Sabine Bauer - Mirror, mirror

The klaxons sounded, announcing an incoming wormhole and cutting her off mid-sentence. Weir shot out from behind the desk. "It's probably Sergeant Stackhouse," she said, heading for the door. "He and his team were on a trade mission to Delana. They're back early…"

Teyla and Colonel Sheppard followed her out into the control center and watched the routine procedure unfold. Blackclad soldiers took position on the stairs and the gallery, weapons trained on the Stargate, ready to defend Atlantis should the need arise. This time it didn't.

The wormhole had barely established when Sergeant Stackhouse tore from the event horizon, leading a group of about thirty people, all of them looking as bedraggled and singed around the edges as he. "Get Beckett down here!" he hollered up to the gallery. "My men are bringing through a couple of wounded."

"What happened, Sergeant?" Dr. Weir was hurrying down the stairs, Colonel Sheppard and Teyla in her wake.

"Meteor storm. They got clobbered bad. The team and I couldn't even make it to the village. These folks"-a sweep of his arm indicated the refugees-"had hunkered down near the gate. We basically took them and ran. They need our help, ma'am."

Dr. Weir sighed. "Sergeant, we-"

Obeying an impulse Teyla didn't dare to explain, her fingers gripped Weir's arm. "My people will take them in, Dr. Weir."

She took a step forward to face the leader of the refugees, a grizzled man, haggard with fear and fatigue, at his side a skinny girl of about six or seven years of age. At Teyla's approach the child looked up, eyes wide in a grubby face.

"I'm Pima," she said, smiling. "What's your name?"