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"I don't know, Colonel," she answered Caldwell. From what Zelenka had said in the last transmission, John and the others had assumed the contact from the Wraith calling itself "Trishen" was a trap. But that didn't feel right, somehow. "The Mirror itself is genuine, obviously. And making them believe they were being contacted by an alien ship… That seems a bit imaginative for the Wraith. We've never seen them do anything quite so elaborate."

"Unless they suspected your team was from Atlantis, and wanted to try to get some information out of them," Caldwell said.

"That's a possibility," she admitted. As far as they knew, the Wraith still believed Atlantis had been destroyed, but they would certainly still be looking for survivors who had escaped with Ancient technology. "This makes it all the more imperative that the Daedalus reach the system as soon as possible."

"No need to convince me, Doctor, I understand that you have personnel in danger. And we can't allow the Wraith to get their hands on that Mirror, not to mention sensor technology that can see through the Ancient cloak. I'll be breaking orbit immediately." Caldwell sounded somewhat sourly resigned, and Elizabeth winced in equal parts chagrin and annoyance.

She hadn't meant to imply that she thought Caldwell would resist the idea of a rescue mission, or that he wouldn't understand the implications of what the team had found. But their working relationship had gotten off to a rocky start when she had had to squash his attempt to replace John, and things hadn't exactly been going smoothly since. She felt it would work out eventually; she and John had had clashes and arguments at first, too. But then John, for all his quirks, was far less prickly than Caldwell and had always been much easier to get along with. And at this point the original expedition members had all been through too much together to let disagreements get in the way of friendship.

Frustrated, Elizabeth frowned at her laptop screen and didn't apologize to Caldwell. She wondered if he understood that some of her closest friends were on that lost jumper. She just said, "Thank you, Colonel."

Major Lorne sat forward, his expression urgent, and Carson waved frantically at her. She added, "I believe Major Lorne and Dr. Beckett would like to accompany you.

Caldwell sounded slightly more resigned. "Then tell them to get ready to be beamed up."

He signed off, and there were murmurs of relief from the people waiting outside. Major Lorne pushed to his feet, looking relieved. "Thanks, Dr. Weir. We'll bring them back."

Elizabeth nodded firmly. "I know you will, Major." And she thought privately, I hope you will. She kept the worry off her face, but she had the bad feeling that this was going to be more complicated than just a Wraith trap.

Chapter six

Ronon hated waiting. He could stand the stillness and silence required for hunting and stalking, but this was different.

Pacing the rear cabin was the only outlet for his frustration. Sheppard had ordered them to move, and Kusanagi had been trying to take the puddlejumper toward the hills to the south, but the Mirror's last abrupt discharge had forced them down in the grassy plain not far from their original position. Now Ronon couldn't even help Kusanagi and Zelenka by volunteering to stare at a screen; the interference had turned all the sensors to glittering multi-colored static. They had sent the transmission to the camp on the other moon, but now the comm wasn't working either, and they had no idea if there had been a reply.

And the whole thing had been a trick, a Wraith trap. He should have seen past it, even if the others hadn't. That was the whole reason he was here. But he had never heard a Wraith speak like that before. Speak to people as if they were equals, not just prey. The voice on the comm had sounded as much like a human woman as Teyla or Kusanagi, and he had been deceived by it as easily as the less wary Atlanteans.

"Still nothing. I can't get through this interference." In the jump seat, Zelenka typed on one of the little portable computers, glancing worriedly at the hazy cloud hovering in the air where the HUD was normally displayed. "Surely they weren't hurt. They were moving away from the Mirror or they would not have been able to get that last transmission through."

In the pilot's chair, Kusanagi tapped the control board impatiently. The holographic display just responded with more fuzzy bursts. She said, "I don't understand how Trishen could be a Wraith. The data that Dr. McKay described-"

"Yes, I don't see how Wraith could fake those readings, not well enough to fool Rodney," Zelenka said. They shared an uneasy look. "Perhaps Wraith from some other reality have come through the Quantum Mirror."

Ronon felt his.) aw tighten. "That's all we need."

"Perhaps they'll fight with the Wraith here and kill each other." Zelenka saw the expression on Ronon's face and shrugged philosophically. "Well, we can hope. Wait, wait-" Looking back to his small screen, he waved a hand excitedly. "I'm receiving sensor data-" He touched his headset. "Colonel Sheppard, are you there? Can you hear me, anyone? Rodney, Teyla?"

Kusanagi's hands moved competently over the board. Her face intent, she said, "The HUD is coming back online. The life signs detector should show us-" But when the HUD screen popped up, she gasped. "Dr. Zelenka-"

Zelenka flung his arms up in frustration. "I can't get through to the others! Do prdele! There is still too much interference!" He turned his chair, looking at the HUD, then froze. "Oh, no."

Ronon stepped forward, leaning on the back of Kusanagi's chair. He couldn't read the language scrolling along the sides and bottom of the image, but he knew that glowing dot in the center was a ship. "Wraith." He felt his lip curl into a silent snarl. This was just getting worse. "A hiveship?"

Zelenka shook his head, going pale as he studied the screen. He said faintly, "Too small. It's a scout ship, already in orbit. The interference from the Mirror must have concealed its approach." He touched his radio headset again, his voice tight with urgency. "Perhaps they did not detect-"Another screen popped up in the HUD, displacing the longrange sensors, flashing with urgency.

Ronon knew this one, too. It was the jumper's life signs detector, blinking dots superimposed over a grid. It was picking up three signs close together, moving through the lower level of the giant building behind them. And five more signs moving toward those. Ronon's hands tightened into fists. "They're heading right for them."

John led the way back down the passage, glancing warily at the ceiling, checking for signs of imminent collapse. The dust was a thick haze in the air, glittering in their lights.

His voice tight, Rodney whispered suddenly, "Wait, wait, I'm getting life signs." John looked back to see him studying the detector, his face set in a grim expression. "Five, out in the main corridor. We were right, she must have had company."

John fell back a step to look at the detector's screen. It was still fuzzy from the Mirror's interference, but he could see the five signs were moving fast down the corridor from the direction of the Mirror platform, blocking the clear path to the outside. "Crap. Come on." He turned back the other way, deeper into the building, hoping this passage wasn't blocked.