The group watched as Sam and Richie were led away by the small grey form of Mani then looked back at Thor. When Thor didn't speak the small group of humans started talking amongst themselves.
Adam brought up the subject that was on most of the SGC employee's minds. "Jack, I don't think Richie's going to take no for an answer! I think we really need to let him know what's going on."
"I was afraid you were going to say that. OK, who wants to get beamed back down with me to explain all this to what's going to be a very unhappy Hammond."
"I really need to stay up here, sir, to go over the DNA test results with Thor, of course." Janet quickly spoke up.
"I think it would be best if I stayed up here as well." was Adam's response.
"I'll go with you as there doesn't seem to be that much for me to do up here. Plus, it's kind of creepy up here, anyway." Louise volunteered.
"Ok. Thor, buddy, would you be so kind as…" The group never heard the end of that sentence as there was a blinding white light and Jack and Louise were gone.
"Does he do that a lot?" Adam enquired.
Janet looked at Adam with a sly grin. "What? You mean beaming Jack away when he's half way through a sentence. Yes! You should have seen the time it happened at Sam's promotion ceremony. I think he almost gave Hammond a heart attack that day."
"What did Hammond do?"
"Put the whole base on alert. We had no idea who had taken the Colonel or anything, until a hologram of Jack appeared in the briefing room. Kind of like the communication system we just used, anyway it turned out Thor needed Jack's help with a slight Replicator problem."
"How did he solve the, err, problem as you put it?"
"He asked Hammond to have a lot of ammo and stuff ready to be beamed up. Told the rest of SG1 to stay planet side in case there was a chance that he couldn't return from the ship. SG1 decided they wanted to visit Thor even after Jack's protests so they got beamed up along with the ammo. Anyway they ended up having to burn the ship up on re-entry."
"So, how did they get off the ship then?"
"They beamed the Stargate up and dialled out from the ship once they set their plan into motion."
"I don't really know that much about this kind of thing but wouldn't the Stargate have burnt up on re-entry as well? And, yet, it's still there in the Gateroom!"
"Yeah, that's what we thought too, but lucky for us we had a second Stargate in storage. Another long story, but the short version is that Sam and Jack found a Stargate in Antarctica by accident, it took them about a week to set up the second Stargate and once that was done SG1 was able to dial in and return home."
Adam just shook his head to clear the mental fog that was gathering. "Riiighht…remind me never to ask a simple question about the SGC again as they seem like complicated answers."
Janet couldn't help but laugh at that knowing he was more than likely right in ninety percent of the cases. "You know, you're probably right about that."
"…to beam us back to the SGC." Jack looked around and noticed that he was now standing in the middle of the Gateroom with Louise at his side. "I hate it when he does that!"
Hammond, who had been in the Control Room to notice their arrival, walked over to the microphone to talk to Jack. "Colonel O'Neill, I didn't expect you back this soon."
"Yeah, well we seem to have a slight problem."
General Hammond resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Ok, Briefing Room!"
"Yes Sir!" Jack turned to Louise noticing the nervous look on her face. "Come on let's get to the briefing room and don't look so nervous, there was nothing you could do to stop this happening."
"I could have not been clinging on to Richie like there was no tomorrow."
"Well there is that, but you had no way of knowing Uncle Thor wanted you to pay a visit."
"Uncle Thor? Since when has Thor been Uncle Thor?"
"Since you found out I was your 'Dad'. And you DO have Asgard DNA."
"Yeah, Asgard DNA. That doesn't mean we're related!"
"No, but it IS Asgard DNA." Jack said raising his eyebrows.
"Right!" Louise sighed and continued to follow Jack to the briefing room.
Once in the briefing room Louise and Jack both took seats at the table where Hammond was already seated in his usual chair.
"What were you saying about a problem, Colonel?"
"Well, I'm guessing you've realised by now that when Mani, Thor's pick up guy, beamed us up to the Head Research Vessel for the Asgard, he also beamed up Carter!"
"We guessed that Major Carter had been beamed up with yourself, Adam and Doctor Fraiser. I'm guessing with Louise being here that she was also beamed up also?"
"Yes sir, and…Richie."
"Richie?" Hammond asked although he already suspected who they were talking about.
"Richie, Louise's boyfriend. It turns out Thor wanted to meet the child of the Great O'Neill and Carter and asked Mani to beam her up at the same time as he beamed us up. When the time came, Louise was being comforted as she was slightly upset by everything she was informed about today. Mani didn't feel it was necessary to wait till Louise was on her own so he beamed them both up."
"I'm hoping that this Richie is still on the Asgard ship and has not been beamed back down to wherever he was before he got beamed up. I think we'd better have a quick word with him."
"Yes sir, he's playing guinea pig with Carter for Mani at the moment!"
"When this Mani has finished with him, get Thor to beam Richie down here, to the briefing room and not the Gateroom, Colonel. We'll get him to sign the non-disclosure form and have a talk with him. Hopefully he'll understand why we need to keep it a secret."
"Yes sir."
"Right. Then contact Thor again and get him to beam you up there so you can continue to monitor the Immortal situation. Louise, it's up to you whether you stick around here or head back home."
"Well, I'd like to head home just to lock up the cottage as we didn't exactly have time to lock up, but then I'd like to come back here and wait for Richie to get back."
"Ok. Colonel, arrange for someone to take Louise home. Would you like to be brought back or would you prefer to drive back yourself Louise?"
"I'll drive myself back, if that's all right General?"
"That's fine. Colonel?"
"Yes sir I'll see to it before contacting Thor."
The General gave a brief nod of approval. "Dismissed."
They all rose from their seats, Hammond headed to his office while Jack and Louise headed to the Control Room.
"So what exactly do these tests require?"
"I will be scanning your cellular structure at the lowest level. All I require you to do is to lay down for about thirty of your Earth minutes," Mani replied as they entered a small advance laboratory looking room, which made Sam's, eyes brighten with excitement as she looked around the room at all the possible new toys to play with.
"If one of you would like to lie down on that table in the centre of the room," Mani pointed to the table in the centre of the room with some kind of panel above it as he walked across to the control panel to the right of the door.
"I'll go first, Sam," Richie offered. If there was any possibility of these tests causing any harm he would feel better if it happened to him. At least he had his immortal healing to help if anything did happen.
"Ok, I think I'll just have a look around the room while you're being the lab rat."
"Thanks!" Richie mumbled as he creased his forehead. He did not like the term lab rat. It struck a negative chord with regard to his feelings on authorities and authority figures. He crossed over to the table and laid down on it as Mani had requested him to do.
After a few minutes the lights on the panel above the table came on as Mani set the scanners.
Sam started to circle the room glancing at all the doohickies scattered around the room but didn't touch anything, afraid of invalidating Mani's tests or maybe even hurting Richie. These consoles were very different from the Command console.
Richie lay there trying not to move a muscle in case he screwed the scan up and had to start over. He just listened to Sam's footfalls as she moved around the room and the occasional beep from somewhere in the room.
Gentle snores broke the intermittent silence of the room. Sam stopped her continuing journey to look over at Richie. She couldn't help the smile that appeared on her face. She mused on how tired he must be to manage to fall asleep on an alien space ship. She was used to the Asgard, but it was still weird at times. How Richie must be feeling about the whole situation must be overwhelming!
A/N: - Sorry for the delay to getting this chapter to you both me and my beta are trying our best but his wife is about to or already had a baby so there may be some slight delays. Hopefully tho it shouldn't take long for the next chapter to be posted.
Thanks for all the reviews again and please keep them coming.