Hope you enjoy, this is my first venture into writing Fanfition and I only wish I owned anything in it.

Chapter 1

For Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard it seemed like on every day he spent in the Pegasus galaxy something new and unexpected happened. The expedition had been here for little more then a year and a half and already he had lost count of the number of times he had nearly died. Sheppard had to say though that the danger was nothing when you spent your days seeing things no one could even dream of back on Earth.

Today was different though - different in a way John did not like in the slightest. Today there were no imminent threats or invading alien armies. Today the only thing John had to fight was the mound of paperwork Dr. Elizabeth Weir the civilian leader of their little expedition had left for him to complete. He knew he had to complete the reports, but man… as exciting as the missions were, the reports were boring. As a matter of fact the entire day was turning out to be very boring.

xxxxxx

After a tedious briefing where a couple of the resident scientists/nerds, explained to him the captivating array of newly discovered rocks collected on the Mainland, he'd made an escape and gone to see Elizabeth. Elizabeth just piled on the paperwork until he has to escape her office as well, only to retreat right back into the clutches of the rock guys again. The scientists were excited about their rocks, but their enthusiasm wasn't shared by John in the slightest. What seemed like hours later but in truth was only 15 minutes, he finally made a break for it, using the mound of paperwork in his arms as an excuse.

'Even mission reports must be better than this', he thought as he ran for the door.

And so it was that he ended up, sitting at a table in the cafeteria attempting to write reports and failing, when Teyla and Ronnon his team members walked through the door.

"Colonel Sheppard - may we join you", Teyla said as she moved up to the table next to the giant that was Ronnon Dex.

"Be my guest, anything to distract me from this paperwork", John motioned towards two empty seats at the table.

The Colonel grimaced as Teyla added with a slight smile "That reminds me, I believe Dr. Weir is looking for you, something about overdue mission reports."

Ronnon leaned over flashed a grin and added, "It's alright, we won't tell her…. Well, not until they're a bit more overdue,"

"So…how are the Athosian's doing? Another evacuation couldn't have helped them much." John said, not so subtly hiding a change in conversation.

Although all he intended with the comment was to keep Teyla and Ronnon from following up with Elizabeth's request, he truly did want to know how Teyla's people were doing. He still remembered the fear and in most cases, annoyance of the Athosian's when they were forced to evacuate from the Mainland to the alpha site due to a Ga'ould bomb threat. The bomb was sorted out but the Athosian's camp was still in shambles from its hasty abandonment.

Teyla's face became troubled but she replied in an even tone, "They will be fine; they all know of the disadvantages living by Atlantis holds, but they know living here is for the best."

Sheppard looked towards Ronnon but all he had to add to the conversation as normal was whether he was going to finish his sandwich.

After answering Ronnon's question with a large bit of the sandwich in question, Sheppard sighed," Well, at least they have time to recuperate, because by the looks of it so far, nothing is likely to be as exciting any time soon",

"Yeah it's quiet around here. I thought fighting the Wraith would be a bit more active", Ronnon growled, always ready to fight a few Wraith.

"I don't know why, but it just feels….odd. I can't help myself waiting for something really bad to happen when things go quiet like this. We Special Ops know the true power of a good old jinx, and this bloody quiet is one of the worst jinxes you can get. "said Colonel Sheppard.

With this, his two team mates just stared blankly at him having no clue what a jinx was. Being born in the Pegasus galaxy and having experienced none of Earth's quirky culture they were used to not understanding statements or specific words, especially from their team leader. John didn't mind if they didn't understand, he just liked to make random parallels with Earth whenever possible maybe to remind himself where he was from or maybe just because it was funny making Teyla and Ronnon as confused as possible.

When Sheppard looked back on this day, he usually pinpointed the beginning of his problems with Dr. Rodney McKay walking into the cafeteria and falling flat on his face. 'Not unusual on both accounts' John thought.

xxxxxx

Rodney stood up about as gracefully as he fell glaring at everybody around him as if daring them to laugh. This of course only made the occupants of the cafeteria snigger all the louder. That's McKay for you - the butt of every joke but still thinking he's Gods gift to the World. John had to hand it to him though there really wasn't a problem in the universe he couldn't solve.

Today unlike the rest of his team sitting at the table being bored, McKay was excited and a bit flustered perhaps from the fall as he spotted them and drove a beeline for their table.

Forgetting the pleasantries of a simple hello, he looked at John and simply said, "I need your gene"

"Hello to you too Rodney. How's your day so far, mines been dandy thanks for asking." At this Teyla and Ronnon exchanged a carefully hidden smile.

"Well sorry for being in a rush, but if you actually followed me you might get something new to blow stuff up with,"

At this John perked up noticeably, "Really, you're not just yanking my chain to get me to help you out,"

Again blank stares and confusion appeared on Teyla and Ronnon's face and Sheppard could almost see Ronnon think 'Yanking my chain…..huh'

"Maybe a little, but I need your oh so strong ATA gene to get this ancient machine I fixed - working," Rodney frowned a little as he said this obviously jealous that his artificial gene wasn't nearly as strong as Sheppard's natural one.

John grinned realising he finally had something other then paperwork to grab his attention and told Rodney to lead the way. As the pair of them walked out the door he saw Ronnon grabbing his plate including a scrumptious looking brownie from the corner of his eye. Easy come; easy go, he thought noting the need to steal Ronnon's brownie in the near future.

xxxxxx

Rodney walked into his lab like a King Arthur returning from the crusades, 'Or maybe more like a tyrant entering a village of fearful civilians.' John thought.

It seemed like as soon as Rodney's presence was felt, all the scientists and lab assistants instantly found themselves very busy in the hope of not making their lead scientist angry.

John followed Rodney as he saw his destination. Radek Zelenka was crouched under what looked like the control chair used to defend Atlantis, except strangely different. Having become quite acquainted with the control chair, John immediately picked up on the differences. The chair was made from the same material as the control chair except it was already in what was considered to be the activated position. The chair's head curved around so if anyone sat down it would curve around your forehead. The total effect was graceful like most Ancient technology but slightly disconcerting when you thought of the function the other chair performed. 'If the other chair shot drones what could this chair possibly do' thought John now thoroughly excited.

Radek stood up in greeting smiling at Sheppard and addressing Rodney," Good; you brought him; 'bout time you gave up trying to activate it yourself. After the first five times, it obviously wasn't going to work the sixth."

Rodney replied with a glare which the Czech missed because he had turned back to the chair.

"Well I think it's ready, it's only taken a year and a half to fix, but I think we've done it", Radek said patting the chair fondly.

John grew increasingly worried at this statement, "Wait… it was broken and hasn't been activated yet, ….might I ask if you actually know what it does before I sit down and possibly destroy the planet."

"Well, of course we know what it does." replied Rodney with exasperation.

"Well ……" Sheppard continued rolling his hand for emphasis.

"It's some sort of control device," Rodney said rather hurriedly trying to cover the fact that he actually had no idea what the device did.

"That's so much clearer"… Now Sheppard felt really uneasy about sitting in the chair.

"If you just do it then we'll find out for sure," Rodney snapped back impatient as ever.

"It's alright Colonel… the chair is only connected to an internal system so there's no chance of you destroying anything. We believe the chair is used to activate and control information held in its system, but most of that was damaged….. still worth a try, wouldn't you say? We found it in a room with chairs all around like a lecture theatre; we believe the chair was used as a teacher's aide." Radek it seemed was the one who knew most about this technology but as usual Rodney couldn't stand to let him have the last say.

"Actually it's NOT a teacher's aide, and the room it was found in was NOT a lecture theatre. It was found in the ancient equivalent of a courtroom and is used to project memories not knowledge as Radek seems to believe."

Radek seemed to be getting angry at this point pushing his glasses up his nose before pointing the same finger at Rodney accusingly.

"Rodney, might I remind you just who's been studying this chair for a year and a half."

Feeling the need to redeem himself Rodney practically spluttered "It still wouldn't be functional if I hadn't taken it upon myself to have a look around this morning. Since I'm always required to save worlds in the blink of an eye, I usually don't have the time to spend a year and a half fixing a chair."

"You think you're the only busy one, Rodney" Radek practically screamed before converting into a stream of unpleasant Czech phrases Sheppard was happy he didn't understand.

"Whoa, easy you two. Why don't we just get this over with then. I'll sit for your little experiment then we can all go get some lunch, since mine was interrupted." Sheppard said efficiently stopping the fight.

Radek Zelenka was just about Rodney's equal, a fact which made Rodney extremely annoyed and one he would never speak aloud.

Moving towards the chair Radek helped John get into position then told him to use his ATA gene and think about the chair activating. It's a bit difficult to think of a piece of technology activating when you have no idea what it does, but as John concentrated a blue light emanated from the chairs visor around his head. Immediately he knew that sitting in the chair was a bad idea. The light turned red just as John felt pain explode in his head. His eyes flew open and he let out a gasp as the pain became so intense that it felt like his head couldn't possibly still be in one piece. The last thing he saw before everything went black was Rodney and Zelenka's concerned faces as they moved closer to investigate.

TBC

Well one chapter down, I'd love to know what you think.