'Neill sends his regards and says for us to make use of the Lieutenant's skills in the field. Lt. O'Neill says to watch out for one of the new soft scientists by the name of Jackson. Seems they are a team and won't be broken up. Again.

"As for our other acknowledged square pegs? Unfortunately only time will tell if they will be fitting in. We can and will run them through drills both here in the City and on the mainland for training. Once we see how they shake out, we will assign them to teams. Given Lt. O'Neill's mysterious experience in the field while at the SGC, I am assigning both him and Jackson to AT-1 for the next few weeks. Anything further can be covered one on one at a later date."

"Lt. J. O'Neill? How did I miss that?" muttered Elizabeth as she quickly moved to access personnel records. "And Jackson? As in Dr. Jackson? How old are they, John?"

"I would have to say that O'Neill looks to be twenty-two or so, but he acts a lot older. Jackson, what I saw of him at least, seems to be about the same age, and again acts older. Why?" asked John.

"Because if I'm right, Jack sent his clone out here. And the other is a previously unknown clone of Dr. Daniel Jackson. Who used to be the head of Linguistics and Archeology at the SGC. Also both were, at the time they must have been cloned, members of SG-1.", she muttered as she read the newest entries in the database.

Caldwell sighed as he heard that one of his major problem children had introduced himself to his new CO. Patting the breast pocket of his uniform, he pulled several envelopes out, and passed them over to the correct parties. "Dr. McKay, Dr. Weir, Dr. Beckett, your letters of explanation."

Giving up on reading the records while the meeting was going on, Elizabeth accepted her letter and set it aside. "Okay, my turn to lay it all out. From what you all are saying, it seems I knew something was up before the rest of you. From the start I've been trying to go at this via the diplomatic route, but so far have barely slowed things down. We are being listened to less and less at the IOA, and some decisions that would have gotten us raked over the coals two years ago have been let slide as if they are unimportant. It is frankly, disturbing as all hell.

"Once I had confirmation that something was up, I reviewed what you all had done. Since everything has to go through my office, I had some idea of what you all were up to. So I started increasing the orders on everything that my people handle. At current use rates, barring a major disaster, we have enough on hand to supply the City for two years, give or take a few months. My staff and I have also managed to recruit a number of people who would not have been needed under normal circumstances. We have several people with general teaching degrees in grades other than college, mess personnel who know how to cook with a wide variety of supplies and still others who can make those supplies. Also we have a few master gardeners, master craftsmen and assorted hobbyists among the support staff.

"One of the more unusual things we have been ordering is fertile heirloom seeds for the greenhouses. We can grow a lot of the foods that we get imported via the Daedalus and we can use them in trade if needs be. I have also managed (through means that I will not be getting into) to get my hands on medical grade marijuana seeds, poppy, belladonna and a whole pharmacopeia of medicinal herbs. Carson, I'll pass you the list. Dr. Parrish has been put in charge of those seeds and the greenhouse where they are slated to be grown. It has actual physical locks and only a limited number of people will be allowed in.

"Given all that, I think we are about as set as we can be. Certainly we better prepared and supplied than we were for our first year on Atlantis. Now that everyone has put their cards on the table, we need to decide what to do with the information we have on hand. Gentlemen, any suggestions?", and with that, the meeting was opened up for what was to turn into a long hard planning session.

By the end of the meeting some hard decisions had been made. The core command staff knew what was on the horizon and had started taking the steps necessary to protect the City and her citizens. Personal experience, intuition or gut feelings told them that the Atlantis expedition would soon be alone again. The pertinent questions now were when it would happen, how it would happen, and would the Daedalus be allowed to stay with them. All they could do was plan, hope, and pray. The waiting had begun.


~//~

Walking out of the meeting where they had helped put together a preliminary course of action for Atlantis, Rodney glanced over at John and asked, "Do you want to go get some coffee and maybe see of there is anything left to eat? We worked through the main dinner rush."

Sighing, John ran his hand through his hair and agreed. Anything was better than going back to his office and facing the sheer amount of paperwork that was sitting waiting in his in box. Every time the Daedalus arrived, the amount of paperwork he had to read and sign seemed to increase by leaps and bounds. And all of it needed to be finished in time for the return trip of the Daedalus. Besides, he was hungry.

"So we're getting Jackson and O'Neill on our team for a while, huh? Showing them the hazards of Pegasus?" asked Rodney as they stepped into the transporter. Setting the destination to the mess deck, he looked at the Colonel. "Isn't that going to be awkward?"
Walking out of the transporter and into the hallway leading to the commissary, John shook his head, "They have to learn somewhere. And frankly I would prefer if O'Neill was with our team during that period. Now that I know that he really isn't a twenty-two year old kid, I won't make the mistake of discounting him. Add in a Dr. Jackson.... Hey! Why did this Loki guy clone Dr. Jackson? Do you know? The report I read from that incident never mentioned him."

Digging into his pocket for the letter Caldwell had handed him, Rodney opened it and started reading as they walked into the commissary. "Says here that per Thor, Loki cloned the original Dr. Jackson because he was the only human that the Asgard knew of who had Ascended and then came back. Apparently he has all his originators memories up until the time of cloning, and went back to school to officially get his degrees again with an emphasis on areas that might relate to the Ancients and their ally races. General O'Neill finishes by saying that he thinks we can find a use for his talents." Snorting at the dig, Rodney continued, "Also Daniel, as he still prefers to be called, joined the AFROTC while in college this time around and kept up his weapons and hand to hand qualifications. Well isn't that nice." And with that, they were in the line for food and Rodney put his letter away.

Moving quickly through the line and making sure to get some food that didn't look too gross, Rodney and John headed towards one of the tables in the back of the commissary. These tables were the ones that rarely filled up, so they were assured at least some privacy. Grabbing a table as far from the main seating areas as they could, the two settled in and started eating. Conversation could wait until the first rush of hunger had been satisfied.

Leaning back in his chair, John toyed with his fork. There were advantages in talking to Rodney that he had never even contemplated when they had initially struck up their odd friendship. When Rodney latched onto a topic he would continue to talk, exploring each and every scenario, managing to touch on all of John's worries and concerns and find solutions to each. Looking over at Rodney, he asked quietly, "So, what do you think of all of this?"

Placing his own fork on the table Rodney looked at him, his expression serious and full of the unwavering determination that had kept the City afloat when the Wraith done their best to drive her back under the waves. "I think that this situation has the potential to be the worst thing we have ever been through. And that if it does get bad, we are going to loose a number of good people before things stabilize. I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with, nor am I the easiest boss, but I hope more stay than want to go. Beyond that? Material and food shortages are going to be two of our biggest problems. What about you?"

Feeling a bit shocked at how little Rodney had to say on something that should have had him raving, John watched Rodney dive back into his meal. Taking the time to think about the whole problem, he realized that Rodney was right. The situation with the SGC that hadn't developed overnight, and it wouldn't get better overnight either. At this point even if the SGC decided to start paying attention to them again, their position would still be uncertain. And given that it looked like the SGC was still bent on ignoring them, things were going to get worse.

John knew the expedition could survive in Pegasus; they had after all done it before. But then again, the original expedition had been only quarter of their current population. If the SGC left them on their own, finding enough food for everyone to eat was going to be a challenge. Followed closely by the need to protect the City and then supplying all the other day to day needs of almost a thousand people. For a moment John felt all his lists start running through his head, manpower, supply, and schedules for watches, and many more. Pushing them all aside for the moment (and he would be talking to Lorne later to start setting it all up), John said "My biggest fear? Aside from the SGC replacing Caldwell with someone we can't work with? Receiving orders for me to report back to Earth. Or maybe orders for my men to go back, without getting replacements."

Nodding, Rodney seemed to accept that. "I know this seems a bit off topic, but maybe we should put some more effort into exploring the city? I know that we haven't found everything that Helia and her crew left behind while they had the City. I mean, they had a ship, and they must have offloaded something! If nothing else, it would allow O'Neill to get used to using his gene while he opens and closes the doors."

"Opening and closing doors isn't all that hard Rodney. The hard part comes when you want me to gradually bring an item online, or when you want something shut off *right now* because it's going to explode. Or maybe when you want one sub-system on the control chair brought up and don't tell me which one. So yes, he'll need to practice. Do we know if this version of Dr. Jackson has the gene?"

"Ask Carson. He's going to be the one doing the tests. And giving him the gene therapy if Jackson doesn't have the natural version." Rodney was finishing the last of his dinner and visibly contemplating the dessert on his tray, swapped it out for the one on John's. "And don't even try to complain about the dessert, I know you put that one on your tray after you saw what I picked."

Laughing, John couldn't deny the charge, and grabbing his new dessert, dug in.


~//~

Newly commissioned 2nd Lt. Jonathan (call me Jon) O'Neill looked around his new quarters and grinned. He was off Earth and away from most of the factions that had wanted to dissect him to see how he had been made, and what he had been made of. More important to himself and his "father", Danny was away from Earth. And he was still pretty much an unknown to the NID, the remaining factions of the Trust and parts of the new SGC. There had been several close calls over the years, with the various factions getting closer to discovering the secret as he and Daniel had aged and approached a point where they could legally rejoin the StarGate program.

One thing that he and his older counterpart had wholeheartedly agreed on was that the two clones needed to get off Earth as soon as possible. The need was even more urgent after Jack had been replaced as the head of HomeWorld Security. Jack had pulled a lot of strings to get Jon assigned to the Atlantis expedition, and the number of favors needed to get Danny included had been mind boggling. Jack had even had to dig out some of the favors that were owed to 'Dr. Daniel Jackson Sr.', and hadn't that had raised a few eyebrows among those in the know.

Flopping backwards onto his brand new bed Jon closed his eyes and mentally pushed his Earth side worries away, his day had been busy enough without dwelling on old news. First up on the new list of worries was the way he was reacting to actually being on Atlantis. He had known, mainly through Jack that once he was within the walls of the City that he would feel a strong connection with her. What he hadn't anticipated, and Jack hadn't bothered to mention, was the low hum filling his head and the burst of warmth that flowed into his soul. Given that the windows in his quarters were open and all that was coming through it was a cool breeze, it wasn't the people living in the city that he was hearing and the last time he had felt anything like this was when Daniel had Ascended. So far the whole experience hadn't been unpleasant, just startling and unusual. If it got any weirder he would go see the CMO (what was his name? Oh yeah, Beckett), and find out if any of the other gene carriers had experienced problems.

Number two on the new hit parade was his new CO, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard. Thanks again to the old man, he knew quite a bit about him that wasn't in any official file plus what was in Sheppard's official file. Jon hoped that he would never have to use that information, but it was better to be prepared, because there really wasn't much he wouldn't do to protect Danny. Sheppard had struck him as a decent enough commander and seemed to be one that Jon thought he could follow without too much trouble.

Wriggling back a bit further on the bed, Jon started to doze off. Just as he had settled in for a good nap, the chime to his door rang. Glancing over at the door, he concentrated and thought *open* at it. When it opened promptly, his face split in a grin that wouldn't have been out of place on Huckleberry Finn.

Walking into the room was another young man, not as tall as O'Neill, but still taller than average. Wiry and bordering on thin with sandy brown hair, he carried himself like any of the soldiers moving through the hallways of Atlantis, and yet he wore the uniform of the science division. Glancing around the room, bright blue eyes settled on Jon and shaking his head, the young man said, "Napping already Jon? We haven't even made it off world yet!"

Snorting out a laugh, Jon replied, "Hate to break it to you Danny, but we are off world. How are you? And where do they have you bunking down?"

"Funny thing, that." said Danny. "My orientation email says my quarters are near the Archeo-Linguistics labs, but when I reported to the housing office they sent me here. So instead of being stuck with the other scientists by the labs I'm bunking in officer country. Specifically, right next door," And gesturing to his left, he indicated their new common wall. "I wonder why that is? Any ideas?"

Shrugging at the question Jon stretched out again, enjoying the space after eighteen days aboard what amounted to a space going tin can. "Got me, Danny. I am just glad you are going to be within reach again. Hey! Think we can get someone to make us a door between the two rooms?"

"No. And don't go asking Atlantis if she'll make you one. If you really feel like we have to have a door there, check with Col. Sheppard or Dr. McKay to see if it is possible. Given that Sheppard has had the strongest natural gene here he might know, or McKay can build us one if you really feel it's needed." And with that, Danny sat down on the bench under Jon's bay window. "So, did you manage to deliver your letter to Col. Sheppard?"

"Yeah, I did. He was rather surprised. I take it I don't really look like Jack?" came the slightly muffled answer as Jon rolled off of his bed and started working on the unpacking he had been putting off.

"Yes and no, Jon. Jack has changed a lot in the last few years, especially since SG-1 went missing and he lost HomeWorld. Plus there are, what? Almost forty years between you two?" Watching Jon unpack, Danny asked, "Wanna come and help me sort my stuff out?"

"No. Not a hope in Netu. I am not going to help you unpack that mess you call your duffels and crates. How did you manage to get all your books shipped? And you're right, Jack is thirty-eight years and a whole lotta miles older than this new me. Add white hair and the forty pounds difference in our weight, and I guess we don't look all that alike. Huh." And looking over at Danny, he wondered if the original Daniel would have had the same thoughts looking at his clone now.

Jack had all of Daniel's stuff at his house in Minnesota now. Placed around the house, hanging on the walls, set on bookshelves and clustered on the mantle were pictures of SG-1, both individual and group shots. Ranging from times before they had joined the StarGate program to right before they had disappeared, those pictures were all that was left of almost fifteen years worth of memories. And in the middle of the fireplace mantle, right next to a picture of Charlie, was a picture of a young Daniel Jackson sitting on a camel in front of one of the great pyramids, placed next to that was his marriage bowl from Abydos. Jack was keeping them safe for Daniel, if he ever returned.

Thinking of that picture, Jon thought that Danny looked a whole lot like his original had at this age, just more muscular. This Daniel had gotten used to being in shape and when he found himself in a teenage body again, had decided he was going to skip the weedy stage and get back to being buff. If nothing else, the muscles helped when he had to haul loads of archeological supplies all over the place, so Jon wasn't going to complain about it either. If it meant that Danny could keep up with the Marines and still do his job, then he was going to encourage it.

Stuffing his civvies into his new bureau, Jon looked over at Danny again. "Have you met with McKay yet? Or Dr. Weir?"

"No. The command staff was in a meeting that Weir called right before I went up to her office. I'll try again after dinner. Wanna go with me?" asked Danny.

"Do I have too?" whined Jon. "You know I still hate meetings. And this one is likely to go on for hours!"

"Yes, you have to go. But we can at least grab some dinner before we enter the lions den," and with that, Danny grabbed Jon's arm and started dragging him away from his unpacking. "Let's go! I am starving!"

Laughing at his friend and his enthusiasm, Jon walked out with him and with a thought, locked his room. He could get used to Atlantis. Indeed he could.


~//~

After a late night visit from Dr. Jackson and Lt. O'Neill, Elizabeth had decided it would be a good idea to call an early morning meeting so the command staff could be there when the pair delivered the information they carried. As a courtesy she was also including Col. Caldwell since Dr. Jackson had mentioned that he had something for him as well. The official reason noted in the minutes was so the Atlantis staff could be updated on the political situation on Earth. Elizabeth was certain that the sheer amount of information to be passed on was going to be both impressive and depressing.

Stepping into the main conference room ten minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin Elizabeth saw Dr. McKay speaking quietly to Col. Sheppard. Suppressing a sigh, she wondered if breaking ties with Earth would bring about any changes to that relationship. The first year of the expedition there had been a dearth of entertainment and the sparks coming off the two men had in turn sparked a long running set of books in the local betting pools. Over time the deadlines for the bets had come and gone, betters had died, transferred or lost interest and still the books stayed open. Hell, she even had a few bets in herself. But given the natures of the men before her, she wasn't counting on an easy or quick resolution to that problem.

Clearing her throat gently, Elizabeth called out a cheerful, "Good morning, gentlemen! You are here awful early today. To what do we owe the honor?"

Snorting out a laugh at his own penchant for being late to unwelcome staff meetings, McKay said, "I'm early because I know you break out the good coffee and nibbles for breakfast meetings and I wanted to enjoy a cup or two without people around." And with that, he raised the oversized mug he carried to meetings and sipped at its contents.

Laughing quietly, Sheppard walked over to the sideboard and grabbing a mug for himself, made sure that a full coffee carafe was slid onto the table in front of McKay. Glancing over at Elizabeth, he nodded at the coffee, silently asking if she wanted a cup. When she agreed, he fixed her a cup and made sure to deliver it as he headed back to his spot by Rodney. "Do you think that one carafe will do you Rodney? Or should I grab another?"

"Ha, ha. Very funny, Major. Given that Dr. Jackson is going to be at this meeting as well, I may just take you up on that!", said Rodney as he tilted the carafe to top off his cup.

"Talking about me already, Dr. McKay? We haven't even officially met yet!" came an amused voice from the door.

"Not in this incarnation, we haven't. But I knew your originator, or is that parent? We got to know each other when we were working at the Antarctic base to find Atlantis. He is the only person I know who drinks more coffee than I do," responded Rodney.
"So, so true. Jack was always trying to reign in Daniel's coffee habit. It didn't help matters when Carter would egg Daniel on by giving him chocolate covered espresso beans, mocha candies or go out of her way to refill his cup when she knew Janet had cut him off," and with that Lt. O'Neill walked into the room carrying a large box. Beside him, the figure of a young Daniel Jackson could also be seen carrying a box. Setting them down at a set of chairs near the end of the table, O'Neill went to get food and coffee for himself and Daniel, who had started unpacking the box that his partner had carried in. Watching the two of them, Elizabeth noticed that the box in front of Dr. Jackson was metal and looked more like a carrying case for some delicate item than a packing crate. Wondering what was in it, she decided to set her curiosity aside as Daniel began to walk around the table placing a labeled folder at each place on the conference table. Thanking him quietly as he passed her a folder she started sipping coffee, and opened her folder to start reading.

As time got closer to the official start time for the meeting, the invited personnel trickled in and after finding their folders and refreshments, settled in. This was going to be a long meeting. Again.

Putting her new reading material down, Elizabeth rapped her knuckles on the table top and called the meeting to order. "Ladies, gentlemen, most of you know each other so I won't bother to introduce you. With us are two people you may not know, however. They are Dr. Daniel Melbourne Jackson, and 2nd Lt. Jonathan O'Neill, USAF. If they look familiar to you, it is because they are clones of Dr. Daniel Jackson of SG1 and General O'Neill the former head of HomeWorld Security and the SGC. This meeting was called because they have news to share with us and we need to know what is going on with Earth. After meeting with them last night I got just enough to know that this was something that we all needed to hear. Because of the information I am currently privy too, I'm confident that the data bursts we are getting are less thank complete. Gentlemen? The floor is yours."

~//~

Looking over the faces before him, Jon felt his carefree twenty-two year old persona drain away. All that remained was the man who had been on the front lines of numerous wars before he had started fighting the Goa'uld, who had survived four months in an Iraqi prison, the NID, Ba'al, and a host of others, both on Earth and off. The man who looked back at the senior staff of Atlantis was Col. Jack O'Neill, head of SG1 and second in command of the SGC, and he was there to talk business.

"Thank you, Dr. Weir. I know that most of you have some experience with General O'Neill and that a very few if any of you have experience with me. I was, and in many ways still *am* Colonel Jack O'Neill. A little over six years ago a rouge Asgard by the name of Loki cloned my originator, in a desperate attempt to find a cure for the decline in the Asgard population. Unfortunately for him it didn't work and the SGC was left holding the bag. General Hammond and I then decided that it would be best if I disappeared from "public" life. The NID was starting to get way too curious for my own good, and I don't look good dissected. Three weeks after I was dropped off at my new high school, Thor showed up at Jack's place with Danny. It seems Loki had cloned Daniel as well and then placed the clone on ice while he played with the O'Neill family DNA. To say that Hammond and the President were not amused would be an understatement.

"In the interests of keeping Danny safe, General Hammond, my originator and I decided to keep his existence hidden. At the time, Daniel had just recently Deacended and the NID was doing its level best to get its hands on him for "information purposes". Given their plans for the adult Daniel, we had to make sure Danny wasn't discovered. Lucky for us, Loki and his messed up cloning process stopped our aging at around 16, so Danny looked like his own son. For public consumption and to throw the scent off even more, he has been using a different last name and birth date. Once we got him established he started getting his degrees back with some added flourishes, without making waves this time this time around.

"So that is the basic background on the two of us. For the in depth stuff, check out the packets in front of you. They each contain files on the two of us and basic information on our progenitors. Now onto the situation on Earth.

"From what Jack was able to piece together before we left, you as the command staff of Atlantis, have been kept in the dark on a number of subjects that affect your security here in Pegasus. The most important change happened right after the Presidential election. With the change in power, came a radical change in policy concerning galactic politics. Which in turn lead to the real reason Jack is no longer head of HomeWorld. At a off the books meeting with the new President, he objected at the top of his lungs to the ZPM that you folks gave Earth for the Odyssey being used to make up the slack in the power grid for the US."

Hearing that, Rodney growled and started quickly flipping through his packet to find the relevant information. Nodding in agreement at the unspoken but clearly heard comment, O'Neill confirmed the news, "Yes, Dr. McKay. The President ordered the removal of the ZPM from the Odyssey, and directed that it be hooked into the national power grid. Why? Because thanks to high energy prices and some draconian reforms passed on the amount of pollution that could be released by the nation as a whole and the energy production industry in particular needed another source of power. And the nearest and frankly easiest one to 'mine' was the ZPM on the Odyssey. We do know that the second ZPM you gave Earth is still with the chair in Antarctica and will likely remain there for the foreseeable future. Carter, before SG1 went missing, figured that the shanghaied ZPM could help power the US for about 20 to 25 years at current energy levels."

Pausing briefly to drink some of the remaining coffee in his cup, Jon shifted slightly to face the man who had brought him to Atlantis. "Col. Caldwell, I have some bad news for you as well. Jack mentioned that you had been putting in requests for the Daedalus to be upgraded to match the rest of the fleet. I am sorry Steven, but she won't be getting those upgrades. Ever. The powers that be will let the Daedalus stay in her current configuration, mainly because the bean counters at the Pentagon see no reason to improve her. I wish I had better news on that front, but Col. Davis, Jacks' old second in command at HomeWorld, let me know there has been no give on that front."

Taking a deep breath, Jon sat back in his chair and played with his empty cup. The next bit of news still had the power to hurt him, despite his not having actually been on the base in the last six years. "Over at the SGC there has been a marked slowdown on exploration missions through the Earth gate and an increase in missions aimed at getting the maximum in useable tech from alien worlds. Given that the war with the remnants of the Ori fleet is still ongoing, Jack has made contingency plans for select personnel to leave Earth if there is a need. Some may come here; others have letters leading them to a safe world in the Milky Way. If things do go that bad, Jack is counting on us to take in as many folks from the SGC as we can," and as Jon said this, he opened his folder and passed a list of possible refugees to Dr. Weir. Looking at it, she saw that the names listed were for family members of SG1, some of the control room techs, a few medical personnel and their families. Jack seemed to be trying to make sure that Atlantis wasn't going to be overwhelmed, but still making sure that they had folks with needed skills coming their way if things went bad.

"Jack has had a 'everything goes to hell' plan in the works since the first time he got the Ancient database downloaded into his head. He knew, as did Hammond, that if things ever really got bad on Earth or the Goa'uld invaded from space, SGC personnel would need a secure and unknown Alpha site. This is that plan." Looking over at Major Lorne as he stirred in his chair, Jon nodded at him to speak.

"Sir, I never heard any mention of an alternate Alpha site while I was at the SGC. I know all SG teams got lists of friendly worlds to go to in case of trouble, but this sounds like it didn't even reached the team leaders." said Lorne. Who hadn't really noticed that he had slipped back into the responses trained into him from years of working under Col. O'Neill. Col. Sheppard noticed, and after a sharp glance at Jon, held his peace.

"The reason you didn't know about this, Major, is because none of the SG teams know about it. I know the planets designation because I share Jack's memories of making that base. Danny knows about it because of Daniel and SG1 helping make sure the base was secure. Other than that? No one knows where it is. The long term SG team leaders should all have a letter from Jack with orders to open it in case of an emergency situation. And by emergency situation, well they know what that means. So far, no one has had to use them.

"Now, given all of that, Jack requested I pass on some recommendations to you all. He knows about the hoarding and he, Davis, Harriman and Landry did their best to cover your tracks on the Earth side end. Harriman and Siler have orders from Jack to slip you folks as much as can be shoved though the gate during the weekly data bursts and loaded onto the Daedalus. He thinks this is going to come to a head and soon, so keep a sharp eye on the politicians. Also, he recommends and I am seconding, that the command staff do not go back to Earth for any reason. Especially you, Col. Sheppard. Given that you have the ATA gene in a strength that rivals Jack's, if you set foot back on Earth they won't let you go. Stay here. It is, ironically, the safest place you can be.

"Lastly, in the box in front of Danny is one of the two copies of the Ark. For the non SGC hands, that is basically a duplicate of the Library of Congress, holographic copies of every major and many minor pieces of art, as many books from the Vatican as could be scanned and as much music as could be downloaded into the database from sources around the world. This is over 13 years worth of work by the departments under Dr. Jackson. There is only one other of these in existence and it is currently sitting in the main archeology lab at the SGC itself. In case we are cut off from Earth, we will have her history, her art, and her culture here with us," and with that, Jon sat down. His part was done, and Danny now got to have fun by answering all the questions Jon knew were coming.


~//~

After Jon had finished his rundown of the news, silence reigned for several minutes as the command staff of Atlantis absorbed the revelations. As he watched them, Daniel was reminded of the people of Abydos had reacted after the truth about Ra had sunk in. His new friends may have thrown a party to end all parties but once the rush of victory had been over, a vacuum had appeared in their belief structure and it had taken an uncomfortably long time for them to fill it. The uncomfortable truths that Jon had just laid out to the Earth borne command staff would need time to truly be processed and accepted especially. For the Pegasus natives however, the information was obviously disturbing but also at a remove, not really real. Daniel knew that his job now was to make all that information real and relevant.

Leaning forward after several minutes of quiet, Daniel cleared his throat gently. "All of you have at one point or another met my 'father' and you know he is nothing if not a keen observer of human nature. The final evacuation plans that Jon has mentioned were mainly formulated by Jack and General Hammond, but SG1 as a whole had a hand in their making. As Jon has mentioned, there has been no evidence that the letters or pilfering has been discovered. So, unless the information directly impacts Atlantis, I am going to drop that topic. Jack and the people we left at the SGC are on their own for now.

"Right before we boarded the Daedalus, Jack gave me some additional information to pass on to you all. Doctor's McKay and Zelenka, the files in front of you should have labeled SD card packets. On those cards you will find copies of all of Col. Carter's public and private files, covering both her research and her speculations. In addition to that there should be files on everything her teams at the SGC and Area 51 had discovered and what was being work on at the time of the last update. Which should have been less than three weeks ago."

Turning his head slightly so could direct his words at the next person on his list, Daniel continued, "Doctor's Beckett and Keller, your packets will also contain copies of the public and private files from Dr. Janet Fraiser and Dr. Carolyn Lam. Included in them are the real medical records for myself, Jon and all the potential refugees. Dr. Weir, Ms. Emmagan, your cards have in depth copies of the information that Jon provided as well as analysis of the socio-political situation back on Earth, courtesy of Col. Paul Davis. They should also hold everything we could think of on all the current players in the US Congress, Joint Chief's and the various IOA governments. Col. Sheppard, Major Lorne, Specialist Dex, your packets contain information on the breakdowns of the military situation both on Earth and off, what information there is on the Ori and the Lucien Alliance, and the projections for the next several years budgets for the SGC and Atlantis. Col. Caldwell your cards contain information on who to talk to in case of an emergency, who you would need to pick up if you are in Earth orbit, who to avoid and your copy of the bug out letter from Jack."

After giving everyone a chance to confirm that their folders contained the mentioned cards, Daniel continued, "Now, onto what may be the first two questions on your lists: Why was the ZPM hooked into the power grid? And why did the IOA allow it?

"Due to the 'War on Terrorism' there had been a nationwide outcry when the public discovered just how dependent the US was on foreign oil and natural gas. I don't know how much news you all got out here, but during the year leading up to the presidential election there had been a series of rolling blackouts through the whole country that were triggered in part, by the high cost of fuel and the age of the power grid. The power companies were being squeezed by the new laws governing power generation, draconian limits on the amount of pollution that the generator plants could issue and restrictions on building new plants. Alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, water and nuclear plants weren't able or even in place to take up the slack. With the new restrictions on nuclear reactors and the 'Not in my backyard' syndrome, no more are scheduled to be built. When the President got elected, he asked why the US was allowing a power source as large as the ZPM be placed on a ship that was out of reach on a regular basis. I don't know what answer was given at that meeting, but I do know that Jack was less than thrilled after being in it.

"Meanwhile things were being shaken up at the IOA. If you recall, Dr. Weir, A number of personnel changes occurred that year, correct?" At Elizabeth's nod, Daniel took a deep breath and continued, "The 'War on Terror' is now taking up more attention worldwide, and the original delegates to the IOA have been recalled and replaced with ineffectual place holders. The new delegates have been putting Earth and their own nations first and have been ignoring the waves these policies have caused among our galactic allies. To make things worse, the new committee signed off on the change in the SGC's mandate. Since they have been in place the SGC has ceased exploring and gathering allies, they are out looking for weapons and usable technology. Thus when the President proposed removing Odyssey's ZPM and plugging it in the power grid, there was little official resistance. And what resistance there was came from Jack, Landry, Maynard and General Hammond. Due in part to their disagreement over the new use the ZPM was put to; Hammond was invited leave the White House and not come back, Maynard was released back into the Army and Jack & Landry were retired and replaced.

"Now it's my understanding from what Sam told me before she shipped out on her last mission, that there is an excess of energy being supplied from the ZPM. An excess that the US is saying comes from the 'new and improved' green power plants. They are 'selling' that extra energy to our allies on the IOA and other countries around the world for prices that are undercutting the cost of gas and oil. And we have no idea what the government is doing with the money they receive. So that's the short story on why and how the ZPM is being used as an energy source for the US and by extension, the rest of the world." Taking a drink of his coffee, Daniel grimaced as he found it was cold. Grabbing the carafe in front of him, he refreshed his cup and took a long drink. Looking into the cup, he took a deep breath and continued his briefing.

"There are now a number of new ships being built in secure locations around the globe, with power to be supplied by third generation naquadah reactor's and in the future naquadria reactors. Jack said that he included copies of the plans for the ships and the reactors in the information packets, but I don't know who has what. Col. Caldwell for what it is worth, I am sorry about the Daedalus. I know that Jack included information on a number of possible upgrades that be done by your crew and without needing a dry dock. I suggest you speak with Hermiod to see what is possible."

"Thank you Dr. Jackson. I think I will." And with that, Caldwell pulled out his packet of chips and started looking checking the labels on them for the information on the upgrades.

"I know we mentioned allies in the Milky Way being ignored, but it runs a bit deeper than that. Most of you know that the Jaffa nation has been an ally. What you may not know is that there had been an intense ongoing effort to find something other than Tretonin for the Jaffa to use as a substitute to their immune systems. All research into this has been called off by the powers that be on Earth and all data was to be turned over the Area 51 for filing. Jaffa who dial in are routinely being turned away from the SGC when they come calling for help or supplies. At least, that is the official line. Unofficially, Dr. Lam at the SGC is still looking into ways to improve Tretonin and make it longer lasting. Some of the SG teams are also still offering their help as they can and Siler and Harriman are covering for them like they are you. Our other allies are also getting it in the neck and the reputation of the Tau'ri is going south very rapidly in our home galaxy. Ferretti, Dixon, and Reynolds are trying to keep things together, but they only have three teams and the SGC is not making friends.

"Here in Pegasus Atlantis has been taking in the refugees from worlds that have been recently culled. You also help by trading medical supplies and knowledge, being the intermediaries when conduction trade negotiations, and trading foodstuffs and plants. The official word at the SGC is that they will be cutting back the supplies you will be receiving for this purpose. Unofficially you can expect Harriman and Siler to continue shoving supplies through the Gate for as long as they can hide the amount of goods moved and the power drains. Rodney I have no idea how Siler is managing that trick and he wouldn't tell me when I asked. Given the party line back on Earth, expect to get a message where you are told to stop helping everyone, Dr. Weir. What you do then, is up to you.

"Since we are on the topic of supplies I do have some news on that front as well, beyond what is going on at the SGC. Jack wasn't sure on exactly how self sufficient you all had made yourselves, nor was he sure what trade agreements you have in place to make up for any shortfalls. Col. Caldwell, you can expect to have a very strange manifest on your next trip out from Earth, courtesy of Jack. For the stuff people order from home, as it arrives at the SGC, it will be tossed through the Gate. It is both faster and more efficient than storing it for transport on the Daedalus. Or at least that is what the new General at in charge is being told if he asks.

"And that's all the information I have to impart. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask," and with a sigh, Daniel sat back. This next part of the meeting was going to require a whole new carafe of coffee just to get through.


~//~

Sitting in the main conference room, thinking over the revelations of the last hour, John was reminded of the chain of events that had lead to the expedition's return to Atlantis. After hearing what the SGC had decided the four of them had been left with a feeling of despair at the lack of choices being offered their City and grim hope that they could make a difference. So by mutual decision they had left Earth without backup and with no expectations of being allowed to return to do what they knew to be right. Because the thought of their home being bombed into rubble, when there was a possibility that they could save the city, had been more than they could handle. Without orders, he and Rodney, Carson and Elizabeth had stolen the only 'Jumper the SGC had, hijacked the 'Gate bridge and come home. And in the process of saving the City they had also save General O'Neill and Richard Woolsey of the IOA.

This whole situation was starting to feel like that day. Atlantis was going to be on her own again, and soon. But this time, instead of there being a chance that the wormhole would open and help from home would pour through, this time if the wormhole opened from home, help would not be what would come through. So the information that General O'Neill had given them in their files was going to have to be combed through for every crumb of tactical advantage. There would be no second chance at this.

Watching Rodney as he read through Carter's notes on the new use for the ZPM, John was sure that Rodney was regretting giving it to the SGC. AT-1 had spent the last three years looking for another and had yet to find one that was charged. All the ones the expedition had discovered had been drained and or somehow destroyed. The Ancient database when tickled properly, had yielded tantalizing clues on how to build/construct/grow a ZPM, but without knowing the correct frame of reference for the terms used, the information was basically useless. In addition the teams had come across hints and rumors on various planets of places where Ancient technology had been left intact, unexplored and unplundered. So far, those rumors were a bust as well.

Looking over at his new 'Lieutenant', John knew there was no way he was going to try to treat the man like the wet behind the ears kid he looked.
It would be too much like how he himself had been treated during his six week stay at the SGC. That type of disrespect had been one of the reasons he had jumped at returning to his city. So, that left him in a bit of a quandary. Before he had been cloned, Jack O'Neill had been the 2IC of the SGC, and leader of the frontline tem of SGC. John wasn't willing to move Lorne out of the 2IC post, and he wasn't going to give up AT-1 anytime soon, so where to put O'Neill? He could give him his own team with Jackson of course, and run several new people through as possible third and fourth members. Maybe see if one of their Athosian friends would agree to act as a native guide to Pegasus. The clone's originators were men who had been used to taking advice from someone other than themselves, and were both used to listening to the native voices of the galaxy they were in. He would ask Teyla if anyone on the mainland had the itchy feet of an explorer and didn't mind being shot at while exploring. As for the 2IC post? Maybe he needed someone who could be a third in command, someone who could be there when he and Lorne were both off world. And that seemed to be happening a lot more recently.

So that was settled in his head. Now to look over the hardcopy information in his folder...

~//~

Looking at Carter's notes on power sources, Rodney saw several areas where he could improve upon what they had in the City, where the naquadah they had could be stretched even further. Further scanning through the information on power sources, he saw that she had included the schematics on the mating of the ZPM to the US power grid, and seeing them, he grimaced. The mating would never be truly efficient or elegant, but it worked. Setting that aside as an item on the "not my problem list", Rodney started on the various plans for shipboard power sources, maybe one of these could be adapted to fit the Daedalus and give her a bit more power....

~//~

Reading the information prepared for her by Col. Davis, Elizabeth could only feel despair for what was coming. All the pieces were on the board and game was in motion. To stop this would take a miracle on the order of the one that had raised Atlantis from the ocean floor. A once in a lifetime miracle. And there didn't seem to be one in the offering.

With the changes on the IOA and in the US government, it looked as if the contingency plans that each of her department heads had put into place would be needed soon. Within months if she was reading between the lines correctly. Elizabeth didn't know what was going to happen on Earth, but she had to offer the residents of her city a choice. When the time came to sever the relationship with Earth, she knew they would open the wormhole home, one last time. If only to offer those who wanted it a way back.

Given that, she hoped that Caldwell would throw his hat in with them, but in reality, she knew that he would stay with Earth. That was where his loyalties lay, and she couldn't fault him for it. All she could hope for was that he continued his plan of getting as much of the desperately needed supplies out to them before he was recalled.

Pushing her internal mussing to the side, Elizabeth turned her attention outwards again. Time to get this meeting back into gear.

~//~

Leaning forward, Elizabeth placed her arms on the conference table, lacing her fingers together to hide any shaking that might be there. Glancing around the room, she gathered her command staff together by eye, and said, "I know that last night we went over our options, but in light of the new information we have been given, I feel we need to reconsider our situation. We know that the decisions are going to be hard ones, but they will need to be made as soon as possible. Among those decisions are ones that will change how we live here on Atlantis, and who is to continue living here. Are we going to go independent? And do we let the people who don't want to stay go?

"For the independence issue, do we put this to a City wide vote? And if we do that, when does the vote take place? Too soon and we risk a leak, too late and our people may not be able to get home. Also, if we declare independence, will Earth let us? Or will they try to come through the gate or via ship to bring us back into the fold?

"For the second issue, we have the question of our families. There is a large percentage of Atlantis's population who still has family on Earth, who still think of this as a posting that they can rotate out of, go home. If we do this too soon, they may never go home, never see their families again. We need to be prepared for the fall out of these two major decisions."

Clearing his throat, Carson interjected a comment, "I have been talking to Kate, an' frankly, listenin' to the gossip that has been flowing through the infirmary, most of which has concerned this topic. The people who are here are not dumb, an' they are remarkably pragmatic. Given that, most want to stay. Very few want to go back to Earth, an' they are the recent arrivals for the most part, a few old-timers, but then again, that is to be expected."

"I have also been talking to Kate," said Teyla. "Mainly to find out what the meaning of rumors I have been hearing. There is very little discontent to be heard, but there is fear of being cut off. Fear that due to not having access to Earth and her supplies Atlantis will starve or fall due to the lack of necessary items. Speaking for the Athosian's, we are glad that you will be staying here, and we do offer our support. Also, I do know that Atlantis has the support of the Genii, the children of M7G-677, the Taranians, New Stadea, and many more. There has been much goodwill sown over recent years as Atlantis has helped resettle people to safe planets. In addition, we still have the trade agreements in place, we will not starve."

"Thank you for reminding us of that, Teyla." said Elizabeth, gratitude infusing her voice, "We need to remember that we are not alone here in Pegasus. That there will be friends available in the days ahead."

"Elizabeth if, no when the vote is taken, Daedalus will be ready to take your returning people home. We won't leave you hanging. Please make sure that any special needs are passed on to either myself or Novak." And with that, Caldwell leaned back, effectively taking himself out of the discussion. It wasn't that he didn't feel sympathy for the Lanteans, it was more he still had to answer to Earth, and the SGC.

"Thank you, Stephen. I hope that we never have to use the Daedalus for that. We will all have our lists ready for you at the end of the day, if you don't have them already." nodded Elizabeth.

"We need to have the vote soon, Elizabeth. We need to have it before the next run of the Daedalus." Said John, "Reading this, we have at the most, one more run, and that is all. There is no more time."


~//~

The meetings were over; the time had come to put the plans into action.

~//~

Daedalus left Atlantis on time, each of her crew convinced that this was to be the last time they would see the City, the last time they would see their friends. Knowing that if they were able to make another trip, they would each bring what they could for those remaining behind. Her captain held in his keeping letters to family members on Earth, letters to political figures from Elizabeth and finally a collection of letters to General O'Neill. All would be mailed once they reached Earth, he had promised.

~//~

The plan of putting O'Neill as his third in charge had worked out rather well, John had to admit. The City wasn't the safest place to live and work and with a strong gene holder being there at all times, a large number of accidents had been avoided. It helped that both O'Neill and Jackson spoke fluent Ancient, and that Jackson had taken over the Linguistics department. The number of translations coming out of them had more than doubled and with the trained archeologist on hand; City explorations were much more purposeful. That wasn't to say that their long-time archeologists hadn't done all they could when exploring the City before, but Jackson knew a lot more about the Ancients than they did, and it came in handy when exploring the City.

Meanwhile AT-1 & 2 were kept busy reaffirming trade contracts and alliances across the galaxy. The Expedition had been in Pegasus for almost six years by that point and had a lot of friends, not to mention a lot of enemies. So every alliance they could hold onto was treasured, protected and reaffirmed on a regular basis. New ones were sought out, friends of friends approached and new greeting ceremonies were logged into the database, gossiped over in the mess and in general dealt with as professionally as possible.

The vote for independence was taken two weeks after the Daedalus had left. To no ones surprise, most of the newer people had voted to return to Earth. A few, like Jackson and O'Neill, had decided to stay. For the clones especially there was simply nothing left on Earth to return too. The returnee's were still putting in their hours in the labs and on the City exploration teams, finishing up any projects they had going or briefing other members who were staying behind.

Communications with the SGC were still a hit or miss proposition. With each opening of the Gate new supplies from the SGC were shoved through for the full 38 minute window. John didn't want to think on what Siler and Harriman doing to cover up the inroads Atlantis was making on their supplies and power supplies. During the latest communication exchange they had gotten cases of sweets, mostly chocolate and sugar based ones, but they were welcome. The week before they had gotten the drug making equipment that Beckett had been praying for. Escorting the equipment was an unexpected bonus of a dentist and his assistants, plus equipment. That had been a rather nerve-racking 38 minutes, but it was also one of the few sanctioned exchanges between the two bases.

Word had come through channels that the Daedalus had made it safely back to Earth and was gearing up for a return trip. Hearing that, the numbers of emails headed to the crew members had grown to an impressive number, an outrageous number. Orders were placed, begging for last minute goodies to be added to the supply manifests, both official and unofficial. John had a few orders in himself, both with Caldwell as his semi-official contact and Novak as his black market contact. Some of the things he had ordered were for himself and others were for Rodney, he did enjoy spoiling him when he could.

Leaning back in his chair, John reached for his coffee mug. Lifting it to his lips he drank, trying to enjoy the flavor of the Athosian morning tea. If he drank enough of it, it might wake him up enough so that the paperwork on his desk could hold his interest. Thank goodness they had a large supply of sugar and creamer on hand, it was the only thing making this stuff palatable. Thinking about it, he had no idea how Telya drank this stuff straight every morning but then again, so did Rodney.

Paperwork was something that he was hoping would go down when they separated from Earth. The sheer number of forms that the IOA demanded be filled out every time the wormhole opened was getting larger with each passing year, and the SGC was starting to get going as well. The senior staff had held several planning sessions on that very issue, most of which had ended up Rodney and Elizabeth yelling at each other while Carson and Jackson had tried to keep the peace. He, Lorne and O'Neill had plans to chuck 90% of the forms they currently filled out as useless, and had spent one wonderful evening ticking off all the forms that were going to be deleted as soon as possible.

Meanwhile he had paperwork to finish. Paperwork that was solely for the troops going home with Daedalus. He wasn't planning in letting any of his troops go without doing everything he could to ensure their futures. So that mean that all the personnel evals, letters of commendation, award recommendations and the few remaining letters to families had to be done as soon as possible. Each of his returning personnel would as well taken care of as he could.

He knew that he wasn't the only department head hurrying to get the paperwork done and printed before the last run of the Daedalus. Rodney had been even more grumpy than usual and Elizabeth was starting to loose her façade of even temperedness. This last rush was starting to make the whole City anxious and John was hoping that it passed soon. One more week. They had one more week until their zero hour.

~//~

Rodney was slowly going insane and he blamed it on the paperwork he was forcing himself to complete. There was a week left on the timetable, and he still had a few evals to get through. The people from his department who were leaving may have been square pegs, but they were his square pegs. And he knew that after years of working within the government, there would be few jobs outside of it for his returning folk. So the evals he would send home with them had to be top notch.

To make matters worse, Rodney knew that Jackson and Carson had gotten through with their evals last week, although to be fair, there had been fewer to write. That and they were just better at the paperwork thing than he was. To be sure, he wasn't going to slight his returning square pegs, but he didn't have to like writing the evals.

Taking a break from his dreaded paperwork, Rodney took a look at the latest sim running on his spare laptop. This was a design he was working on for a new ship. While it wasn't on the same level as the Daedalus, it was something that would get them back to Earth in a pinch. That and it would carry the cargo they would need so desperately. So far, the design was checking out. But just to be on the safe side, he would have John and O'Neill look over the design, they both had degrees in aeronautical engineering and design, maybe with their help this could go faster. Atlantis was going to need this ship, and soon. Daedalus wasn't going to be at their beck and call forever.

Thinking of the Daedalus led him to thinking of the last supplies he had ordered for his department. They were due to be shoved through the Gate tonight, along with the mail for everyone. Hopefully the birthday gift he had ordered for John was in with this batch of mail, of not, then he would have to look into getting the item made by one of the Athosian craftsmen. He was also hoping that the last of the refined Naquadah he had asked for was to be included. While not a birthday gift per se, it would still be welcome.

Thinking of the Naquadah he had ordered brought him to power sources within the City. They were now using modified Mark III generators, but with the ones Zelenka was working on, the switch over to a Mark IV was looking better and better. And once they had the new Naquadah a test level run could be done on there prototype. Once it was in orbit of course. There were to be no explosions in his City if he could help it.

Moving from explosions in the City to equipment that was ATA activated, McKay took a quick peak at the latest progress report from the team he had assigned to see if they could find a non-destructive way around some of the more restrictive protocols. It looked like they were making good progress on the medial machinery front, and with a few non-essential City systems, but anything that was sensitive was a no go. Looking at the list of systems on the "unable to touch list", he wondered why the Ancients thought that the system that supplied hot and cold running water to the crew quarters was so important. Shrugging, he decided to not worry about that for now. He was getting better at that, really he was, ask anyone!

Sighing, Rodney turned back to his paperwork. It wasn't going to finish itself.

~//~

Groaning slightly, Elizabeth pushed her laptop away. Her life was currently dominated, hell run by lists. Lists of who was going back to Earth, of what they were taking back with them, of what was being shoved through the Gate by Siler and Harriman, of what was in the storerooms on Atlantis, of what their trading partners had for them and what Atlantis had to trade. Lists, lists and more lists. She was heartily sick of them all.

Grabbing a cup of mint tea from her personal tea pot, she paused to enjoy the scent. Thankfully there were mint plants growing in several of the greenhouses here on Atlantis, so she wasn't going to run out soon. Also growing were some true tea plants, so that eventually they could enjoy a cup of their own home grown tea. But that would be a few years down the road, so she would have to get used to the herbal teas or try the Athosian varieties.

Sipping at the hot liquid, Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, enjoying the silence. It wouldn't last. If it wasn't interrupted by her own decision to get back to work, it would be by a City emergency or maybe by one of their gate teams coming in hot. Peace and calm were just not words that applied to Atlantis. At least not in her lifetime.

~//~

Carson decided that ducking his paperwork by restocking the 'Jumper med kits had been one of his better ideas. It allowed him to see what was most commonly used by the off-world teams (besides pressure bandages), got him out of his office and he wasn't in one findable spot all day. All advantages as far as he was concerned.

It also allowed him far too much time to think over his decision to stay on Atlantis. He knew that his mother was being taken care of by his brother and sisters, but well, when all was said and done, they weren't him. He knew that he was going to be worrying over her as time drew close, but he had made his decision and would stick with it, he was needed here. He had made sure to include a letter to her with every opening of the Gate and one of the personnel heading back had his final letter to be sent as soon as they were released.

Looking at his list of supplies needed for the restock, he saw that he needed to check the Epipen's in 'Jumper one. That was the one most frequently taken out by AT-1 and while it had been months since Rodney had found a new food that he was allergic to, it was far better to be safe than sorry in this case. The team as a whole made sure that the pens they carried on their persons where up to date and in good working order, so it was his job to make sure the back-ups were the same. He also thought that he would double the number of pressure bandages included in this kit, the team as a whole seemed to be a magnet for trouble.

Humming to himself, Carson continued to comb trough the kit, marking his lists, doing his part to keep Atlantis and her people safe from harm.



~//~

T minus four days


They got the communication burst from the Daedalus when she was a little over two days out, basically stating that she was on time with a rough manifest and passenger list attached. Reviewing the lists of supplies and personnel, Elizabeth was reminded that if everything went as planned, this would be the last trip out for the Daedalus, and that the City would be short over 50 people. People who would be leaving them for a home that was no longer hers.

Switching lists, Elizabeth started reviewing the people who had been sent out. Most of the names listed were returning personnel, people who had left for Earth on R&R trips, or for medical rehabilitation. A select few were those who had been indirectly sponsored by Gen. O'Neill, with Atlantis being their last option, others were on the list because their skills were needed. These people had been informed by the returning personnel that this was likely to be a one way trip; very few of the selected had decided to stay on Earth.

As she got to the M's on the new personnel list she paused, reading over the entries carefully looking for a set of three names. It looked as if McKay's sister had not taken up the offer of coming out to Atlantis. Elizabeth didn't really blame her, because while the Ori were not in the business of eating folks, they were also not in the habit of wholesale slaughter just for the hell of it. But Earth was home, the dangers were known and Jeannie had a nine year old daughter, a husband she loved, and a life there. Elizabeth could only pray there was never a day where that decision was shown to be incorrect.

Setting the Daedalus lists aside for her admin to divide among the department heads, Elizabeth brought up the lists of those leaving the City. Everyone listed had their evals, letters of introduction or recommendation, plus all the personnel returning had already completed their scheduled physicals. All that was left was the good-bye/welcome party planned for the last night Daedalus was on Atlantis.

Looking up, Elizabeth watched the techs in the control room go about the normal operations of the day. So far, today had been quiet. Chuckling to herself for feeling the urge, she none the less knocked gently on the wooden stand supporting one of her figurines. Better to be safe than sorry.

~//~

T minus 42 hours.

The day that the Daedalus arrived on her last run to Atlantis was, to put it mildly, insane. AT's 1 thru 4 came in hot and full of casualties, in addition to the refugees they were shepparding. Medical was overrun and out of beds, so people were bunking all over the inhabited portions of the City. Meanwhile they had seen a small rash of accidents and O'Neill had been run ragged cleaning up after those plus making sure that there was room for all the supplies and new personnel that were expected.

Walking through the crowded halls of Atlantis, Caldwell knew that he was going to miss the men and women who made this base what it was. They were less than two Atlantean days out from declaring their independence and yet they still took the time to offer aid to those in need. He wished, deeply, that the skeptics and nay-sayers on Earth could see all the good that Atlantis base was doing in Pegasus.

Turning the corner into the Gateroom Caldwell looked up at Weir's office, and seeing the glass walls in their clear configuration, he started up the stairs. As he got closer to the top of the stairs, he saw that Sheppard, McKay and O'Neill were meeting with Weir, all four were looking rather frayed around the edges. Hoping that his gifts would help alleviate some of the stress, Caldwell shifted the box in his arms, trying to minimize the clinking of glass.

Standing outside, waiting for the door to notice him and let him in, Caldwell sighed. He was really going to miss this crazy place.

~//~

Sitting in one of Elizabeth's office chairs, Jon could feel himself start to sprawl out in weary comfort. He was finally sitting down after hours of running around the City putting out the fires, both literal and figurative. Mustering a final bit of energy, he opened his eyes in time to see Caldwell pause outside the office doors, and with a flick mentally requested Atlantis open the doors.

Watching as Caldwell placed his box on the desk, Jon felt a stirring of curiosity, it looked as if they were getting gifts.

~//~

"Colonel, thank you for joining us. We were just discussing the final list of people heading out on the Daedalus. Has you crew completed the load out?" asked Elizabeth as she watched Caldwell open his package.

"Our registered cargo has been completely, returning personnel have all been assigned berthing and everything we could possibly unload, has been unloaded. Except this, compliments of General O'Neill." And lifting out four gift bags, he looked at the nametags attached to their handles. Passing out three, he looked over at Jon, "Your gifts are waiting for you in your rooms. Don't worry about it. Well? Are you going to open them?" and with that, Caldwell leaned against the desk.

Glancing at the smiling face of Caldwell to the gift bag in front of her, Elizabeth raised one eyebrow and started pulling items out. Placing them all before her, she started to laugh quietly; the mind behind these gifts did know her well. Lined up before her were a crystal tumbler, a one liter bottle of 18 year old Glenfiddich, a supersized container of Tums, another of Tylenol, two one pound bars of dark chocolate and a five pound bag of Kona coffee. Bliss. And all of it necessary survival supplies for commanding in the Pegasus galaxy.

Looking up from her goodies, she saw that John and Rodney had similar items from their bags, although John had also gotten a large supply of earplugs. Giggling slightly, she decided that O'Neill was showing that his sense of humor was still up and running. Peeking into the fourth bag, she saw that it was for Carson and the liquor in it was also Glenfiddich, and there were two bottles, instead of the bottle of Tylenol.

"Please pass on our thanks to the General, if you see him back on Earth, Colonel. We will treasure our gifts." John said quietly. And after reloading his bag, he set it beside his seat. "Do you know if the IOA has any idea of what we are planning?"

Sighing as business interrupted the relaxed atmosphere of the office, Caldwell shook his head. "So far, there is no indication that they have a clue. There are a few rumblings happening at the SGC, but that is to be expected given the sheer amount of supplies Harriman and Siler have been shoving through the gate. Most of the noise has been coming from the rank and file, but it is moving up the chain quickly. I doubt they will be able to manage another large delivery. I know I checked our manifests three times before we left to make sure we had everything loaded."

Rubbing his forehead, Jon nodded. "I think you're right. Harriman sounded a bit grim on the last transmission and said that was it. They had reached the end point on what they could skim. Frankly I didn't think they could pull getting as much of this stuff as they have. Thank God the new General as blind as a bat."

"Right. We are as stocked as we will ever be, people are either settling into the City or packing up, and we are up to our eyeballs in refugees. Business as usual then. Rodney? You are being awful quiet. What is wrong?" asked Elizabeth.

"Huh? Oh, nothing. Just thinking of what is going to happen once we are cut off." Leaning back in his chair, Rodney looked at John Elizabeth and O'Neill. "You do realize that we are going to have to decide what rules we are going to live by here, right? And given that we are an extremely international group, not everyone is going to agree with said rules."

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with McKay?" joked John. "I know. Lorne, O'Neill and I have been thinking about that too. Once we are officially on our own, we wanted to get together with the command staff, Heightmeyer and Teyla and discuss our new government. Because we are going to need a functional one as soon as possible. The command structure we have will work for a while, but it won't last forever."

Mildly surprised that Rodney had put the pieces of her next headache together so fast (and wasn't that disturbing, a Rodney who noticed people and politics!), Elizabeth nodded. "That is number one on the list for the morning after the party, while we are still in the mood to make the decisions. And, sorry Stephen, it will be after Daedalus leaves so you and your crew don't get into any deeper trouble."

"Don't worry about it, Elizabeth. We, at least my command staff, knew that there would be things you were leaving us out of, and we are not upset at all. In fact, we thank you. Given that I have delivered my packages, I am heading out. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves once I am gone." And with a nod to all, he headed out, back straight.

"Colonel Caldwell!" called John as he stood up. When Caldwell turned around, John stood at attention and snapping a salute, held it as O'Neill joined him. Seeing what he was doing, the Marine stationed outside Elizabeth's office also stood at attention and saluted. Spreading out in silent waves, the control room got quiet as all the military personnel saluted the man who had helped make their independence possible.

Clearing his throat and blinking rapidly, Caldwell nodded and returned the honors, holding John's eyes for a ten count. Snapping his hand down, he turned in a parade perfect about face and walked out of the Gateroom.

~//~

Standing in front of the full assembly of Atlantis personnel, Elizabeth cleared her throat and started her speech in a firm clear voice. "Thank you all for being here.

"We are gathered here tonight to say goodbye to all of you who are returning to Earth, and honor all those who have fallen in this long war.

"To those who are leaving, thank you. Without your dedication and hard work, our independence would be a much more difficult proposition. Our lives are richer for having you here.

"For those we have lost, let us remember them, honor them, and never let them be forgotten." and with that Elizabeth bowed her head, silent for two minutes. Taking a deep breath, she raised her head and her glass of wine, she smiled. "Okay. Speech over. Let the party begin!"

~//~

Watching the ebb and flow of the party, John admitted that this had been a good idea. For the folks who were leaving, it was a last good memory of Atlantis to carry with them to Earth. For the new arrivals it was a way to meet everyone before buckling down to the hard work ahead. Add in the Daedalus folks, the Athosians, and the newest batch of refugees and the din was deafening.

Searching the throng before him for "his" departee's John started making the rounds. Somehow he managed to find everyone and say a private good-bye to each, making sure they knew he had been honored to serve with them. The words he spoke may have been a tad formulaic, but the feelings behind those few words had been all too real.

Once his list was done, John stood back and indulged in some people watching. Sighing deeply in contentment, he knew that the whole party idea had done some good. Everyone was relaxed and having a good time, no one was getting too upset and the refreshments were disappearing at a good rate. So, now that he had the hard part of the evening done, it was time to find his favorite form of entertainment. Rodney. Grabbing two beers from one of the buckets scattered around the rooms, John started looking.

~//~

Gazing at the buffet spread out before him, Rodney sighed happily. There was a good mix before him of Pegasus delicacies and imported Earth foods, all of them safe to nibble on. Grabbing two large plates, Rodney started at one end of the tables and began adding a bit of everything to the plates.

When his plates were as full as they were going to get, Rodney started walking towards one of the deeper conversational nooks. The party was being held in the room they had designated as the "Grand Ballroom" and each wall had several of these spaces, no one had ever figured out why. Through some clever design the niches were fairly quiet, thus you could hold a private conversations in them and still watch the room beyond.

Setting one of his two plates down, Rodney pulled two forks out of his pockets and after planting one in the plate on the bench, sat down. Taking the other fork in hand, he started poking through his haul. "You need to eat something soon." Nodding his head towards the plate on the bench he continued "I got some of your favorites."

Snorting softly, John handed Rodney one of the two beers he held as he sat down on the bench. "I do eat you know. Matter of fact, I eat several times a day"

"I know. But over the last week you have missed more meals than you have managed to eat." And using his fork, Rodney pointed at the food. "Eat."

"Who do you have monitoring my meals? Lorne?" sighed John as he picked up his plate and looked over the selection of food Rodney had gotten for him.

"Actually, no. Should I? And no, I am not going to tell you who is reporting on your eating habits." said Rodney. Humming softly to himself, he took a long pull from his beer and leaned back. Life was, for the moment, good.

"I'll figure it out someday, Rodney." promised John as he too leaned back. "Good party. Did you say all your good-byes?"

"Yeah, I got them all in. Everyone has their contact lists and letters. Basically, all I have to do tomorrow is wave as they leave."

"Me too." and nodding his head at the party, John continued "So, we eat and then mingle?"

"Do I have too? You know I hate parties." complained Rodney as he worked his way through his share of the food.

"Yup. If I have to, so do you. Eat up, you will need your strength." and with that, John started eating.


~//~

Despite some truly monumental hangovers, the entire command staff of Atlantis showed up for the early morning liftoff. Watching the men as they winced away from the bright light and loud noises, Elizabeth and Teyla shared amused glances and secret smiles. Watching them were Daniel and Rodney, and since both of them had refrained from drinking as heavily as the others, they were fully capable of poking fun at their friends.

Observing the whole situation from behind his sunglasses, John knew that he and the other guys were in for a great deal of teasing in the days ahead. Thankfully most of it would be good natured and it would eventually die away. Eventually. If nothing else someone would come back through the 'Gate naked and have to explain. Maybe. Soon.

~//~

Rocking on his heels as he waited for each person to say their final good-byes, Rodney looked over at John. Smiling brightly he leaned over and said, "So! Wanna go a little closer to the ship, Major?"

Looking a bit green around the gills, John shook his head slightly. "Someday you will truly remember that I made Colonel. Anyway, thanks for the thought but I think I am close enough. How about you, Jon? Stephen?"

"Don't remind me Sheppard. I get to walk into that." and wincing slightly, Caldwell looked over at the Daedalus and the clusters of people slowly boarding her. "I am too damn old to spend all night drinking before I ship out. Why did I let you talk me into this again?"

"Because I put the glass in your hand and didn't tell you to stop drinking?" answered Jon. "Please tell me that we have a lot of Tylenol on hand?"

With a small smile hovering around the edges of his mouth, Carson nodded. "Yes, Jon, we have a lot of Tylenol on hand." Reaching into the bag at his side, Carson started handing out bottles of water and packets of pain medication

"One would think you all would know better by now. Being such old and experienced military men and all." and snickering slightly, Daniel took his water bottle, but passed on the drugs. He knew when to stop drinking, even if Jon didn't.

"Old! Who are you calling old, Danny? Has to be Stephen, because I am not old." grumbled Jon as he swallowed his share of the water and Tylenol.

"Hey! I am not old. And while you may not be physically older than me, the General sure as hell is. And since you came from him.... Well I guess that mean that you *are* older than I am!" and smiling smugly Stephen looked over at Jon.

Growling slightly, Jon nodded. Jack was older than Stephen, and well, up until June 2003, Jon hadn't even been in existence. Thanks to an interfering Asgard with cloning on his mind, Jon had come into being. As had Danny. And now he was in the body of a twenty-two year old. And he was obviously feeling every one of his years, including Jacks.

"Gentlemen, please. Supposedly you are all adults. Please do not make me have you sit on your hands.", and smiling at the antics of those around her, Elizabeth continued to watch the loading of the Daedalus.

"Hey! We resemble that remark!" said Jon with a grin. Nodding at the others they agreed. Time to lay off on the jokes.

Glancing at his watch, Stephen nodded to himself. It was time for him to board his ship. "Well folks, it is time to go. Good luck. If you ever make it back to Earth, you will have friends waiting." and reaching out, he started shaking hands in a final good-bye. Reaching Elizabeth, he paused and with a smile, gave her a hug instead of a handshake. Turning on his heel, Stephen swept a glance over the people before him. Atlantis was in good hands.

~//~

Three days later.

Sitting at his console, Chuck looked up as the 'Gate started to light up due to an incoming wormhole. Checking his status board, he could see that there were no teams expected to report in. Actually, there were no teams out at all. And all their allies knew they were going to be incognito for a while. So it was either an emergency from their allies, or it was something else. It was also way too soon for the Daedalus to have reported back and the weekly check in wasn't for another four days.

So, this wasn't in the plan of the day. Time to call in Dr. Weir and update her. Tapping his commo controls, Chuck announced "Dr. Weir, we have an incoming wormhole. No information on where it is from yet."

"Thank you, Chuck. I will be right there."

From his post Chuck watched as the Gateroom Marines took up station around the room. If anyone tried to make it in, they were sure to have an interesting welcome. Shifting slightly he placed his hand over the iris controls, ready in case he needed to drop it in a hurry. Watching the sixth chevron flash by Chuck noticed that Dr. Weir was now standing beside him, when the seventh chevron passed by, and the Gate continued to dial, he swallowed. There was only one place that routinely called in from an eight chevron address. Earth. And they were early.

With a flash of blue light, the eighth chevron locked and they now had an open wormhole. From who, they didn't know yet. Glancing at his boards, he nodded. "Dr. Weir, we have an incoming message from StarGate Command. Do you want me to patch it through to your office?"

"No, thank you. I will take it here. Please put it up on the main screen." and turning slightly, Dr. Weir moved towards the screen.

"Atlantis, this is General James Balok of the SGC. Has the Daedalus left station yet?"

"General, this is Dr. Weir. Yes, Daedalus has left and is three days into her return voyage. Why are you asking?"

"Because we need her to turn around and pick up your ZPM. This message is to inform you that the Atlantis ZPM is now needed on Earth for her defense. Please ready it for transport."

"General, without that ZPM, Atlantis has no defenses. Why is Earth demanding we turn it over?" asked Dr. Weir. And clasping her hands behind her back, she signaled the staff of the Gateroom to call up Sheppard and McKay.

Toggling his radio, Chuck quietly passed on the request. Getting two affirmative responses, he made sure to nod slightly at Dr. Weir as she glanced at him. Back up was on the way.

"I don't believe you understand me in this, Dr. Weir. Earth has priority over Atlantis in this instance. My advisors are certain that the naquadah reactors that you have on hand will be able to run the city well enough to continue with a slightly modified version of your mission. Of course if the Wraith do show up, Earth will do all she can to help." and leaning back in his chair, the General looked at her, seeming to think this was all the explanation that was needed.

"Pardon me, General, but that is not acceptable. With only naquadah generators supplying power to the infrastructure of the City, we will not be able to use our shield. Without our shields we would be helpless. That is not acceptable. Thus I am sorry to inform you that Atlantis will not be giving up her only, repeat *only* ZPM with out a better reason than that. We happen to like surviving and that piece of Ancient technology is one of the ways that we do that."

"Doctor, you really have no choice in the matter. Atlantis will give up her ZPM. This has been approved at the highest of levels, both by the IOA and the Presidents office." and while still leaning back in his chair, the General was now starting to radiate a bit of smugness. It wasn't a good look for him.

"I am sorry to hear that General. Given what you have just said, it makes it easier to say this: Atlantis is now independent. We will not hand over our only means of survival to Earth. We will not stop our current mission which is to learn as much as we can about Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy. We will not stop helping other cultures in this galaxy. And we will not stand by and allow either the President or the IOA to gut us."

Staring at her in shock, the General was silent. Suddenly he looked up, beyond the camera on his desk, and the picture went blank. Seconds later, the wormhole from Earth disappeared. Watching the blank screen for a few moments, Dr. Weir sighed, and then turned around. "Well that went well. Not."

Snorting softly in amusement, Chuck nodded. Dr. Weir was right, that hadn't gone over very well. Glancing at the screen that was set to monitor the Daedalus, he could only hope that they were going to be allowed to continue their trip home.

~//~

"So, who was that calling?" asked Rodney as he and John came up the stairs at a trot.

"The new General in charge of the SGC. His name is James Balok. Had either of you had a chance to meet him yet?" asked Elizabeth as she walked toward her office.

"Nope. Not me. Rodney?" said John as he followed her.

"What? No, I haven't. Elizabeth? Was he short, bald and gapped toothed?" asked Rodney with a strange smile on his face.

"No, why?" Elizabeth was confused. The man on the screen hadn't looked like that at all. And hadn't Rodney said that he had never met the General?

Chuckling quietly, Rodney answered, "Neither of you are Trekkies then. Balok was a character on the original series. A villain if memory serves me correctly. Guess the writers really did steal names off of real people!"

"Okay, that is oddly interesting. But obviously not why Elizabeth called us up here. What's up? And why did Chuck call us on the red alert channel?" asked John as he sat down on one of the chairs in Elizabeth's office.

"Right. Business. Then talk about Rodney's TV habits.", and clearing her throat, Elizabeth repeated the conversation she had just had with Balok.

"Now that is weird. I wonder why they need our ZPM? They have two, the one in Antarctica has to be in good shape due to not being used and the one in the power grid has to be the most closely monitored item on the planet. What gives?" and blinking hard Rodney quickly ran through a list of possible scenarios. When nothing jumped to the top of the list he dropped the whole question as useless and tried to bring his mind back to the meeting.

"No idea. And we didn't get a commo squeal either. So I doubt there will be any new information on that front. Although they may try to redirect the Daedalus." said Elizabeth.

Speaking quietly, John said, "I hope not. Actually, I don't think they can. Caldwell told me on the sly, that the Daedalus was scheduled to go into dry dock before her last run and it had been pushed back so they could do this one. She is way overdue for one and not really in any shape to go into battle, let alone a battle with Atlantis. Given that, the SGC would be smart to send in a newer ship. If nothing else, they may think it would have a better chance against us."

"Right. Like that will work. Our shield holds off Hiveships. Does the SGC really think they have anything that is going to get through? And if we get an eight chevron dial in, that iris is not going to come down with out the proper ID and codes. Which that General does not know." and sounding rather smug, Rodney sat back with his arms crossed.

"What about your back door program. The one you used to get us in here when we retook the city from the Asurians? Is that still viable?" asked John.

"Sure, it is viable. For me most definitely, maybe Radek, and possibly Col. Carter. But for the run of the mill SGC people like Bill Lee? No, not a hope in hell. The initial back door I used on that mission got moved right after we got possession of the City. Now it moves every couple of days. So, no. They can't use it. They are welcome to try, but there will be more than a few splats on the iris if they do." explained Rodney with a shrug.

Nodding, Elizabeth turned to John. "Okay. So we have no worries on that front. What about an incoming ship? We are rather well known out here."

Tipping his head back, John contemplated the ceiling as he took a deep breath. Releasing it slowly, he looked back at Elizabeth and Rodney. "Right. Well that is something that Lorne, Jon and I have been talking about. Given what we know about the StarGates, we don't have to stay here. Hell, we know that the Asurians fixed the stardrive. We even know that it works, thanks to all the tests that the engineers ran when we got the City back. We can move the whole City to a new planet if needs be. Since that would in effect, change our address, we might want to hold that plan in reserve.

"Another idea would be to sink the City. Again, this is something that we can do at any time. And we can move her away from this location to a new one at will. We have the power and we aren't really tied to this spot for any reason that we can see.

"Last idea is just sit tight with the shield up. Now that won't do anything for the Mainland, but somehow I don't think that the SGC is all that interested I the Athosians and tuttle roots, do you?"

~//~

Because he was watching the long ranged sensors that were normally trained on the Daedalus, Chuck was the only one to really see the icon that represented the ship stop and then wink out. Staring at the screen in shock for a moment he blinked. Then with a shudder hit the red alert siren. The Daedalus may no longer have been theirs to call on in time of need, but the people on her were theirs, and you never left anyone behind.

As soon as the siren started its call, the door to Dr. Weir's office opened so fast it seemed to bounce on its track. Running out of the room at full speed were Dr. McKay and Col. Sheppard, followed closely by Dr. Weir. Dancing his hands over his controls, Chuck called the data from the long range sensors up onto the main screen and transferred it all to the spare laptop Dr. McKay left on the command deck for these situations. Grabbing the laptop as soon as the transfer complete light lit, Chuck handed it off to Dr. McKay. His part was done now, well it was unless they wanted him to report on what he had seen.

~//~

Grunting in thanks, Rodney took the computer that Chuck passed him. Flipping through all the sensor data took only moments and glancing at the larger display screen for confirmation, he nodded.

"Okay. Here is what it looks like. Daedalus for some reason drops out of hyperspace and less than two minutes later is apparently shot down. Thanks to time, the war between the Ancients and Wraith and a tight-fisted set of governments, we have very little senor capability in that area of space. All of which mean that definitive sensor data is sketchy as to who shot the Daedalus and what she was shot with. There may be Gates close to there, but we'll need to check the database for that. One thing is certain however, it wasn't the Wraith that shot her down. Daedalus is or rather was, on a new heading out since the route they had taken in is currently crawling with Hiveships. So it has to be something else.", and as he was talking, Rodney was typing in orders and data requests for Radek into the computer. Hitting the button to transmit his orders, he looked up at John and Elizabeth, "It is going to be at least an hour before we can get any detailed information out of the database. Now what?"

"Now we get to figure out what we do next. Obviously calling the SGC for help is out of the question. For one thing they have no way to send out a rescue ship in anything close to time. And having them come out here so close to our little bombshell would not be smart. So, do we at least know where they were last?" said Elizabeth as she walked closer to the main view screen.

"Yeah, that we do know.", and snapping his fingers at Chuck, got Rodney got him to put the ships last known location of screen. "What is out there besides the Daedalus? Right now we don't know. I'm going to need have Jackson and his department go over what the database has to say about that section of space to find out what is in that system.", and muttering to himself and at Radek over his radio, Rodney started towards the main computer terminal, intent on starting the search right away. As John and Elizabeth followed behind him, they both started getting calls from their second in commands.

"Lorne? Good, get O'Neill and Jackson out of the chair room and the three of you need to be up here for a meeting. We need to get the Marines scrambled for a possible search and rescue, rescue conditions are currently unknown as are the number of casualties. Have each of the team medics coordinate with the infirmary for what supplies would be best to have on hand. Also, make sure that the crews have all of the Jumpers refitted to carry multiple stretchers and have one outfitted as a mobile OR, the plans are in the emergency response folder. Anything else can be decided at the meeting.", and saying that, John grabbed Rodney by the elbow and started steering him and the laptop into the main conference room instead.

"Right Teyla, we will need to open up the refugee quarters and have anyone who hasn't given blood in the last four to six weeks start lining up outside the infirmary to donate. Also, we are going to need to have the commissary make up coffee and tea thermoses plus food packs for the rescue crews. Carson? Please tell your staff to get ready for a large number of personnel arriving for blood donations. It looks like we will be doing a SAR operation for the Daedalus. After you get that started, I need the both of you in the main conference room ASAP. Weir out.", and sliding into her chair, Elizabeth looked over at John and Rodney. "This is not going to be that easy, is it?"

Twin snorts greeted that statement. Shaking his head, John said softly, "I have done SAR's on aircraft before and that was an absolute horror; this isn't going to be fun by any stretch of the imagination. And given that we are talking about a spaceship, which has hopefully crashed into habitable albeit unknown territory, this is going to be worse than most. Rodney, have you or Radek worked out the location of any Gates near the Daedalus's yet?"

"Busy here, Major! I have only much I can do. I mean, yeah I suppose I could drop finding out what shot at and hit the Daedalus, but hey? I've only been working on the problem for the last three minutes. Bother me when it has been five," sniped Rodney as his hands flew over the keyboard of the laptop.

"McKay!", snapped John. He knew that Rodney was busy coordinating his teams response, but there were some priorities that needed to be met first.

"Okay, okay! Yeah, alright, alright, checking. Radek says that there are three that are in the area, but all are a ways away from the exact location. There's nothing that I can see in the database on this area, but I am not the one really looking. I also have nothing on what shot Daedalus down, and I so do not want to go into an area where ships are shot at just for being there."

"McKay! Put Jackson on that, he reads Ancient better than you do. You need to figure out how long it will take us to reach the Daedalus's last known location by PuddleJumper," John growled. Pushing and prodding Rodney towards a set goal was an art that John had long since mastered. However in instances like this, managing Rodney's ability to multitask was more important than being polite. John needed all of Rodney's attention on just this one problem, they had other people to take care of the rest.

~//~

Forty-five minutes after the Daedalus had disappeared off of the long distance sensor array, the planning of the search and rescue mission was done. Initially three Jumpers would head out to each of the three possible Gates. Each ship was equipped with the latest in McKay/Zelenka sensors, and would attempt to find any and all traces of the Daedalus. Piloting the Jumpers would be John, Lorne and O'Neill, since the three men had strong expressions of the ATA gene sequence and could get the little ships to push their sensors further than their rated optimum.

Riding co-pilot would be Rodney, Parrish, and Jackson, each of whom would be monitoring the sensor arrays for any sign of the Daedalus. Once the ship was found and triangulated, each group would report back and then start at best speeds to find and recover as many survivors off the Daedalus as possible. Along for the ride on each ship would be a detachment of Marines trained in SARs, emergency first aid and basic engineering.

~//~

Watching the spread of stars outside of the window, John fought the urge to snap at Rodney to hurry it up, after all he was the self proclaimed miracle worker. Taking a deep breath, John decided that discretion was the better part of valor in this case and that there was no reason to start another sniping war. Given how long this trip was to take he knew that having a pissed off Rodney sitting beside him, right before a mission like the one they were on, would not be fun. Besides, his Scottish accent was horrible.

Glancing at the displays, John decided to try adding another five percent power to the sensor array. As soon as it was added, the *ping* of an active find was heard. Working quickly, Rodney soon isolated the data and throwing it up on the HUD confirmed what John had known. It was the Daedalus, and she was a long way's away.

Nodding at Rodney to dial the Gate to let Atlantis know, John started to get ready for a long ride. They had eight hours before they would be at the Daedalus's location.

~//~

Concentrating on the controls before him, Lorne managed to keep his mind blank as they moved ever closer towards their rendezvous with the other ships. He had worked SAR's before with the SGC and Atlantis, but the missions had all been to rescue populations that had been attacked for one reason or another. He had never had to deal with the crash landing of a space ship. Listening to the Marines who had experience with airplane crash recovery, he knew this was going to be bad.

Trying to keep his mind (and Parrish's) off the grisly topic of conversation going on in the crew cabin, Lorne decided to indulge his curiosity. He had been wondering what the real reason had been for Col. Caldwell to direct his ship onto the heading she had been on when they left Atlantis. Mentally flipping through the program list available for the HUD, Lorne drew up a three dimensional view of Pegasus and began to plot the voyages he remembered the Daedalus taking. Finishing that took very little time and looking at the places where the Daedalus had entered and exited the galaxy nothing really seemed to spring to mind, there seemed to be no pattern.

"Try adding these points to that.", and nodding at the display, Parrish handed Lorne a tablet with a list of all the planets that Daedalus had stopped at over the last five years.

Glancing over the list, Lorne still couldn't see the pattern, but why not? It would eat into the time they were spending in transit. "Right, you read them out, and I'll enter, okay?"

"Got it. Okay, first planet on the list is P2X-883.", and in a clear voice, Parrish started to read down the list. As each new data point was added to the model on the HUD, more and more patterns started appearing, drawing the attention of the group behind them. Muttering and comments started getting louder as it became clear what their new picture was telling them.

Cris-crossing the three dimensional picture of the Pegasus galaxy was a classic grid pattern delineating a search pattern that had taken years to complete. Admittedly the survey had been intermittent over the years, and it was by no means in depth, but for a surface look, it covered most of the galaxy. One of the last major spots to be covered had been the area where Daedalus had been shot down. Now they knew a possible reason as to why the ship had been there.

Looking at the pattern, Lorne shook his head. Turning to face the people behind him, he said, "Okay people, we are not going to go and tell everyone about this right now. Once we get back to Atlantis, all of this will be turned over to Dr. Weir, the Colonel and Dr. McKay and they can take it from there. That means that until and unless it is disclosed to the rest of the City, you lot can't talk about it. Got that?"

"Yes, sir! We understand.", said Sgt. Patterson, the Marine medic normally assigned to AT-8. The rest of the personnel in the crew cabin nodded. This wasn't something they wanted to get into the middle of. Even if they were hoping to find out what it meant.

~//~

Watching Danny as he translated the Ancient database was one of the more boring aspects of this flight. But being able to read ahead of his translations was much more fun. Weird, but fun. Having Danny *catching* him at it though, was not so much fun.

"Sic quamdiu vos validus ut lego Anqueetas, Jack?" So how long have you been able to read Ancient, Jack?" asked Danny in Ancient. "Quod quare vos permissum nos teneo?" And why didn't you let us know?

Flinching slightly at the tone of his voice, Jon replied in the same language "Uhh.... It started the first time I sat in the control Chair on Atlantis and has been getting stronger ever since. And that was weeks ago, with no side effects." Hopefully that would be enough for Danny. A pissy Dr. Jackson was not something he wanted to have within arms reach.

"Apparently you read Ancient better than I do now." Danny said quietly in Ancient. This was not good.

"Because most of what I was doing before wasn't actually reading like I do English. Most of the time it is basically recognizing words that I know, so I didn't really realize I was reading Ancient until now." muttered Jon in the same language. Switching over to English he said, "Besides, I was hoping this was left over fluency from 'Ground Hog Day'."

Danny sat still for a moment and then snorted. Switching back to English as well, he said, "Right, that was the day where I spent three plus months teaching you and Teal'c Ancient and don't remember a bit of it."

"Yeah, that's the one." nodded Jon. Deciding that changing the subject was the better part of valor, he said, "So, have you figured out what shot down the Daedalus?"

Accepting the change in subject, Danny nodded as he looked over his notes. "You know how Atlantis has a finite supply of drones, and seemingly no way to make or get more?"

Feeling more than a little cautious at the leading question, Jon nodded. "Yeah, I'd wondered about that. Sheppard and Lorne have been bitching about the numbers of drones in the launchers at most of the military supply meetings. And the griping was worse before we broke things off with the SGC because there were rumbles about shipping some of the Atlantis drones back to Earth. Now that we are on our own there doesn't seem to be a way easily to get more. All of us are seriously worried. Why do you ask?"

Flipping his notes back and forth, Danny nodded. "Well I know why the drones aren't built anywhere on Atlantis. From this entry in the database they're extremely hard to build and unstable until the final step in the growing/manufacturing process. So the Ancients put the plant to make, or is that grow," and now he frowned down at his notes, "them in an out of the way area of the galaxy. The coordinates for the plant were in the data base and, correcting for stellar drift and a base eight number system, it turns out that Daedalus showed up at its front door. Arriving as they did without the right technology or codes, the automated systems must have shot them down."

Looking up from his notes, Danny frowned over at his friend. "Jon, there may not be anyone left aboard her to save."

~//~

Spatially speaking, O'Neill and Jackson turned out to be closer to where the scans had originally placed the Daedalus's emergency beacon and so had less time to travel. Holding station an hour away from that point, they paused waiting for the other puddle jumpers to reach them. While they were waiting for the others to arrive, Jon decided to have the passive scanners take a good hard look at the remnants of the solar system ahead of them. It was a constructive way to pass the time, because as soon as the others were in range they all needed to talk.

~//~

Watching the other ships come in, Jon knew that the "easy" part of this was now over. Once Danny had dropped his bombshell they, meaning McKay, would have to come up with something. Thinking over that idea, Jon could only shake his head and wonder for the millionth time why Loki hadn't cloned Carter too. For all that he and Jack had the ATA gene sequence, Carter had the real scientific smarts. Well Daniel did too but still, Carter ran rings around both himself and Jack!

Getting the icon on the screen that meant incoming transmission, Jon initiated the mental command that allowed the Jumper to accept it. Nodding at Sheppard and McKay as their images took the place of the HUD, he waited. Just a few seconds later, another icon popped up and the screen split to show Lorne and Parrish. He knew that on each of the other Jumpers something similar had happened and could only be glad that these ships existed. Doing this in a Tel'tak was not something that he would have looked forward too.

"Okay, now that we are all here do you have anything new to add Dr. Jackson? I know that you said that you would be continuing your research and translations while in flight, what have you got for us?" asked Sheppard.

Daniel took a deep breath and nodded. "What Jon and I have found isn't good. It looks like Ancients placed their weapons factories in uninhabited solar systems as far off the beaten track as could be easily managed. In this specific case, it looks like the Daedalus stumbled across a factory in which they made drone weapons. From the description, the drone factory is housed in a large space station type thing; and it was to be placed in an asteroid belt. The information I have doesn't give the breakdown on how it made the drones; just that the reason it was placed there was because the manufacturing/growing process is too dangerous and volatile to do planet-side. At the end of the war, before the Ancients left for Earth, they sent the shutdown codes on a secure data burst, so the factory itself should be mothballed. But the structure it is housed in was powered by ZPM's and should still have active defenses. Plus the defenses are geared to recognize only Ancient technology as friendlies."

Looking horrified, McKay broke in, "The Daedalus isn't made of Ancient materials or design, so they must have tripped the sensors as an unknown, possible hostile ship. Oh, shit. This is not good." and looking down at his laptop, he started to type. "Can you send me all the information you have on this, Daniel?"

"Yeah, I am transmitting now." sighed Daniel.

~//~

Watching the data scroll across his computer screen, Rodney had to admit that having Jackson in Atlantis had several good points, not the least of which was the speedy translations. While he could read and understand the Ancient version of scientific jargon, translating anything straight out of the database was a chore best left to the experts, even if they were from the soft sciences. And while this had been a rushed job, it had been expertly done. Wait a second, O'Neill had helped with this?

"Did you say that you and O'Neill did the translating?" he questioned.

"Yeah, I helped. Years ago Jack and Teal'c got caught in a version of 'Groundhog Day' and they had to learn Ancient to get themselves out of it. It's all been coming back to me since we moved to Atlantis." said Jon. He looked a bit sheepish at admitting that he had contributed to the translation.

Looking interested, John leaned closer to the screen, "I seem to remember that the General also got a Repository of the Ancients downloaded into his head as well. Has any of that been coming back?"

Rodney glanced up to watch O'Neill's face as he answered that question. Given who and what he was, it was a question that really should have been asked weeks ago, but hadn't for one reason or another. The main reason being Sheppard and Weir telling Rodney he couldn't grill Jon for the information locked in his skull. Watching as O'Neill started to look more than a bit uncomfortable at the question, Rodney had a hunch that the side-stepping had been there on both sides of the equation.

"What's mainly coming back are the language skills. Since I've no real need for anything else at this point, I don't think I'll be developing any new abilities, at least I hope not. So, Doc, got any ideas on how we can get around the defenses?" and plainly hoping for a change in subject, Jon looked at Rodney.

"I just got this information. Give me five minutes to work a miracle or two, would you?" he snapped. He wasn't angry or anything, just really distracted by the information coming up on his computer. Reading further into the translated entry Rodney had to admit (at least to himself) that the odds of the Daedalus getting through this in any shape at all were more than slim; they were into serious miracle territory here.

Keeping a small percentage of his attention on the discussion flowing around him, Rodney opened the window containing the sensor information and started accessing the data Jackson had transmitted. Thanks mainly to Radek; the sensor arrays on all the Jumpers had been upgraded beyond what the Ancients had thought sufficient. This had included the passive sensors and thanks to those upgrades, the computers now had a lock on where the Daedalus had been heading. Following the trace should be relatively easy.

What was not going to be easy was figuring out a way to safely get into the system and start evacuating any survivors. And even if the space station was in stand down, Rodney knew he was going to want to board it and find out had a crop of drones. If there were any onboard, he was going to want to see if they could ship a few thousand of them home to Atlantis. He was also going to want to try to move the station to a system closer to Atlantis, but not the same system of course, but close.

Dropping that line of thought, Rodney moved on to the next item on his mental list; what was in the system ahead? From the passives on all three Jumpers, there looked like to be something at or right before the traditional spot for a water bearing planet, and the trace from the Daedalus was pointed in that direction. It seemed they had survived the initial run in with the station and its defenses and had made all possible speed to someplace that might be safe.

Reaching the analysis of the debris left by Daedalus scroll by, Rodney noticed the chemical composition of the trail. It seemed as if the trail left by the Daedalus held trace elements of nitrogen, oxygen, argon and several more notes from the chemical make-up of air. Add in a few dashes of trinium, naquadah, and the esoteric elements of a drone weapon and you had a fine mess that was hopefully going to lead to a bunch of survivors.

That figured out, it was time to find that station. Hunting through the mass of passive scanning, Rodney could find no trace of it. It looked as if they would need to either go active scanners or get in a lot closer. He was voting for closer and active. With shields. Lots of shields.

~//~

Listening to the reports from the other two teams, John kept an eye on Rodney, letting him have the five minutes he asked for and then a bit more. Finally deciding that enough time had passed and that Rodney had likely reached all the decisions he was going to reach, John cleared his throat and brought the discussion back to the subject at hand.

"Okay, Rodney. What have you found for us?"

"Right. Well I am indeed a genius and I have proven it again. In the good news, it looks like Daedalus made it through the initial altercation with the station. There are traces of atmosphere, hull material and drone leftovers trailing from where the Daedalus must have dropped out of hyperspace. All signs are heading towards what may be a planet at the M3/M4 location and that means there should indeed be survivors.

"For the bad news, at the present time I can find no trace of the station. Which means that it either shut down it self down again, or it cloaked itself. And if it is the first, we're going to need to get a lot closer and go active on the sensors. If we do that, I suggest we do so under shields and spread out so as to cover as much space as possible. If it is the second we have a bigger problem, in that the station is active and we will be moving into sensor range and that means that we are going to be in range of its drones." and leaning back in his chair, Rodney closed his eyes, for the moment, finished.

Listening to the good news and then the litany of doom and gloom, John had to admit, nothing kept Rodney down for long. Even this. "Right. We know that Daedalus has been hit and hit hard, we have a mystery space station that needs to be found and neutralized, add in a seriously long distance rescue operation and we have problems.

"Elizabeth will have dropped three communication satellites at each of the Gates we exited and there will Jumpers leaving Atlantis every two hours with more bodies to help with rescue. By now, Teyla, Ronon, and Carson will have set up the emergency quarters and med stations outside of the Jumper Bay." Ticking off his points on his hands as he talked, John started running through the disaster relief plan that had been set up two months after the Expedition had gotten to Atlantis.

~//~

The decision had been made to just fly in. Given that they were in Puddle Jumpers of Ancient design, it was deemed that they should be safe enough.

Leading the way into the system were John and Rodney in Jumper One, and ranging ahead of them in overlapping waves were the active sensors of all three ships. With Rodney riding herd on the scanner data, the three Jumpers were radiating for all they were worth and the data was pouring in. It looked as if there really was a planet at the M3 position and that the trail left by the Daedalus was definitely heading in that direction. The rest of the solar system seemed to follow the standard pattern of several rocky inner planets and a few gaseous outer planets, all separated by a field of asteroids.

The station itself was still hiding out. Working by process of elimination, Rodney moved his way into the system, ruling out the farthest planets, their moons and attendant debris fields. As the other two Jumpers had come into the system, their data was added to his analysis and thus narrowing the field of study even further. Since there wasn't a hostile response from anything in the outer system, it was determined that the station had to be hidden somewhere in the asteroid belt. A place that was actually logical when you considered the fact that that was where most of the easily accessible raw materials in the system located.

Letting the search for the station fall back into second place on his monitor, Rodney started refining the data on the Daedalus's current position. He had the planet pinpointed and then extrapolated which hemisphere could be housing the ship and hopefully any surviving members of her crew. Redirecting the output of the active sensors towards his possible crash site, Rodney concentrated on finding out what information could be teased out of them. Which wasn't much. They were going to have to get a lot closer. Again.

~//~

They were right outside the asteroid belt before the location of the space station was finally pinpointed. Unfortunately it wasn't found due to Rodney's efforts at the sensors, it was found because the station lit up its own sensor array and painted the incoming Jumpers. Each of the Jumper pilots found themselves attempting evasive maneuvers that he knew had no hope of succeeding and yet they had to try. Their co-pilots mostly held on for dear life and tried to not scream as they watched the star-scape corkscrew. The only one who didn't panic was McKay, he was too busy trying to interface with the station now that it was transmitting something. Three dizzying, terror filled minutes later, the station stood down.

Reversing course, the Jumpers started back towards their original heading. The course they had been on had proven to be the fastest way to the planet and thus the Daedalus and they needed to make all possible speed. As they flashed past the now silent station, Rodney made sure to get as complete a download of the stations specs and logs from the last three days as could be teased out of the computers. In return he made sure the station was as shut down as was possible; once that was done, Rodney turned his attention to the data he had acquired.

~//~

Skimming over the engineering specs in front of him, Rodney thought that it was a good thing he was good at reading engineering Ancient. Because that was all these plans had been written in. Muttering to himself as he ticked off each point of interest (airlocks, engine room, bridge, communications array, hydroponics, crew quarters, StarGate, manufacturing center, ZPM room, hanger bay with six Jumpers) he paused. Blinking at the list that had scrolled across his screen he stopped reading. Taking a deep breath he nodded to himself and scrolled back to the mention of the StarGate, Rodney stared at the notation written in Ancient. There was a StarGate listed as being on the station.

"Colonel, we need to get into that station. Now." Rodney stated as he started accessing the information connected to the 'Gate, airlocks and the hanger bay.

"Rodney? Why do we want to want to go to the station? Doesn't it want to kill us?" demanded John as he automatically brought the Jumper back onto the new course.

"Because there is a StarGate on that monster and we need to secure it so we can move the inevitable wounded out faster?" asked Rodney acidly. He was busy, damn it! Didn't his idiot Colonel realize that he was finding the information needed to get them through the airlocks and then into the stations Gateroom? Muttering to himself as he found and memorized the information, Rodney didn't even notice that what he was verbalizing a litany of gripes and petty complaints. Turning his attention back to Sheppard, Rodney said, "If we can get that Gate working, then the wounded have a two hour max flight versus sixteen hours at the shortest and a full twenty-four at the longest. All of which means Carson will be happier with us and there'll be no Scottish angst. Chop, chop Colonel, we don't have all day."

"Chop, chop? Where do you come up with these things? McKay, I'm not your servant. Besides, how do you know there's a StarGate on that thing?" said John as he completed the turn needed to point their Jumper towards the station. "You know? Never mind. I need to let Lorne and O'Neill know what we are doing." And putting his words into actions, John proceeded to let the other two pilots know about their change in plans. After a quick and dirty discussion the decision was made that the other two Jumpers were to continue on to the Daedalus to begin the rescue operations while Jumper One checked out the station.

~//~

John decided that the flight to the station had to be the most tension filled flight he had been on since his kamikaze run with a nuclear bomb during their first year on Atlantis. Thinking about it, John decided that their current flight had to be worse, because on this flight he had passengers on board and the most important of them was Rodney on board. Concentrating on the sensors for any activity from the station, John was grimly certain that if the station did fire on them, there was nothing that he would be able to do to stop it. And given that, John was trying very hard not to twitch.

Flying around the station to find an airlock that would fit the Jumper, John sincerely hoped that something was recording this trip. Because he wanted to go back over his flight around the outside of this thing and actually get a chance to pay attention to what he was seeing. The only hint of an actual Ancient site buried in the rock he was flying around was the occasional airlock protruding base material. Spying an airlock that looked like it would fit the Jumper, John flew coasted to a gentle stop and started the process of matching up with the station.

Gently nudging the Jumper into flying backwards to mate up with the airlock into the station, John concentrated fiercely on peaceful thoughts and keeping any automatic defenses from coming online. Waiting for the small bump and indicator light to confirm they were docked with the station was an exercise in slow torture that he really didn't need. Feeling the bump of contact, John looked at the HUD to confirm they were docked, and once the connection confirmed light was lit, he drew a deep breath. One hurdle down, time to overcome the next one. Getting out the pilots chair, John walked to the back hatch to confirm the presence of atmosphere and gravity aboard the station. After glancing at the readouts, John grunted. No atmosphere, no gravity.

"Sgt. Peters, please watch this panel and let me know when there are green lights all across the board." John ordered the Marine nearest the display.

With a nod, Peters barked out, "Yes, sir!" and turned to look at the panel.

"Right. Well let's see if the station will allow me in." and muttering to himself, John walked back to the pilots seat. "Rodney, since you got into the station's computers, why can't you get oxygen and gravity going so we can get to the StarGate?"

"I've been trying to do that since we turned back to the station, Colonel. The computers won't let me in. I need a higher level of authorization than I have to get to and initialize those functions. You try it." Rodney bitched as he continued poking at his computer in an effort to find a way around the security protocols.

"Shit. Time to play light switch again." Sighing John closed his eyes and began to feel his way along the circuits connecting the Jumper to the station. Thinking about what he was doing, John realized that it was a good thing that he was indeed a favorite son of Atlantis and that he had years of experience in mentally mapping the command pathways of Ancient technology. Without that practice what he was about to do would be that much harder if not impossible. Sliding through the flight computers and crystal circuits that made up his favorite Jumper, John reached the point where the station connected to the ship. Taking a deep breath, John "slid" himself across the gap and into the station itself.

John immediately felt as if he had entered a slightly foreign country (and when he wondered, did the Jumper start feeling like home?), everything was just a little bit off from what he was used to. Slowly, carefully he put forth the request for life support and gravity to come on line aboard the space station. For a long, heart stopping moment there was no response from the stations computers, and then there came the same feeling of *acknowledgement* that he got from Atlantis when she agreed to follow an order from him. Taking a moment to confirm that life support and gravity were coming up; John nodded to himself and slowly started working his way out of the station and back to the Jumper.

"Sir! We have green lights showing up. So far it looks like gravity and a breathable atmosphere. Temperature is still way low, but it's rising steadily." Peters was reporting to Rodney as John opened his eyes.

"Right. I am reading Atlantis normal gravity, the air mix is a bit skimpy, but can support human life and the heat is coming up to the 'Oh my God, it's cold!' range." Rodney was speaking like he expected a response from John, which given the level of concentration he was working at, wasn't too likely. Rolling his head to look over at him, John watched as Rodney's fingers danced over the laptop keyboard like the concert pianist he had once wanted to be.

"Colonel! It is time to stop sleeping on the job. Wakey, wakey!" Rodney sang out, his most annoying smirk plain in his voice.

Taking a deep breath, John pushed himself up and out of his chair and nodding at his extremely aggravating co-pilot, walked back towards the Jumpers cargo hatch again. It was time to see if his jaunt into the computers would indeed allow them the requested access. Right, there were the needed green lights across the readout panel for the station environment, so it looked like they were good to go.

Hitting the release for the airlock and back hatch, John stepped out onto the cargo ramp. Looking over his left shoulder, he wasn't surprised to see Rodney standing right behind him. Also not surprising was the tablet PC that he was holding out with a map to the Gateroom. After taking a quick look at the map it seemed like they were only a five minute walk away from it.

"Peters, you and your squad stay here with the Jumper, McKay you are with me, Marks take point. The rest of you fan out and don't touch anything!" and glancing at the Marines behind him, John stepped out onto the station. Which immediately lit up, the doors into the station itself opened, and a faint breeze started to blow. Resisting the urge to look over at Rodney, he motioned Marks onward.

~//~

Even to himself, Rodney knew he sounded more than a bit peeved at how the station had lit up for Sheppard. It wasn't like the Colonel meant to do it, but every piece of Ancient technology; from Atlantis to a life signs detector lit up and begged when Sheppard first came across it. This trait was more than a little disturbing (and annoying) on a normal basis, but it was coming in very handy right now.

Walking through the hallways of a station that had been empty for longer than Atlantis had been at the bottom of the ocean was a bit on the eerie side. Not unpleasant mind, but eerie. Reaching the mothballed control room was a relief in and of itself. Rodney ran an considering eye over the computers; it looked as if the Ancients had taken the time to properly shut them down, which would make bringing them online even easier.

"Colonel, if you could come over here and touch this station, we need to get the Gate up and running as fast as we can." he ordered as he shrugged out of his backpack. Stripping off the dust cover, Rodney ran an experienced eye over the equipment. It looked as if the input/output jacks were the same as those used on Atlantis, so the standard equipment he carried should work. Grabbing his laptop, Rodney started to attach the leads and then waited impatiently for Sheppard to do his thing.

"I'm thinking 'on' as hard as I can, Rodney. So far nothing," came the muttered response from Sheppard as he leaned on the same station.

Grabbing the chair in front of his chosen station, Rodney started trying to get into the stations computers through his laptop. "John, I need you to keep trying to get in. I am going to try an end run around the security protocols and I need you to keep pressing for access. This is important."

"No shit, McKay. I never would have guessed. Keep typing," disgust flavored the reply John fired back.

"Not talking now. Not talking. Come on, you Ancient hunk-a-junk. I'm working under a time crunch here, lemme in!" Rodney could feel his mouth continuing to move, independent of what he was actually thinking. He knew it was a habit of his that stretched back decades, and that it seemed to come out when he was under the most stress. And thanks to the insane numbers of life threatening situations he had been in, it meant that he had been constantly talking to himself since he arrived in this galaxy. Watching the computer screen in front of him, Sheppard beside him, and the read out for the computer station he had picked on the large display screen, Rodney saw the telltale blink of an active link come up. They were in.

~//~

Pacing the floor of her office never made the time go by any faster during a crisis, but it at least let her work off some of her nervous energy and gave her the illusion of doing something. And Elizabeth was running on more nerves and caffeine than she cared to think about. The first wave of three Jumpers had been out for over sixteen hours at this point, the second wave was on hour number fourteen and the third wave was on hour number twelve. There were currently nine Jumpers in reserve, but she wanted to hold onto them until they heard back from Sheppard.

Thinking about the composition of that first group, Elizabeth had to shake her head. What had they been thinking, sending the whole senior military chain of command out on the same mission? And to add insult to injury, they had done virtually the same thing with the science department! Most of the combat trained medics were on those flights and to cap it all off, 80% of their ATA positive personnel were out as well. If this had been an episode of Star Trek, the collective insanity of the whole idea would have had her screaming. Unfortunately, this was the only viable way they could make a long distance search and rescue operation work.

Gazing at the Gateroom floor from her office, Elizabeth wondered if she could sneak another visit in to the control room, without coming across as an overanxious mother hen. Looking at the clock on her laptop, she decided that option wasn't going to work out. After all it had only been fifteen long minutes since she had made her last pointless sweep. Moving back to her desk chair, she pulled it out and sat down. Maybe she should at least try to work for a bit? If nothing else, she needed to come up with something coherent to say to the SGC when they next called in. Bluntly saying that Atlantis had declared independence, while that worked for the short term, wasn't going to win them any points in the long term.

Right, she was sitting, looking at her screen saver and after touching the space bar, the clock showed that only five minutes had passed. Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth ran her finger over the touch pad on her laptop and opened a file. Time to get to work.

~//~

Several typed pages of a semi-coherent explanation to the SGC later; she felt the rumble of the 'Gate activating. Looking over at her secondary laptop, she confirmed that no teams were out, and none of their allies were scheduled to call in. Shoving out of her chair, she hurried across the walkway to the control room, and adding a bit of volume to her voice, asked, "Do we have anyone scheduled to call in at this time, Chuck?"

"No, ma'am. There is no one scheduled, the ETA on the rescue Jumpers is still twenty-four hours at the earliest and," here the 'Gate came to life, shimmering to life behind the shield. "It seems that this is a seven symbol address. So it shouldn't be the SGC."

"Do we know who it is? And is there any way we can get the originating address when someone dials in?" Elizabeth asked over her shoulder as she moved towards the railing surrounding the control room.

"So far, ma'am, we have nothing on who called in. As for getting the address, yes ma'am. We have that and we will be determining the galactic coordinates ASAP." Chuck replied. Tapping the panel in front of him, Chuck confirmed the receipt of a transmission. "Receiving radio transmissions now. Dr. Weir, it is Col. Sheppard's code."

Elizabeth stared at the Gateroom tech for a long moment and then said, "Put him through." And touching her radio, she keyed it for the command frequency. "John? How are you talking to me? I thought Rodney said there were no 'Gates out where the Daedalus crashed?"

Sounding tired, John huffed a weary chuckle, "We got lucky. That space station we found mention of? It has a StarGate on board. We are in the control room right now, getting this place ready to receive a whole lot of wounded. Lorne and O'Neill continued onto the planet where the Daedalus crashed down and they said it was bad. Now, I know that we have at least nine Jumpers out, including our three. Is that correct?"

"Yes, John, you are correct. How did you get onto the station?" she asked.

"Not gonna go into that right now, Elizabeth. We need to shut this down so you can send in the trauma teams, some of Rodney's geek squad, a few naquadah generators and the Jumper support teams. While there is some power here, it is mostly limited to life support. We needed to manually dial the 'Gate, if that gives you any indication on how low on power we are out here. We need those generators for just about everything, but mostly to get folks in here, treated and then home. Chuck should have the complete list of what we need by now. Talk to you in thirty, Sheppard out." And with a quick hiss, the wormhole closed.

Turning back towards the Gateroom tech, Elizabeth felt one of her eyebrows raise in question. Nodding in reply, Chuck motioned towards her office; the lists were already loaded onto her computer. Right. Time to call Carson, Radek, Ronon and Teyla in to get all the details organized.

Half an hour later the first round of personnel were ready to leave.

~//~

Watching the Gate open on the space station was a bit nerve-wracking for the Marines. McKay had been able to confirm there was very little power on the space station and most of it was being used by life support. Given the lack of a shield, the Marines had gone back to covering the StarGate against unexpected guests the old fashioned way. With manpower and lots of guns. When the seventh chevron locked in place thirty minutes after Col. Sheppard had talked to Atlantis and the wormhole flushed out into the room, there was a collective breath taken by the ten men and women stationed behind the available cover. Hearing McKay greet Atlantis base and give the okay for travelers to come through, they exhaled briefly and watched carefully for friendly faces to appear.

"Stand down and start grabbing some of the gear as it is pushed through, men. We need to keep the Gateroom clear. Marks, you and your squad are detailed to guard Dr.'s McKay and Zelenka. Make sure they don't get into any trouble while they hook up the generators to the stations power grid." Called Col. Sheppard over the comm. Ensuring that the safeties were set on their P-90's, the impromptu 'Gate room guards started grabbing for the boxes, bags and gurneys as they were shoved through. The squad detailed for scientist sitting duty (which was more hazardous than it first appeared) walked up the stairs to stand at the back of the control room, waiting on their charges.

Hard on the heels of the first wave of equipment through the 'Gate were the requested medical personnel, scientists, and Jumper techs. Following behind them were Teyla, Ronon and one of the last squads of ATA positive Marines in the City. The newly arrived inhabitants of the station each grabbed a box, bag or gurney and headed out to the rooms indicated by the former Gateroom guards. There was a lot to set up and only a little time to get things done, the first wave of wounded were expected in less than an hour.

Once Dr. Zelenka came through the StarGate pushing a cart carrying two Mark II naquadah generators, Dr. McKay hurried to turn over his post in the new command room to one of his newly arrived scientists. Grabbing his pack and laptop, he motioned towards the squad that was to be guarding Zelenka and himself and moved down the stairs at a trot. As soon as he was within earshot of Dr. Zelenka he began to detail his plan for tying the new generators into the stations power grid, with acid comments and more than a few complaints on who Zelenka had included on the mission injected between each idea. After listening to the flow of words for a few moments, Zelenka started replying to McKay's earlier points and shot back with his own complaints on being left in charge of the science department on Atlantis. Grinning broadly, the two tossed ideas back and forth, their normal work argument was off and running.

After sharing a look of mutual boredom, Marks nodded at his squad a slowly started herding his charges out of the hustle and bustle of the command post and over to the room where a mostly drained ZPM had been found. Well used to the way that the scientist's on Atlantis were treated by the Marines, McKay and Zelenka ignored them and continued with their argument, all the while moving the cart carrying the generators towards the Gateroom doors. The last thing heard from them was the sound of McKay shooting down one of Dr. Zelenka's theories on the possibilities of getting the station up and running in under an hour.

~//~

Three quarters of an hour after Rodney and Radek had left the control room, there still wasn't any indication that the generators had been hooked into the power grid and John was starting get more than a bit antsy. The last communiqué they had from Lorne spoke of numerous casualties, very few mobile personnel and enough damage to the Daedalus to require a major refit at a shipyard. The first wave of the most seriously wounded were on their way in and so far, they had no way to get them home short of a sixteen hour Jumper flight. In addition, the new personnel had the mobile triage units, surgical suites and recovery wards set up, but without power, they were essentially useless.

Nodding to himself, John decided that enough was enough and he was going to light a fire under his scientist and find out what was keeping the power off. Toggling his radio, John drawled "Oh, Rodney? Any idea when we will be getting power to our little home away from home? Because really? I don't think Beckett's kids want to operate again by battery light, and I know that my Marines don't want to try to manually dial a Gate again."

After several minutes of silence, Rodney came back over the radio sounding massively annoyed by the interruption, "Colonel, you have a positive talent at choosing the absolute worst time to ask for a status report. Go away; bother someone else for a change."

Smiling at the amount of irritation that Rodney had managed to inject into his reply, John caroled back, "Sorry to break it to you, McKay, but there is no one else I can bother like this. We need power soon, and you are the go to guy. So, what gives?"

"Fuck. Radek can you reach that crystal? It's burned out. Colonel, we are about five minutes away from the final connections and testing of the circuits. Go away, you aren't going to make this go any faster." And with another curse, Rodney signed off of the radio.

Staring into space for a moment, John came to a decision and contacted the protection detail, "Marks, this is Sheppard. How is it going down there?"

"Honestly sir, I have no idea. Dr. McKay and Dr. Zelenka are talking about stuff that I have only the vaguest knowledge of, there are enough control crystals littering the floor at the moment to make a chandelier and I've heard some curses that would make a sailor blush." Came the prompt if bewildered, report from Sgt. Marks.

Smiling in relief, John nodded to himself and tapping his radio said, "So, business as usual. Let the control room know when they close up the various access hatches and flip the generators on."

"Roger that, sir. Marks out."

Humming to himself, John made his way to the doors leading to where the Atlantis version of a MASH unit had set up shop. After their fourth excursion to a recently culled world, Carson had called everyone to come up with ideas for an emergency medical unit. Someone in the meeting remembered the show M*A*S*H and after checking in the military medical texts to see if they had plans for it, Carson adapted them to the conditions in Pegasus. Unfortunately, the unit had gotten extensive use during their initial year on Atlantis, and that hadn't changed much in the years since. Once they had reconnected with Earth, Carson had taken advantage of the new supply source and outfitted the unit to be the finest mobile hospital possible given his funds and personnel. When the decision had been made to start stockpiling supplies, the extensive list needed by their MASH unit had been one of the first filled.

Gazing through the open door into the hastily set-up triage unit, John was glad that Carson had made the decisions that he had. The men and women before him had operated by battery light before, and they had done their jobs under worse conditions than these, but since there were power sources available why bother? If it came to needing all available power to run the Gate, everyone not needed for the rescue would be available to hold those lights for them. But John knew they wouldn't need to go that route. Once Rodney and Radek got the generators connected and running, the doctors and nurses before him would be able to conduct business as usual.

Turning around once he saw that everything was under control, John stopped. Standing in front of him were Ronon and Teyla. They had nodded at each other in passing as they hurried to get the station set up for its new function, but they hadn't had time to do more than that.

Reaching out, John clasped Ronon's forearm in a firm grip, sharing a grin, "Ronon. Good to see you here." Greetings done on that quarter, John turned to Teyla. Reaching out to cup the side of her head, John leaned forward to touch his forehead against hers. Pausing for a slow three count, they parted. "Teyla, it is good to see you as well. Welcome to our new space station. We still don't have a name for her yet, but I am sure we can come up with something."

"It is good to be here, John. Have you discovered why this station fired upon the Daedalus? Elizabeth was most anxious to learn the reasons why that event happened and I find that I am also curious." Teyla replied.

With a shake of his head, John said, "I have no idea why the Daedalus was fired on, and we can't get into the necessary security logs to find out why either. Rodney thinks that since the power is basically off, security shut everything down and what fired on her were the automatic defenses. Hopefully once we have power, he will be able to get us that information."

"I heard that, Colonel. And power should be coming up now. So, now that we have that out of the way, what are we going to call this lovely place?" and on the heels of his question, Rodney walked up to his three team mates. "Good to see you here, Teyla, Ronon. Did you guys bring any real food? All we have is MRE's and power bars and even those get old after a while."

Laughing softly, Teyla nodded. "Yes, Rodney. We brought food. And hot coffee. They are located upstairs where Elizabeth's office would be if this was Atlantis."

Rubbing his hands together, Rodney looked up at the room in question. "Great. Colonel, would you like anything before I get started on the diagnostics of the security protocols? Also? What are we naming this thing? Calling it the 'Space Station' is getting very, very old."

"Thanks for asking Rodney, but I'm not hungry right now. And I was thinking 'The Eliminator' for a name. What do you think?" asked John.

"Honestly? I'm wondering why we ever let you name anything at all," came the testy reply back as Rodney turned away.

"The Annihilator?"

"No. Pick something else. Something that doesn't sound like it came out of a porn movie," disagreed Rodney as he headed up the stairs to get some food.

"Norton?"

Snorting loudly, Rodney shot that suggestion down with a pithy comment of, "Where are you coming up with these? And why do I have a feeling that these are the names that your Marines put forth?"

Not looking at the Marines stationed around the room, John paused as Rodney ducked into the room housing the food Teyla had brought. Once he could see Rodney again he continued down the suggestion list. "George Washington? Abe Lincoln?"

Walking down the stairs to the Gateroom floor, Rodney rolled his eyes at the latest suggestion. "Aren't there aircraft carriers named after those two? And who says it has to be named after someone from the US?" mumbled Rodney around a bite of his sandwich.

"You are not making this easy McKay. Okay, what about 'Hell's Kitchen' or the 'Love Shack'?" John shot back as he took half of Rodney's sandwich and started eating.

"Oh, dear god, no. We are not naming our new space station after the bad part of town. Nor are we naming it after that song by the B-52's. Pick another," and saying that, Rodney took a deep sip of his coffee and ignored the raiding of his plate. The only reason he had brought that sandwich half down was so Sheppard could steal it and eat it. Besides, he didn't like turkey all that much.

"Okay, since you didn't like the others, what about 'Christine'? Or the 'Death Star'?" And as Rodney tried to not choke on his mouthful of coffee, John stole his cup and sipped.

Swallowing hastily, Rodney sputtered, "I am not working on a space station named after a homicidal car. Nor am I working on someplace named after a bad example of physics. I don't care if the 'Star Wars' franchise is a cultural icon; you are not naming this thing that! Also? Gimme my coffee back and get your own!"

Grinning slightly, John kept a firm grip on the coffee cup. "No, yours tastes better. And since you don't like any of the names we came up with, what do you have as a name for the station?"

Grabbing his cup back before John could finish off all of his hot coffee; Rodney turned the cup so he drank from a certain spot on the rim. "As a matter of fact, I do have a name that I think will work. 'The DiVinci', because Leonardo DiVinci was more than a gifted painter or sculptor, he was also a master at making weapons of war. And that is what this station is; it is a masterwork in the art of warfare."

Staring at Rodney, John could only nod. Odd though the name seemed on the surface, it did fit. The Ancients, when they bothered to, had built extraordinary weapons of war and then made those weapons into works of art. One of the best examples of that was the station they were on. It had some of the same design features as Atlantis, a raised control room and a sunken Gateroom, but after that everything changed. There were no windows looking out, no open parks to enjoy the sun, and no balconies to catch a breeze so everything had to focus inward. With that focus in mind, it seemed as if the Ancients had decided to turn the walls of the station into one giant art gallery. Every surface was covered in a unique work of art.

~//~

Taking a deep breath, John nodded to Rodney and once they had confirmation that the wormhole to Atlantis was open, tapped his radio. "Elizabeth, this is the DiVinci space station, we have the first batch of wounded to send through. Please stand by to drop the shield and have emergency personnel ready."

~//~

Shortly after Jumper One had ditched them to check out the space station, Jumpers Two and Three had received a weak distress signal from the wreck of the Daedalus. Listening to the voice of an unknown Lieutenant describe the numbers of dead and wounded, Lorne swallowed hard, more than half the crew were going to need immediate transport home and expert medical attention. Taking a deep breath, he started mixing in a few more prayers for a functional StarGate into the ones that were already running through his head. Under all the concentration of flying a Jumper and the distraction of figuring out the puzzle of the Daedalus's courses he had been praying non-stop since he had been called in an emergency meeting. No matter how bad it was, Evan could only hope that at least some of his friends aboard the ship had made it.

When the transmission from the newly identified Lieutenant Zimmerman started to loop again, Lorne reached out and turned the volume down on the radio. Tilting his head slightly to look at his friend, he shook his head ruefully. "We really don't have enough people for this. And the next group of Jumpers, with more personnel and supplies are still at least four hours out. Here's to hoping that McKay really did find a StarGate on that thing and that the Colonel can get it running."

Looking more than a bit shocked at the Lieutenant's report on the amount of destruction and wounded that the Daedalus had suffered, Parrish only nodded. Glancing back at the Marines behind him, Lorne saw that that his co-pilot wasn't the only ones looking shocked. Nodding to himself, he started work on passing the weak distress signal onto Sheppard. Atlantis needed to know everything they had found so far.
~//~

Flying low over the curve of a planet would have been more fun if they hadn't been on a rescue mission, Jon decided. It would also have been more fun if the Marines in the back had been left behind on Atlantis and he had Daniel to himself. But since neither option was open, Jon was going to take what enjoyment he could find before the hard work arrived. Or to be more accurate, when they arrived at the hard work.

Shaking his head slightly, Jon looked over at Daniel. It seemed his archeologist was lost in his translations again. Nothing new there. Glancing back at the readouts on the HUD, Jon saw that they had arrived on site, time to get his co-pilots attention. "Daniel, time to get ready." No response, but there was nothing new in that, more like business as usual. Snorting softly he reached out and tapped Daniel on the shoulder, "Danny, look."

More than a little wrapped up in his research, Daniel glanced up the view screen and stopped. "Oh, my god. Jon? Are we sure that there are survivors from that?"

"That's what the message said, Danny. There has to have been someone alive to send one out." and while Jon was sure there were survivors, he agreed with Daniel, to have made it through this wreck took a large number of miracles. Stretching for several miles, the rubble and debris seemed to be pointing the way. Enlarging the view via the HUD, Jon could see several figures around the main mass of the Daedalus laying out a landing site for the Jumpers, while others continued to climb over the wreckage, shifting through it for any hint of additional survivors. "There are survivors, Danny. There are still people alive."

Slumping forward in relief, Daniel could only nod. Survivors.

~//~

Looking at the crash site from the air, you could tell that some sort of order was being enforced. From the layout it seemed as if portions of the tent village had been laid out like a demented boy scout camp crossed with field hospital and an open air morgue. Given what the survivors of the Daedalus had to work with, Lorne figured he wasn't too off in his guesses. Whatever the inspiration for the layout had been, it was sure to make finding everything easier. Turning his attention to the newly delineated landing zone, he sighed in relief at the sight of an impromptu ground control officer. Because while landing the Jumpers was on many levels automatic, Lorne really felt that in this situation they needed all the help they could get. Even if the machine he was currently flying traveled through space and atmosphere with equal ease and did it all without true wings. And the drive pods didn't really count, no matter how far they stuck out the sides. Either way, once over the landing site, it was a quick, silent hover and then float down to the designated parking space.

Swinging around in his chair, Lorne nodded for Sgt. Patterson to hit the release for the ramp. Deciding to stay still for the moment, he waited for the Marines to move out. Looking over at Parrish, Lorne saw that he was looking a bit green around the gills as he gazed at the sheer level of destruction that the Daedalus had sustained. The damage had been horrible to see from the air, and looked ten times as bad from the ground. Eyeing the sensor information still showing on the HUD, Lorne could tell that getting the Daedalus back into space under her own power would take things they didn't currently have on Atlantis. Glancing at his watch, he decided to send out an additional databurst, loaded with the most recent sensor information onto Sheppard. Tapping the request into the Jumpers comm system, he waited until he got the green light of a sent message.

Taking a deep breath, he stood up and asked, "David? I need to get going. Can you break out the stretchers by yourself? Or do you want me to have someone help you?"

With a slight start, Parrish drew himself out of his thoughts, "No Evan, I have it. You need to go get a report from the Lt. who sent out the distress call." And putting his words into action, he got up and started pulling together the supplies to turn the Jumper into a flying ambulance.

Nodding at David in understanding, Lorne made sure to rest his hand on a shoulder as he walked past. Time to get started.

~//~

Stepping out of the Jumper, Lorne was assaulted by the sheer overwhelming smell of the crash site. Threading on the breeze was a combination of the nose singeing burn of roasted electronics, the stench of blackened insulation, added to the sickly sweet scent of burnt people and the charcoal tang of the vegetation, and overall the site just reeked. And this was on the outside of the Daedalus, the interior sections of the ship had to be worse than this. Shaking his head slightly and trying to breathe through his mouth, Lorne turned around, attempting to get his bearings as he looked around for someone in charge.

Spotting O'Neill and Jackson walking towards him, he nodded absently in greeting as he continued to look for anyone who looked like they knew what they were doing. Lorne could honestly say that he found himself more and more grateful that the General had sent the two clones out to Atlantis. Having the resource of another Colonel had made things much easier already and, well... O'Neill and Jackson must have dealt with something like this before, so he knew he could count on them to let him know if he was doing anything wrong.

"Major Lorne, sir?" came a hoarse voice behind him. Turning away from O'Neill and Jackson, Lorne looked at the young man who had called his name. Saluting as crisply as possible with a bandaged right shoulder, he said, "I'm Lt. Brian Zimmerman, sir. Thank you for getting here so fast. Is there anyone else on the way? We've got a lot of wounded."

Returning the salute, Lorne nodded. Glancing back at the two Jumpers, Lorne could see why the young Lt. was worried. It really didn't look like Atlantis had sent out many people to rescue them. Reaching out to carefully grasp the young Lieutenant's uninjured shoulder, he tried to put every ounce of reassurance in his voice that he could. "Don't worry Lt., Atlantis sent out nine Jumpers in a staggered launch pattern. The other six are just a few hours behind us. Col. Sheppard and Dr. McKay are working on getting a nearby 'Gate up and running so we can get your people out of here faster. And speaking of your wounded, our Jumpers have been refitted as ambulances. Who needs to go first?"

Watching Zimmerman sway as he realized that rescue was there and more ships were on the way and they could get people home, Lorne decided the kindest thing was to keep the kid as busy as possible. Mainly so he wouldn't wonder where that mystery 'Gate had come from. Telling him it was on the space station that had shot down his ship just seemed beyond cruel. Besides, it really wouldn't be all that hard for them all to stay busy, given the sheer amount of work needed to get all the wounded and dead out. Turning back to where O'Neill had last been, he saw that he and Jackson had joined Parish in making sure all the stretchers on Jumper Two were secure. Well that was one way to stay nearby and hear everything.

"Yes, sir. I have the list here." And patting his pockets, Zimmerman pulled out what had to be someone's personal PDA and began to read off the names and injuries of most seriously wounded. Glancing at the nonstandard electronics in his hand, Lorne raised an eyebrow in question, and then decided to let it go. He hadn't been there for the crash, so he had no cause to demand answers to questions that really didn't need to be asked. He would have to ask later, if only to find out why for his report but it wasn't currently relevant. Listening closely to the numbers of wounded, Lorne started hoping that McKay had gotten the 'Gate up and running, there were just too many in need of immediate help to keep on site.

"Right. Zimmerman, let's get of all the most seriously wounded aboard the Jumpers and on their way to the 'Gate. Once they are on their way, I am going to need you to brief myself, Lt. O'Neill and Sgt.'s Patterson and Brandon on where you have searched for survivors." and gesturing for the Lt. to lead the way, Lorne got to work.

~//~

Jon decided that he wasn't going to think too long, or hard on what he was really seeing as he started loading people onto the two Jumpers. That way led to more nightmares than he needed right now, thank you very much. While sleep was not a highly overrated option, no matter how many times the scientists tried to tell him it was, the action was definitely something he wanted to do again. Although, if this whole search and rescue turned out to be as bad as his nose was telling him, sleep was going to be bumped onto the optional list for a while.

Checking off the listed wounded from those loaded onto Jumper Three, Jon noted that they had everyone. Walking down the center isle of what was now a space going ambulance; he paused at each of the six stretchers, confirming that they and their contents were secure. Nodding at the sergeant who was now the designated bus driver, Jon walked down the ramp and off the ship. It was time for the first group of wounded to start the trip home.

Moving swiftly to escape the dust cloud, he headed off the LZ and towards the med tents. Time to get organized.

~//~

Many hours later Jon walked out of the wreck of the Daedalus, Jon paused and pulled the respirator off his face. The air may have been just as fragrant outside as it was inside, but at least it was marginally cooler that the mess inside the hull. With no power to run the life support fans, there was no circulation of the air inside, so the rescue workers needed to wear masks and carry supplemental oxygen. It was hot, sweaty and tiring work. Taking a deep breath, he leaned against the hull plates and closed his eyes, trying to find the energy to continue. Tilting his face into the sun, Jon listened to the noises coming from the area behind him, and turning his head further he concentrated for a moment. The footsteps and vocal grumbles he had been hearing belonged to Daniel.

Moments after identifying Jon had identified the owner of the footsteps, Daniel stepped out of the fissure their group had used to enter the ship. Settling against a clear section of hull plates by Jon, Daniel paused to push off his respirator as well. Taking a deep breath, he let it out in a sigh and said, "I did a final walk through with Patterson, and we didn't see any signs of anyone else. And the LSD only shows the rescue crews for this section. I think this area is clear, Jon."

Nodding in tired agreement Jon sat back and enjoyed the feeling of sun on his face. When he felt that they had had a five minute rest, Jon stood up and began slipping his gear back on. Glancing over at Daniel, he nodded at the fissure, time to go back in. Walking back into the gloom, the two men quickly reached a section of what appeared to be darker shadows, spread out on the floor. Squatting down at either end, they grabbed the carry straps and with weary care, began moving their burden into the light.

Maneuvering carefully around the debris of the crash, Jon and Daniel slowly walked towards the tents that were now housing the sites temporary morgue. As they moved over the newly beaten paths people stood quietly at attention when they saw their burden. Though this was not the first body to be brought out, each was given what honors the rescuers could spare.

Stepping into the main morgue tent, the two men gently lowered the body bag onto a gurney. Nodding at the ME on duty, Jon paused to strip off his leather gloves and snagged the clipboard she held out, filling out all the information they had on their passenger wasn't going to take very long. He had been found with no dog tags, no uniform and what there was of his face had been too badly damaged for anyone in their party to get a visual ID. Given that, Jon was guessing that Brio and her crew were going to have to use DNA or dental records to find out who their Doe was.

Signing off on his portion of the report, Jon handed the clipboard over to Daniel for him to review, make any needed changes and then counter sign. Feeling his skin start to itch under the protective gear, Jon decided that he at least needed to strip off the surgical gloves that he had worn under the leather work gloves. Looking around for the bucket the crew in the morgue were using as a catch all, he pulled them off and lobbed them into the bin. Once those were off, the urge to just get rid of *all* his hot, sweaty gear was overwhelming. Pulling the hardhat and goggles, he paused at his respirator. Better to leave that on for the moment. Brio and her techs were conducting autopsies and reconstructing bodies in these tents, and Jon really didn't want to smell it.

Once out of the temporary morgue, they watched Lorne and Parrish arrive, carrying their own grim burden. Jon nodded at their friends and placing a hand on Daniel's arm, signaled for them to wait outside. While they were waiting, he and Daniel made sure to strip off any remaining safety gear and dispose of any soiled part of it in the labeled bins. When the other two came out, Jon glanced at them and asked, "Have your teams found anyone alive?"

~//~

Pausing by the bins, Lorne took the time to strip off his gear. Shaking his head in briefly, he sighed heavily and sadly said, "No. Not a one. And my guys only just found this last Doe."

Running his fingers through his sweaty hair, Parrish looked over at the wreck of the Daedalus. Taking a deep breath, he asked the other three, "Have we found everyone? I mean, I know we," and waving his hand between himself and Lorne continued, "have found a lot of people. Is there anyone still unaccounted for?"

Rubbing his hands against his empty stomach, Lorne started walking towards the area that had been set aside for food preparation and places to sleep. Glancing over at Jon, he asked, "Jon, do you remember how many crew were assigned to the Daedalus? I know how many people from Atlantis we had aboard her, but I don't remember the numbers of her original crew compliment."

Obviously digging deep into his memories, Jon replied, "Prometheus class ships have a crew compliment of around two hundred and fifty. Daedalus carries, damn it, typically carried around two hundred and with the Atlantis folks, I would say she was at a full roster. Have you checked with Zimmerman? I know he's been keeping track of the lists."

Speaking quietly, Lorne nodded. "I talked to him a few hours ago, before our last Doe was found. At the time, we were missing six people. I know our group found the one, your lot found two, and Lt. Rivera radioed in that they had found another in the debris trail."

Nodding in time to the information being passed on, Daniel glanced at Jon. "So we may only be missing two people?"

"If we are lucky, it will be only two. Remember, the Daedalus was hulled in space and came down hot. We've been lucky to find evidence of as many as we have. As for the remaining missing, we might just find them when we start shifting stuff as we get to the salvage stage. Or never if they were lost in space." Sighing deeply, Jon continued, "Brio and her crew get the unenviable task of putting the names and faces to all those Does we delivered to them."

Shaking off the somber mood, the four looked up as they reached the mess tent. Checking out the area by the sinks, they saw that there was room for them to wash up. While it might not have been the tidiest idea to have a line of deep sinks outside the mess tent, all the men were glad they were there. It allowed everyone a chance to do a sketchy clean up before they ate and getting clean helped improve everyone's mood just a bit.

Feeling cleaner than he had in days, Lorne headed into towards the food. Glancing over the buffet, he noticed that there seemed to be a large amount of fresh food versus MRE's. It appeared that the returning Jumpers weren't just bringing more rescue personnel; they were also bringing in fresh groceries. Not that he was going to complain at the idea of them playing delivery van. Anything was better than the Chicken Kiev MRE's that had been the only food available the last two times he had stopped by.

Grabbing a tray and working his way down the line, Lorne loaded up on the fresh food and hoped that nothing he was eating would trigger a flashback. Heading over to a table as far from the door as possible, he dropped down into the chair and started to eat, it had been too long since his last meal. Good manners would have to wait.

~//~

Sitting down might not have been a good idea, Jon decided about halfway through the meal. Between the four of them, he figured they had maybe twelve hours of sleep over the last three days, so the yawns were to be expected. And watching his friends as they tried to finish the meals before them without falling face first into their plates made him revise that might too definitely.

Catching Lorne's eye, Jon nodded at Parrish and Daniel. Deciding to let his inner Colonel out, he *suggested*, "Evan, I think we need to get some sleep. Right now we are a danger to ourselves and everyone around us, given how tired we are."

Watching the tired Major try to snap to attention really shouldn't have been as amusing as it was. Technically Lorne outranked Jon, but Lorne had also served under Col. O'Neill for a number of years and the habits of obedience were deeply ingrained. And watching Lorne *catch* himself at the behavior was even funnier, in a weary sort of way.

When Lorne agreed to standing the four of them down for some much needed sleep, Jon nodded and tucked the Colonel away. That aspect of himself had proven to be a useful tool, but he really didn't need the fuss right now. Now it was time to grab his geek, and find a place to sleep.

~//~

Elizabeth had long ago decided that she hated the Gate and the call of an unauthorized wormhole. After the last three days, she had decided that she didn't just hate it, she loathed it. Atlantis had been getting Jumper loads of wounded from the DiVinci (and who had named the station that? It just didn't have the flavor of a John Sheppard type of name.) almost every hour and the clinics and infirmary were running out of room.

Deciding that she wasn't going to obsess over the situation on the other side of the Gate, Elizabeth brought up the list of the reports that were waiting for her review and signature. Once she was finished with those, she had supply lists to approve, personnel reviews to sign off on, and the housing situation needed to be going over. When she was done with that, the commissary had sent up the menu for the next two weeks, housekeeping had memos in about the Ancient equivalent of laundry machines, and their dentist was looking for office space outside of the infirmary.

Burying herself in the job of running what was for all intents and purposes, a small colony and trading post, Elizabeth began to relax. Three hours later, she looked up when she heard the sound of the chimes placed outside her office door. Standing on the causeway was Carson and he was holding a covered tray from the commissary. Smiling through the glass, Elizabeth hit the manual override to open the door and then started clearing off her desk to make room for the tray.

Grinning slightly, Carson walked over to the desk, "Hello Elizabeth, I tho'ght ye might be ready for a good meal by now."

"Thank you Carson. I hadn't realized how late it had gotten. How are things going in the infirmary?" she asked. And taking the tray from Carson, Elizabeth started transferring their meal from the tray to her desk.

Settling into one of the chairs in front of her desk, Carson sighed. "It has been very bad, Elizabeth. Luckily we haven't lost anyone on this side of the Gate, but I can't say the same is true over there. And most of the people we have in our wards are badly wounded with weeks and months of recovery and rehabilitation ahead of them. I would feel better if we could get them back to Earth as soon as possible."

Hesitating slightly as she sat back in her chair, Elizabeth looked over at her friend. He seemed so tired. "Carson, I really have no idea when we'll be able to dial Earth again. The last conversation we had with the SGC was less than encouraging."

Leaning forward slightly, Carson took a deep breath, "Elizabeth, I am going to be very blunt, so forgive me if I offend you. We cannot afford to house almost one hundred and fifty seriously wounded people. We don't have the supplies, the manpower or the space to make sure they all heal as they should. The only place that has the needed resources is Earth. We need to get these people back through the Gate and on to better care than my people can provide. And we need to do that as soon as possible"

Staring blindly at the food on her plate, she nodded. "I know. But we need to do what we can, with what we have, while we can. If nothing else, we can strip the Daedalus of all her useable medical supplies first. Most of those should be okay, if they are in sealed containers, right?"

"I have no idea, Elizabeth. You'll need to talk to the people on site, they would know. And while it is good to know that we potentially have replacements for some of our supplies, the salvage will not cover them all." And taking a deep breath, Carson visibly shook off his mood. "Let's not talk about that right now. Eat your dinner before it gets cold." And taking his own advice to heart, he picked up his fork and started on his meal.

Nodding her head in agreement, Elizabeth allowed the conversation to drop. Picking up her fork as well, she started to eat. And found that at least one thing about her day had turned out well. Even if it was only the food.

~//~

The Jumper loads of wounded were gone, and only the dead remained behind. Snorting softly to himself, Radek shook his head. He really wasn't that much of a romantic, and but while the thought was unpleasant there was still an element of truth to it. The only people from the Daedalus's crew left at the crash site were the dead.

Looking around said crash site, Radek took a deep breath and immediately coughed. Although the crash had been almost a week ago, the scents pervading the area were still nauseatingly strong. Thinking over what he had been told of the conditions inside the ship, Radek knew that respirators and supplemental oxygen needed for anyone venturing inside.

Walking through the tent city nestled in the shadow of the wrecked space ship; Radek started taking notes on what needed to be done to strip her down. In an emotional meeting the engineers from both Atlantis and the Daedalus had gone over every available sensor scan of the ship to determine if they could get her back in the air. And with bitter regret, the collective answer had been 'No'; there was just too much damage.

Passing by the morgue tents, he began to try to breathe shallowly through his mouth and not through his nose. While they had a naquadah generator hooked up to several super sized chillers, the smell of old death continued to permeate the area, overwhelming the reek of burnt plastics. Radek knew that Brio and the other doctors were working as quickly as possible to get the dead identified and then back to Atlantis for storage and then eventual transport to Earth. And given that the last of the wounded were gone, the Jumpers could now be turned into space borne hearses.

Preparing a memo on his tablet computer to have the Jumper crews strip out the back compartments and upgrade the life support systems, Radek continued his walk. Hitting send on the tablet, he glanced up, it seemed he had reached the mess tent. Pausing at the threshold, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside and for the notification of receipt to come back from the mainframe. Looking around for company, he saw the Colonel and Rodney sitting at a table towards the back and waved. Getting the nod that said it was okay to join them; Radek detoured over to the buffet and picked up a fresh carafe of coffee and a few tired pastries before he walked over to his friends.

Nodding in greeting, Radek slid his meal onto the table, "Colonel, Rodney. It is good to see you again."

"Hey Radek. Anything new?" asked the Colonel as he reached for the new carafe of coffee.

"We are ready to begin stripping the Daedalus and emptying any intact storerooms. Also, the Jumpers will need to be reconfigured once again to be bulk haulers and", here Radek felt his throat grow tight, "as hearses."

Watching as the Colonel and Rodney stared into their coffee cups, Radek found himself wondering when they had last slept. Both had gone on the initial rescue flight of Jumpers out and then had found their new space station. Once they had gotten that up and mostly running, the Colonel has taken over organizing the recovery and evacuation of the wounded. Meanwhile Rodney had monitored the power situation on board the station and doing quick diagnostics and repairs on the Jumpers they had found in a hanger bay near the main air lock.

Sighing softly at some thought, the Colonel swirled his coffee in his cup. "Okay, when the incoming group of Jumpers gets in, I'll make sure the guys know what their new job is. Radek, is there any way to lower the temp in the back compartment to right above freezing?"

"Have already thought of that, Colonel. Jumper maintenance crews have information and will set everything up." Radek was glad that he had at least anticipated that request. And while it would be a cold trip, the crews wouldn't have to contend with the overwhelming smell of what they were transporting.

Looking a bit green around the gills, Rodney cleared his throat and rather obviously tried to change the subject. "What decision did your engineers reach on the viability of repairing the Daedalus?"

Hesitating momentarily before answering, Radek realized that time really had changed his friend for the better. Rodney was no longer the uncaringly arrogant man who he had first met in Antarctica. While he might not overtly show his caring for his coworkers (or frankly, his respect), he did do his best to look after them all and try to keep them from harm. And he had actually learned how to delegate, a skill that had taken years to finally get through. "I have talked to Lt. O'Neill, Miko, and the others on the aeronautical team and they all agree. We do not have facilities to repair Daedalus, or even to get her off planet. However all members agree that stripping her would increase our reserves several times over."

Watching as Rodney closed his eyes, trying to hide his disappointment at the thought of losing the Daedalus, Radek sighed, and tried to offer some comfort, "We still have plans for spacecraft of our own. With parts from Daedalus, work will go much faster."

"Well that is something at least. Any chance we'll be able to grab the engines? Or the Asgard beaming technology?" came the soft question. Wistful was an interesting expression to watch on Rodney.

Obviously trying to break the news gently, the Colonel looked over at his friend. "Rodney, you know those engines are huge. There is no way we would be able to lift them using Puddle Jumpers, let alone get them through the Gate. Sorry, buddy."

Sighing softly in agreement, Rodney nodded. He knew the lift capabilities of the Jumpers and it was nowhere near enough to lift even one engine, let alone two.

Listening to the silence as they all sat back and sipped their coffee, Radek felt comfortable. The two men across from him were good friends and there was no awkwardness as they pursued their own thoughts. Watching them over the rim of his coffee cup, he could see how close they had grown. This type of silence would have not been possible five years ago, if for no other reason than Rodney's nervous chatter would have broken through within minutes.

Draining his mug, the Colonel started playing with it, obviously thinking something over. Looking over at Rodney, he asked, "I have a question for you both. If we manage to salvage the Asgard beaming technology, can't we just beam the engines up?"

Radek felt himself stop and actually think about the question and what the possible answer might be. He knew a bit about the technology in question, but not all that much since their allies had refused to explain how it worked. Glancing at Rodney, he watched ideas flash over his face. "Once we get the array out..."

"We can start back engineering it," said Rodney, completing the obvious thought. Moving on to the next idea, he said, "I wonder if the tech is..."

Following his thought was as easy as usual, "Yes, yes. Crystals must hold memory of object scanned. Also, energy usage..."

"It can't be that much. Daedalus had a standard power core, nothing too special or unusual. Unless, ..." and snapping the fingers of his right hand, Rodney started to look excited.

Staying with Rodney, Radek felt his eyes start to widen at the idea they were sharing. "Yes, that must be it. We must have a Jumper run scans for hidden energy sources on Daedalus after we pull the power core."

"Because, there is no way that the system can't be an energy hog. And if we can refit it to a Jumper, we may have another means to rescue people." And nodding to himself, Rodney poured another cup of coffee for himself and the others.

"And what," came the clearly confused question from the Colonel. "Have you two figured out?"

Opening his mouth to explain, Radek was surprised to hear Lt. O'Neill's voice instead. "Basically Colonel, they think the beaming technology is a memory hog and has to have a separate primary power source, with minimal amounts supplied by the Daedalus's reactors as a way to divert attention."

Blinking at the spot on explanation, Rodney looked over at the Lieutenant. "Please tell me that you are not going to be acting the idiot this time around? And do you know the answer to either question?"

"Uhm, last I heard anything from Sam, the transporter takes up a whole bank of crystals and they had their own secure compartment in the engine room. As for the possible power source, I think it is Asgard and that's all I know." And taking a sip out of the mug in his hand, O'Neill sat down the table next to theirs.

Thinking over what Jon had said, Rodney looked at Radek, "So Sam knew the answer? I think we need to go over her files again, when we get back to Atlantis."

Nodding his head fast enough to make his hair fly, Radek agreed. "Yes, answer would come much faster with correct information. Or at least, correct place to look."

Conversation dwindled again at the table, turning instead to who had been released from Beckett's clutches and who was still in the infirmary. Thankfully more and more people were being listed as stable and recovering, with the most seriously injured improving daily. The only person still listed as condition unknown was Hermiod, and he was locked in an Asgard status pod. Two days after they had recovered the pod from the wreck of the engine room it had started broadcasting a signal through subspace towards the galaxy of Ida and the Asgard home world.

When they had first found out about the signal, Radek knew that Rodney had combed through all known Wraith signals to see if any were similar enough to spark a response. Meanwhile Radek had gone over the information that had been gleaned about Wraith communication arrays and their detection capabilities. Both of them had come to the conclusion that the Wraith would never notice the signal, and the only reason they had noticed it was due to the Asgard based equipment installed on Atlantis's command deck. Once that had been determined, everyone has relaxed.

Taking a bite of his pastry, Radek pushed himself back into his chair and enjoyed the quiet with his friends.

~//~

Leaning back in his chair, John made sure to brush Rodney's shoulder with his own, enjoying the amount of heat that his body gave off. It was an oddly comforting gesture, given that they had barely seen each other, let alone touched over the last week. Reaching out to grab the carafe, he shook it. Empty. Oh, well. It was time to get back to work anyway.

"Gentlemen. I need to get back to work. Walk with me Rodney?" and glancing at his friend, John tried to put as much entreaty into his expression as he could.

"Certainly, Colonel. Shall we?" and after making sure to police his side of the table, Rodney fell into step next to him.

Walking quietly with Rodney was no longer a strange or disturbing experience for John. It allowed him time to think over the last week and the amount of time they hadn't spent together. He had gotten used to having Rodney nearby, if not within reach then within hearing distance. Having him on the DiVinci while he himself had been planet side had been disconcerting.

When the Daedalus had pulled out for the last time, they had spent several hours together and talked. Not to say that the talk had been easy, because it hadn't been. John knew that he was uncommunicative at best, and Rodney was in some ways worse. But they had persevered and reached some decisions. The biggest of which was; they were going to (god help them) start to date. Because even though they had years of sexual tension, years of knowing that they wanted the other, they prized their friendship too much to jump into a physical relationship without making sure that it was going to work. Wondering aloud, John had actually come out and asked Rodney why they hadn't just fallen into bed with each other.

Looking as serious as John had ever seen him, Rodney's answer had caught him unawares. "John, we take enough risks in our professional lives with the Wraith, Asurans, the IOA and just living in Atlantis. What we have between us means more to me than I am willing to risk while the odds against it are so bad."

Thinking over what Rodney had said, John found himself agreeing. The risks they lived with everyday were huge and had the ability to kill them all. But the two of them having a relationship carried risks to more than just them or their team. If they had been caught, the backlash could have toppled all of Atlantis. Which was arrogant to think, but when the CSO and the CMO were potentially in a relationship, it involved more than just the two of them.

Once they had taken the City back from the Ancients and the Asurans, John knew that the IOA and the SGC had made the decision to place watchers on the senior staff. And when those hadn't been able to gather the requested evidence, the PTB's had tried investigations and review boards, all designed to put the most pressure possible on their weak points. Elizabeth had been called back to Earth on numerous occasions to explain her decisions before the SGC, the IOA board and the President of the United States. Rodney had been saddled with review committees that had tried to put limits on what he could research and when, plus who he could hire. Carson had been put through three different ethics boards over the years, each bringing up decisions that had been made during those first frantic years. And as the head of the military on Atlantis, John had gotten unannounced inspections, scathing reviews from senior brass, personnel who took too much interest in his personal life and the occasional honey trap (sex of the offered honey not important). That aspect had been very odd to realize as he never did see those types of things coming, be it on world or off.

The Earth based military had made their collective opinion of the Atlantis vets well known. And they had also tried to enforce the rules and regulations that all military personnel lived by with a heavy hand. So one of the first things John and his senior staff had done after the vote for independence had gone through was to go over the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) and the code of conduct for the IOA troops stationed on Atlantis. After picking and choosing what they knew would work; a set of rules had been hammered out for the newly combined military. Rules that reflected what was actually happening on Atlantis, not what Earth had demanded happen. Thanking his lucky stars, John knew that the people who had chosen to stay on Atlantis were by and large the most open minded of the bunch, and the new rules reflected that knowledge. And on another positive note, none of the unofficial minders assigned to the senior staff had chosen to stay.

Thinking about the new rules for the military and the changes they had made led John back to his developing relationship with Rodney. Because so much was riding on how things turned out, they were taking things slowly and carefully. This meant actually doing the dating thing. And then on the day of their first date, the Daedalus got shot down and the whole of Atlantis was back on crisis scheduling. So they were in separate places, on different schedules and not likely to see each other. Having Rodney come down to the crash site for a few hours had been nice, and being able to eat dinner with him had been even better.

But the time together was drawing to a close, and Rodney needed to get back to the DiVinci. Exploration teams were crawling all over the structure and the programmers and their assigned translators were combing through the database, trying to figure out how to get the station operational. And John knew that he needed to stay with the remains of the Daedalus for a while longer, if only to get the salvage operations going. Sighing softly, John bumped Rodney's shoulder as they walked, he really couldn't wait until they were able to get back home to Atlantis.

~//~

Rodney knew that his minions thought that he never shut up, that he constantly had to hear the sound of his own voice, but he knew better. When it was just himself and John walking, either in the City or off world, they normally did so quietly. Well, at least they did if they didn't have anything to say. The two of them could have some truly spectacular arguments and discussions, all at top volume with wild gestures and insane asides. But right now walking with John was turning out to be the nicest part of his day so far. Restful, quiet, and comforting.

Thinking back on the meal he had just eaten, Rodney hummed in contentment. It hadn't been the date that he and John had agreed to go on a little more than a week ago, but it had been nice. Really nice. Which he wasn't going to reveal to anyone, no matter what.

Trying to not think about the amount of work waiting for him on the newly christened DiVinci, Rodney turned his thoughts to the past. Despite the distressingly large number of "run for our lives" missions and "recuperate in medical" downtimes, he could honestly say to himself that the past few years had been good ones. They had managed to keep the majority of their people alive, threats to the City were at an all time low and their allies were prospering. Even the numbers of lab accidents had been at an all time low, and considering the number of labs and incompetent personnel he had been sent, that was perhaps the biggest miracle of all.

Thinking on that thought further, Rodney shook his head. The biggest miracle of the past few years wasn't how many of the moron squad they had managed to keep alive, it was the fact that they had kept Carson alive. Feeling himself start to slide down the well trod path of anger at the Ancients, Rodney wished the Ancients had bothered to think about what their experiments would do in unknowing hands. Even the so called "benign" experiments were anything but. And the weapons research and the delivery platforms! Rodney was convinced that the Ancients had no concept of what they were letting their descendents in for when they had allowed some items be built. Human borne bombs were frowned upon in his culture, and the Ancients who were supposed to be a group of people who valued human life, had built a machine that caused exploding tumors. And then to make things worse, they didn't even have the common courtesy of slapping a warning label on their messes, let alone cleaning them up. To say nothing of their habit of declining to enter information on the failed, unstable or just plain dangerous items in the database.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Rodney tried to let the whole thing go. Nothing had happened and it wouldn't on his watch. Still Rodney wanted Helia back so he could ask her what her contemporaries were thinking when they had begun recklessly building these things. That and finding out what certain labs were used for and how to get the data base to spit out the information they needed without the whole song and dance routine they were using now. But Helia wasn't there, and there was no one available to ask in any case.

Turing his attention outwards, Rodney saw they were back at his Jumper. Glancing at his watch he saw that they had about a half hour before anyone was due to show up to get shuttled back up to the space station. Pulling an unresisting John into the shadows of the Jumper Rodney pressed him against the little ship's hull. "I know we decided to take this whole thing slow, and really I am all for that. But I am not going to go back to that cold station without something to make it worthwhile. So, want to make the trip worth my while?"

~//~

Ten days after the Daedalus crashed and Elizabeth had declared Atlantis's independence to the SGC, she took her place again on the City's command deck. Through hard work, determination and an unwillingness to give up on anyone, they had managed to keep everyone who had made it back to Atlantis alive. All the remaining wounded were now stable enough that the short time they would be without medical support on the trip back to Earth would not unduly delay their healing. Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth moved over to the main communications screen and gathering her courage, nodded to Chuck. Atlantis needed to talk to StarGate Command and the surviving crew of the Daedalus needed to go home.

Watching as the eight symbols that denoted the address for Earth were dialed in, Elizabeth really hoped this would go smoothly. As soon as the wormhole stabilized, Chuck sent through Colonel Caldwell's IDC and a data burst detailing the condition of the Daedalus and her crew. If nothing else, they owed it to their friends to let the SGC know what happened to their personnel and ship.

Waiting the two minutes needed for the SGC to decrypt and at least glance at the information they had sent was hard. Starting verbal communications with them was even harder. Best to start out boldly then, "StarGate Command, this is Atlantis. We have some people of yours who would like to go home."

"Atlantis, this is General Balok. StarGate Command does not negotiate with traitors and kidnappers. Release the crew of the Daedalus and surrender."

Looking at the StarGate in shock, Elizabeth could only stare. This was something that she hadn't considered. But maybe she should have. Wait, Atlantis personnel had been labeled terrorists and kidnappers?

"StarGate Command, this is Dr. Elizabeth Weir. Under whose authority have we been designated traitors and kidnappers?" she asked. And locking her hands together at the small of her back, she signaled Col. Caldwell over to stand beside her.

"The Atlantis expedition," spat General Balok with a perverse sort of pride, "has been convicted in absentia of treason against Earth, terrorism and the kidnapping of the Daedalus and her crew. The trail and conviction were done with the full cooperation of the IOA, the member countries and the President of the United States. All persons who colluded in these crimes are to surrender and will be taken into custody."

Watching as Steven stiffened and started to speak, Elizabeth knew in her gut it wouldn't work. But she had to let him try. "Sir, this is Col. Steven Caldwell, commander of the Daedalus. General, neither myself nor my crew are here on Atlantis under duress. We were in fact, rescued when our ship was destroyed. All the information on the incident, rescue and the status of my crew should be in the data burst we sent."

When the General spoke again, everyone in the control room could hear the sneer in his voice, "Col. Caldwell, you and your crew are now considered compromised and thus prisoners of war. Once the SGC has regained control of the Atlantis base, you will be thoroughly debriefed and dealt with."

Crossing her fingers, Elizabeth tried one more time to get the people she had made a promise to home. "General Balok, we have over a hundred people from the Daedalus who would like to go home. Please open the iris and let these people through."

There was no response. After a moment, the sound of the open carrier wave shut down. The SGC was now ignoring them. Straightening her shoulders, Elizabeth turned to Chuck and motioned for the 'Gate to be shut down. It was no use wasting power when no one was even listening.

Gathering her command crew together by eye, she motioned for Caldwell and his remaining senior officers towards the conference room. Walking ahead of the crowd, Elizabeth managed to reach her seat before the whole insane conversation she had just had really sank in. The SGC, the IOA and who knew how many governments, thought that the Atlantis expedition members were traitors, kidnappers and terrorists. And given the attitude of General Balok and the way he had treated Caldwell, it sounded as if they could expect unfriendly company soon. Very soon.

Watching as her friends and colleagues file into the room, Elizabeth knew that the decisions reached in this meeting would affect them on an even deeper level than the decision to declare their independence had.

~//~

Showing that he was no slouch in connecting the unwelcome mental dots, John laid out what everyone was thinking. "Elizabeth, we need to evacuate the mainland and move the City. Preferably off this planet. The SGC has to have sent out the Odyssey or one of her sister ships with orders to bring us back under control. By force if necessary."
Surprising them all with his support, Caldwell nodded in agreement. "For what it is worth Elizabeth, I never thought the SGC would do this. You need to move everyone who wants to stay as far away from this location as possible."

"So we are running and abandoning Lantea." Elizabeth sighed.

Sliding into her seat at the table, Teyla shook her head. "No Elizabeth. We are surviving. For all that I loved Athos; I have learned to love Lantea. And I will learn to love our new planet. We will set down roots in whatever new place we call home, and we will be safe."

Nodding in agreement, Rodney announced "My departments can be packed up in a day or so. The two tasks that will take the longest are disconnecting our feed from the thermal plant and getting everything back from the mainland. Some of the stuff we have there will need to be blown in place because we built the installations to last. As far as what we have set up in the City, the labs are relatively easy to lock down once we get a few things wrapped up."

Carson also had good news to report, "Medical can also be ready quickly. We do have clinics open around the City, so those will need to either be locked down or beefed up, depending on the level of activity around them. The botanists have assured me when we were doing our contingency planning that the hydroponic labs are able to supply our nutritional needs, should we be in that situation. Teyla, they also say that the medicinal herbs your people use can be grown in a greenhouse. Botany has the materials and seed prepared and they are just waiting on your okay."

Watching the relief flash across Teyla's face, Elizabeth felt a bit guilty. This would be the third time the Athosians had been moved from world to world due to the expedition. At least this time they would be able to bring all their physical belongings, the seeds for their crops and their medicinal herbs.

Turning her attention back to the meeting, Elizabeth realized that she hadn't heard anything against an evacuation, but there was one area they hadn't heard from and that was the military contingent. Sheppard's people had taken the brunt of the search and rescue operations for the Daedalus survivors and the salvage operations that had started as soon as everyone was clear. And they were still on site, working hard to strip the wreck of every useful bit of technology and intact supplies. So anything Sheppard or Lorne had to add to the discussion would have to be contingency plans that were already in place.

Taking the ball passed to him from this CO, Lorne cleared his throat as he stepped forward into the spotlight. "The armed forces branch of the expedition has had several evacuation plans on hand since shortly after we reached Atlantis. The plans get updated and reworked with every new batch of personnel we received, and with ever physical change we have had in the City and on Lantea. There have been ongoing drills during that time to make sure that all our people know what needs to be done and who has to do what. Once Dr. Weir lets us know when we are going to pull out and how much time we have, we will begin our part of the process. Per standard SGC procedures, we have also looked into possible alpha sites and the list of suitable planets is long. However most of the planets we are looking at are still pending the in depth review by the science and medical departments."

"Major, before you go any further into that, I need to interrupt." And with an apologetic look over at Col. Caldwell, Sheppard cut off his second in command. "Colonel, are you and your people still planning on returning to Earth?"

Eyes snapping up to look at Caldwell, Elizabeth could feel the shock of that question reverberate through her. Why hadn't she thought of this? Shock and the familiarity of working with everyone in the room she supposed. Turning slightly to catch the answer, she tried to school her features to show only interest.

Nodding in acceptance of what was and wasn't being said, Caldwell tried to reassure everyone. "As far as I have been able to determine Colonel, we all still want to go back to Earth. And I know that we need to leave this meeting so you all can discuss whatever world you need to head to without worry. I would ask that you delay as long as you can, so the remaining injured can stay as long as possible in the infirmary. Those of us that are mobile will help where we can."

"Thank you for that offer Colonel, but I think we can handle the evacuation. Your crew needs to concentrate on getting well and helping those who are too injured to help themselves." And though the words were hard, John managed to convey his sincere apology for saying no, and his thanks for the offer with just a look.

"Right. That is our cue to leave. Ladies and Gentlemen of Atlantis base, we of the Daedalus thank you for our lives. And we wish you the best. Until we meet again." And with an air of quiet dignity, Caldwell and his command crew moved out of the meeting room.

~//~

Blowing out a loud and blustery sigh, Rodney leaned back in his chair. "Well that was uncomfortable. And needed."

"Uncomfortable as it might have been, Rodney it was done for them as much as for us." John snapped.

"I know that Colonel. Now that they are gone, any idea of where we are going to move to?"

"We still have a few things to settle on that front. We do have two or three recently visited planets that might meet most of our requirements, but we are going to need the geek squad to do their thing. A big point against those planets is the fact that they were all reported to the SGC as possible Alpha sites before the vote. We do however have some alternatives that we kept in reserve. Just in case. " And reaching out John started accessing mission logs from the conference room laptop. Grabbing the remote, he moved over to the screen and started listing the pros and cons of each location. "Once the decision to start hoarding against the possibility of losing contact with Earth was made, Lorne and I started looking in alternative Alpha sites, ones that were not going to be included in the SGC database. Finding a planet that could support human life was easy; finding one that could also house Atlantis herself was a bit harder. Rodney, do you remember those sensors I had you build?"

Sitting up now that he had the answer to a question that had bothered him for several years, Rodney looked at his friend and team leader. "Yeah, they were to monitor incoming and outgoing activity on a wormhole. I know I attached them to a number of 'Gates over the past few years. Well in addition to the normal atmospheric and seismic monitoring equipment that we always set up. Is this what they were for? And why didn't you tell me?"

"What you didn't know, you couldn't tell. Plus it was a good way to find out how many of those 'uninhabited' planets really were deserted. All our possible Alpha site planets have a good breathable atmosphere, a large ocean to land ratio, and the gravity is close to Earth norm. Of the dozens of sensor sets that were planted, four of the 'Gate monitors have had no activity since they were set. Well, besides our status checks. Of those four worlds, two have had seriously violent seismic activity, leading to one having the clearing around the 'Gate to be destroyed and on the other planet, the 'Gate fell over. Of the remaining two, one has had lightening storms every fourteen days or so, with several severe strikes hitting the 'Gate. The fourth world has had some seasonal storms but nothing like number three, no recorded seismic activity like numbers one and two and the environment checks out so far. Basically, this looks like our best choice to hide out at once medical signs off on it."

~//~

Blinking slightly at the rapid fire flow of information, Elizabeth grabbed a hold of the most important item in what she had just heard. They had a safe place to retreat to, and it could take everyone. Letting go of that particular worry, she thought of another. "Rodney, can we move the DiVinci?"

Looking startled at the question, Rodney glanced over at Radek and shook his head. "We have been exploring the station slowly. Mainly because we don't want to turn on any more of the station than we are able to power with the naquadah generators we have on site. We know that it does have a stardrive and are confident that it is in working condition, but without a ZPM or two to power it, the station is staying put."

"But you said the station has power. Everything is up and running and we are getting regular traffic from there." Now Elizabeth was confused. Hadn't Rodney told her that the station was operational?

Leaning forward and looking vaguely disappointed in her, Rodney began to lecture. "Elizabeth, I know that you are not normally this dim. I also know that I said that while there is power on at the station, it is just enough for life support, basic 'Gate activity and to open and close the doors. Maybe there is enough available to bring up a basic shield, but we would have to cut something else to do so. If we decide to turn on the equipment that produces the drones? We need a ZPM. If we want to fire up the stardrive? Needs a ZPM. Full shields? Again, the answer is a ZPM.

"And honestly, if we do want to move the station, we need to have full shields up to get out of the asteroid belt and the drive going at full strength to move that mass into hyper. So to be safe, we would need to have two fully charged ZPM's. And I know I could find a better use for two fully charged ZPM's here in the City. What we need to do is start shipping as many of the completed drones and intact puddle jumpers through as possible. Once we have done that, I vote for shutting the station down to the standby power levels he had before we went aboard him. That way he'll be able to blend back into the asteroid belt and hopefully be missed when the SGC goes looking for him. Because you know they will. The only reason we found him was because he lit us up with his own sensors."

Quietly absorbing the unusually brief rant/discourse, Elizabeth nodded at the points that Rodney had made and ignored the initial insult. Moving on to the next item on her mental list she asked her next question. "Okay, since that's obviously settled, I have another question for you. Can we dial another 'Gate in the Milky Way so Steven and his people can get home?"

Watching as Rodney opened his mouth and then closed it as his thoughts caught up was always entertaining. Actually managing to catch him off guard enough that he didn't have a ready answer was even more entertaining. "Well we have a ZPM and the 'Gate crystal, so logically we can. Where would you like to send them?"

Clearing his throat, Lorne put his opinion out for consideration. "If I might put my vote in for a destination for the crew, I would suggest either Cimmeria or the Land of Light. They both have Earth friendly cultures and rarely visited by anyone else. And both are on the list for SG teams to head to in case of trouble, so there should be a cache of supplies close to the 'Gate."

From her brief time as head of the SGC, Elizabeth remembered the two worlds in question. They were safe planets where the SGC could retrieve their wounded quickly. "Sounds good to me. So we have the start of a plan. Move as many drones and Jumpers from the DiVinci back here as we can, pack up everything possible from the mainland and get all our people back in the City. Does anyone have anything else to add?"

"I've got nothing. Do you Rodney?" asked John.

Shaking his head, Rodney turned to Carson. "Nope. Carson? Have you got anything?"

Holding up one finger, Carson nodded. "We are going to need to make sure that everything that could tip over or slide across a floor is tied down. Lifting the city won't be easy and we don't need anyone to be crushed by falling objects. Or have irreplaceable equipment be destroyed because it crashed into a wall."

Making notes on her tablet, Elizabeth agreed. "I'll have support personnel start doing that right away, Carson. Rodney, you and John need to get back to the DiVinci to begin loading up the drones. I do how a couple of questions before you head out: Are the racks the drones are stored on mobile? And once you get as much as you can off the station, how will you shut him down again?"

"Good question. I have no idea if the racks have wheels. I'll have to look. And shutting him down should be easy. We just need the Colonel to initialize the mothball procedure again. Well, after we get things covered up again." And now Rodney was the one making notes on his tablet.

"Okay. It looks like we have a workable plan on that front. Next item on the agenda: Do we have any idea how long it takes the Odyssey to make the trip out here?"

Looking faintly ill, John answered that question. "From the information that Jon brought us, the Odyssey was to be on the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy from Earth. At best speed, she could make it back to base in only about four days. With two days taken up in getting supplies and bringing in extra manpower we are up to six days. It takes the Daedalus eighteen days to make the trip between Earth and Pegasus, so I am estimating the Odyssey can make the trip in a little over a week. We thus have four days. At the most."

"Four days. We had less than that with the storm in year one. We can do this. Last question, Rodney. We have one ZPM. Is it enough to fly the city?" and taking a deep breath, Elizabeth waited on Rodney's answer.

Trading glances with Radek, Rodney seemed paused. Tilting his head and lifting a brow, Radek seemed to be confirming some unasked question. Wilting slightly, Rodney shrugged. "Theoretically there is enough power. But Atlantis was never meant to be flown on only one ZPM. And she still has some residual damage from her time underwater plus the Wraith attacks. The Asurans fixed most of the structural damage, but not everything.

"We are going to have to make sure our shields are up at all times once we reach space. Not just because they are the main thing holding our atmosphere in where we need it, but also because there are things up there that can hit and cause serious damage. To do this we need shields to be at full power, all the time. To get us to our new home planet we need the stardrive to be at full strength. All of this means that we are going to be on a dangerous balancing act of keeping just enough power to the environmental systems, the shields and the drive. Too much to any one of those and we are sunk."

Sitting still for a moment, Elizabeth let everything that Rodney had just said sink in. "So what you are saying is: it can be done, but it is going to be extremely dangerous and tricky to do."

Nodding his head Rodney agreed. "That is exactly what I am saying. And we need to get moving." And grabbing his tablet, Rodney stood up and walked out of the meeting.


~//~

Two and a half days of frantic packing, endless Jumper flights, last minute innovations and never ending worry later, Atlantis and her citizens were as ready to leave Lantea as they ever would be. The freshwater tanks where Atlantis stored desalinated sea water were full and the waste treatment facility had been given a quick inspection since there was no guarantee that their new world would have potable water. The mainland settlement had been broken down and everything that could be moved was being stored in storerooms scattered throughout the City. All the perishable foods that had been at the settlement were packed into the refrigerators and freezers that had been deemed suitable for food storage and more had been cobbled together at the last minute to handle the influx. As an added precaution the hunters among the Athosians had taken the time to go out for meat and had brought in enough to keep everyone fed for a few weeks at least.

Sitting in the conference room where the decision had been made to leave, Elizabeth went over her lists a final time. Except for the final walk through of the DiVinci and the fly over of the crash site, they were finished. And it had all been completed before their absolute deadline of four days. As one of the final tasks on the list, John and Rodney had gone out to retrieve the science detachment stationed aboard the space station and do the final walk through. Meanwhile O'Neill and Jackson were on their way to examine the remains of the Daedalus one final time. Each team was expected to arrive at their destination, do their inspection and then head back to Atlantis as soon as possible.

Hearing her radio chirp for attention, Elizabeth reached up absently and tapped her earpiece to activate the link, "Weir here." And with most of her attention firmly on her lists, she dimly heard Chuck give the news that they all had been dreading. "Sergeant, could you repeat that?"

"Dr. Weir, we have a ship on the long range sensors that matches the profile we have on file for the Odyssey. At present speed she has eighteen hours before she reaches the edges of our system. Also the energy profile we are getting matches the information we have on what an Odyssey class ship looks like when she is trying to come quietly." The words were quiet, and Elizabeth could hear Chuck taking deep breaths as he tried to stay calm.

"Chuck I need you to dial the DiVinci and let Colonel Sheppard and his team know what you just told me and that they have two hours to round up the science team and return to Atlantis. Confirm with Major Lorne that there are no teams out on the Mainland and if there are, have him recall them immediately. Once that is done, I need you to call all section heads together for an emergency meeting after all the teams are back. Have housekeeping get the main conference room set up with coffee and tea." Elizabeth knew that if she gave Chuck enough to do, he wouldn't have time to panic and his calm would spread through the rest of staff on the command deck. One thing that they did not need was for people to start spreading wild rumors all over the place.

"Right Dr. Weir, I'll get started on that now," and sounding far calmer than he had after he had let her know about the Odyssey, Chuck signed off.

Staring at the blank walls of the conference room, Elizabeth could only wish she was as calm and as in control as Chuck had sounded.

~//~

"Roger that, Atlantis. We'll be back in two hours and will relay this transmission to Lt. O'Neill and his team. Please let Dr. Weir know that the DiVinci is ready for the power down sequence and we are packing everything up as we speak," and tapping his radio's transmit key, John stayed on the line for any further information from Atlantis.

"That sounds good, Colonel. We will be waiting for your gear. Atlantis, out." And with a sharp click, the transmission ended and the wormhole connecting Atlantis to the DiVinci was severed. Turning to look at Rodney, John wasn't surprised to find him at the communications array, repeating everything they had just been told to O'Neill and his team. After all, time was of the essence and while there really wasn't anything left to strip from the remains of the Daedalus, the idea had been that it never hurt to look. Snorting to himself at the thought, John moved over to the console that housed the interior communications array, they needed to get the scientists to move quickly.

Tapping out his request on the console, John quickly patched his radio into the system. "This is Colonel Sheppard. Due to news from home, we are moving our time table for the shutdown of the station up by three hours. Everyone finish what you are doing and report to the Gateroom in an hour and a half. This means everyone and if you are late, well I hope that you don't mind the cold and a serious lack of oxygen. Sheppard out."

"Very funny, Colonel. Was that aimed at me?" it always amazed John how much acid Rodney could imbue into his voice and still have it come out sounding like he was pouting.

"Not really, Rodney. But if you want it to be, please take it as a given." And hiding a grin at his friends' habitual irritation with him, John turned around. "What do you say we go and do a final check on the power relays?"

Muttering to himself, Rodney made sure to correctly disconnect his laptop from the command console. John knew that once all his equipment had been put away, he would hear some comment on his thinly veiled suggestion. He wasn't disappointed. Raising his voice slightly, Rodney said, "I suppose I had better go with you. Otherwise you will end up locked in a storage locker and we will all forget you. Again."

Pulling the obligatory offended face out, John tried to come up with a snappy reply that didn't sound like another in a long line of excuses, "Hey! I was all turned around. Besides that was on Atlantis. And that was three years ago!"

"Some things Colonel are remembered forever. That's one of them," and smiling the smile of the smug, Rodney turned to go. "We are going on a walk, right?"

"Yes, we are leaving. So what've you guys found on this thing?"

The smug grin that Rodney had been wearing as he teased John seemed to get wider at the question, "Lots of empty rooms, labs that were actually closed up properly and surprise, surprise, the database has a search function that actually makes sense and is easy to use."

Hearing that the holy grail of anyone who had ever had to try to mine the database on Atlantis actually existed, John shot an incredulous look at his best friend. "Please tell me this program is one that we can download to a laptop and bring back? And that it will actually work with Atlantis and her computers?" Begging wasn't exactly condoned when you were the military commander of a base, but John had spent some of his on duty hours trying to tickle desperately needed information out of the database and more often than not coming up dry.

Nodding swiftly, Rodney gave John the good news, "We can and have it on a laptop and the software engineers back home are reviewing the coding to see if we can even interface it with Atlantis. Hopefully this won't be a case of incompatible software."

"Cool."

Walking down the hallways of the DiVinci was nothing like the halls of Atlantis. For one thing the station was nowhere near as alive feeling as the City, which might have been a function of the limited power available to him. Then there was the artwork gracing the walls. Atlantis was very easy to get lost in because most of her hallways looked remarkably similar, here there was no chance of that happening. Every hallway was different and there seemed to be whole artistic themes going on, plus there was the lack of windows. Atlantis was constantly bathed in multicolored light from the hundreds of stained glass windows studding her walls. Here on the DiVinci the only light available was from artificial sources and while it was full spectrum, it never changed.

One thing that was good about how the DiVinci was constructed was how close the main power room was to the command deck. When John and Rodney had first arrived on the station they had discovered that there was a ZPM that had reached entropy and the attack on the Daedalus had been the equivalent of a last hurrah. Making sure the naquadah generators had been tied in quickly and correctly had been more than just convenience, it had been a matter of life or death. Right after they had dialed Atlantis, they had gotten an alert stating that they had less than three hours worth of power left in the ZPM and the replacement needed to be found.

Given that the only ZPM Atlantis possessed was currently plugged into the main power hub and thus not readily available, it had been decided that naquadah generators were the only way to go. And they would have to leave them behind so the station could power down correctly and when the expedition was able to come back, they would be able to power him back up.

Walking into the room that housed another depleted ZPM was always bit depressing to John. They had found so many of the devices, and yet so few were usable. Moving around the room as Rodney fussed over his generators; John ran his fingers over the rows of script the Ancients had carved into the walls. While he wasn't reading at the same level as Jackson or even Rodney, some words leaped out at him. The letters of the Ancient alphabet crawled over the walls, spelling out potenta, navitas, origo and vita in endless, repeating patterns. "Rodney has anyone been in here to find out what these walls are saying?"

"Gee, let me think. We have six walls full of Ancient text, all talking about ZPM's and maybe the clues on how to make more. What do you think I did Colonel? Hold a séance in here? Of course I got Jackson and his soft science morons to look in here. The only thing the walls say is nothing. Well, nothing immediately useful at any rate. Jackson and his people spent a few hours recording everything and all we can hope is that they find something useful and not the Ancient version of a battery commercial!"

John had just confirmed to himself that his plan of annoying Rodney was one of his best ideas ever. Deciding that pushing his luck was the way to go, John glanced over at his friend and commented, "So I am guessing that there is nothing useful to be found here?"

Listening to the sputters and half formed words tumble out of the other man's mouth, John kept moving around the room. There seemed to be something nagging at him, something that was vitally important and he knew that he had to pay attention to what that nagging feeling was trying to tell him. Moving over to the hub that was the main power relay for the station, John started running his hands over that too. There was something here...

"Really, you don't think that I haven't tried that? We had a full scan done of this room and the ones surrounding it. Nothing has shown up. Nothing is in here but another Ancient monument to their short sightedness and arrogance."

Not really paying attention to what was being said to him; John stopped moving around the central pillar. Whatever was nagging him was strongest right about here. Moving away from the pillar towards the wall increased the sensation and running his hands over the wall in front of him got him to an area where the feeling was strongest. "Rodney, shut up. I need you here. Now. With your scanner."

"John? What did you find?"

"I have no idea. But I think DiVinci is trying to let me know something," John murmured.

Bitching was something that Rodney had learned how to do while still managing to get his job done, so his hands were pulling his scanning equipment out while his mouth was running, "How can the DiVinci tell you anything? There is barely enough power for life support, let alone enough to really activate the ATA network!"

Shaking his head slightly at the buzzing of his nerves, John kept moving his hands over the area that was keeping his attention. "I know something is here, Rodney. And whatever it is, it's important."

"Well there is something here now. I scanned this area myself when we got here and there was nothing. No energy readings, no blips, no spikes, nothing. And now? Thanks to Mr. Super Gene, I have a blip, a spike and a reading," and tapping the screen of his scanner, Rodney moved it over the wall. "Okay. I need you to touch this area," and waving hand at an area the size of a piece of paper, he looked over at John.

"I think I already figured that part out, McKay. Here goes nothing," and placing his hands on the area indicated John tried to make himself as receptive as possible. For five nerve wracking heartbeats nothing happened. And then the wall cracked open and a drawer slid out.

~//~

"Atlantis this is the DiVinci. We have all personnel aboard and are ready to start transport. Please lower the shield."

Tapping the key for the external communications array, Chuck started to reach for the shield controls. "DiVinci this is control. We have your IDC and the shield is down. Come on home."

"Thanks control. We have some good news for everyone. Before we get into that, make sure that the Gate stays up until Dr. McKay gives the all clear."

"Roger that, DiVinci. We are getting personnel in now. How many Jumpers should we be expecting?"

"Only the one. I'll be signing off now and heading through the Gate. See you in two. DiVinci out."

Deciding that moving out of his chair was better than having it jerked out from under him, Chuck watched Dr. McKay hurry up the staircase to the command level. Instead of his usual computer case, it looked as if Dr. McKay was clutching a large sample case like the one Botany department used. When he got to Chucks station he set the case on the floor between his feet, like the case was too precious to let out of his control for any length of time.

Deciding that the case was a mystery that he really didn't need to worry over, Chuck turned his attention to the Gateroom floor. All members of the science detachment and away teams were back and Colonel Sheppard had just exited the wormhole. "Dr. McKay, Colonel Sheppard has stepped through the wormhole and the Jumper is through."

"Right, time to send the shut down sequence," and Dr. McKay began tapping a series of commands into the Ancient console before him. Almost immediately there was an acknowledgment from the space station and the Gate shut down. "Sergeant, do you know where Elizabeth is?"

"She went down to the mess for something, sir. She should be back any moment now."

"Let her know that we are going to be in medical and that Colonel Sheppard and I need to talk to her as soon as possible," and grabbing his sample case, Dr. McKay trotted down the stairs and out the door towards medical.

~//~


Walking into medical was always a bit of a disconcerting affair. There was so much that had gone wrong in these rooms, so many times that she had walked through the doors not knowing if her friends would be alive on the other side or if they were still alive, they were injured beyond the ability of Carson to completely heal. So although she knew that there was nothing wrong with any of her people this time, she still felt a chill as she walked in the room.

Glancing around quickly, Elizabeth made sure to stay out of the way of all the corpsman and nurses as they moved from person to person and from room to room. The sheer number of people in these rooms was unusual, but she could see that the numbers were already thinning as returning expedition members were processed and released. Catching sight of Rodney as he expressed his displeasure over his blood draw, Elizabeth made her way over, wondering why she was meeting him in sickbay of all places.

"Rodney? You wanted to see me?"

"Ow! Do you have to be so rough every time you poke me? Right, go away now & play vampire with some other poor bastard," and flapping his hands at the nurse who had just taken his blood, Rodney waited until she had actually left before turning to speak to Elizabeth. "John and I found something on the station that needs to be dealt with immediately. The station is in shut down mode and he has sufficient power to keep his current orbit stable for the next hundred years or so. I need to get to my lab before the meeting to do a few tests and then I need Radek to meet me in the ZPM room. John will explain the rest. Gotta go."

Watching as Rodney grabbed the specimen case that had been on the gurney beside him and run out the door, Elizabeth could only nod and feel like she had just been run over by a bulldozer. Taking a few seconds to think over what Rodney had just said to her, she felt a wild hope start to rise in her heart. If she was right, if what Rodney had implied was correct and everything worked, they were safe. Turning quickly she scanned the room for Sheppard. When she found him, she rushed over, eager to see if her suspicions were correct.

"John, Rodney just ran out of here clutching at a sample case and saying something about tests, Radek and the ZPM room. What happened on the DiVinci?"

"We found ZPM's, Elizabeth. Two of them. And from the initial scans they are half to three-quarters full. Which means we now have enough power to fly the City and hide her where the SGC can't find us."


~//~

Smiling down at the objects on the surface, Rodney tried not to gloat. Speaking over his shoulder to the man behind him, he said, "To look at them, you would never know how much power is stored in such small objects. We have three ZPM's in the City and we get to keep them. Finally."

"Yes Rodney, we get to keep them. But only if we get the testing done fast enough to hook them into the power grid."

Releasing a put upon sigh, Rodney turned away from the comforting sight of two more ZPM's standing on the table in the main lab. "I know we have to get the tests done, Radek. But it's nice to see that things aren't going to be as desperate as we thought they would. What do your instruments say?"

"ZPM on the left is showing as 65% charged and the one on the right shows as 67%. And I never said it wasn't nice, I just think we need to move faster since the Odyssey is on her way in. It would be very bad for us if they watched us leave," muttered Radek as he continued to take sensor readings.

"Yes, I know that. My tests show that there's nothing on the outsides of the ZPM to cause them to overload and all indicators are green for insertion," and rubbing his hands in glee, Rodney began removing all the testing equipment attached to and placed around their two power sources. "Want to come with me to the power room?"

"Really must you ask?" Radek snapped back. As Rodney finished removing the equipment from the second ZPM, he set the first into the sample case. Carefully moving the second over to its temporary resting place beside the first, Rodney nodded. Tapping his radio, Radek made sure that the command deck knew they were leaving the main lab and headed to the main power room. Chuck would ensure that everyone was routed well away from them and the way would be clear.

~//~

"How in the world did Rodney miss the energy signature of two ZPM's? Wouldn't they have lit up the Jumpers scanners as soon as you got near the DiVinci?" Elizabeth asked.

Leaning back in his chair, John sighed. "You would think that would be the case. But the space where they were stored was heavily shielded. The only reason I knew it was there was because something on the DiVinci started nudging me to look in that area. Even with that nudge it took Rodney a good ten minutes to open the access panel. Once we had the drawer open the energy readings were obvious, and once we removed them there was still a residual level from the compartment that pinged the scanner. Once we closed everything back up though, there were no energy traces at all. Or at least none that Rodney's handheld could find. He keeps muttering things like 'If he missed something like this, what else did he miss?' I'm betting he is going to want to head back when it is safe so he can go over the whole facility with a fine toothed comb."

Nodding her head in agreement, Elizabeth sighed. "And I'll let him go with my blessing. Rodney did say that the station was properly mothballed by the Ancients, right?"

"Oh yeah, it was. Someone who actually knew what they were doing made sure he would be able to be brought back up. Did Rodney mention that his geeks found a search program and that they downloaded it to a laptop for analysis? If the code is compatible, the word is that it will be uploaded to the database and we may actually be able to find stuff now!" John said smugly. Watching the genuine shock move over Elizabeth's face was always fun. And being able to do it while giving her good news was even better.

"What? A reliable search engine written by the Ancients? I thought there was no such thing!"

"Yeah, the programmers have it in the lab, and as soon as they give the go ahead, it will be uploaded. After that, we'll have to see what it can turn up. And well, given what we saw when we originally arrived here on Atlantis, I don't think the Ancients ever really intended on coming back. Especially after I saw how careful they were to shut the station down correctly. Nothing against your counterpart, Elizabeth, but she just didn't know how to correctly mothball the City. And it showed," and giving his friend a look of apology, John shrugged. He knew that there were really only a few people in the new colony that had the skills to do a proper shut down, and Elizabeth wasn't one of them.

Waving off the apology, Elizabeth nodded. "Oh, I agree. Are we ready to go?"

"Once Rodney and Radek get the ZPMs tested, installed and the power grid is initialized, we should be able to send Caldwell and his crew home and be on our way. Has Carson cleared everyone?"

Sighing at the thought of leaving their friends to the 'mercy' of the new SGC, she nodded. "They're starting to stage the more mobile members of the crew on the edges of the Gateroom. Carson is making sure that everyone who isn't mobile has enough support to be able to last at least twelve hours and his people will bring them up when we are ready to gate them out. Once we have the all clear from Rodney, we'll send them through to Cimmeria, with enough supplies to feed them all for a few days."

"Good," and reaching up to open his radio to a shared command channel, John decided to check up on his favorite geek. "Rodney? Are we ready to get this show on the road?"

"Yes Colonel, we are good to go. We have run the ZPM's through every test we could think of, and they're clean. They are currently at a combined 66% power level, and with the one we have, should be more than we need to send the Daedalus crew home, and get us off Lantea. Which we need to do sooner rather than later."

Nodding his head in agreement even though Rodney couldn't see, John pressed one more time. He had to make sure. "Right. So everything is good to go? No surprises waiting for me when I fire up the engines?"

Hearing Rodney huffing out an angry breath, John had to smile. And then grin as he got blasted by wave of condescending wit, "Gee Colonel. When I said we were good to go I meant next week, not now. So why don't you get out of Elizabeth's office and get your skinny ass down to the chair room and get us off this rock?"

Snickering lightly as he nodded good-bye at Elizabeth, they traded a look of shared amusement at Rodney's expense. He was funny, especially when he wasn't really trying. "On my way. Meet you there?"

"Yes, yes. I am on my way there now. Chop, chop Colonel. We don't have all day. McKay out," and with his usual lack of grace, Rodney dropped out off of the command channel.

Making his way down the stairs to the Gateroom floor, John looked at the people waiting to go home. So many of these people had helped them out over the years, had been a part of the Atlantis family that it would be a wrench when they were gone. Stopping by Caldwell, John held out his hand, "Good luck, Steven. If we ever get back, we will stop by to let you know how things are going."

Laughing lightly at the thought, Steven took Johns' hand and shook it firmly, "Yeah, I bet you will. We'll be fine, John. Good luck and smooth sailing."

Flashing the man a quick grin, John nodded. "Thanks. Elizabeth will be out in a few minutes to say her piece and send you all home. I am sorry about what happened to your ship."

"Shit happens, Colonel. You didn't put us on that heading. And you sure as hell didn't tell us to drop out of hyper there either. Most of us made it, and we accounted for everyone else. Plus we're still going to go home. Thank you for that."

"It's what we do, Steven. And for what it is worth, thank you again. For everything you have done. Now I need to get moving before McKay comes up here and fetches me himself!" and with a final handshake, the two men parted.

Moving quickly through the crowd, John made his way over to the nearest transporter. Tapping in his desired location on the map, he waited for the flash of light that told him he had been moved from one location in the City to another. No matter how many times he had been in one of these things, it was still cool. Normal now, but still cool. Dropping into a light jog, John headed towards the Chair room. Rounding the corner he saw Rodney staring at his watch and tapping a toe, practically oozing impatience.

"Relax Rodney; I stopped to say good-bye to Caldwell. We still have plenty of time before Odyssey gets here."

Huffing out a breath in disgust, Rodney waved his hands in a 'hurry up' motion, "We have forty-five minutes before the Odyssey gets us within her sensor range. I would like to be off planet and in hyper before then, Colonel. Move faster," and turning away, he moved over to the monitoring equipment behind the chair.

Sitting down in the chair had always felt weird to John, and this time was no different. Atlantis wasn't really alive, at least not in any true sense. There was no AI, nor was there any evidence that there had ever been one, but there were layer upon layer of programs that were dedicated to looking after the inhabitants of the City. After the last few years the feel of them no longer bothered him, actually he was at the point where they felt like a normal part of his daily life. But the programs that came into action when the Chair was used were different. Closing his eyes only blocked out the visual cues of the room around him and brought into sharper focus the various command trees and decision points that he had to choose from. Thankfully they were in something that he could read, even if it wasn't technically English.

"Rodney, the City says that we have green lights across the board, we are ready to initialize the Star Drive and move out. Please let Elizabeth know that now is the time to send our guests home."

With his hearing was mostly tuned to what was going on in his head, John only faintly heard his order being passed on. Moving through the command trees, he reached the area where the star drive was located. With most of his attention on what was ahead of him, he stopped noticing everything outside but he did notice when the 'Gate opened. There was a bright flare on the power grid and he grimaced. That was going to eat a noticeable amount of power. Moving his attention to the relevant graph, he saw the power levels drop from 75% to 74.8% and holding steady. Checking the readouts for the engines, he nodded to himself. They had more than enough power to get off-world and into hyper with the shields at full strength.

Feeling the 'Gate close, John started the pre-flight checks for this. It had been a long time since the City had been flown, and while everything had been checked out by the engineers, this was now the real thing and they couldn't afford mistakes. Tapping into the City-wide communications grid, John made the final announcement, "Everyone brace yourselves, we are taking off in three, two, one. Lift off."

The feeling of flight, of freedom was overwhelming. Flying the Jumpers was more than John had ever thought he would have and yet, flying the City was even more so. She was huge, powerful and more than ready to escape gravity's grip. Reaching space felt like popping to the surface of a deep pool, and taking a deep breath, John brought up the first set of hyper coordinates. Here went nothing.

~//~

When the Odyssey reached Lantea there were only fading traces in space of a hyper window. And on the sea below where Atlantis had rested, there wasn't even a ripple left to mark her passing.

~//~

"Unscheduled off world activation. Unscheduled off world activation!"

Despite having been in command of the SGC for just over a year, General James Balok knew he was never going to get used to hearing those words sung out several times a week. He also didn't think he was going to get used to a job that literally was on the front lines of a war that stretched farther than any other war in the history of Earth. It didn't seem matter that his command post was buried over a mile under a mountain, once the StarGate opened every person on the base was on the front lines. Counting back in his head he realized that since he had taken over the top position he had been shot at, chased, zatted and stabbed. All of which, he had been told, were minor events compared to what had had happened to the last three Generals to hold this post.

Taking a series of deep breaths as he moved from his office to the control room, Balok tried to act like this was all normal and expected, "Sergeant, what do we have?"

"Sir, we are receiving an IDC that has been locked out of the system. It belongs to Colonel Caldwell, sir."

"Is the wormhole coming from Pegasus?" the General asked.

Shaking his head in negation, the Gateroom Master Sergeant disagreed. "No sir. It is a seven symbol address and we received a transmission with the IDC. That is being reviewed at this time."

By now Balok knew the drill and walked over to the computer connected to the in house communications array. Reading over the shoulder of the tech assigned to the duty station, he managed to find the relevant information. Caldwell was on Cimmeria?

"Sergeant Harriman, why would Caldwell be on Cimmeria?" and really, it wasn't like the people here didn't know that he was still overwhelmed, so asking for help wasn't going to make him loose that much face.

"That's the world that houses Thor's Hammer, General. And it has been a 'safe' address for SG teams to go to since SG-1 found it and made friends with the inhabitants there. Plus there's a cache with food, water, radios, medical supplies, several zats, guns and ammunition. There are caches like that scattered throughout the network," the answer was respectful, informative and yet still felt like the personnel in the control room were tolerating him.

Balok tried not to take the whole thing personally, but he knew that he wasn't wanted at the SGC, knew that most of the personnel wanted the old command staff back. The reasons were varied, but the thread of distrust, of subtle disrespect colored every interaction that he had with all the long-time SGC staff. And to be honest he knew why. The turnover from the old-guard SGC to the new had been abrupt and unwelcome in the extreme. Add in the change in the mandate they operated under and even Earth's allies were starting to react adversely. Balok also knew that his interpretation with his orders had not garnered him any friends at his new command, but he really couldn't find it in him to care all that much. His orders were too important to the safety of Earth for him to worry about what a few aliens thought.

"Sergeant, get a MALP prepped and ready on the ramp. Then get SG teams 2 and 3 together and send them through to Cimmeria. I want definitive proof that this isn't some sort of a trick. Make sure there are medical teams standing by in the Gate room for the trip out in case this is on the level and the numbers of wounded are correct. Let Colonel Reynolds know that their deployment is up to him. I'll be working in my office, so let me know when they report back," and turning on his heel, Balok headed back up the stairs to his office. Staying in the command room wouldn't get him the answers any faster. And staying where he was so very obviously not wanted made him uncomfortable.

~//~

"John."

01010101 01101110 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100...

"John."

Immersed in a sea of limitless data, calm, detached. Monitoring the flow of power from the potenta to the Astrum veho, adjusting to fit the conditions surrounding the Civitas.

"John."

Analog data was being aimed at the organic interface. Processing data. Verbal cue. Name.

"John, you need to come back."
New ripples and currents disturbed the data. The organic interface was detaching itself from the stream.

"John, it's time to come back from where ever you are. Open your eyes and look at me."

Pressure applied to upper quadrant of the organic interface. Shoulder. Optics online and image processed. Human. Male. Friend. Disconnect Complete.

"Rodney."

~//~

"Well that is a sight I never thought I would be able to see."

"Jon, we've both been in space how many times?"

Snorting softly at the thought of how in space 'he' had actually been, Jon looked at his best friend. "Not like this Danny. We are standing on a balcony on Atlantis and looking out at the stars with only a shield between us and space. How cool is that?"

Walking over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Jon, Daniel looked out over the City and beyond it to the sweep of a dark sky full of stars. "You're right. We've never seen anything like this."

Turning towards his friend, Jon put his arms around his waist and held on. "We're not going to be heading back to Earth anytime soon, are we Danny-boy?"

Moving closer and returning the hug, Daniel looked into Jon's eyes, "This is home now, Jack. If we go back, you know that the NID and the Trust will do everything they can to get a hold of us. And once they do that, you know what'll happen. This is the only place we can be safe, be free. Free to be Jon and Daniel. Free to hold each other. Free to actually sleep in the same bed every night. Will I miss Earth? Hell yes! There was only so much coffee stored, and most of the chocolate around here is Hershey's, which is just not right. There will be no mail, no internet, no restaurants unless we go off-world, no new music from the artists that I enjoy, all in all there are none of the things we are used to. But we will be free. And we will get back to Earth. We will see our friends again."

Huffing out a sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob, Jon nodded. "I know all of that, Danny. It was too close the last time. But it will be a long time before we get to see Earth again." and dropping his forehead against Daniel's, he dropped his voice down to a whisper, "So we are going to do this? Be open? Throw caution to the winds?"
Nodding at the question, Daniel agreed. "We are open, Jon. I don't want to hide anymore. Our other selves did it for years, I won't do it here. Let's talk to Dr. Weir and find a place where we can be together."

Lightly kissing the man in his arms, Jon felt a surge of love and respect. No matter the incarnation, Daniel was the bravest man he had known, and he was so proud that he could claim that amazing heart as his own. "You're right. As usual. Let's go tell Liz."

~//~

Rocking back and forth on his heels, Steven Caldwell watched as the Gate cycled through its opening sequence. Looking at his XO, he murmured, "Well Major, here goes nothing."

"Yes sir. Wonder who's going to be coming through?"

"If we are lucky, it'll be an SG team we know. That and some of the trauma teams," and sighing slightly Steven glanced over his shoulder at all his wounded crew members. Resting on air mattresses and protected from the sun and weather by all the tents that Atlantis could spare were the most critically wounded of his surviving crew. The more mobile members had spread out over the area in front of the Gate and were either standing guard or tending their shipmates. Everything looked as neat and tidy as they could make it.

Watching the MALP come through the Gate, Steven had to fight down the insane urge to wave at the camera and chirp out a 'Hi mom!'. He knew that the urge was partially relief at being so close to home, and partially fear of what was waiting on the other side. Because he had lost his multi-billion dollar ship and a third of his crew, to say nothing of the expedition deciding to go it alone on his watch. There was no way that this was going to be an easy debrief.

Three minutes after the MALP had come through the Gate, the first member of an SG team stepped through. Reading the patch on his right shoulder, Steven relaxed. It seemed their saviors were SG-3 and glancing at the next soldier to come through the Gate, SG-2 as well. Watching as Colonel's Coburn and Reynolds stepped through, he tapped his thigh pocket to make sure he still had the 'this is the straight shit' that he had been given by O'Neill. "Gentlemen, it is good to see you. By any chance are there some doctors waiting for us on the other side of the wormhole?"

"Hey Steven. Hold still while we do a recon and we'll get back to you on that," and glancing up at the pillar housing the Hammer, Colonel Reynolds waved the two teams into motion as the wormhole shut itself down. "Everyone knows the drill. Report back every fifteen minutes and let's get this done as fast as possible. We have wounded to get home."

Voices blending together in a collective "Yes, sir!", the men headed out to set up a secure perimeter independent of the one the Daedalus crew were maintaining. The two senior officers were well able to take care of themselves and well, that was Colonel Caldwell and he was a member of the SGC. You trusted friends.

Nothing was said as the four men waited for the Marines to move out of easy earshot. "What happened, Steven? Where is the Daedalus?" Colburn asked.

Huffing out a laugh that contained no humor, but instead was full of grief and tears, Steven ran his hands over his face. "We had made our final mapping stop on the way out of Pegasus. When we came out of hyper we were fired on by an Ancient space station. Lucky for us, all the thing had was drones, no energy waepons. And even then, it managed to pretty much destroy my ship. What the station didn't kill, the crash landing did. Daedalus is just a pile of expensive scrap metal now. Sheppard and his merry band of misfits came and got us, patched us up and we all stepped through to here. Well, those that could still walk did."

Cursing quietly at the news, both of the team leaders could only shake their heads. They had each lost men before and knew there was no cure for the grief Caldwell was going through but time. Taking a deep breath, Reynolds pushed a bit for a bit more, "You said that you stepped on through. What happened on Atlantis, Steven? Why did they send you here?"

Speaking for the first time Major Jacobs, Caldwell's XO answered, "They seceded, Colonel. The IOA and the SGC demanded they turn over their only ZPM. If they had done that, Atlantis would have been left without defenses, easy pickings for the Wraith. So they had a vote and their done."

"Christ. They really did it?" and staring in disbelief at their fellow officers, Reynolds and Colburn tried to digest the new shock.

"Yeah, they did it. O'Neill sent something for you two," and pulling the letter out of his pocket, Steven handed it over to Reynolds. "I have no idea what is in there. He gave it to me right before we stepped through and told me to pass it on to one of you."

Opening the envelope, Reynolds started to read...

Hey Guys,

I have no idea who's going to get this, so I will just put this in general terms. Earth fucked us over here by trying to pull the only ZPM we had and damn the consequences. It looks like they wanted all their eggs in one basket and who cares about some of the hens. Lousy analogy, but well, you get the idea.

Given the response we got when we said "No" you all might want to take a good hard look at your unofficial contingency plans. You know the ones I mean. As of a little over a year ago, our bolt hole was still safe and sound per SG1's last status check. If Reynolds, Feretti, or Colburn are reading this, one of you need to go there and turn the lights on. My gut is saying you are going to need it soon.

Take care of Steven here. He and his crew went through their own special brand of hell before we got to them to start the rescue. Speaking of the crew, Hermiod and his pod should have been beamed out right after they stepped through the Gate onto Cimmeria. Which is one of the major reasons we sent them there, beyond the whole 'safe from any snakes' thing.

Lastly the old man (if you haven't guessed yet, this is mini-me) needs to be told what happened to Atlantis and to the Daedalus. Since he is no longer in command, he may not be getting all the news in a timely fashion. If all hell breaks loose you are going to need him.

Good luck guys. We'll be thinking of you on the flip side.

Jack O'Neill

Handing the letter over to Colburn, Reynolds rocked back on his heels. He remembered the General's clone and after doing some mental adding, knew that he was at the right age to have gone through the Academy. And the whole letter sounded like Jack O'Neill. Who else would know about the bolt hole? No one on Atlantis had been senior enough at the SGC to have gotten that unofficial briefing. Thinking the whole scenario over quickly, he had to admit it made a great deal of sense for the General to have sent his 'mini-me' to Atlantis. It gave the expedition a strong gene carrier and got the clone away from the grabby hands of the Trust. Win-win situation all around. Deciding to think the whole thing through later, he pushed the mess in his head aside. Right now he needed to get some friends back to a safe haven.

"It's okay, Steven. Let's dial the SGC and get your people home," and putting his words into action, Reynolds went to the DHD and started dialing Earth's address. It was time for everyone here to go home.

~//~

"Come on Colonel Sleepyhead, time to get you out of the nice chair that just tried to eat what passes for your mind," gentle hands slid along his back. "This would work better if you helped, you know."

"Rodney."

"Very good, Colonel. You know my name. Now reboot the cottage cheese you call your brain and let's get you out of this death trap!" the words he heard were harsh, but the tone they were said in was worried. The sheer disconnect of the two made him pay more attention and he moaned as his head was moved.

One of the hands on his back moved up to the back of his skull, cradling it gently to a shoulder, "John. I need you to start tracking here. You were in the Chair for too long. You need to get out of it."

Feeling like there was concrete in his head and not his brain, John turned his face further into the shoulder he was resting against. It was warm, smelled like home and the hand carding through his hair was soothing the headache he was starting to feel. "Rodney? I don't feel good."

The hand in his hair stilled for a moment and then continued moving. "I know, John. We need to get you up and into Carson's grabby hands. You were connected to the Chair and Atlantis for too long. We needed to get you out before we lost you. Can you understand me?"

The concrete had given way to gravel, which was an improvement, but now he had jackhammers pounding away in time to his pulse. "Yeah, I understand. Do I have to stand up?"

The shoulder under his cheek quivered for a moment, and then stilled. "No. No you don't. I think we can get you onto the stretcher without moving your head too much. Migraine?"

"Oh, yeah. Better than my last concussion," and allowing his eyes to open slightly, John took in the view of the room. Instead of the normal white light of Atlantis, the room was very dark and what light there was, was tinged red. Which, while not the normal lighting, was very restful on his eyes. "How did you get her to do that?"

Voice sounding both absent and confused, Rodney asked, "Ger her to do what? Oh, the lights! That happened right before you regained consciousness. I guess Atlantis knew you were going to have a killer headache when you surfaced. And don't think I am not going to yell at you later for your damn fool stunt of immersing yourself so deeply. The risk you ran was insane!" Dropping his voice to an even quieter mutter, Rodney gently pulled John forward.

Swallowing heavily as his stomach protested the movement; John closed his eyes again and tucked his head back into Rodney's shoulder. If he wasn't feeling so bad, he knew that he would never have snuggled in so blatantly, at least not in public. He had never really been one for public displays of affection, but this felt so good, and he felt so lousy. The gravel in his head was slowly turning to sand now and feeling some control returning to his limbs, John attempted to help push himself out of the Chair. All he got for the attempt was a surge in his headache and Rodney's hands gripping his back a bit harder.

"You know what Colonel? Don't try to help. All you will end up doing making sure you spill your scrambled brains all over the delicate crystal equipment. Ronon? Can you pick up Colonel Idiot here and get him on the stretcher?" Familiar acid tinged words were pouring out of Rodney's mouth and flowing around his head, but the hands cradling him were still so very gentle.

When the second set of hands took a hold of him, John tensed and then relaxed. The hands were familiar and meant family, he was safe with them. Moving gently, the hands drew him out of the Chair and placed him on the stretcher. Curling up on his side, John felt a warm blanket being spread over him, and closing his eyes he fell asleep.


~//~

"Dr. Weir, do you have a few minutes?"

Blinking as the interruption jerked her out of her single minded focus on status reports, Elizabeth glanced over the top of her laptop. Standing in her doorway were Lt. O'Neill and Dr. Jackson, and they both looked a little nervous and excited. Waving them into her office she said, "For you gentlemen, I have all the time in the world. How can I help you today?"

"Since we are no longer allied with Earth and have our own version of the UCMJ, Daniel and I would like to get your okay on something," and glancing at his friend, Elizabeth watched as Jon took Daniel's hand. "We don't want to hide anymore, Elizabeth. We would like your okay to put a door through the common wall in our quarters or to find larger quarters where we can live together."

Leaning back in her chair, Elizabeth swallowed down the surprised 'Huh' that was trying to come out. She had suspected that John and Rodney would be the first ones in her office asking for something like this, but then these two had never let moss grown under their feet if they could help it. And from the last report out of the Infirmary, the Colonel wasn't going anywhere except back to bed with at least one IV for company. This meant that Rodney would be popping in and out of the infirmary all night. In addition to his visits, he would also be attempting to monitor the ATA positive personnel taking their turns in the Chair and trying to prevent any more emergencies.

"Take a seat Jon, Daniel. I am guessing that this whole relationship thing isn't new?" and tapping the remote on her desk, Elizabeth closed her office door. There was no way to change the glass walls over to a tinted or mirrored view, but most of her staff had learned not to stare when the door was closed. The only person who regularly ignored that rule was Chuck, and he did it on the Colonel's order to keep an eye on her. And hadn't that rule proven useful a time or two.

Shaking his head in a firm negative, Daniel gazed at her with a calm look on his face, "No, it isn't new. We just held off until we were both technically adults and well, in the same city. While Jon was at the Academy we obviously couldn't do anything either. Here though? Well, we are no longer part of Earth and we want to stop hiding."

Angling his head so his mouth was pointed away from the clear windows, Jon dropped another quiet bombshell, "Plus the whole hiding thing caused a lot of problems for our originators. When Daniel went missing this last time, Jack seriously lost it. The only thing holding him together right now is the conviction that SG1 is alive and duty to Earth."

Feeling very glad that all her years in Pegasus and Earth based negotiations had given her a strong poker face, Elizabeth kept the shock off her face by sheer will. Then indulging her curiosity, she asked as tactfully as she could manage, "Colonel Carter?"

"We loved her, but not like that Elizabeth. It would be like making love to your sister, and we couldn't do that to her. Besides, Daniel had pretty much owned our heart from the first," and looking back at her through Jon's eyes was all the knowledge and experience of Col. Jack O'Neill, not the 2nd Lt. his uniform tried to portray. Swallowing deeply Elizabeth could only nod. It wasn't her business anyway.

"There are a few residential towers that we cleared for habitation. We had originally decided to not use them because we were low on power and we couldn't afford the drain at the time. With three ZPM's that shouldn't be a problem."

"We'll take a look after everything settles down. Have you heard anything about Colonel Sheppard and Rodney?"

~//~

Walking out of his office, General Balok acknowledged the officers waiting in the conference room, "Colonel Caldwell, Major Jacobs, Lt. Zimmerman, thank you for joining us gentlemen. Let's get started."

Opening the folder containing the initial report from Colonel Caldwell, the General started reviewing it again. Coming to the first item he had marked for further explanation, he turned his attention to his senior officer. "Colonel, can you explain why the Daedalus did not notice the Ancient space station?"

Without looking at the notes on his Atlantis issued computer, Caldwell took a deep breath and answered the first question of the day. "Yes sir. When we dropped out of hyper there were no energy readings in our vicinity, so we began mapping the systems surrounding us. Less than ten minutes after we had dropped out of hyper and started scanning, we detected drones approaching at a high rate of speed from an unknown source. Per information that was later recovered from our flight computers, the originating station's transition from dormant to active happened within milliseconds and we had no warning. In addition, Atlantis later ascertained that the station had been built into one of the asteroids circling the system between the third and fourth planet so it has a formidable natural cloak."

"Thank you, Colonel for that explanation. We will get to back to Atlantis and their involvement in this whole fiasco at a later time," and skimming down the report for the next highlighted item, Balok looked up. "What happened after you detected the drones?"

Pinching his lips together as a pained expression flashed over his face, Caldwell continued, "We began evasive maneuvers immediately, but it was too late to avoid the first volley of drones. When we had dropped out of hyper we had reduced our shields down to twenty percent, which is SOP for ships in unknown, but not actively hostile territory. This meant that when the drones impacted most of their force was expended against the shield, but there was still sufficient energy to overwhelm the generators. The second volley was following closely behind and impacted against our hull causing a large number of casualties, including myself. Command then transferred to my XO, Major Jacobs."

Raising his eyes from the report, General Balok turned to the Major and waving a hand, motioned him to continue the report. "Yes sir. With Colonel Caldwell injured, command passed to me. Hermiod, our Asgard representative, managed to get the shields up before the third wave of drones arrived. We continued to execute evasive maneuvers in an effort to buy time for Engineering to get the hyper drive back online. Thanks to the shields being up and some good flying, we managed to deflect, absorb, or just miss several more waves of drones."

Pausing as he reached for his water and drank, Jacobs stared into something only he could see, "We lost our aft shields roughly two minutes after the Colonel was wounded, and with Hermiod busy trying to get the 'drive up, it was all we could do to keep the bow of the ship between us and the drones. Then a drone slipped through and clipped the engines. To this day I have no idea why we didn't explode. With no hyper-drive, we needed to find some way out of the battle where we could set down for repairs. We were leaking atmosphere, our main engines were gone, and we had no idea who had shot at us.

"Our remaining sensors showed a planet in the system we were in that had a breathable atmosphere, gravity that was close to Earth norm and it was just close enough. So I ordered us to head towards the planet at our best possible speed. There was a final volley of drones came as we passed through the systems asteroid belt and caused our shields to drop to around 30%. When we entered the planet's atmosphere, they were insufficient to buffer us from the turbulence of reentry and I was thrown into one of the bridge consoles. From that time until I woke up on Atlantis I have no idea what happened."

Nodding he head as he listened to story unfolding in front of him, Balok pressed on. "Lt. Zimmerman, when did you take command of the crew?"

"Sir, I was not on the bridge when we crashed and so I cannot say what caused us to land as we did. However I was the most senior officer who was mobile and relatively unharmed. Due to that, I took command of the crew in my immediate area and began evacuation procedures. Once everyone alive was off the ship, I returned to the bridge and sent out a Mayday."

Cutting in quickly, the General asked sharply, "Lieutenant, just to make sure I understand this, you lit up the ship's Mayday beacon even though you knew it could attract the Wraith?"

"Yes sir. Shortly after the crash I managed to speak to Lt. Anderson who was station on the bridge and in charge of monitoring all Wraith traffic. She reported that there were no Hiveships or cruisers to be found in that sector of space. And I had to take the chance. We had too many injured and too few available medical personnel to keep our injured alive. I have no idea how many hours later it was when Major Lorne arrived with the first two Jumpers. After that, we started loading the most seriously wounded aboard and sent them to the space station for transfer on to Atlantis."

"Right. This station your wounded were transported to was the same station that sent the drones?" the General asked. He knew his voice was hard with something that might be perceived as a threat, but he really didn't care. Focusing on the uncomfortable Lieutenant he waited for an answer to the question.

Cutting in before the Lieutenant made the situation worse, Caldwell answered the General, "We didn't find out until well after the fact that the station was the originator of the drones that shot the Daedalus down. At the time, all any of my crew knew was there was a 'Gate aboard the station and thanks to the wonders of naquadah generators, it was working. We got sent through by the Jumper load."

Trying not to sound eager, Balok lead forward a bit, "Do you know the status of that station now, Colonel? And do you have the location of the system so we can go and examine the facility?"

"Yes sir, I have the coordinates of where the Daedalus came out of hyper and the solar system we took refuge in. I do not however, have the exact location of the space station. Nor do I have the command codes for it," Caldwell said quietly.

Sitting back in his chair, the General thought over the statements he had just heard. Getting the right area of the galaxy to search would make things much easier. And the thought of being the one to deliver the weapon the station represented was beyond satisfying. "As I understand it Colonel, all we need is someone with the ATA gene to go in and turn the station on, correct?"

Shaking his head slightly, Caldwell disagreed, "No sir. You are going to need someone with a stronger expression of the ATA genome than Sheppard. Not even General O'Neill's is as strong."

"What do you mean a stronger expression of the ATA?" Balok demanded.

"The ATA genome is just that. It's a series of genes that working together allows a person to interface with Ancient technology at a level that is beyond hitting keys on a keyboard. The gene therapy that Dr. Beckett gave to the members of the Expedition supplied one of the pair of genes that are needed to trigger the sequence. Without both copies, you're only a carrier of the sequence and thus not a user of the ATA network. As far as Dr. Beckett was able to determine, Colonel Sheppard's genome reads almost 98% pure Ancient. General O'Neill weighs in at about 90% and Dr. McKay is at 89% or so. Sir, unless you can get an Ancient on that station, no one else is going to be able to unlock it."

~//~

"Colonel Sheppard, ye will lie back down on that gurney an' ye'll keep that IV in until I tell you otherwise. Do ye understand me?"

Clutching his head in pain, John started to sit up again; he hated lying on his back in the infirmary. "Geez Carson. Not so loud!"

Pressing one hand on Sheppard's chest, Carson gently pushed him back against the mattress while checking the IV site with the other, "If ye stay right here an' let the drug regimen I have ye on have a chance to work, that headache ye are sporting might go away!"

There was a pulse of urgency, of anxiety running along his nerves now that he was awake enough to notice. Not at an overwhelming level, but still more than he was really comfortable with when he wasn't able to fix the problem. And thanks an increase in his ability to interface with the City and her network of ATA enabled equipment; John knew the 'problem' was because they were still in deep space. He knew that he had to get his point across and so he kept insisting, "Gotta get back to the Chair, we aren't on a planet yet."

"Colonel, you will stay put so Carson can attempt to unscramble what passes for your brains! Lorne is taking his watch in the Chair and we are staying at this position while you recover." Rodney snapped with real anger coloring his voice. Hearing that, John paused. There had been very few times over the years that Rodney had been genuinely, devoutly angry with him. And those times had always come after he had put his life too close to the line.

"How bad was I?" John asked quietly.

"It took us over an hour to get through to you, you were in so deep. When you bothered to speak to anyone, you were doing it in Ancient. And given that I know you can only read the language, but not speak it, that wasn't good. Plus I am not all that sure that you knew we were even in the room. What little you were saying sounded like the automated status reports of a computer." Rodney sounded like he was forcing the words out around something horrible; they were coming out in short staccato bursts, anger and fear flavoring every one.

Turning his head slightly to look at Carson, John tried to convey his need to know his condition. Apparently it worked because Carson started to relay on what had been wrong with him. Listening to the litany, John quickly figured out why Rodney had been upset. The laundry list of what his use of the Chair had done to him was both impressive and sobering: he had experienced a bloody nose, low blood sugar, and out of whack electrolytes, plus his EEG had shown seemingly random patterns until he had stabilized, and finally there had been excessive levels of dopamine dominating his brain chemistry. All of which meant that he wouldn't be getting out of Carson's clutches any time soon.

"So I am stuck here until all the tests come back for normal levels? Carson if you do that, you'll have Lorne in here right after me!" So it came out as more of a croak than as a snap, but really, it was all he could come up with while his head was still throbbing.

"An' what makes ye think tha' Major Lorne is the only one babysitting the City while ye recover?"

Poking at the sludge that was currently clouding his thinking, John tried to remember what Rodney had just said about the Chair, the City and who was watching over the whole thing. It sounded like... "How many ATA positive people do you have taking turns Rodney?"

Looking pissed, scared and faintly defiant, Rodney crossed his arms with a huff and glared down at him, "Every available person with a strong expression of the ATA that has ever taught how to fly a Jumper, minus O'Neill. We don't need to find out if the remnants of the Ancient download will get reactivated by the Chair. That means there are roughly twenty-five people who are as close to qualified as we can get to sit in that thing and keep us at this position. We trade off every two hours so no one gets burned out."

"Every two hours? How long was I in the Chair?" John asked in surprise.

Watching Rodney's face turn red and the vein in his forehead throb, John felt a sinking sensation. When the veins in Rodney's forehead started throbbing it was always bad news. Actually it meant that things were worse than bad; they were into the uncharted territory of 'Things that will kill us if we don't watch them constantly.' Furthermore if there was no hand waving, DEFCON 1 had not only arrived, it had been passed.

"You were in that Chair for close to thirty-six hours Colonel. Thirty-six hours where we couldn't talk to you, or get you to talk to us in any meaningful fashion. Thirty-six hours where we went in and out of hyper at odd intervals and the City turned off the gravity twice. Lucky for us, everything major was strapped down and when the gravity came back on, it came back up slowly enough so people floated down, instead of crashing down and turning into anchovy paste. Thirty-six hours where you didn't eat, drink and barely breathed. So yes, we stay in the Chair for only two hours. And you are not getting back in the damn thing until you are healthy enough and the voodoo practitioner over there says your brain isn't scrambled!"

The sinking sensation was now compounded by the pain in his head. Rodney hadn't waved his hands once while he was explaining how stupid John had been, but he had raised his voice. A lot. And Carson really wasn't doing anything to stop him, which meant his doctor agreed with his scientist. Not good at all. And really, John couldn't blame either of them for being pissed. Because if Rodney had done all of that, John didn't think he would be as coherent, let alone as polite.

"Right. I'll just stay here until Carson releases me. If that is okay?" See? He could follow orders. Really.

"Ye're damn right ye will, Colonel. And let's just take care o' that headache ye are sportin', shall we?" and with a firm nod of his head, Carson turned away. Following him by only moving his eyes, John watched as he grabbed a filled syringe. Relief was on its way.

And really, why Carson even bothered to ask when he was already planning on adding something to his IV, John never knew. Maybe it was something that was taught to doctors in med school or maybe it was something that was unique to the Scot, but either way, Carson did it every time. Closing his eyes against the light, John felt the medication hit is system and wash away the pain, making him relax.

"Daft bugger. Always have ta try to be a hero. Relax, Colonel. Ye'll be as right as rain in a little while," and with a last check of his pulse and his IV port, Carson moved away from Johns' gurney.

Because he hadn't heard a second set of footsteps move away, John wasn't surprised when he felt a hand start to stroke his hair. The fingers running through it were a good indication that Rodney hadn't left yet. So was the hand now holding his in a firm grip, "Relax you nit wit. I'll be here when you wake up. Silly moron. Why do you have to always be the one that gets to try to do yourself in? Don't you know that I can't let you do that?" The words were quiet, but the tone was loving and when he felt Rodney kiss his forehead, John relaxed into sleep. He was going to be fine.

~//~

Flipping the pages of his copy of Caldwell's after action report from one point to another, Balok looked at the officer in front of him. "Colonel, you and your crew spent a little less than two weeks on Atlantis after your rescue. Is that correct?"

Sitting straight in his chair, Caldwell continued to look at a spot an inch above the shoulder of the General and began explaining again, "That is correct, Sir. While we were recovering from our injuries we were only allowed limited access to the City itself. We were housed in a separate residential tower with a number of medical personnel stationed on each floor and the transporters had been reprogrammed to allow only certain predetermined destinations. The few times that I, my command staff or my crew were allowed out of our tower into the main parts of the City, we were escorted by a group of Marines. Daedalus did not have many ATA positive personnel and few surviving members were among the wounded and thus not up to attempting to override the lock down protocols."

Humming under his breath, Balok took his time to write a note on the report in front of him before moving on to the next point on his list. "These lock down protocols Colonel, are they controlled through the Atlantis mainframe or are they something that was set up via Earth based technology?"

Taking a deep breath, Caldwell took the time to think through his answer. "As I understood it when the protocols were originally explained to me, the restrictions are controlled by the City and can be released by the strongest gene carrier or their designated seconds. The current access list on Atlantis goes Colonel Sheppard, Dr. McKay, Major Lorne or Dr. Beckett. If those four are off Atlantis a secondary protocol is initialized that allows Dr. Weir and other designated non-ATA compatible personnel to override the gene sequence needed and input a password to shut if off."

"So there was no chance that even with your gene carriers, you would be able to remove or disable the lock down and get free access to Atlantis?" and tapping his pen against the his paperwork, Balok gazed over the conference table at the three men before him.

Shaking his head Caldwell leaned back in his chair, obviously trying to translate what he knew into a form that his superior officer could easily understand, "Atlantis has been invaded before General, and the personnel assigned to the City are both highly intelligent and highly paranoid. Given those two qualifiers, we had no one aboard with the correct skill level to even begin to be able to get around the security protocols that were in place before Atlantis seceded. And after the secession, I don't think even Colonel Carter would have been able to break through the new levels of security."

"I thought that Dr. Novak was part of your crew, Colonel. Wasn't she trained by Colonel Carter? And hasn't she been working with the Asgard Hermiod for the last five years? I would have thought her experience with alien technology would transfer over to the computer systems on Atlantis?"

"Sir, Dr. Novak is currently in an intensive care unit at the Academy Hospital. And Hermiod was placed in an Asgard stasis pod shortly after we found him in the rubble of the engine room. Both were too grievously injured to attempt anything." And breathing deeply, Caldwell's eyes lost focus as he looked at something Balok couldn't see. "We weren't being mistreated sir, just kept out of the way as they took care of business."

Deciding to push things a bit harder, Balok tried again to find out what Atlantis and her inhabitants had been up to in the days leading to their disappearance, "You reported that after their initial check in with the SGC Weir and her people realized that the Odyssey would be there soon. When they asked you where you and your crew wanted to be 'Gated to, why did you not attempt to take over then? Also were you in the meeting when the decision was made to fly the City off of Lantea?"

"Sir, I don't have the ATA genome, and even if I could overwhelm Colonel Sheppard, Specialist Dex, Teyla Emmagen, Dr. McKay and all the Marines stationed in the Gate Room, I wouldn't be able to operate the equipment," and shaking his head, Caldwell continued, "We also weren't included in any planning meetings beyond the one to determine where to Gate my crew to. Finding out that the City had disappeared was as much of a shock to us as it was to you sir."

Leaning back in his chair General Balok contemplated the men in front of him. Even though they had returned to Earth minus a third of their crew and without any idea of where Atlantis was headed, they were still holding their heads high. Knowing what he now did of the command staff of their breakaway base, Balok wasn't all that surprised that they had managed to keep the Daedalus's crew isolated and uninformed. From all indications it had likely been done out of both a survival instinct (what the Daedalus crew didn't know, they couldn't reveal) and loyalty to their friends.

Plus the crew and their commander in question were well respected by both SGC field and support personnel. This meant that he had to think long and hard about what he was going to do in response to the issues that this debriefing cum inquest was bringing up. From the initial indications, Caldwell and his command crew had followed all the agreed upon regulations to the letter when exiting hyper to do their scans.

When the ship had been fired upon, the mapping mission had immediately been scrubbed in favor of getting their ship out of range of the mystery drone launcher as soon as possible. The second item had been to find someplace safe that they could set down on to either effect repairs or wait for rescue. The third item had been to determine where they were and gather what information they could with what supplies they had on hand. And despite the odds, Caldwell and his crew had managed to fulfill their mission requirements. All of which meant that he couldn't throw the book at them for their actions before the rescue.

He might be able to find some leeway in the regulations so he could charge them for not attempting escape during the time that they had spent on Atlantis after the rescue. But given the injuries that the crew as a whole and the command staff in particular had suffered, he would need to check with the bases JAG to find out if the idea was even feasible. If there were no legal means available to him to deal with his officers, well there were plenty of scut jobs open even at the SGC. And the old guard wouldn't have any reason to complain if he did the last. So that was an area that needed to be looked into further.

Nodding to himself, Balok looked over the list he had prepared based on the after action report written by Caldwell and his crew. All the areas of concern had been addressed and there really was no reason to keep them here any longer. Plus having them off base would allow him to meet with the JAG a bit more discretely. Pushing his chair back, Balok gathered his papers together and stood up, "Alright gentlemen, it looks like we have covered the major points of concern. We will be calling you back individually over the next week, so stay close to the Mountain. Dismissed."

Time to make some phone calls.

~//~

Carson decided to let John leave his tender clutches only after his body chemistry came back to normal and that had taken several days. When he was released he was directed to go to his quarters and not head back to the Chair room nor was he to go to his office. To make sure that John actually followed his orders, Ronon was there to escort him to his room and stand guard on him. Beyond feeling mildly disgusted at the mother-hen routine, John really couldn't find himself caring too much at that point, he was still too tired.

Stumbling into his room, John found that someone had been there ahead of him and had turned his bed down, and put a bottle of water and the drugs that Carson had prescribed on his nightstand. Whoever it was that had done that, he was going to make sure he thanked them when he woke up. Downing the water and drugs, John crawled into bed without bothering to take off the scrubs he was wearing and was sleeping moments later.

When he finally woke up he did so gradually, feeling peaceful and warm. Neither condition was something that he was used to after living in Pegasus for the last six years. When he managed to get his eyes open, John saw that he was draped over Rodney with his head nestled into his shoulder. Sighing softly, he let his eyes drift close again and tried to ignore the demands his body was making of him, his bladder wasn't that painful yet. After what felt like too short of a time, his body won out and he just had to move. Sliding carefully out of the bed to avoid waking his human pillow, John quietly made his way over to the bathroom. Taking care of his personal business, he paused looking at his reflection in the mirror. He looked tired and beyond scruffy with the start of a really good beard and bed head from hell.

Deciding that he needed a better clean up than the sponge baths he had suffered through in the infirmary, John flicked a thought at the shower to get it warmed up. Ducking back out into his room, he saw that Rodney was still sleeping although he had shifted to take over the extra space on the bed. Trying to be quiet, he quickly got a change of clothes and headed back into the now steamy room. Stripping out of his scrubs he got under the hot water and started cleaning all traces of his time in the Chair and the infirmary from his skin, trying to ignore the areas in his mind that felt more than a bit raw. Working on autopilot, John managed to get showered and shaved in record time and then just stood under the hot water and enjoyed the feeling of being clean.

After a while he finally felt that he was both pruney and clean enough. Shutting the water off with a mental flick he headed out to get ready for the day. Dressed and feeling much more human than he had when he had fallen asleep, John paused at his desk and jotted down a quick note so Rodney wouldn't freak out if he woke up to find him gone. Propping the note on the nightstand John brushed a kiss over Rodney's hair and headed out to find food, he was starving.

~//~

Walking into the commissary for breakfast Elizabeth couldn't find it in herself to be surprised that John was sitting at a table nursing a cup of coffee and staring out the gallery of windows. While it hadn't quite been twenty-four hours since Carson had discharged him from the infirmary, she had never known him to stay where he was supposed to when he was recovering. On the other hand, John did have a tray that looked it had been well picked over, so he had at least eaten something. No matter what Rodney thought, John did eat, he just didn't eat a lot when he was under stress. So when things got bad, everyone in the know kept an eye on him and let Rodney know when it was time to start nagging. John still hadn't figured that one out.

Grabbing her own breakfast, Elizabeth walked over to John's table and made sure that she was loud enough to let him know that someone was coming up behind him. "John? May I join you? And how are you feeling?"

"Oh, hey Elizabeth. Please join me," and waving one hand at the chair opposite him, John pushed his empty tray to the side to make room. "I feel fine by the way. A bit more sensitive to the ATA, but that happened when I was in the Chair the last time. "

Taking the time to get her breakfast positioned as she liked it, Elizabeth thought over what John had just mentioned. Coming to a decision, she let the comment about the ATA go for now. She would ask Rodney or Lorne first to see if they had noticed any increase in their sensitivity to the City after their shifts in the Chair. Picking up her fork she started poking at the food on her plate and right before she took her first bit looked over at her friend, "I'm glad to hear that you are feeling better, John. And no, you can't get back in the Chair for a shift."

Grinning lightly at how well she knew him, John returned to his contemplation of the stars.

~//~

It's been over a year since we left Lantea ahead of the Odyssey. In deciding to secede from the control of Earth we had gone from a multinational expedition force to being an isolated and hunted colony. A colony that no longer wanted to be tied to our home nations let alone the planet.

Things haven't been easy. The original plan had us finding a new planet to settle on, one with enough water to allow Atlantis to float on a sea instead of being tied to the soil. But after talking over our options and calling for a City wide vote, it was decided that we were just going to spend some time out in "The Black". Can you tell I've been watching too much 'Firefly'? Still, it's what we're doing.

Hanging around in deep space has some benefits. One is that we are damn hard to find, what with the SGC and the Wraith both looking for us. Through the long range sensors and remnants of the Ancients galaxy wide sensor net, we have seen over a dozen separate Tau'ri ships arrive in different areas of the galaxy. Often several ships arrive at a time. They and the Wraith want Atlantis and are looking for us with everything they have. One has to wonder how the war with the remnants of the Ori is going if the SGC is continuing to hunt us, and we all know why the Wraith want us.

The second benefit of us hanging out is we have finally got the City fully explored. We chose an inactive 'Gate location so we can use the StarGate, do so to keep in touch with our allies and trade for what we can't produce, but the unrelenting mission tempo has slowed down. Thanks to the slow down we now have a much more detailed idea of what the City has to offer and she is beautiful. Nothing comes for free though, and we did lose a few people in the course of the explorations, so if we ever get back in touch with Earth we will let their families know, but overall the losses have been few. And what we have found! Rodney almost dislocated his arms in his excited hand-waving a few times.

The third benefit is personal. Rodney and I finally stopped the public tip-toe routine and moved in together. We had found bigger apartments in one of the secondary towers during Year One, but because of our power issues, the decision had been made to not release them for habitation. With the additional two ZPM's from the DiVinci we have power to spare and we can all spread out. So Rodney and I live in one apartment, Teyla and her intended are down the hall, Jon and Daniel are on the floor below us, and Ronon has taken over the apartment across from us. Can you believe he is dating Keller? One has to wonder about those two...

Well with the benefits came the problems. Problem one was something I really hadn't thought of. Vitamin D deficiencies lead to that lovely thing called rickets, and since we were no longer on a planet orbiting a G-type sun, we weren't going to be getting an outside source of sunlight so we could make our own. Now we have supplements, but we wanted to save those for any emergencies we might have, and frankly they don't work as well as what we can make internally. So it looked like a fix needed to be found before we all started breaking bones. When we went to look at the life support systems in the thought of changing the settings on the internal light sources, we found that Atlantis had beaten us to the problem. As soon as we had taken off of Lantea, she had switched the lights over to a full spectrum wavelength. Gotta love it when everything works like it should!

Food was the next consideration. We had had some problems at first. While we had the greenhouses spooled up for planting, we hadn't had a chance to get everything started. Parrish and his team had done wonders in cleaning out all the crap that had been left behind by the Ancients (and by crap I mean the ten thousand year old dead plants) and flushing the systems, but they had just gotten past the test crop stages. We knew the system could work, and for the original expedition, the test crops had been enough to supplement our diet, but now we needed them to go into full production.

So we were eating our stores at first. And those stores we rationed pretty tightly while we waited on the first crops to come in. Getting everything in was an all hands rotation that took a solid week. We now have actual fields of tava beans, wheat, corn, rice paddies and the start of a respectable orchard. Admittedly the orchard was one of the test crops that started out as a bunch of potted plants in the hallways, but still we have an orchard on Atlantis. And the trees are starting to produce fruit now. Add in the hydroponic rooms with the hanging gardens and we are set when it comes to veggies. As for protein, well the Pegasus version of tilapia is pretty tasty and it is growing in the aquaponics bays. So for the most part, food really hasn't been that big of a problem. Keeping a clean water supply for use in our crops is, which is why the aquaponic bays are such a help.

Oh, we have no red meat to speak of right now, and the last time I had a steak was months ago, but we aren't likely to go on short rations again, or starve. And Parrish and his people have just started growing luxury plants and herbs from Earth and Pegasus. Strawberries and kemi berries are delicious. Did I also mention that we have tea plants growing? I didn't even know anyone had brought seeds for those through until Parrish mentioned them at the last supply meeting. It seems Peter Grodin had smuggled some in with his gear and turned them over to Parrish for cultivation. What does all this mean? Well besides some nice fruit, we have trade items that are normally hard to come by. So botany and the agronomists are happy.

Does this sound like everything is going our way? It really isn't. For all that Atlantis is a beautiful city and she wants to help us, she's old. I mean the Ancients left her alone at the bottom of an ocean for ten thousand years. That wore at her and riddled her with problems both large and small. Then we got her bombed within months of her rising, not counting the storm that almost sunk her. So honestly, it was a good thing that the Asurans came along and took over the City when they did.

What, you thought I was upset over that? Well I was, but they fixed the City. Not just the Star Drive, they fixed the structural damage that we hadn't been able to. But everything else? Things like nanotech labs that had been closed, but not mothballed? Where what amounted to gun ranges were left open with weapons lying about, all unlabeled? Where an ancient database that had been allowed to operate for millennia without even a defragging program run every once in a while? All of this and more was left for us to find. Most of these things have cost us lives that could have been saved if the Ancients had taken the time to do things correctly.

What is wrong with the database? The Ancients had been using it for many thousands of years and there really was no logic to it that we could see. It is really possible that everything that we need is buried within it, but the way the Ancients filed things has to be seen to be believed. The Ancients labeled the truly important programs fairly clearly, things like life support, propulsion, inertial dampeners, and other housekeeping and weapons programs. Which is a good thing, but everything else? Things like the history of their war with the Wraith, medical information on the plague that drove them out of the Milky Way, how to build ZPM's, information on the Ori, a list of what experiments were run and what the results are all hidden under file names we may never look under. Access to these things could have helped us a million times over in our war with the Wraith and the Ori, but we still have problems figuring out where to look. And so we are left with only the bits and pieces that we stumble over. Rodney has damn near frothed at the mouth when the search program returns with hints and clues, but no hard data, no matter how he phrases things. Can't really say as I blame him.

We will be out here for a while longer, floating around our little brown dwarf star. Once the hunt for us has cooled off a bit more. We will go back and check out the DiVinci and start him up again, see what other secrets he hides. We'll settle on a planet again and feel the rocking of an ocean as Atlantis rides the waves. We are still alive. And we will never give up what we have found. Home.

~Finis~