Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 135

Chapter 135 - Thor’s Lament

“Good news I hope?” Eventus asked Thor as the holographic privacy field around his chair lifted.

“Given the potential severity of the situation the High Council has agreed to the deployment of the Samantha Carter to the Pegasus Galaxy.” He confirmed with a nod.

Eventus blinked. “The Samantha Carter?”

“The Replicator attack on Orilla highlighted the fact that the energy requirements of a planetary level disruptor array were not tactically viable with the O'Neill hull.” Thor explained. “As such, design was begun on a new type of vessel optimized towards utilizing such a weapon to clear any potential replicator infested planets.”

“Hence the Samantha Carter.” Eventus followed in understanding, not even remotely surprised that they had continued on down the list of SG1 names. “I take it there were some tradeoffs with the design that makes it less than optimal for other work?”

Thor nodded in confirmation. “Several, which is why so far only a single vessel of the class has been produced.”

“I imagine the Wraith give the system in question a wide berth, so the ship shouldn’t be under too much of a threat there so long as me or another Lantean is unboard.” Eventus gave a wry grin. “A good use for Janus at the very least. Though that reminds me, I also located some more survivors from the war.”

“You located more survivors?" Thor repeated in surprise.

“The Antarctic outpost had a distress signal logged in its communications buffer from the Tria.” Eventus told him. “Their hyperdrive burned out during the trip between galaxies, and they're currently traveling the rest of the way at a high percentage of light speed.”

He frowned as a thought hit him. “I'm honestly kind of surprised you never picked the ship up given how much energy it must be shedding.”

“It likely would have been.” Thor admitted. “However after your people's return, it was agreed to place the area of space around the Pegasus galaxy under a general quarantine to prevent the potential spread of the Wraith to other galaxies with humans in them.”

“My people's high council?” Eventus asked to be sure, only to let out a sigh of annoyance when Thor gave a nod of confirmation.

“Of course.” He muttered under his breath. “Won't ask for military assistance to get rid of them, but more than happy to ask for help in covering up the problem.”

“What type of vessel is the Tria?” Thor asked, thankfully ignoring Eventus's small outburst. 

“Standard Explorer hull.” Eventus said, mentally dredging up the vessel's specifications. “With refitted shields, weapons, hyperspace drive, and fusion reactor.”

“Rescuing the crew would be relatively simple.” Thor admitted. “However the mass of such a vessel would slow an O'Neill class ship's hyperdrive speed by a factor of sixty three.”

“Projections would put them at about the halfway point between the two galaxies.” Eventus offered as he did the math. “So that means it would take you about nine days to get the ship back to Atlantis.”

He smiled. “That would be perfect if you're willing. The timing would even match up well enough that the test batch of Asgard should have reached the period where they're stable enough for transport.”

Thor blinked in seeming surprise. “You already began growing them?”

“I started at the same time I began growing Rayla.” Eventus explained, expanding on that upon noticing Thor's look of confusion at the name. “I was attempting to genetically engineer a member of a new near-human subspecies to act as an assistant, but she ended up a teenager instead.”

“I see.” Thor muttered. “Given the damage to Atlantis, the general assumption was that it would be several years before that project would be able to begin.”

That was a fair enough assumption Eventus supposed given the sheer amount of damage the city had accumulated in the past ten thousand years.

“I used one of the prototyping labs, so you'll only have two males and three females to start with. But since I avoided any growth acceleration you should have another ten months to get everything ready for their birth.”

“No.” Sif interjected as Thor began to open his mouth.

“No?” Thor repeated, looking over to the smaller Asgard in confusion.

Sif narrowed her eyes slightly at him. “You do not have the available time to supervise children on top of your other duties as Supreme Commander.”

“I was not going to suggest I did.” Thor countered, frowning slightly at Sif.”

Holding up three fingers, Sif began counting down. “Magni, Modi, Ullr.”

“Were our responsibility.” Thor finished for her. “These children would not be. And there are more than enough others who would welcome the opportunity long denied to them… Like Thruðr.”

“Thruðr last professed a desire for children one thousand seven hundred and twelve years ago.” Sif scolded, leaving a sudden feeling of awkwardness to descend upon Eventus at the clearly contentious subject.

Eventus coughed lightly into his fist. “Continuing on, that sort of delay would be more than acceptable given I’d want to prepare for the crew’s arrival back to the city. In fact, stretching things out even a few months would be fine.”

Both Asgard shot Eventus an odd look and he sighed. “Some of the crew is likely to be… Egotistically difficult in the more traditional way of my people.”

“I see.” Thor muttered in understanding.

“Yeah.” Eventus nodded, feeling moderately bad for asking the Asgard to deal with that particular crew. “I would understand if your people don't want to help out with the issue. And it's not like I won't be able to rescue the ship myself once I unsabotage the potentia I recovered from Janus's secret lab.”

A worried look flashed across Thor's features. “Janus sabotaged some of your power modules?”

“Unfortunately.” Eventus grimaced. “My best guess at the moment is that he found something out while time-traveling and was trying to either stop it from happening, or fulfill a predestination paradox and cause it to happen.”

Given the way time-travel worked, he supposed it could even be both of those things at the same time. 

“Are you sure you wish assistance with transporting Janus back to Atlantis?” Thor asked in an almost tired tone.

“It’s better than leaving him in his lab where who knows what backup system might someday activate.” Eventus admitted truthfully, the worry that he might have missed something in the lab still very much there. “And given the tight treatment schedule for the Aurora’s crew, it will likely be several years before there’s an open spot in the medical officers schedule to heal Janus’s self induced issues.”

His shoulders slumped at knowledge of just what would come after that. “At which point I’ll have to put him on trial for his various crimes.”

While there were a lot of prohibitions and restrictions that Eventus was planning to do away with now that he was in charge, the ones dealing with time-travel and enslavement were not among them.

Thor leaned forward slightly. “His actions were that serious?”

“Before Janus put himself into stasis he was working on the designs for a weaponized slave race to use against our various enemies.” Eventus confessed grimly. “And while I appreciate the fact that he actually wanted to clean up the various problems my people have historically left in their wake. There are some lines that should not be crossed no matter the circumstances.” 

He grimaced and glanced out the window at Earth. “Not the least because there is a high likelihood that his control mechanism would have failed and then we’d have yet another group trying to exterminate all life in the universe.”

“Indeed.” Thor agreed dryly.

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Author’s Notes: Ironically Eventus doesn’t remember the comics where that very thing happened, he’s just surmising based on various researchers past history with that sort of thing. And hey, recognizing a pattern is the first step in breaking out of it.