Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 163

Chapter 163 - Thor’s Borrowed Chariot

The interior of the Samantha Carter’s landing bay was starkly bare in a way that suggested it had only been included as something of an afterthought. Which Eventus supposed might very well have been the case given the Asgard’s general lack of need for such things.

“Wow…” Rayla muttered as she looked out the cockpit window. “The walls are shimmering.”

“I’d guess it was some sort of ultraviolet refraction.” Eventus offered since he didn’t remember anything like that from the show. “Humans would probably just see grey.”

Triggering the reach hatch to lower its ramp, Eventus rose to his feet and headed past the two women who were still silently at each other in the back. 

Thor was waiting for them a few meters away from the rear of the gateship, his body and clothing still the same as the last time they had met with the odd addition of a softball sized sphere of textured silver metal floating over his left shoulder.

“Thor.” Eventus greeted the Asgard with a smile. “Impressive looking ship.”

“Njord will be appreciative of your praise.” Thor returned with a nod before glancing past him and into the gate ship where the pair of women were looking cautiously out. “Which is the Goa'uld?”

“Yami's the short one with long hair,” Eventus pointed to the frowning woman before switching his fingers to pointing at the other. “Anise and Freya are the tall one with short hair.”

The corner of his lips quirked upwards as he glanced over at the still amazed elf that had followed him down the ramp. “And the one next to me in awe of your interior design choices is Rayla.”

“Remarkably inoffensive for one of your people's bioengineering projects.” Thor said, the slight lilt in his tone enough for Eventus to tell he was joking.

“Hey!” Rayla protested with a frown. 

“No,” Eventus shook his head pityingly. “He's right. Compared to things like mind controlling giant squid, telepathic dinosaurs, invisible panthers, and electrokinetic rodents of unusual size you really are a breath of fresh air.”

Rayla turned and narrowed her eyes at him. “That last sounded like a Pokemon, you're just messing with me, aren't you?”

“While I cannot speak of the others,” Thor put forward. “The light bending felinids have become a problematically invasive species across several worlds in this galaxy.”

Eventus frowned, not having known that someone had snuck some of that annoyingly persistent species back to the Avalon galaxy with them. “Seriously?!”

Thor gave a shallow nod.

“You could have given me invisibility powers?” Rayla glared, sounding more than a little incensed at the thought that he hadn't.

“Sure,” Eventus confirmed, sarcasm thick in his voice. “But then you would have had to be a furry catgirl instead of an elf.”

“Please do not create a species of humanoid cats.” Thor requested with a tired sigh.

Cat people had been on Eventus's list, though a lot further down than other theoretical species given the complexity of combining human and feline genomes in a way that wouldn't result in a species of sociopathic killers.

“I make no promises…” He admitted sourly.

With a heavy sigh Thor motioned to the textured silver orb hovering over his left shoulder, and it flew into the gate ship to take up a position in front of Yami.

For several seconds the Goa'uld stared at the technological device with obvious concern before cautiously glancing over to the patiently waiting Asgard.

“What is that?” 

“A guide drone.” Thor said simply. “When you are ready to head to quarters we have set aside for habitation, inform it of such and the device will escort you there.” He paused a moment before continuing. “For your own wellbeing do not attempt to deviate from the drones path or exit the habitation section.”

He focused back on Eventus. “Are you ready to head to the bridge?”

Eventus nodded. “Su–”

The flash of a translocation engulfed them before he could finish.

“-re...”

Frowning at the sudden movement, he looked around their new location, noting with some amusement that the layout was completely identical to that of the O'Neill class.

“Couldn't you have done that for them too instead of having them walk?” He asked as Thor walked over to the command chair.

“I could have, yes.” Thor confirmed with a slight smile.

“Fair enough.” Eventus said, not begrudging the Asgard his small bit of pettiness. “So is it just you here?”

The view out the window turned away from the Earth as Thor sat down, only to be replaced a few seconds later by a view of the lunar surface. 

“No, there are seven others currently on board.”

An odd look flashed over Thor's features before the Asgard focused his eyes on Eventus. “Do you have the exact coordinates of the stasis unit? While I have located the facility, it seems the unit itself is shielded from detection.”

“Oh, sure.” Eventus said as he pulled his interface off his belt and scrolled back to the scans he'd taken while there. “Guest access port one?”

“Yes.” Thor confirmed.

Nodding, Eventus transferred the data, noting with some amusement just how much of a veritable fortress the digital security around the access point was.

Several holographic screens shimmered into existence around Thor, and he spent nearly a minute working through various bits of Asgard text before nodding. “I believe I have a lock now, Janus will be transported directly to the secure stasis cell in medical chamber two.”

“I assume it doesn’t have anything even approaching a neural interface?” Eventus asked just to be absolutely sure.

“No.” Thor confirmed. “Medical chamber two was specifically isolated from the rest of the ship's systems in preparation for this.

Eventus wanted to say that was overkill, but the truth was he couldn’t be entirely sure that Janus didn’t have some sort of extra failsafe to wake himself up if someone moved him to another stasis unit.

“All right.” He nodded.

Turning back to watch the view swing away from the moon and orient itself in the direction of the Pegasus galaxy, he had a brief moment to enjoy the unobstructed view of the universe before with a transitional flash too quick for his eyes to follow, their ship dove into an opened hyperspace window.

“So,” He glanced over at Thor. “Anything you want some help with during the trip?”

Thor gave a small nod. “Assistance in calibrating the disruptor to the specific frequency of the Asuran’s would be appreciated.”

That made Eventus slap a hand to his face in embarrassment at having forgotten something so obvious. “Right… I probably should have provided you with what I know about them.” He spent several seconds considering the best way to go about that. “Can I borrow a neural interface? I don’t have a digital file, but part of my last learning matrix download included a mid level packet on the general technology used.”

“Something can be arranged.” Thor agreed with a slight smile.

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Author’s Notes: Next chapter will be a brief return to Atlantis to see how the B team’s doing and cover a couple of their storylines a bit.