Both Mokar and Daniel had been standing in the same spot for almost three hours when Daniel's sight blurred for a moment, then he could see what the Asgard had hidden. The entire wall was covered in holographic screens and there was indeed a shaped forcefield there too, but it was around Mokar, not Daniel. It took Daniel a few minutes to translate the Asgard writing on the screens and find the command to shut down the forcefield.
When the forcefield fell Mokar's posture changed, his shoulders fell, he shifted his legs around to soften up the muscles and got a smile on his face. "Good work Daniel." From the doorways Sheppard and Teal'c rushed inside with medics and soldiers in tow. When the forcefield had formed additional forcefields had sealed the room.
"Are you alright?" Sheppard asked Mokar.
"I'm fine Sheppard, do not worry about me. See if Zelenka can spare some engineers to patch up the worst damage on the ship. And I want a rapport from all the involved captains and you in four hours time."
"Yes Sir" Sheppard said. He saluted and turned around.
"Teal'c, send a message to Jack. Tell him that the ships have returned and that I and Daniel have begun to decipher the Asgard blueprints. We will have long range transporters and Asgard plasma beams soon. Also see if the Retributors have made contact with the wraith fleet and tell him of the outcome."
Teal'c noded slowly. "I will see to it."
Now again alone the two returned their focus to the wall. "What is this?" Daniel asked.
"I do not know Daniel, but I do not think it was meant for humans to find considering the method they used to hide it with." Something caught his attention and he hurried over it it with Daniel closely behind.
Daniel looked over Mokar's shoulder and tried to place one of the symbols. "That's Thor's sigil. He used it to sign rapports and other documents that I've read in the database."
"No, that is the symbol of an Asgard military position, much like a general, the symbol would have been handed on from one Asgard to the next. But it does seem like it was used by an Asgard by the name of Thor to sign this program. I will try to run it." Mokar tapped the wall three times.
In the middle of the room the grey shape of an Asgard appeared. The Asgard looked at Mokar for a second then it bowed as far as an Asgard could without falling over. When it looked up again its eyes fixed themselves on Daniel. Its eyes widened so much that Daniel could see their perfect roundness. "Your presence here was not accounted for Daniel. We predicted that it would be O'Neill or the ones called Sheppard and Mitchell that would find us. Yet the ship's sensors show that you have evolved much since I entered your biological profile into the database, clearly both of you have been infected by the Ancient's repositories. You are both lucky to have survived as long as you have. We will immediately attempt to extract the knowledge and revert your biological profile to the one we have stored Daniel. Your friend on the other hand will be harder. I do not have his biological profile to revert to. A general profile will be used to restore him."
"It is fine Asgard. We are both as healthy as we can be" Mokar said.
"That is not possible. It was calculated that it would take more than five hundred years before the Tau'ri reached a level at which they could use the repositories. Counting from the destruction of our species, that time has not yet past."
"Please Thor, just listen before you do something bad," Daniel pleaded. " I don't know why. He was a Jaffa before, maybe that's why. But the repository worked. He's a true Alterran. If you do something to him you will take away the best chance humanity has of peace in two galaxies."
"The parameters you have given are not accounted for in the programing. Program is shutting down." Slowly the hologram faded away.
"Well that was odd. I never th..." Daniel said. He was cut of by the chime of the Asgard transporter which left another Asgard within the hologram. In its small grey hand it held one of the typical Asgard stones. "This is probably a solid hologram, the Asgard core begun to use the transporter to fake the arrival of a real Asgard after some people freaked out when a solid hologram appeared out of nowhere."
"This is no hologram Daniel. This one lives, it breathes and its blood is pumped around." Mokar knelt down to face the Asgard at its own height. "It is an honour to meet you Asgard. I was told that your entire people died on your newest home planet."
"I am Thor and yes, such was the fate of our people. The High Council decided. I did not agree. The High Council believed that our options have been all tried."
"Well the last thing you tried left you all dying very quickly and you couldn't transfer into another body to save yourself."
"That is somewhat correct Daniel. We could still download our minds into our ships, just not into a new body. Our minds had been locked to a specific body. We could not reverse it. Before we discovered our mistake all but a few had transferred into the new bodies. I am trapped in such a body Daniel, should this body die I would be forced to stay in a computer."
"Then why didn't you simply leave and search for a cure on your own?" Mokar asked.
"What use, would a cure have been, when only I lived?"
"You mean that the others are also in the transporter, waiting to be released?" Daniel said.
"Some are. I could not transport all Asgards in the time between the detonation and the explosion. When Asgards die our minds are downloaded into computers on our ships or our planets. All equipment used for such things were destroyed."
"But you built one into the ship? So you could download all Asgards into the ship," Daniel asked.
"I could not, I was watched because of my close ties to you. The task was given to Loki and Hermiod. All Asgard reside within the core until we can unlock our minds again."
"Then why not come out earlier? Why wait for us to find you?"
"It seems you two have a lot to talk about. I will need to talk to the Captains of the ships to find out why they brought back a wreck," Mokar said. Then he left the room.
"We, have always believed that humans are the key. Loki was close but his data was destroyed after he was captured. Through the sensors we have studied every part of human biology and reproduction to find a solution. We still need much more data. If we can connect to the city's sensors things will go faster. We think that a successful new body can be created in under two years. With data from the city we can have it ready sooner."
"Who else is there other than you Thor?"
"Loki, Hermiod and Heimdall are helping. Loki and Heimdall have worked on the cloning project longer than even myself and they will, find a way. Meanwhile Hermiod and myself have been trying to find a way to go around the lock in our minds."
"Will you have solved it before the bodies are ready?"
"I do not think so Daniel. Creating new bodies is easy, making a mind accept a new body is hard. Our minds have been forced to change to new bodies often. This last attempt should have been easy. For some reason our minds have stopped adapting. We need to find out why."
"I'm sure you will find a way Thor."
"I do not think it is necessary for us to find a way. I believe that the Alterra have already done so. That you have found an Alterran could be our salvation Daniel. In the repository a project is mentioned that can help us."
"What sort of project?"
"We have not extracted enough to know why but the Alterra tried to transplant the mind of a hostile race,into the body of a friendly race. To do that they needed to change the mind of the hostile subject. What they learned can be useful to us."
"I will talk to him and see what he knows."
"Thank you Daniel, I will inform the others."
"You are welcome Thor, I'm happy that you're back. There have been times when we could really have used your help."
"And still it is now you who again come to help us Daniel, I believe that humans may have surpassed us in ways we could never think of."
"Most of us can't count ourselves among humans any more Thor, we are Lanteans now, genetically enhanced by Mokar to increase our performance."
"I concluded as much from the information you gave the hologram Daniel and I still think you have surpassed us."
"I think we still have much to learn from you Thor."
"We received confirmation from the Retributors that they have taken out the hive and its escort so for now I think we will be staying under their radar. Now I would like to know why you brought back the Odyssey in such a bad shape." Mokar and the others were sitting around the conference table.
"We received an emergency request from a Traveler fleet and to keep our growing fleet a secret I took only the Odyssey to assist. We managed to rescue two of two eight ships, but as you can tell we suffered some damage in the process," Sheppard replied.
"For now all our scavenger fleets have been pulled back until we can find out why the wraith attacked and how they managed to find the fleet," Larrin said. "Normally our fleets run away the moment we detect the wraith, but this time some ships could not even activate their hyperdrives and the others failed to raise shields because the power couplings had been disconnected."
"If the wraith have begun to seek out and attack your fleets then something must have changed. With Earth backing us with personnel we can take the fight to the wraith, but until then I do not want to provoke them."
"Our fleet will be ready to take back Earth, again, in a matter of weeks," Jack said.
"Welcome back General," Mokar said when he saw the man coming into the room. "I take it both you and Sam are finished with your assignment?"
"No, I came back when Teal'c contacted me, he's taken my place. I'm of more use here."
"Good to see you Sir," John said.
"I will have an invasion fleet ready as soon as I can, this time they will not be able to push us away. We are going to stand our ground, no matter what."
"There's no need to be dramatic General." Mokar turned in his chair to look at the two Traveler captains. "I will send a number of ships to guard your home to be one the safe side."
"Thank you, but I don't think their presence will be accepted by the other captains," Larrin said.
"We will make sure that they are not noticed Larrin. We will do our best to keep your home safe."
A/N: Sorry about the horrible Asgards speech patterns. I'll see about sorting it out down the line. And sorry about being a few hours late.