Chapter 41

Cheyenne Mountain, SGC

Sitting in his office General Landry read over the report just received from Atlantis. Grabbing his phone he hit the speed dial to the one man he needed to pass the information along to. Landry was thankful that today's unexpected phone call to DC wasn't to inform his friend of some new menace stalking the galaxy.

"O'Neill here" said the voice on the other end of the call.

"Jack, its Hank. Word just came in from Atlantis. The negotiation was a success. Looks like the mission is a go" said Landry.

"It's nice when things work out smoothly, isn't it" asked Jack.

"That it is" replied Landry.

"Okay, my thinking on this is to give the mission to McKay. No one knows the systems on Atlantis better than he. Have him take the technical team that went to Destiny. What about on your end" asked Jack.

"The amount of material McKay estimates he's going to need isn't nearly as much as I would have thought. Athena is slated to return to active rotation in three days. Being that Col. Eckhart has already endured carting this technical team half way across the universe I figure a short trip one galaxy over wont hurt. No sense in exposing Mitchell to McKay if it can be avoided" said Landry laughing.

"What kind of concessions was Woolsey forced to make to get this done so fast" asked Jack.

"Medical care, ongoing protection, and we build them a city. We'll also need to throw in some irrigation systems for their crops. If we call in a marker with the Asgard they can deploy one of their vessels with matter stream creation technology built in and have everything done in days" added Landry.

"Good idea. Get a message out to Thor about that and explain the time frame we're up against" answered O'Neill.

"Will do. Have a good one Jack" said Landry before ending the call.

With marching orders in hand Landry went about getting the information into the right hands. A message was dispatched to Thor at the November Site. Aboard Arkos station Athena's commanding officer grimaced at the thought of the odd squad as he called the science team running around his ship yet again. The Arkos AI had already begun production of the myriad items that might or might not be required to ensure the currently crippled city ship could return to the Milky Way. All in all the situation was running smoothly and Landry gave silent thanks for that.

Pluto

The sh.i.p.s entry of the massive shipyard opened. Exiting with a speed that belied her great mass was the Athena. Gracefully she entered the vast cold environment of space. In distant orbit of the disguised shipyard sat an Asgard O'Neill class vessel. For their mission to Pegasus it had been decided to utilize a front line warship instead of a science vessel due to Wraith numerical superiority. Encrypted data flowed via secure link between the two vessels. Maneuvering to a distance of several hundred thousand kilometers from Arkos station two hyperspace windows opened and the advanced vessels began their journey to their destination.