Chuck rubbed his bleary eyes and squinted at the computer screen. "I hate night shifts," he mumbled, laying his head down on the desk. Another few seconds passed, and he looked up again. Still nothing. He nearly drifted off but jolted himself awake after nearly falling out of his chair. He gave the screen another cursory glance, leaned back in his chair, and abruptly sat up again. "What the…" he trailed off as he leaned closer to the screen, suddenly wide awake. "Colonel Sheppard," he said briskly into his radio. "I'm picking up a weird bogey on the sensors."

A few silent seconds passed before a groggy voice responded, "What is it?"

"Honestly, sir," Chuck said, shaking his head slowly, "I have no idea."

…

"I hope there's an actual emergency."

"I'm sure they wouldn't have woken us up if there wasn't," Daniel said sternly, attempting to quiet Vala down as Atlantis' personnel dragged themselves out of bed for a late-night impromptu meeting.

"All right," Vala said as she waltzed into the control room, tugging Daniel behind her and pulling the last stray rollers out of her hair. "I demand an explanation. What is so important that you had to wake us up during our first full night of sleep in a week?"

"We've picked up an anomalous reading," Chuck said. "It doesn't seem to match anything we've encountered before."

"But Daniel and I had just gotten into bed," Vala grumbled.

"Separately," Daniel added loudly.

She pursed her lips, turning to berate him. "My dear, not everything I say is sexual innuendo."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Well," she said with a guilty shrug. "Maybe just a little."

Sheppard rolled his eyes indiscreetly, turning from the bickering pair. "Chuck, bring it up on the screen, please."

As the sensor image appeared, Rodney drew closer and pointed at the small red spot above the city. "That's strange. It's hovering over the control tower, but it's too small to be a ship." When the room fell silent, he looked down suddenly at his Superman pajamas. "What?! You said it was important! I didn't have time to change!" Stifled laughs made him roll his eyes furiously. "Like you never watched Superman!"

"Or thought I was Superman," Ronon muttered under his breath.

"There are no records in the database?" Sheppard demanded, returning the conversation to the matter at hand.

Chuck shook his head. "None. I'm sorry, sir, but I have absolutely no idea what this is. It just came up out of nowhere."

"Alien objects don't just pop up out of nowhere. Did you check for power readings?"

"It's putting out a very low EM field. But I don't know what its purpose is."

"Find out," Sheppard ordered. "Break time's over, everyone. As of now we're officially in high alert mode. Dr. Lee, get every reading you can on that thing. McKay and I will take a jumper up and get a closer look. The rest of you, I want a full sweep of the city. Head count, suspicious activity, computer malfunctions, anything. If there's something wrong with this city, we'll find it. Understood?" He didn't want for an answer. "Good. Get to work. And Rodney," he paused momentarily. "Put some real clothes on."

…

Rodney glanced up from his work at the sound of quiet footsteps. "Hey, Jen," he said tiredly. He ran a hand down his cheek and took the coffee mug she held out. "Thanks."

"Long day?" his wife asked sympathetically.

"Considering how I got about five minutes of sleep, yes." He took a long drain from his mug, casting his tablet aside for the moment. "I have to find out what this sphere thing does."

She peered over at his computer screen, rubbing his back. "Come on, Rodney, you've got time. They can't expect you to figure it out in two days."

"Oh, trust me, they can." They fell silent for a moment, Rodney curling his achy fingers around the mug as she loosened the tension in his back. "I'm sorry I haven't spent much time with you," he said.

Jennifer smiled. "Don't worry about it. We knew you'd be busy here."

"I know, but I feel like –"

"Rodney, it's fine. You're doing your job. I'm just lucky that my job isn't all that intensive yet."

"Yeah," Rodney scoffed. "Yet."

Jennifer moved to sit beside him, her mouth in a tight smile. "Actually, there's something I wanted to talk to you about…"

Colonel Sheppard jogged into the room, interrupting her. "Answers, Rodney," he said, prodding his friend in the side.

McKay shook his head. "I don't have any."

"Yet?" Sheppard prompted optimistically.

Rodney threw up his hand with a groan. "I don't know, Sheppard. Lee's searching the database for the third time; I've run every test we have, and I even asked Sam to look over the results too, but she's just as stumped as I am."

"You asked for help? Voluntarily?" Jennifer exclaimed jokingly.

"Yeah, well, I didn't really have any other choice." He set his mug on the desk, smacking his hand down to keep it from sliding off. "These readings are constant. Nothing in the city is malfunctioning." He smacked his hand down again. "I'm not making any prog–" He stopped suddenly. "Wait a minute." He experimentally took his hand off of the coffee mug. It slid down to the end of the table, where Sheppard caught it deftly. Rodney snapped his fingers. "That shouldn't happen."

"We're floating on the ocean," Sheppard shrugged. "Doesn't the city shift or something?"

"No," Rodney said. "The city has inertial dampeners just like ships do. That's why no one ever gets seasick. Look at this," he typed something into his laptop and beckoned Sheppard over, pointing to the changing numbers and jagged lines crossing the screen. "The gravitational sensors are going crazy. It's like something is physically pulling the city to one side… You don't think that's the sphere, do you?"

Sheppard's expression of concern grew into a grin. "I knew you could do it, Rodney!" He clapped his friend on the back and jogged back out of the control room.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" Rodney called after him, voice rising an octave or so.

"I don't know, fix it," Sheppard replied over his shoulder.

Rodney sat in silence for a moment. "Great."

Jennifer laughed, kissed him on the forehead and left him to his science. "Have fun."

"Oh, hey," he stopped her. "What was it you were going to tell me?"

She stopped at the door, one hand resting on the wall, and shook her head. "Nothing urgent," she smiled slightly. "I'll see you tonight."

Rodney watched her leave quietly, then turned back to his work.

…

"Maybe it's friendly," Mr. Woolsey suggested, setting his pen on the conference room table. "We don't know that whoever sent the sphere intends to harm us."

"Who could possibly want to alter the gravitational field of an inhabited planet?" McKay demanded.

"They might not know we're here."

"Any civilization with technology capable of creating whatever that thing is would know we're here. Our power readings alone are out the wazoo."

"All right, cool it, everybody," Sheppard intervened. "We don't know where it came from. Does anyone else have any ideas?"

"Ancients," Dr. Lee piped up, expression pensive as he tapped a pen on his chin. When he was answered only with blank stares, he shrugged. "What? They left stuff behind, right? It might have been… you know… stuck in transit or something and it just now got here."

"OK," Sheppard said slowly. "We'll call that a maybe. Anyone else?"

"Well," said Carter. "We're assuming it doesn't come from the Ori."

"Technology doesn't match," Rodney confirmed.

"The Tollen are dead. I think we'd know if it came from the Goa'uld or the Tok'ra. Even the Genii aren't this advanced yet."

"I know of some other civilizations who might be at this level of technology," Daniel offered, rifling through a stack of paper. "I'll have to check my notes."

Suddenly one of the conference room doors swung open and Chuck ran in, eyes wide. "Colonel Sheppard, the sensors have just picked up five hive ships."

"Damn it, why can't we ever get them to go away?" He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "When will they be here?"

"Just over seventy-two hours."

Sheppard ruffled his hair again and pushed his chair back in frustration. "I'll set up contact with our Pegasus allies and have the SGC do the same. Dr. Jackson, get back to me with a list as soon as you can. Dismissed."

…

"How's it coming?" Sheppard said as he entered the control room.

Chuck shrugged glumly. "Hive ships are still approaching."

They both lurched forward suddenly, grabbing onto the machines in front of them for support. Sheppard grimaced as the city shook for another few seconds, then creaked and settled.

"Any contact from Earth?" Sheppard asked tensely.

"No, sir, not yet. We're expecting a call in about an hour."

Sheppard nodded in response and walked out to the balcony overlooking the gate room.

"John?"

The warm, quiet voice appeared beside him as if from nowhere. "Teyla," he greeted her. In the absence of anything else to say, he added, "How's the kid?"

"Very good. Soon," she said with a wistful smile, "he will be a mighty warrior for his people."

Sheppard laughed good-naturedly. "He'll be grown up before you know it."

"Indeed he will." Teyla smiled at his sincerity. "Come. Let us spar."

…

Teyla crossed to the center of the room with two pairs of bantos rods and smirked as Sheppard barely caught the pair she tossed to him. "Well, then, shall we?"

"Bring it," he challenged, hopping around the mat and giving his rods a few testing flicks.

Teyla stood serenely, rods at the ready and breaths rising deeply. She was poised, focused, as she circled around him, and Sheppard was determined to beat her. She twisted one rod around her hand, bringing it upward to deflect his first feint.

Sheppard settled quickly into the rhythm of the fight. His movements were not as crisp as they had once been. He was in prime physical shape, but had rarely if ever found the occasion to spar over the past three years. His opponent continued to deflect his every stab in a whirlwind of motion.

"Jeez, Teyla," he cursed. "Have you been going easy on me all this time?"

"Of course not," she snapped, smacking him soundly on the back as she spun around him. "You have not been practicing."

"Touché." A well-timed twist repelled her last attack.

"Colonel," Rodney called, running into the gym and brandishing his tablet computer. "Colonel, we have a major problem."

"Great, another one," Sheppard snapped, hopping up and down as the fight concluded prematurely.

"I hoped that whatever signal the sphere is sending out wouldn't be strong enough, that it would just tilt the city a little. The inertial dampeners would have kept the city from inclining too sharply, but –"

"Rodney, get to the point, please."

"It's a lot more effective than we thought. The sphere's gravitational pull is actually physically moving Atlantis across the planet."

"And that's a problem."

"At this rate," Rodney said, his face creased in worry, "the city will crash into the mainland in three days."

"That's not the only problem," Ronon said, appearing with Chuck in the doorway and slouching against the wall.

"Naturally," Sheppard snapped, setting down his rods and wiping his face with a towel. He cursed to himself as the ground shook beneath him, the city letting out a loud creak.

"Sir," said Chuck tentatively, "we found more hive ships."

A sigh heavier than intended escaped as he rested his hands on his hips and let his head fall. "How many?"

"Seven," Ronon grinned. "This should be fun."