A/N: Was going through old files and found this half-finished so did finished it of. I probably won't continue this but enjoy =)

Chapter 2

Mckay buzzed around the room that now housed the entire crew except Ronan and a marine who was scouting the planet, taking readings and muttering to himself. He'd being working on the stasis tube holding the woman for almost 5 straight hours, John hadn't seen Rodney this complexed since that time he blew up a solar system.

"What's the verdict Doc?" The Sergeant asked getting impatient.

"It's… well it's… fascinating." He turned to face the group of on lookers. "Normal stasis pods like the one Weir was in work by freezing the cells in the body to slow down the metabolic process to reduce ageing, but it can't stop it completely. That's why Weir was so old when we found her."

"Not relevant Mckay." Sheppard muttered.

"Yes, very relevant! This stasis pod isn't like that, the replicators perfected it. They completely stop ageing by what seems to be a slight electrical charge that..."

"So we can pull her out than." The Colonel cut in.

"Sure, but is that wise. We still don't know why they have a live Ancient, I mean they hate there makers so why keep one alive. She could dangerous."

"I think we can handle her. And as to why, I think you'd better get started on that right away." Rodney sighed.

"I thought the priory was the hyper drives. I may be a genius but even I have my limits, very high and impressive limits I might add; but still."

"Just get it done Rodney." He opened his mouth to complain but the Colonel silenced with a look that could kill. The scientist returned to his display as his friend, sometimes, ordered his men back to jobs around the ship while leaving one armed man standing guard over their frozen guest.

As the unwilling crew of the ship dispersed the Colonel remained just looking at her, trying to understand the mystery's around her. She was attractive with long blonde hair, her face smooth and soft but her fists were balled. The bland clothing that seemed so common for Ancients to wear did a good job at concealing her figure, but his experienced eyes could see her ample breasts and slender yet curvy hips.

His military brain was telling him that she was a potential danger, that it would be safest if they waited until Atlantis to waken here but he wanted to wake her up, talk to her, learn from her. John had tried to appease the cynical part of his brain by telling himself that if she proved to be friendly, she could help Rodney fix the ship even faster; but he was deceiving himself, it was an invisible but very real force that was driving him to her and he was loathed to fight it.

Sheppard watched closely as Rodney fingers danced across the variety of control panels in the room, two marines who had some medical training stood ready with a gurney and an IV for when she was released from the prison of ice.

The panel lifted and the cold steam billowed out, the Ancient woman remain still for what seemed to be long seconds but than her legs gave out and started to fall forward.

Johns strong arms caught her and held her body to his, as his hand touched the bare skin of her arms he noticed she was still freezing.

"Get some blankets." He barked out.

He lifted her into his arms as gently and then placed her down setting her head against a pillow, feeling relived to feel a faint breath on his face. A marine rounded the corner with his arms full of blankets, which were then quickly tucked around the patient. The Colonel rubbed arms with his hand trying to restore some blood movement but as marvelling at the silky smoothness of her skin.

John nodded his head to Carla, the only female marine on the team and Simon, the other marine assigned to both guard and look after the Ancient, and they wheeled her a way to a room they guessed was the infirmary but wasn't really sure.

The Colonel wanted to follow her and make sure she was alright but he had other more pressing matters to deal with.

"Robbinson, Come in." Shepard sent over his radio.

"Yes Sir?" He replied quickly.

"How's our living situation looking."

"Good Sir, the ship has lots of cabins for crew but none are very comfy. Don't think the bots needed feather mattresses." He joked over the radio.

"Ok, report back to hanger and lend a hand."

After he heard the confirmation Sheppard turned to Rodney.

"It'll be awhile before she's awake anyway, keep working on those Hyper Drives and remember to pace yourself and get some sleep. If this really is going to take a week like you say, better to play the long game."

"But what about the stasis chamber. This is beyond even the ancients! Imagine what we could…"

"Blah blah blah blah. It's nothing unless we can get it home Mckay." Sheppard pushed Rodney out and sent him to work.

Shepard walked to corridors of the ship; his ship, for once not in a rush to do anything. They had a whole week to sort out stuff on the ship so no rush there, Rodney was working on the ships systems, which as far as he understood it didn't require his constant attention just a lot of it. The Ancient woman was recovering well according to a report from her would-be Doctor. The biggest concern for the crew was food and fresh water; the Sergeant had already taken it upon himself to organise and ration what they had left but they weren't expecting this type of survival mission so only had ration bars and canteens. John hoped Ronan had some good news when he arrived back.

It was a few hour later when John was sitting in the 'captain's chair', as he called it, on the bridge when Ronans face appeared on the monitor. His friend sat in the Jumper with the Marine sitting next to him.

"Sheppard?"

"I read you loud and clear chewy." He wasn't sure why but he was in a good mood, it was probably just dawning on him that he had actually managed to steal a space a ship! Admittedly it wasn't fully functional but that didn't damper his mood."

"We found a small village, there pretty primitive. We tried to talk to them but don't think they understood us, than we kinda got attacked." John eyebrows rose at this and couldn't help a small smile creep on to his lips as friend seemed to be greatly amused by this.

"What about food or water nearby?"

"We found a stream and already filled the canteens but not much in the way of food."

Sheppard paused to think about this, his crew only had enough food to last them maybe two days; three tops. They would need to find food if Rodney's prediction was even close.

"Stay on the ground. That Village must be eating something, find out what and bring enough back to last us a while Ok?"

Ronan nodded and the marine saluted as the image disappeared from his screens. He smiled to himself, the marine with Ronan had the Ancient gene so could fly the jumper but was relatively new and hadn't caught on that Sheppard wasn't a big fan of saluting.

He was glad that although the coms were broken on the ship, so they couldn't call for help, that they were fine on the jumper, so they could still communicate with each other at the relatively small distance of a solar system.

He was alone on the bridge for a while longer; Rodney sometimes came up to check things in the database but he mainly worked in another control room dedicated to the repulsion of the ship. Sheppard was flicking his way through the database that Rodney had saved almost at the cost of all their lives but could now appreciate those benefits to such knowledge. He couldn't understand most of it and a lot of it was in Ancient and they haven't got a translator program on the ship, the bits he could read still remained a mystery to him as it was very technical.

When he felt sufficiently under educated he moved to familiarize himself with the ships functions, he traced routes on holographic displays of the ships schematics, moved to different seats in the bridge seeing that each one lit up under his touch and finding out what part they controlled.

The 'captains seat' was the most comfy with white leather cushioned and blue light framing it like the chair in Atlantis, when he sat down. Though it didn't recline it did bring up holographic screens surrounding him with various sensor reading or alerts. It was his favourite place on the bridge as he could control almost everything on the ship to an extent, the other seats for crew allowed for finer control of one system only.

He played with the few functions working and then decided to test the sub light engines out by accelerating, decelerating and seeing how tight a turn he could pull. He could hear the internal dampeners working hard and smiled. Although the ship was bigger than previous vessels they had encountered, it still handled very well.

From his observations about the ship functions; like it extensive weapons/defensive systems to the large cargo hold and a few decipherable data logs in the ships computer, he was fairly sure this was to be used to not only fight the Wraith but establish a forward base of operations for the Replicators. From his previous walks he had found a table like the one in Atlantis that could make Replicators, he'd quickly quarantined that area off for obvious reasons.

Sheppard awoke to a slight shake on his shoulder; he'd doused off in the captain's chair without even trying, normally he would've chided himself for being so relaxed but it had been a long and stressful day.

He looked around as his eyes came in focus to see a marine standing over him nervously.

"Yes?..." he asked wanting a report with a solitary raised eyebrow. The marine seemed to remember his place as he snapped his feet together and stood up straight.

"Doctor Mckay asked to wake you up Sir. Our guest is awake."