A/N We don't own any of the franchises used in this story. We are just fans.
Chapter 2
After Henry surprised Daniel with the information that he was actually, legally the owner of the Stargate, Daniel decided it was time to spring a few surprises on Henry and the Global Dynamics people.
"Before we go any farther, there's someone we'd like you to meet. He and his people have been a valuable ally to us. We first met his race several years ago on a planet called Cimmeria. We had inadvertently destroyed a device of their construction which protected Cimmeria, and we needed to try to fix the situation. Thor, himself, fixed it."
Jackson grimaced at the memory, and Teal'c added for the benefit of those not in the know. "We only made the situation worse until Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter, with the help of a Cimmarian woman, discovered a way to contact Thor."
Jack looked from Jackson to Teal'c, then back again. Then he asked his sister, "Thor? You mean the big Norse guy, wears a helmet and goes around smashing things with a hammer?"
Sam laughed at this and said, "well… I've never seen him wear… well…. anything, let alone a helmet. As far as smashing things with a hammer… I'll leave that up to you to decide when you see him."
Jackson smiled and said matter-of-factly, "Thor developed an alter ego that was a bit different than the truth, but it was quite effective." He picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. "Are you ready, supreme commander?" Jackson listened for a moment, then said, "Yes. I've given you an introduction. We're ready." He hung up the phone, and a sound and light issued from the other side of the room. Heads turned, and there were audible gasps when, what looked like a Roswell Gray, materialized in the room.
"Greetings. I am Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard Fleet."
General O'Neill stood up and approached the Gray. "Thor! Buddy! I still think you should have said, 'Take me to your leader.'"
After all introductions were made with the diminutive Norse god, O'Neill said, "I think we're all here now. Henry, would you mind showing us around?"
"Certainly, General," Henry said. He was a bit taken aback by the appearance of the Asgard. He had known for several years that there were humans on different planets, and intellectually, he had known that there were aliens in the form of Goa'uld, but to meet someone like Thor… someone who was a god to an earth culture, and to find out that he was actually a Roswell Gray. That blew him away. "If you'll all follow me, we'll see the Robotics Lab first."
As they were leaving the conference room, Zoe Carter fell into step beside her father. "This is kinda surreal, isn't it. Bet you didn't figure we'd be doing this when we had that accident and were stranded in Eureka - meeting a Gray who just happens to be Thor, the God of Thunder, and preparing for war against Super Aliens from another galaxy, did you?"
During the walk, Jack observed O'Neill chatting amiably with Thor. It was disconcerting, but Jack had known the general for several years, and his sister had a thing for him. O'Neill was a friend. Not as good as Henry was, but a very good friend nonetheless. If O'Neill was friends with Thor, then that was good enough for Jack. But it was still disconcerting.
"You're staring," his wife's voice was just above a whisper, and when he started and looked quickly at her, she continued with the smile still plastered on her face and without moving her lips. "You're staring at Thor. It's not polite." Then she smiled radiantly at him and he knew she found it just as strange as he did.
"Sorry… I…" Jack suddenly found that he didn't have the slightest idea what to say. He finally settled on, "who knows what he finds impolite!" At a very slight shake of Allison's head, coupled with a resolute frown and her staring straight ahead, Jack knew he had once again put his foot in his mouth. He slowly turned his head the other way and looked down… and down. He had to stifle a groan when he found the enormous black eyes looking up at him.
"Greetings, Sheriff Carter. I have heard much about you and have been anticipating meeting you."
"Uhh… Yeah." Jack had to stifle another groan as he heard Ally trying desperately not to laugh out loud from his other side. The worst part of it was that his sister, General that she was, keeping stride with O'Neill, had looked back at him, eyes sparkling with merriment, with the biggest grin he had ever seen on her face.
"I believe you are experiencing, what humans would refer to as shock and awe. This is a normal occurrence when humans meet me for the first time." Thor's expression didn't change in the slightest, but Jack knew he was being teased. If he had any doubts though, they evaporated, when his sister, the General, almost laughed herself sick. Allison, his loving wife, joined her.
Zoe glanced back at him from where she had been talking with the rest of the EWOCs and said sweetly, "Practicing your diplomacy skills, Dad?"
Jack couldn't take it anymore and started laughing himself.
He was saved from anything further as they turned the corner into the robotics lab.
Henry took the lead and with a broad grin at Jack said, "This is our robotics section." As the group walked through the door, a feminine voice said, "Good Morning everyone. I'm Martha."
Henry responded, "Good morning Martha. How are you today?" As he spoke, a military attack drone rose into the air a few feet from the group, a single red light glaring menacingly from a slit in the front of its shell. "I'm doing great Dr. Deacon. And you?" Eva Thorne, who had personally experienced the drone's firepower, backed cautiously away. A couple of years before, Martha had been hacked by a remote control device, attached to her casing. This, in conjunction with some, at the time unknown, modifications to her abilities, allowed Martha to breach her programming. She actually shot at the person trying to control her, at a time when he was standing beside Eva Thorne.
"I'm fine, Martha." Henry turned to the group and saw Thorne backing away. "It's ok, Miss Thorne. We've come to an agreement with Martha, and vice versa." To the group, he explained, "Martha was originally created as an attack drone for testing our VIPER system, but she quickly outgrew her programming. We found that as Martha learned, she went through a stage, very much like a human teenager. She even became self aware, and, since drones of this type are generally destroyed in testing, she… rebelled. Now, however, Martha gets along with everyone here at GD. Unless you're a smoker. She's made it her business to make sure the 'no smoking' policy of GD is adhered to."
Next, Henry turned to a table along one wall where a shroud covered form was lying. "Now I'd like to show you one of Dr. Fargo's projects." He turned to Fargo. "Would you like to explain Andy 2 to everyone, Fargo?"
Fargo wasn't prepared for speaking, but being head of GD had changed him. He was able to jump right in without a prepared speech now. "Sure, Doctor Deacon." He stepped to the front of the group, and his whole demeanor became that of a lecturer. "Andy 2 is a second generation GD android. He is based on our Sheriff's Deputy Andy, who is the prototype for almost all GD androids. I have seen the specs for the Harlan type androids SG1 encountered, and while there are certain similarities inherent in all androids, Andys 1 & 2 operate in a much different way. They utilize a photonic processor coupled with a 10 kiloquad solid state hard drive for processing power and data storage."
Henry stepped back and stood by Jack and Allison while he watched Fargo continue explaining Andy 2 to the group. "You set him up," Ally said to him.
"I want him back," Henry said to her. "Holly too. They're both needed here. I thought getting him talking about Andy might get him missing it here."
"Well, he's certainly missing it, but you'll need to get Holly missing it as well. I don't think he'll come back without her, nor should he," Jack said.
Henry looked at his friend and nodded. "I agree Jack. I need to get General O'Neill to pull some strings so it looks better for her to come back here than to continue with her special project."
Jack nodded and asked, "Any idea what that is?"
"No idea. I just know Fargo said it involved travel."
They turned their attention back towards Fargo and his extremely interested audience. Sam appeared to be eager to ask a couple of questions. "Are the GD androids sentient?"
"True sentience is hard to gauge, as I'm sure you're aware, General. However, I don't think you could find anyone in Eureka who thought of Deputy Andy as anything less than an individual. He has become a friend to everyone, and while he has certain abilities that set him apart from the human population, as well as a few personality quirks, he fits in as one as one of us, just fine, if that makes any sense."
"Actually, it does," Sam said, looking at Teal'c. "Why human form robots? It makes specialization almost impossible," she asked Fargo.
"While Martha is certainly self-aware, her form limits what she is able to do. No offense Martha," Fargo stated.
"None taken, Douglas"
"With Andy, he is limited only by what tools can fit in his hands. He does have some extra senses that humans don't have. Built in night vision, and x-ray vision, as corny as that may sound. His hearing is about as acute as a bat's. Also, we have adapted a synthetic mucus to work in Andy's olfactory system, giving him a wonderful sense of smell which is on a par with a bloodhound.
"As well, we have found that a human form robot is inherently able to integrate into the population much easier than one like, say Martha, or even my car, which has an AI. Even though I interact with my car on a daily basis and can have conversations with her, she is generally unable to interact beyond the environment of transportation.
"Because of the ability to integrate into society, an android like Andy can learn to pick up on social cues and blend in completely," Fargo concluded, remembering Calister Raines, and how no one had had any clue that he was an android.
"Andy is a truly remarkable… person," Rockwell said. "What changes are you making in Andy 2?"
"Andy 2 is designed around Jack's photonic processor, where Deputy Andy wasn't. We were able to modify Deputy Andy to be able to use the processor safely, but Andy 2 is designed to be able to utilize it from the get go."
Sam looked startled at Fargo's words. "Jack's photonic processor?"
Before anyone could explain, Jack spoke up. "Just a little something I worked up one day when I had some spare time. No biggie."
Sam looked completely unconvinced.
"Actually, Jack's processor sparked lots of new ideas here at GD," Henry said. "We're doing an upgrade on our main computer core based on it. If you will follow me, I'll show you the computer core and that upgrade."
The group left the robotics lab and travelled to the center of GD. They needed to each put on clean suits to enter the core. It was a bit of a challenge to find a clean suit for Thor, but eventually they had him suited up as well. Here, Dr. Donovan took the lead and introduced the group to the system. He explained the quantum teleportation link to the DOD, which had been transferred to Homeworld Security, and how he felt it could benefit the SGC.
"The Stargate allows for radio frequencies to go either way through the wormhole, am I correct?" Zane asked Sam.
"Yes," she replied. "However, anything more substantial, which is just about everything, is one way only. You can only transport matter from the originating gate to the destination gate."
"Ok," Zane said. "That's what I understood Dr. Jackson's DVD's to say."
He was fully into his teaching mode now. "What we're proposing is utilizing the quantum teleportation link for much greater distances. We utilize the micro wormholes inherent in quantum level physics, which means there is virtually no distance limit to how far we can transmit information. This could be set up on a planet to have continual communication without a Stargate having to be open. If I know the coordinates, and relative motions of each planet, I could have a phone conversation with someone in the Andromeda Galaxy, real-time."
The next place Henry took the group, was the hanger where Astraeus had been moved after the fiasco with Senator Wen and Beverly Barlow. There, the teaching was taken over by Henry's wife, Grace, who was the commander of the Astraeus mission. Grace explained the ship and its functions. The ship was exploratory, but it could also be expanded.
Fargo explained the Astraeus' engines and Zane described the construction mites he had created to build the ship. "Basically," he said, "you program into them the blueprints of the ship, and they will build it from the ground up. They use whatever raw materials you tell them to."
"What about security with the mites?" This was from General Landry. "We've had enough problems with replicators to where it's safe to say, none of us are very fond of nanites." No one who had worked with the SGC was happy about working with any form of nanite.
Carter stepped in and explained to Zane. "Replicators are very similar to your construction mites. They, unfortunately, are independent and not under human control." He turned to Allison and Henry. "Think of Taggert's nanoids that made the multiple Starks, with each individual copy of Stark independently thinking but constantly communicating with the others, and you've got replicators."
"We're concerned about your construction mites getting out of control," General Hammond said. "What have we got to make sure that that doesn't happen?"
"Well we did lose control once," Zane admitted. "After that I made some modifications. I beefed up the security built into their programming. They can ONLY use raw materials found in a certain spot. As well, I've built a safeguard that prohibits them using any organic matter as raw material. The last safeguard is that no mite has its own power supply. Instead, I built a variant of the Tesla Wireless power transmitter which transmits power only within the shipyard grid. If something happens we can shut them down by killing the power. This power grid is also a security system in itself. If a mite strays outside the grid, it has no power, and will shut down immediately," Zane explained. "It's quite secure actually."
"Can you guarantee that no mite will get loose?" O'Neill asked.
"General. Not only is there the security I've mentioned, but whenever a mite manufactures a new mite from raw materials, it scans the new one before activating it. If that mite isn't identical to itself except for mac address, it destroys it and starts again. There isn't any room for variation in the programming." Zane was getting very defensive.
The EWOCs were discussing things quietly off to one side of the room. Jack could see that O'Neill and Zane were getting ready for a very heated discussion, and he decided to intervene. He nodded to O'Neill, and lightly took Zane's arm, turning him away in the process. "Zane. I understand the problems these people have with the mites. I've also seen what they can do here, and how useful they are. Let's give them time to talk about things and see what they say. Remember the problems we've had here? I know General O'Neill, and he's a good man. He's also a man who won't let feelings overrun his common sense. Neither will Hammond or Landry. They're going to think about what you've said, but you getting upset and possibly yelling at them won't help the situation, okay?"
"Jack. Trust me. I'm not getting upset," Zane said and turned back to O'Neill. With an effort, Zane said to O'Neill, "General, would you please let me show you what my mites can do?"
O'Neill looked at him for a long moment, then said. "Tell you what. You convince me that your mites are worth a try. Do that, and I'll convince the EWOCs that they're worth a try. Deal? Just remember, I'm a hard sell."
Zane nodded and looked over at Jack. Jack pointed at O'Neill and mouthed good man. Zane nodded, looking unconvinced, then went over to a large computer console. Sam followed, and soon the three were talking animatedly while schematics of the Astraeus twisted this way and that above the table.
Zoe walked up to her dad. "The '2Gs' say if Zane can convince General O'Neill, they'll allow the mites for offworld production of ships for the SGC."
"2Gs?" Jack asked.
"The two generals," Zoe said with a smile. "All four of the other EWOCs are very leary about the mites. I can understand where they're coming from, but I know Zane. He's irreverent, but he cares. He's built in lots of safeguards, and he knows what he's doing. Strange, but I think my knowledge of Zane might have made the others willing to listen regardless of what they've experienced before."
Jack smiled at his daughter. "You're part of something big here, Zoe. I'm proud of you."
Zoe regarded her father. "I always knew you were playing dumb with some things." Carter grinned broadly at that, and his daughter continued. "You were good at it, which is kinda a back handed compliment, I'll admit. But I understand why you couldn't tell me about the Stargate. That's something else."
"You've seen it?"
"We went to the alpha site."
Jack nodded knowingly, and she asked, "You've been there too?"
"Yeah." Jack nodded again. "Did it seem to take a long time to travel through the gate?"
She shuddered. "Forever!"
He laughed out loud at that. "Me too!"
Suddenly from across the room came O'Neill's voice. "Well why didn't you say that at the beginning? Would have saved us all this arguing!"
O'Neill came back across the room and spoke to the rest of the group. "Dr. Donovan says that one of his mites can replicate itself quickly enough to build an army - he used the word community, but it's an army - and build a ship the size of Astraeus in a week. An already established army could do it in half that time. Given that we need ships quickly, I'll allow offworld production of ships with mites." He turned to Zane. "I'm a hard sell, but I can be convinced. Don't let them screw up, Donovan." Then he grinned at Zane.
Henry motioned for people to follow him, and as they headed towards the Planetary Defense section of GD, he and Sam started to talk. "You know, we've had this section for a long time, but until today, I never really believed we would need to use any of this stuff."
Sam smiled at him. "Dr. Deacon, you'd be surprised how many devices have been built here in Eureka that we've found invaluable offworld. My brother has never broken promises to keep secret anything he's seen or heard of in Eureka, but he has told me to check out research on certain things. For example, a few years ago he told me to check out research on phasing technology. You see, we came across a highly sophisticated device built by Merlin, and..."
"Merlin? I remember in Dr. Jackson's videos, he said that many of our ancient legends were based on the reality of the Goa'uld and Ancients. Not to mention Norse Gods. So when you say Merlin, do you mean...? " He trailed off.
"I mean Merlin of King Arthur legend fame. Yes, we even got to meet him."
"That would be... incredible!" Henry said. "But you mentioned Jack passed on some ideas for research to you. You mean Jack has known about the Stargate for years?"
Sam actually blushed at that. "Yes. Jack first went through the Stargate about the time he moved to Eureka, but he had known about it and seen it in operation about three years before that."
"So when he asked me, years ago, if there were really 'little green men'..."
"He already knew the answer."
Henry started laughing at that. "He really pulled one over on me!"
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, he had never seen Thor until today."
At the Planetary Defense division, the group was introduced to Dr. Irvin Thatcher and he explained patiently, as if to children, the workings of his Irradiated Uranium Particle Beam.
Sam had seen the specs for the IUPB, and had even modified them a bit for use on a ship. "If you bounced that back to earth it could incinerate the atmosphere."
"Yes, my dear. It was originally designed for mutually assured destruction. If you were going to use it," he said, knowing that she probably would, "I wouldn't use it near a planetary atmosphere."
"I'll keep that in mind, Sir," she said.
Next, they went to the non-lethal weapon's lab run by Dr. Parrish. While most people found Parrish' attitude abrasive, they would also admit that he was brilliant. As he was lecturing them on several of his accomplishments, Sam commented to Woolsey, "we really have to lock him and Rodney in a room together. We might just get rid of them both that way."
When Parrish showed them his iFire, or 'firefly' as he wanted to call it, Sam was reluctantly impressed. "That would be very useful on ships." O'Neill agreed. Fires were bad on any ship, where there was no place to go to get away from it, but on a spaceship, if the fire got through the hull, there was only the cold vacuum of space waiting to claim the crew, and the chances of being saved in that the limited amount of time a spacesuit would afford someone was as close to zero as you could get without actually being zero.
When they left the lab, O'Neill turned to Sam. "Is it my imagination, or is that guy as full of himself as McKay?"
Sam drew her mouth into a thin line and nodded. Then she started laughing as Teal'c said, "Dr. Parrish appears to possess an ego equivalent to a system lord's."
The next stop on their tour left the group completely speechless. They had never before seen anything like the body printer. Allison explained how it worked and they even got to meet Holly, Douglas Fargo's fiance. "Dr. Marten's mind was active inside a computer, but her body had died. We printed her a body that is controlled by a computer utilizing Jack's photonic processor. Her body is printed based on her own genetic code. We can print any body based on any genetic code. The computer controlling the printer will extrapolate how the body should be laid out, and print it."
Thor was extremely fascinated by this technology. "We will need to talk about this in more depth, Dr. Carter," he told Allison.
Allison also showed them the rest of the medical labs, where Zoe and Janet Fraiser were fascinated by everything they saw. "I wish we had had this type of technology at the SGC," Janet remarked.
Once they were back in the conference room, Jackson told them, "Now, Sam has a gift for you, Dr. Deacon."
Sam stood up and picked up an ordinary briefcase. She opened it and pulled out a foam wrapped item. Gingerly she unwrapped it as she carried the object to Henry. "This is a ZPM, or Zero Point Module. We would like you to study it, and figure out how to duplicate its abilities. Once you do that, you can power all of GD from that one device. I'll show you how it works once we're done with the tours."
"Well, there's no time like the present as we're done now," Henry said, interested in how this one small crystal could power all of GD.
O'Neill stood up. "We're not quite done, Dr. Deacon. We have something to show you."
General O'Neill lead the group outside to the parking lot in front of GD. He dialed a number on his phone and spoke into it. "We're ready here." Then he hung up and put his hands behind his back. He turned to Henry and said simply, "Wait for it." Within ten seconds, there was a noise and the faint thump of something setting down on the ground beside them. Then, a small craft became visible as it's hatch opened.
O'Neill turned to the group from where he'd been watching as the invisible became visible. "Ok, everyone. Climb aboard. This would be our ride."
When the Eureka group hesitated, Jack Carter started walking towards the 'jumper'. "Where are we going?" he asked O'Neill.
"Atlantis," the General said, matter-of-factly.
At that, Zane started to laugh. Jo nudged him in the ribs and when he complained, she stated simply, "The General isn't laughing, Zane. I don't think he's kidding."
"No," said O'Neill as everyone climbed aboard the jumper. "Sorry it's a bit tight for so many people, but we're not going very far. Only to Lake Archimedes." He indicated the pilot of the jumper. "This is Colonel John Sheppard. He's lived in Atlantis for the past eight years."
"Hi," Sheppard nodded and smiled at the group. "Hey, Zane. Good to see you," he said, as he closed the hatch and made the ship invisible before lifting it off the ground.
Zane just stood there with his mouth hanging open.
Henry looked at O'Neill as if he was crazy. "You're trying to tell me that Atlantis is in Lake Archimedes?"
"Well... It hasn't always been. We only brought it here last week," O'Neill said. "Daniel? A little help here, please?"
Jackson made his way up beside O'Neill. "Always need my help on the tough stuff, huh Jack?"
"I can make it on my own," O'Neill said. When Jackson looked skeptical, he added, "Sometimes."
"No problem, Jack," Daniel said. He turned to the group and raised his voice a bit. "Those of you who have been aware of the stargate program know that several years ago, we discovered Atlantis. We found that the city had originally been in Antarctica. However, the Ancients who built the city left Earth five million years ago. They took the city to the Pegasus Galaxy and set it down on a world known as Lantea. When we found the city, it was submerged under an ocean on Lantea. So, the legends of Atlantis were true. Only, instead of being abandoned underwater here on Earth, Atlantis had been submerged on a different planet, in a different galaxy.
"The city is what we call a city ship. It's completely self contained, and normally sits on an ocean or some body of water. However, if the need arises, it is capable of space travel, and has an incredibly powerful drive, although it uses a very large amount of power when in flight. We brought Atlantis to Earth three years ago, when the Wraith, a species from the Pegasus Galaxy, were attacking. It was sitting on the ocean just outside San Francisco Bay for a month, cloaked. For the rest of the time, it has been sitting in a caldera lake on an island owned by Alec Colson."
As Jackson was talking, Jo asked Zane, "So you know Sheppard? Your mouth is still hanging open. What's the story?"
"John Sheppard and I grew up together. When we were kids, we were the best of friends. I wasn't sure where he had gone."
When Jo failed to respond, Zane glanced at her, but her eyes were captivated by something outside the ship. Zane looked ahead, and his jaw again dropped open.
In front of the little ship was a magnificent city. It had spires reaching toward the heavens, and what were obviously landing pads, reaching out from the central part of the city, sitting like lily pads on the surface of Lake Archimedes. Sheppard piloted the craft around the city, so the Eurekans could see it in all it's grandeur. He swung the little ship around a balcony where two people were standing, observing the jumper as it came in for a landing. The jumper stopped and hovered a moment, facing the balcony and the room beyond it. The two people on the balcony, a man with long dark hair, and a petite woman with light hair, waved. Then the jumper rose straight up. It moved into a bay above the room they had seen beyond the balcony and come to rest. The door in the rear opened, and O'Neill, after thanking Sheppard, stepped out onto the floor of the city.
They were in Atlantis.