Colonel Jack O'Neil was secretly worried. It had been a whole week since the last major near catastrophe, and nothing had gone wrong in that time. SG1 had had a pair of missions that could only have been described as cake walks. One of them had even netted them a small supply of Naquadah! A friend of his had convinced him to visit a casino one evening and he had come out ahead! Things were going too well. Something had to give, and probably in a big way.
Fate didn't disappoint him.
SG1 appeared with a flash on the bridge of the Asgard vessel.
"Thor, ol' buddy!" O'Neil began, "It's been what, a whole week? What brings you 'round these parts?"
"I never left," replied the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet who was sitting at his command post nearby. "Something attracted my attention on Earth before I broke orbit."
"Now, why don't I like the sound of that?" Despite the pained tone, O'Neil was actually feeling some relief. The other shoe was dropping at last.
"Indeed," dead panned Teal'c.
"Over the centuries, the Asgard have noted numerous subtle second order effects caused by an unknown type of energy found only on Earth."
"Second order effects?" O'Neil asked, hoping if he played dumb, he could get useful information.
"He means the Asgard can't detect the energy directly, but only by how it effects the surrounding area" explained Samantha Carter.
"I knew that."
"As I was leaving orbit, I detected a spike of these effects in the island chain known as Japan." Thor's eyes narrowed as he continued in a voice that made space sound warm and inviting. "In attempting to track it down and learn more, I spotted an adult male human in the process of torturing a young human child to death." A holographic image of the beach Genma had attempted to train Ranma on appeared.
SG1 erupted in anger and disgust at the image of the location that had been splashed across the world. "I'd like to meet the bastard who did that in a dark alley," growled O'Neil. Teal'c, meanwhile, wondered where he could get hold of a sarcophagus as the child abuser would not last long enough to witness the full demonstrations of some of the most painful punishments he had witnessed in the service of Apophis otherwise.
Thor narrowed his eyes in his own anger and disgust. "Your news media missed some of the worst of this... individual's depravity. But that can wait for another time. Fortunately they were also wrong about the child's fate. I beamed him up to my ship."
"Way to go Thor!" shouted O'Neil as a wave of relief released the tension that had built up in SG1.
"However, it was once I had brought the child on board that the most interesting events occurred." Thor's excitement and wonder built up. "I started to detect some of the second order effects occurring on my ship. Including my own Asgard physiology."
"The child is generating the energy?" Sam wasn't sure what to make of that, but there was another, important question to be asked. "Are you alright?"
"I am unharmed by the energy. In fact..." Thor paused a moment as he savored the gravity of his next pronouncement. "Initial readings indicate that the energy may hold a potential key to solving the problems with Asgard cloning."
Stunned shock swept SG1. "That's fantastic!" Same broke the silence.
"Is there anything we can do?" asked Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Unfortunately the energy is not stable. I believe that it is related to the immaturity of the host and will require training to develop to it's full potential. We Asgard know nothing of this energy, but it is now obvious that some knowledge of how to develop it may well exist on Earth. The boy must be trained to use this energy if there is to be any chance of using it to help save my people, and the knowledge of how to do that can only be found on Earth by you humans."
O'Neil immediately jumped in, "Well, Thor ol' buddy. We're always glad to help and we'll find a foster family..."
"No." Thor stated flatly, brooking no argument.
Despite the carefully cultured persona, O'Neil was not an idiot. He went white as he saw where Thor was going to go and didn't like it one bit as Thor continued, "This is potentially too important to the future of the Asgard, and the boy has nearly been killed once. I can not entrust him to any humans other than SG1."
"Yeah... about that..."
"I understand your hesitancy and the difficulties in your past O'Neil, know that I would not ask this of you if there were any other way. However, as you know, we are living on borrowed time, time which may come due sooner or later. If the boy is to reach his potential and possibly save the Asgard race, it must be this way. Our species have helped save each other several times now. I ask this in the name of the friendship between our species and between us personally."
"Aw heck."
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(Posted Tue, 20 May 2008 03:44)
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