Episode V; To Houdini or not Houdini that is the Question!
"So tell me, Harry, what are you doing on this planet?" Jack pressed, the Doctor stood to one side watching on with Martha.
"I haven't the foggiest clue as to what you mean dear sir. On this planet, really now, do you honestly believe me to be a fool. Granted what your friend did not more than ten minutes ago was astounding, but none the less it was a trick. I've seen it done before."
"The thing is, I knew the real Harry Houdini, and he wasn't here, he was in Detroit during the World's Columbian Exposition, I was with him."
"You, were with him, you speak as though it had already happened. I don't believe a word you say."
"Then why," said the Doctor, "were you holding this?" He held out what appeared to be a red box which glowed random colors. "It's a reality shifter, something a few years past the fifty first century. Nifty little gadget it is, can change the ebb and flow of time locally, even change the very fabric of reality for mere moments. Just enough time for you to escape miraculously from the death defying stunts, if I had to guess."
"Who are you people?" The fake accent was gone from Houdini's voice.
"Oh, you know, a bunch of time travelers checking up on a few things. Daleks and gods and a whole crack in time." Martha said.
"Look, I'm here because I got stranded. The manipulator malfunctioned and I ended up here. Some weird turbulence caught my ship. The first thing I saw was a poster of this Houdini, so I-I took his form and tried to find the pieces I needed to fix my ship. But this rotten planet has hardly discovered electricity yet."
"And so you got stranded, understandable, but what about the Dalek who took your place on the Ferris Wheel, and why was it rigged to collapse as it did?" The Doctor held the block up as he spoke.
"I don't know about that, I was in this very room when it happened. I wasn't to go on until an hour later, after the light show. I didn't hear of the wheel falling until after the crowd was dispersed and several people had reported my death to my great dismay, or rather Houdini's death."
"So where exactly are you from?" Jack pushed ahead, but the Doctor held him back.
"He's a Roxicoricofallapatorian, don't you recognize the gaseous restrictor? It's the newer model, doesn't require the death of the intended person to be imitated, but it does give off more gas than the others." The Doctor sat down, "Ok, I need to see your ship's logs to find out just what you ran into. Where is it?"
"Its near gulf ridge cemetery in the eastern quarter just south of the docks, there's a marsh there that I used as an emergency landing point."
"Good, take us there."
***
Teal'c, with the help of Thor, had rigged several naquadah generators to the Asgardian core which flickered to life. The primary energy core, something reminiscent of the ZPM had over loaded and was in need of repair. The ship was running off of its original nuclear power source, while the Asgard upgrades were useless.
"Ok, to send a transmission we need to connect the primary coupler to the secondary power output module in the primary communications grid, thirteen alpha, twenty-seven beta, crystal two." Daniel's voice came over the radio.
"Are you sure Daniel Jackson?" Came Teal'c's voice. He was lodged between a bulkhead and a large hanging crystal matrix fixed into place by a gravity stasis generator. "It seems that the section you described is interconnected to the drive matrix and the hyper-drive guidance platform."
Thor's visage appeared before Teal'c. "It is the correct spot, you will need to route power from the hyper-drive control module at six alpha eighteen beta, crystal seven and bypass the weapons matrix through crystal forty-two."
Teal'c connected several wires from her computer to the crystals and programmed their routes. Moments later the main computer of the Asgardian core came online and the communications platform glowed a vibrant blue.
"Teal'c, communications are operational," said Daniel, "also our primary scanners are operating and it would seem we have detected Loki's ship and he is hailing us."
"I will return." Teal'c started scooting out from under the crystal matrix.
Thor appeared again in the main command room. The very looking human Thor was now standing before them, Daniel looked stunned at the hologram, while the Odyssey's Thor looked on in a registered concern.
"We detected the presence of your ship, you are Daniel Jackson correct?" Thor said with a gusto, "Samantha Carter is with us, we are attempting to discern a method of fixing the temporal shift you have encountered."
"Commander Thor," said the Thor hologram, "the temporal field generator that was used was a class eight. The calculations are being sent to you as we speak."
"And you are?" said the other Thor.
"I am the ships holographic maintenances support module."
"Intelligent aren't you, you must be of a different class than what we have. Our holographic systems are still a bit limited. Our future selves did an excellent job."
The Thor of this time period laughed for a moment before turning to an unseen person to his left. "Loki, take the calculations from the class eight temporal drive used and see if you can adapt it to ours." He turned back to Daniel just as Teal'c entered the main command room from a maintenance hatch. "We will beam Samantha Carter over to you as soon as we are able." The transmission ended and the hologram disappeared.
"It is imperative that my former self does not know that we are the same." With that Thor disappeared.
***
Acalo turned back and forth beneath the scanner which penetrated the Dalekanium without much issue.
"Tell us again from the beginning, who is it that is being exterminated?"
"The Daleks….exterminate…exterminate…Ori has come, where is the Doctor?"
"The Doctor, we still don't know who that is. We've also lost contact with Earth. I don't suppose you know anything about this?"
"Earth, humans, human-Daleks. The Doctor stopped us, the Doctor is the Destroyer, the On Coming Storm."
Rodney appeared with another scanner to show to Weir. The downloaded video was brief, showing an Ori Prior transmutating the Daleks that had once been under Acalo's command into human hybrids.
"I see, good work." Weir turned to Acalo for a moment before turning back to Rodney who was waving his hand at her.
"There's more, apparently these Daleks have killed millions, this Doctor," which Rodney quickly brought up a series of images of the different Doctors over the past nine hundred years, "has been keeping them from destroying Earth and other planets. These Daleks have been wiped of their emotions, turned into perfect killing machines. These Time Lords stopped them on numerous occasions even going to war with them through time and space. We've never heard of them because he's the last, or nearly the last. There are others, it would seem. The Master was this Doctor's greatest foe, and yet they teamed together to fight the Daleks. There was another race, known as Cybermen. But it gets worse, before Acalo left, his internal systems downloaded information about a temporal rift that is spreading out from Earth. It should reach us in a matter of a week's time."
"That's probably why we have lost contact. Setup a team to find some way to create temporal shielding or something. Pull up all information you can on the temporal drive the Ancient's used."
***
"Unphase, UNPHASE!" Anansi screeched her long finger pointed out to the little blue planet, "We will over take that planet, and then destroy that creature that still eludes us."