Sam was on the verge of pulling her hair out. She, and also Jacob and Daniel, had been trying to find out from the lunatics aboard that silver ship where Jack and Teal'c were for a good five minutes now. She didn't know which of this Zaphod character's two head she disliked more. It was probably the one on the left, so far he had only asked for her phone number three times, the right one had done it seven times already.
"So hunny-buns, are you going to give me you number or what?" Make that eight.
"Listen, I am Major Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force, and I am demanding to know the location of my commanding officer!" She gritted her teeth together when she finished.
"Feisty," The left head gave a feline growl, "I like that."
Sam turned off the comm. She realized that this man was not forthcoming with information, and they began to discuss alternatives. "Well, I don't really see what we can do." Daniel came up with a blank. "If we attack their ship we might kill Jack and Teal'c."
"Not to mention we have no idea what kind of technology they have." Sam agreed that it wouldn't work. If that ship operated on a hyperspace drive, it was unlike any other she had seen. It just popped into space nonchalantly with its' posse of small flowers, that had now spread out and left the scene.
"We could always board them." Jacob suggested. It didn't seem like the vessel, even though it was large, had a significant crew complement
"Hey, I heard that!" Zaphod popped up on their video display. "I wouldn't try that if I were you. We have Kill-O-Zap guns, and I'd hate to hurt a little lady like you." Despite his last comment, there was hostility in his voice and he intended to fry these people if they so much as flinched. One of his psychiatrists had called him jumpy, but he had another one of his psychiatrists declare that one to be mentally insane. He loved second opinions.
"Zaphod, move, I want to talk to these people." They heard a female voice say from the other end.
"Alright, but you make sure you get that lookers' number for me." Zaphod sighed and got out of the chair.
He was replaced by an attractive woman with long, curly brown hair and sepia eyes. She appeared to have only the one head at first glance, and further inspection revealed that it was indeed the only one she had. "Hello", she said calmly. "I'm real sorry that I let Zaphod here torment you for a while, but I was busy. We found two people in the engine room, so I guess they're who you're looking for. My name's Fenchurch." She gave them a warm smile.
"May we speak to them?" Daniel inquired. Sam was busy breathing a heavy sigh of relief that she wouldn't have to speak to either of Zaphod's two heads ever again.
"Sure! We just brought them up to the bridge now. One second." Fenchurch got up, and Jack took her place.
Jack slowly leaned forward and whispered into the console, "That guy has two heads.". Carter laughed, more from easing tension as she saw that Jack was alive and well than from his humour.
"We know, sir." She told him. "We'd like to use the transport rings to bring you back aboard, but Jacob says they have some device blocked his scanners from seeing where you are." She thought that this people seemed fairly good-natured, and assumed this was all some sort of a mix-up.
"That true you guys?" Jack turned as he asked what may or may not be his captors.
"Don't ask me, I didn't build this ship I just stole it." Zaphod gave him two gleaming smiles.
"Hey, I have a question." Fenchurch's voice came in from the background. "Do any of you people know where we are? Long-range scans seem to show that we're nowhere in the galaxy we left..." She was rather disconcerted by this information.
Sam was astonished. That ship was capable of inter-galactic travel? "Well, we tend to stick in our own galaxy. We call it the Milky Way, I'll send you some of our star-charts." She transmitted the data.
"Weird." Fenchurch said as she looked over what Carter had sent. "Where I'm from we called it the milky way too. And my home planet is...was..." she sighed painfully, "...right where yours is in the galaxy. The galaxies are even shaped the same way, both spiral and the same size. Except...in ours there are more solar systems, it's thicker." Maybe their random leap with the improbability drive had taken her where she needed to be.
"So I guess you could call it the Homogenized Milky Way, then." Daniel said half to himself.
"What?" Several voices said at once, those on the ship with him turning their heads.
"Oh, sorry, never-mind." Daniel mumbled. He hadn't meant to say that aloud, and went back to musing about archaeology.
"Listen, I've managed to disable the scrambling device." Fenchurch filled the odd silence that Daniel had created. "Would it be all right if I brought you three aboard our ship, and we can introduce ourselves properly. I have a bit of a story to tell, I hope you won't mind listening to it. After that we can decide what to do from there."
"Sounds like a plan." Jack made the command decision. These people seemed friendly enough, and he could see how impressed Carter was with their technology. They seemed to be his style, he thought. Kill-O-Zap gun, why had he never thought of that?
The decision made, all parties soon found themselves sitting around a single table. Many things were going to be set in motion by this meeting. Not only the fate of one galaxy, nor even two. They were all seated, and the meeting began.