Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 91

Chapter 91 - Long Distance Communications

The Tria’s distress signal hadn’t been particularly verbose, just a report that their Hyperdrive had irreparably burned out, the location of where it had occurred, and the vector calculations of where they were heading. Which was functionally all anyone really needed to figure out where the ship should be in its journey to the Avalon galaxy at any point in time.

“So they are fine just flying through space for the next million years?” Vala asked skeptically.

“Probably not fine.” Eventus admitted, taking a moment to imagine the drama that was probably going on in the ship's simulation space. “But from what I recall of the Tria’s file, its crew was on the younger side of things. So they probably felt it was their best option given the circumstances.”

“What was the age range for one of your people to be considered young?” Daniel inquired in interest as he pulled out a notebook and pen from one of his coat pockets.

Eventus considered the question for a moment. “I guess generally speaking it would be anywhere below thirty.”

“Huh.” Vala mused thoughtfully. “I thought it would have been something like a hundred for that nice round three digits.”

“Believe it or not, there was a lot of discourse with my people around the ideas of biological and chronological age.” Eventus admitted as he began to realign the outpost’s subspace transmitter to contact the Asgard. “Most of my people tended to keep themselves biologically somewhere between thirty and forty. But there were also some who thought being older conveyed a general sense of wisdom and authority. And others who decided to stay as young as was allowed, which was twenty four.”

Daniel looked up from the notes he was talking with a frown. “Why twenty four? Was there something special about that age?”

“It supposedly helped to avoid impulse control issues and relationship awkwardness.” Eventus answered with a shrug. “Personally, as–”

Error alerts suddenly began to pop up as the system registered insufficient power reaching the communications array to bridge the distance he was asking of it. Annoying, but not exactly unexpected given the accumulated damage, and he focused fully on the outpost’s systems as he spent a few minutes realigning the power flow to bypass the damage.

Once the array’s energy levels reached a point he could reasonably expect a message to reach the intergalactic relay satellite who’s location Hermiod had given him, he composed a quick message, added in the necessary codes, and sent it off.

“Sorry about that.” He said. “I had to adjust the power a bit so I could send a message to the Asgard. But as I was about to say before that, as someone who looks in their late twenties while being chronologically in their four hundreds. The awkwardness of teenagers hitting on you and you then needing to explain you’re older than their grandfather is absolutely real.”

Especially when that knowledge didn’t always deter the teenagers in question from chasing after him.

Daniel furrowed his brow. “I’m kind of surprised to hear your people still had that sort of problem.”

Eventus bit back a laugh at the suggestion. “As much as I’m sure various parents would have liked otherwise, teenagers seem to continue to be teeneagers no matter your level of biological development.”

He offered the Archeologist a wry grin. “Though most of my personal experience on that issue was with teenagers from less advanced societies who saw me as the hot Ancient who could take them away from things.”

A mental ping alerting him about an incoming communications signal drew his attention away from the body swapped man right as a hologram began to flicker into existence. The outpost’s ancient holographic projectors clearly struggled as they worked to adapt to the communications protocols used. Before at last the projection resolved itself into the recognizable form of an Asgard.

“Greetings.” The Asgard began with a slight incline of their head. “I am Sif.”

Daniel frowned. “Sif? As in Thor's wife?”

Sif turned to Daniel, considering the Archeologist for a moment before giving a tepid shake of her head. “Not for several hundred years.”

“Oh.” The Archeologist muttered in sudden awkwardness. “Sorry to hear that.”

“It was an amicable separation, Doctor Jackson.” Sif returned simply.

“Hold on.” Daniel said as Sif began to turn back to Eventus, causing the Asgard to return her focus to the body swapped man. “You can tell who I am?”

“Yes.” Sif answered, and Eventus had to hold back a chuckle when she left it at that instead of informing him about the nametags he had digitally set over each of the pair as part of their end of the two way link.

“Now, High Councilor.” She continued, finally turning to address Eventus directly. “Your message said you wished to make a request of us?”

“Yes.” Eventus confirmed as he mentally directed the control chair back into a fully upright position. “I'm putting together a trade deal with the humans, and we were hoping one of your people could act as a neutral guarantor to confirm the technology I'm offering them will do exactly what I'm claiming.”

“I see.” Sif said, tilting her head slightly in consideration. “How soon will this be needed?”

“Let's see.” Eventus mused half to himself as he thought over his schedule. “The next couple days I'm going to be flying around the solar system investigating various old sites of ours to see what might still be left. And after that I'm going to be taking a few days off of anything to do with work because it's been several decades since I've been off-call. So, barring something else coming up I'd say probably about eight Earth days from now would be good?”

Slowly blinking, Sif seemingly considered that before nodding. “Supreme Commander Thor should be finished with his current mission by then.”

It was Eventus’s turn to blink, as Thor seemed distinctly like overkill for what was basically just a trade agreement. 

“It doesn’t have to be your Supreme Commander.” He clarified. “Anyone with an intermediate level knowledge of energetic physics and urban technologies should be able to do the job without trouble.”

Sif shook her head. “You misunderstand, Supreme Commander Thor has taken it upon himself to oversee any such dealings with the planet Earth. This was mostly done in expectation of future negotiation with the Goa’uld System Lords, however it was not rescinded after their collapse.”

“All right.” Eventus agreed, not seeing any point in arguing about the issue given he was the one asking them for a favor with this. “Inform the Supreme Commander that I look forward to meeting him.”

“I will relay your message.” Sif said, reaching forward to something outside the project before the connection cut off.

For a moment silence filled the remains of the outposts, and Eventus was just about to turn back to working on various system repairs when Rayla spoke up.

“How come she was holograming us naked? I didn’t think women were supposed to do stuff like that?”

“Daniel.” Eventus began, glancing over to the Archaeologist who, at the moment, looked distinctly like he wanted to be anywhere but here. “I’m going to leave that to you and Vala to explain, because I have work to do.” 

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Author’s Notes: Truthfully, Eventus doesn’t know why the Asgard go around everywhere without clothing given how useful things like pockets can be. And yes, the reason Thor and Sif broke up was related to the continued lack of Asgard sexual capability.