feedback would be appreciated

and of course, I do not own nor do I claim ownership of any of the non-original works contained within.

 

The Long Patrol
by chaos_eternus

 

 

            "You know, this sucks."

 

            "I hadn't noticed," First Lieutenant `Colt' Tyler drawled, sending an unamused glare across space at the Viper holding steady on his wing, "but orders are orders…"

 

            "Maybe," came the reply, "but this still sucks."

 

            Colt sighed, shaking his head as he turned back to his own displays, flicking swiftly across the `glass' cockpit, "would you rather be on Thundersdawn on Alert 5?"

 

            He hid a grin at the long pause before his partner replied, "that sucks worse. I've been there, sitting in your cockpit, not allowed to get out even to take a piss, just ten seconds away from being in space but more often then not, never getting there."

 

            "And when you do?" he couldn't help asking.

 

            "It either gets uninteresting very quick… or it gets real interesting even quicker."

 

            Colt snorted, "The age old rule of the military, 99% boredom…"

 

            "And 1% I need new pants, stat!"

 

            They shared a chuckle at that, even as they unceasingly gazed between their instruments and the black, star laden gulf of space outside their fragile cockpits, carefully not thinking about how strong the glass composite was and what damage a single speck of dust in the wrong spot would cause.

 

            "Well Stardust," Colt noted contemplatively, "did you ever really believe you would get here?"

 

            "I hoped," he replied quietly, "the boys in the Black Aces knew when I joined `em out of the academy, it was how I ended up with this handle. But believe it? No, I don't think I ever did."

 

            "Neither did I," grimacing, he glanced across once more at this wingman, "but then, a lot has changed."

 

            "Yes, not all for the better."

 

            Colt considered this, "true, but what can we do?"

 

            A snort came over the radio, "our jobs. Keep Earth spinning with us on it and hope the politicians don't screw it up."

 

            "Hah! Also an eternal truth of the military… I think we're missing just one now…"

 

            "Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait," Stardust intoned swiftly, "hell Colt, what are we even doing out here anyway. Its not as if anyone on route to attack Earth is just going to happen to stop right in front of us and allow us to report back. We're in the freaking gulf after all, there's shit-all here."

 

            "That's true," his eyes rising fractionally as a blip flickered up momentarily on his screen, then disappeared after mere seconds, he shrugged inwardly, "as a tripwire, we're fucking useless, least `till they can give us sensors capable of looking into hyperspace."

 

            "Then why are we here?"

 

            Colt sighed, "because the brass thinks the practise with the jump drives is a good idea, beause they want us to keep busy, because the small chance of spotting an inbound enemy is better then no chance, because they want to discourage the creation of outposts and monitoring stations in the gulf. Hell, because we're ordered to be here. Pick one."

 

            The radio was quiet for a minute, "thought about it a bit have you?"

 

            Colt snorted, "Not had much else to do when flying with ninja. That guy couldn't string two words of conversation together to save his life."

 

            "Unless you're talking about…"

 

            "Those useless fucking Lancers." They chorused together.

 

            "You know what the best part is,"

 

            "Oh?" Colt asked.

 

            "Little birdie tells me he's going to be posted…"

 

            He glanced up interested; there was just too much glee in Stardust's voice.

 

            "…to project whetstone."

 

            "Whetstone?" Colt frowned, "haven't heard of that one."

 

            "He gets to be the test pilot for the mark three Lancers."

 

            Barking out a laugh, he shook his head, "oh that's just too beautiful. How the hell did that happen?"

 

            "As I heard it, he may have been a little… indiscreet with his comments on the Lancer when one of the Williams twins was in the room."

 

            "Sounds about right," Colt admitted, "I've met one of `em, or maybe both can't really tell, either way they got a wicked sense of the perverse sometimes but also somewhat of an understanding of humanity."

 

            "Oh?"

 

            "What's the better they tell ninja he's on whetstone until those `useless fucking lancers' aren't useless no more?"

 

            "That's evil,"

 

            "Well it would take somebody with a fine appreciation of their issues to get those birds fixed."

 

            They shared a chuckle at that then the radio went quiet once more.

 

            "Three more hours of this…"

 

            "And not even a gas stop to break the monotony." Colt replied swiftly.

 

            "Tell me about it, least that helped keep things interesting."

 

            "Not sure I would want to try it in these birds," Colt noted, "I've spoken to some of the Lancer guys who've tried it, apparently that's actually easier and quicker in atmosphere."

 

            "Now that says a lot,"

 

            "I know,"

 

            "Well lookee here," Stardust intoned, "that's the fifth time that blip has lit up then disappeared."

 

            Grimacing, Colt reached up and grabbed the helmet on his compact spacesuit, clicking it swiftly into place. God, how he hated the thing… but one day he might hate being without that final seal even more.

 

            "I'm sealed," he noted finally, "seal up yourself then give me a location."

 

            "Sealing now Colt," came the swift reply.

 

Less then twenty seconds later, a nav point flagged up on his display; "copying to command now..."

 

"Like anyone is going to hear it for a few hundred years or so…" stardust pointed out.

 

"That's why I brought a loudspeaker pod with me,"

 

"Fuck, didn't see that."

 

Colt smiled, "it's on the other side of my bird that's why."

 

"Just need the geeks to replace the shitty radios we got with those vo'cume based ones and these patrols might just start doing some real good."

 

"Maybe, we still got that intermittent contact to check out,"

 

"Right," Stardust replied, "I'll play follow the leader."

 

"Back-off a bit too, just in case." Colt ordered.

 

"You want weapons hot?"

 

"Not yet," Colt grinned, "let's avoid the paperwork unless we have to k?"

 

"No complaints here," came the amused reply.

 

He nudged his controls, bringing the craft around in a slow economical loop that five minutes later had them closing with surprising rapidity on the unknown contact.

 

            This promptly vanished in the brilliant glow of a thermonuclear explosion.

 

            "Screw me!"

 

            Colt found himself hard pressed to argue with the sentiment as he tried to blink away the large spot in his eyes, "You're filters catch that in time?"

           

            "The hell they did, I can't see for shit!"

 

            "Fuck," he groaned, "neither did mine."

 

            "Well least we got one thing confirmed," Stardust muttered, "no way was that natural."

 

            "No shit Sherlock," he flicked the `manual' filter; a large pane of tinted glass down over his suit helmet, "don't think my eyes are getting better neither."

 

            There was a silent pause, "call it in boss."

 

            "Can't see the controls," Colt replied, "it's an add-on pod isn't it? No hardwired switch to go over to it."

 

            "Figures," Stardust laughed, "tell me this isn't a government job."

 

            "Had to be a self-destruct," he noted slowly, trying to view the control panels out of the corner of his eyes, "we'd be dead otherwise."

 

            "Think it whistled up some unfriendlies at the same time?"

 

            Colt paused at that and then shuddered, "SCM when you can't see? That just wouldn't wash. Least for landing, we can try and slave control over to the station…."

 

            He heard a rhythmic sound over the radio and didn't need to ask to know stardust was bashing his head against the rear of his helmet.

 

"We can't can we?" he stated flatly.

 

"Eight steps on the touchscreens plus a ten digit security code…" came the dry reply.

 

"Next time I'm setting a bug-out button programmed for the sol system," Colt noted after a minute.

 

"The horse has already bolted,"

 

He laughed, "You're in a rather dry mood today aren't you?"

 

"Of course, not as if we get rain in space after all."

 

"True," Colt conceded, "but you're right. This sucks."

 

"Great,"

 

He didn't miss the soft, almost scared sigh that followed that, "problem?"

 

"I must have been looking right at the damn thing when it blew," Stardust replied, a shudder evident in his voice "can't see anything at all now."

 

He would have to admit that a chill filled him at those words, but in truth, not much he could do about it beyond trying to whistle up some assistance. Which, if he was going to be honest with himself, would be difficult if not impossible with his own eyesight as impaired as it was.

 

"Then we got a real problem," he finally conceded, leaning backwards in his seat.

 

"You can't see the controls well enough to send an SOS…"

 

"Naturally," it was Colts turn to be dry.

 

"Figures," came the reluctant response, "do you remember taunting Murphy at all this morning?"

 

"Well, I don't think so," he replied, "I'm sure I didn't mention anything about how the long boring patrol sucked."

 

Silence filled the radio and mentally the First Lieutenant notched up one in the win column.

 

"How long do you think it will take for someone to come and check-up on us?"

 

This he considered for a moment, "let's see, they'll give us five minutes to do the investigation before they start to radio us for an update. I give it three minutes of them trying before Peters is called to command then another two minutes to call us up before she declares an alert and bring all the defences in the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems to stage 2. Without an enemy on the scopes, I figure that will take about ten to fifteen minutes.

Then they'll need to decide what to send after us… figure 30 minutes total."

 

"You could have just said too freaking long," Stardust replied dryly.

 

"Hah," Colt replied, "how long do you then think it will take for them to decide what they're going to do with us. I mean, it's not as if the guntop is in town."

 

"She's not?" came the surprised reply.

 

"Saw her go,"

 

"Son of a bitch," Stardust replied, "so either we figure out a way to jump back or we see if the Colonials will let their big boy pay us a visit."

 

"Which will add even more time…"

 

"Yep,"

 

"Great," Stardust replied and then after a moment "so how did you get Colt anyway? Had a gun you wouldn't get rid of?"

 

"Guns no," he snorted, "horses yes."

 

"There's a story there isn't there?"

 

"No one I'm going to tell."

 

"Now I'm interested…"

 

"You can stay interested."

 

The radio went silent again, "it been thirty minutes yet?"

 

Colt considered this then tried to glance at the clock on the displays out of the corner of his eyes. This he failed at, with only peripheral vision, a clock that was dead centre of the displays and the narrowed view provided by the helmet it just wasn't going to work.

 

Taking his helmet off would make it easier but he wasn't sure he wanted to do that just to see the clock.

 

"Can't see the watch," he responded slowly.

 

"Fuck, this is going to be an age isn't it?"

 

"Yep."

 

"So are you going to tell me how you got that handle?"

 

"No,"

 

The radio was silent a moment, "sure?"

 

Colt sighed, yes this really was going to be an age wasn't it….

[Mainstory] 1: Dawn of Thunder, new version (5) uploaded, 14 Chapters, complete.
[Backstory] Discontinuity: Indefatigable - 2 new parts
[Gatewar Interludes] 1 new, 17: A Fine Dish...
[Tech] ships.xls updated

well, this rewrite is now complete and hopefully it is a major improvement. Please let me know if you think it is or isnt....

 

REWRITE VERSION

----------------------------------------

Chapter 14

----------------------------------------

Approaching Thundersdawn

 

The Asgard vessel slowly approached Thundersdawn, its transporters sparkled all around the ship as battle debris was shifted into a safe orbit that would cause it to enter the fiery heat of the sun, but some debris was collected by the Asgard and stored on their ship to be treated with far more dignity.

 

Those were the inevitable remains of any major battle, the bodies, far too many bodies.

 

O'Neill and Thor gazed upon the remains of the once proud space station and were silent. They had both seen battle damage before, that wasn't what silenced them, what silenced them was the volume of determined repairs being carried out, crew in spacesuits were crawling over the hull fixing the myriad hull breaches, rebuilding antenna arrays and retrieving were possible the supplies blown out from the number 1 hold.

 

Already the winking lights of tugs were slowly dropping into view as the other Royal craft in the system raced to assist the battered station.

 

"Thundersdawn to Asgard vessel, do you require assistance."

 

Captain Peters face appeared on the main viewing, the command centre behind her showing evidence of at least one fire, and several consoles were dark, dead, but Peters expression revealed her weariness but also her pride and her defiance, refusing to be defeated by the damage the Jaffa had caused them.

 

"No Captain Peters, repairs are proceeding as expected, do you require any assistance?"

 

This she considered for a moment, then "Our long range comms are down; could you please bounce a transmission for us please?"

 

"Of course."

 

----------------------------------------

Ground Control, St Athan

 

"Sir, we're picking up a transmission, it appears to be a bounce from Thundersdawn."

 

A sigh of relief filled the room, as, for the first time in hours, many of the personnel started to relax. The Admiral looked up from his desk, his face showing the strain of waiting, but a tired smile just managed to show on his face, Thundersdawn had survived, at least for the moment.

 

That was a good place to start.

 

"Well? The transmission?"

 

"Sorry Admiral, it's a recall notice, sent all the Airheads and Shunters."

 

"Try and contact Thundersdawn, and get a damage and casualties estimate as soon as possible."

 

"Yes, sir."

 

----------------------------------------

Ground Control, St Athan

 

            "Latest CasRep, sir."

 

            The admiral signed, and rubbed his forehead. He was quite aware that casualties were inevitable in any battle, but it didn't make it any easier. Ultimately he was responsible for every death, doubly so because he had hand-selected every member of Thundersdawn's large crew.

 

            "What's the latest?" he asked quietly.

 

            "105 KIA, 185 WIA and 45 MIS, Admiral"

 

            Thompson winced, MIS, Missing In Space, about the worst fate imaginable. Probably dead, but if they were in suits then for the moment they may still be alive.

 

            Give it another twelve hours or so, and then their air would start to run out. If they were found before then, well, all the studies they had regarding the possibility of a MIS suggested psychological trauma beyond what any other form of `missing' would produce.

 

            Those highly trained cream of the crop servicemen and woman who suffered such a fate would likely never work again.

 

            "The Asgard vessel has picked up a number of bodies, no exact numbers yet, but most of the MIS are probably there, Admiral" the ensign added quietly.

 

            "At least their families will have something to bury" he mused as the Ensign left, small comfort to those left behind, but still….

 

            Of course, if the bodies showed some sign of how they died then security meant that for now, the bodies couldn't be returned, taking away even that small grace.

 

            He signed again, and returned to the report he was writing, once more wondering why he had chosen this future, this command.

 

----------------------------------------

Thundersdawn

 

 

            With the Asgard vessel actively assisting, all the minor repairs to Thundersdawn were finished in days, leaving a largely operational but exhausted space station. Number 1 hold was still exposed to vacuum, a number of Pulse Lasers were so much slag and Dry-dock 4 had burned up in the Martian atmosphere, a number of crew rescued by Asgard transporters mere seconds before it broke up.

 

            Thor had left, promising to return with the weapons promised originally to Independence but not the shields. The ones brought out of storage for Independence simply would not cover Thundersdawn and larger would be required.

 

            Peters had little doubt the Americans were fuming over that, but in truth, they were Asgard technology even if that race did consider the designs to be obsolete and as such, it was they who controlled their disposition.

 

            O'Neill managed to gain a few kudos points however when he simply grumbled about the lengthy delay it would cause to Independence becoming operational whilst they learnt how to replicate the shields and weapons using human technology. Nor did he in anyway blame them, at least not in her hearing.

 

Carter had left too, returning to the SGC, Kalinda had proven determined to stay and she was now Chocky's semi-official representative on Thundersdawn.

 

            The station was wounded, but alive, and holding it's breath. This was just the first battle, they had shown their mettle now, and more challenges would come. Peters found herself looking forward to it.

 

Authors Notes

 

 For the Record: I do not own, nor do I claim ownership to characters, devices, places or situations from StarGate SG-1 or Chocky's Challenge.

The original characters and the story are mine and are NOT to be used without permission.

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

Chapter 14

 

"The Asguard vessel has engaged both Hatak's!"

"Weapon's locked! Contacts will enter long range in 5 seconds!"

"Captain, engineering confirms all generators on line"

"Bogies in Long range!"

"Commence Firing!" Peter's shouted. The response was instantaneous.

Thundersdawn began shuddering as volleys of laser light left the jury-rigged Pulse Laser cannons. Most missed, at that range it was inevitable, but the Jaffa in their fighters came on relentless, despite the stabbing bursts of energy seeking to atomise their craft, despite the occasional blaze of light as a direct hit was scored.

"Medium Range! Re-setting Lasers!"

The lasers stopped for a second, than restarted anew, the closer range meaning less energy was lost before reaching the Gliders and so Thundersdawns cannons could fire faster and with greater accuracy. It showed. More gliders were destroyed every second, every meter closer they got. It wasn't enough, the Jaffa were too many.

"Short range!"

The pulse cannons reset again, at this short range they were able to fire almost continuously, but then, so could the Gou'auld.

Thundersdawn rumbled almost continuously as the Gliders fired repeatedly into her armoured hull. Half of the gliders were gone now, but those that were left we causing significant damage. One enterprising glider pilot had found a blind spot in the pulse laser coverage and had stopped dead in space firing at the same piece of armour again, and again, and again. It gave. Peters was thrown of her seat as Thundersdawn gave an almighty groan and shifted in space, blown backwards by the force of air escaping from her hull.

"Hull breach! Corridor 34E and Hold 1 are open to vacumn"

The glider pilot grinned; satisfied by the damage he had caused, and moved to a new section. Thundersdawn had yet to stop her uncontrolled movements however, and the Jaffa got a temporary reprieve as the targeting computers failed to lock onto their targets, thrown off by the wild movements of the station as the largest compartment in Thundersdawn, Hold 1, vented its atmosphere to space.

Thundersdawn shuddered again.

"Jesus!"

The softly spoken moan grabbed Peters attention.

"Report!"

"A Glider just hit Dry-dock 4, Captain, it's gone, it's broken off totally"

The Captain stood stunned for a moment, but Thundersdawn shuddered again bringing her to her senses.

"Control, get working on those thrusters, we need to stop this venting now"

"Venting is about done Captain, we should regain control momentarily"

"Sensors just picked up a big explosion captain, someone just died but sensors are to damaged to tell who"

"That had better be the Hatak's"

`Either that' the Captain thought to herself `or we're dead'

"Captain! Pulse batteries 4 and 6 are down, overheat damage"

"Damm!, how long"

"Captain! The gliders!"

Peters turned to the sensor officer, surprised by the interruption.

"They're leaving!"

"Why?" the question was out before she could suppress it.

"Looks like a retreat Captain, as far as sensors can tell they are not regrouping"

Peters nodded, relieved.

"Cease firing!"

 

Chapter 15

 

Approaching Thundersdawn

 

The Asguard vessel slowly approached Thundersdawn, its transporters sparkled all around the ship as battle debris was shifted into a safe orbit that would cause it to enter the fiery heat of the sun, but some debris was collected by the Asguard and stored on their ship, Bodies, the inevitable remains of any major battle, far too many bodies. O'Neill and Thor gazed upon the remains of the once proud spacestation and were silent. They had both seen battle damage before, that wasn't what silenced them, what silenced them was the volume of determined repairs being carried out, crew in spacesuits were crawling over the hull fixing the myriad hull breaches, rebuilding antenna arrays and retrieving supplies blown out from the number 1 hold.

"Thundersdawn to Asguard vessel, do you require assistance"

Captain Peters face appeared on the main viewing, the command centre behind her showing evidence of at least one fire, and several consoles were dark, dead, but the Peters and her crew were proud, defiant, refusing to be defeated by the damage the Jaffa had caused them.

"No, Captain Peters, repairs are proceeding as expected, do you require any assistance?"

"Our long range comms are down, could you please bounce a transmission for us please?"

"Of course"

 

Ground Control, ST Athan

 

"Sir, we're picking up a transmission, it appears to be a bounce from Thundersdawn Admiral"

A sigh of relief filled the room, as, for the first time in hours, many of the personnel started to relax. The Admiral looked up from his desk, his face showing the strain of waiting, but a tired smile just managed to show on his face, Thundersdawn had survived, at least for the moment.

"Well? The transmission?"

"Sorry Admiral, it's a recall notice, sent all the 1-4 and 1-5's"

"Try and contact Thundersdawn, and get a damage and casualties estimate as soon as possible"

"Yes, sir"

 

Chapter 16

 

            Ground Control, ST Athan

 

            "Latest casualty report, sir"

            The admiral signed, and rubbed his forehead. He was quite aware that casualties were inevitable in any battle, but it didn't make it any easier. Ultimately he was responsible for every death, doubly so because he had hand-selected every member of Thundersdawn's large crew.

            "What's the latest?" he asked quietly.

            "105 KIA, 185 WIA and 45 MIS, Admiral"

            The admiral winced, MIS, Missing In Space, about the worst fate imaginable.

            "The Asguard vessel has picked up a number of bodies, no exact numbers yet, nut most of the MIS are probably there, Admiral" the ensign added quietly.

            "At least their families will have something to bury" the admiral mused as the Ensign left, small comfort to those left behind, but still….

            He signed again, and returned to the report he was writing.

 

            Thundersdawn

 

            With the Asguard vessel actively assisting, all the minor repairs to Thundersdawn were finished in days, leaving a largely operational but exhausted spacestation. Number 1 hold was still exposed to vacuum, a number of Pulse Lasers were so much slag and Dry-dock 4 had burned up in the Martian atmosphere, a number of crew rescued by Asguard transporters mere seconds before it broke up.

            Thor had left, promising to return with better weapons and some shields for Thundersdawn, Carter had left too, returning to SGC, Kalinda had stayed, determined to stay, she was now Chocky's semi-official representative on Thundersdawn.

            The station was wounded, but alive, and holding it's breath. This was just the first battle, they had shown their mettle now, and more challenges would come. Peters found herself looking forward to it.

REWRITE VERSION

----------------------------------------

Chapter 13

----------------------------------------

Thundersdawn

 

"Is it just me or did that Goa'uld just do exactly what we wanted them to?"

 

"It's not you, Captain." Carter replied with a smile at the wry, disbelieving tone in Peter's voice.

 

"Hmm," she shook her head then triggered the station wide speakers, "All hear this! All hear this! We have bogies inbound, ETA 2 minutes, we are now running weapons free."

 

It took just one second for the bridge to fill with sounds of final preparations for combat;

 

"Diagnostics confirm, all weapons batteries green"

 

"All airtight doors are sealed, Captain."

 

"The Asgard vessel has engaged both Ha'tak's!"

 

"Weapon's locked! Contacts will enter long range in 5 seconds!"

 

"Captain, engineering confirms all generators on line."

 

"Bogies in Long range!"

 

"Commence Firing!" Peters shouted. The response was instantaneous.

 

Thundersdawn began shuddering lightly as volleys of laser light left the jury-rigged Pulse Laser cannons. Most missed, at that range it was inevitable, but the Jaffa in their fighters came on relentless, despite the stabbing bursts of energy seeking to atomise their craft, despite the occasional blaze of light as a direct hit was scored.

 

"Medium Range! Re-setting Lasers!"

 

The lasers stopped for a second then restarted anew, the closer range meaning less energy was lost before reaching the Gliders and so Thundersdawns cannons could fire faster and with greater accuracy. It showed. More gliders were destroyed every second, every meter closer they got. It wasn't enough, the Jaffa were too many…

 

"Short range!"

 

The pulse cannons reset again, at this short range they were able to fire almost continuously, but then so could the Goa'uld.

 

Thundersdawn rumbled almost continuously as the Gliders fired repeatedly into her armoured hull. Half of the gliders were gone now, but those that were left we causing significant damage. One enterprising glider pilot had found a blind spot in the pulse laser coverage and had stopped dead in space firing at the same piece of armour again, and again, and again. It gave. Peters was thrown of her seat as Thundersdawn gave an almighty groan and shifted in space, blown backwards by the force of air venting from her hull.

 

"Hull breach! Corridor 34E and Hold 1 are open to vacuum."

 

The glider pilot grinned; satisfied by the damage he had caused, and moved to a new section. Thundersdawn had yet to stop her uncontrolled movements however, and the Jaffa got a temporary reprieve as the targeting computers failed to lock onto their targets, thrown off by the wild movements of the station as one of the largest compartment in Thundersdawn, Hold 1, vented its atmosphere and more into space.

 

Thundersdawn shuddered again, and with a bang of escaping energy the environmental control console behind Peters exploded, the body of the operator smashing into Peters, forcing her to the ground. She crawled out from underneath the man, and checked his pulse. Nothing, she cursed and got back to her feet, she had a station to look after.

 

"Jesus!"

 

The softly spoken moan from the damage control console grabbed Peters attention.

 

"Report!"

 

"A Glider just hit the interconnects between Dry-docks 3 and 4, Captain, dry-dock 4… it's gone, it's broken off totally."

 

The Captain stood stunned for a moment, under normal circumstances there could be upwards of a hundred and fifty people in each dry-dock. The numbers were lower as the station and the accommodations hadn't yet been completed plus under combat conditions the bulk of the crew would have been moved to the main body of the station, but there were still likely to be about thirty people in the dock.

 

And as yet, no escape pods.

 

 Thundersdawn shuddered again bringing her to her senses once more.

 

"Control, get working on those thrusters, we need control back of that stations movement," the stationed groaned and she bit back a curse, "we need to stop this venting now."

 

"Venting is about done Captain, we should regain control momentarily."

 

"Sensors just picked up a big explosion captain, someone just died but sensors are too damaged to tell who. Long-range are totally washed out, short-range are struggling with the energy wash from that explosion."

 

"That had better be one of the Ha'tak's." Peters muttered quietly to herself. Not that it really mattered, if it was the Asgard that blew, they would be dead soon enough and if it was the Goa'uld then there was still one target to deal with and they could still end up dead.

 

Beyond sucking away the fighters, there wasn't much they could do to affect that fight.

 

Static filled the bridge as the overloaded intercom burst into life;

 

"Engineering to command, we just lost pulse laser batteries 4 and 9, they're slagged, total loss, the power distribution grid is heating up a lot faster then expected, we need to shut down the rest now!"

 

"We still have about 20 gliders out there; we can't afford to stop firing, you'll just have to keep those lasers going a little longer" Peters shouted back through the microphone.

 

"No guarantees captain!" The intercom clicked off.

 

"Captain, signal from the Asgard, Scratch one, must have been that explosion tactical couldn't identify."

 

"Captain! The gliders!"

 

Peters turned to the sensor officer, surprised by the jubilation in his voice.

 

"They're leaving!"

 

"Why?" the question was out before she could suppress it.

 

"Looks like a retreat Captain, as far as sensors can tell they are not regrouping."

 

Peters nodded, relieved.

 

"Cease firing!"

 

The station rumbled again, "we've just taken a hit! Corridor 12 section 1 exposed to vacuum."  

 

Shooting Carter a sick look at that she rose from her seat, diving towards the main station status readout covering the half the rear of the bridge.

 

"Problem?" Carter asked quietly, following her.

 

"The lasers for that section have been delayed," Peters replied darkly, "if they blow that section we lose dry-docks one and three."

 

"Prometheus is in number one dock."

 

"I know," came the response, "it's the same evil-minded bastard who blew four off I would bet."

 

"New contacts inbound, profile suggests Udajeet fighters!"

 

"Bring the pulse lasers back online," Peters ordered quietly, "and ready missiles for launch. Let's see if we can't catch a bunch of them with a nuke."

 

"Incoming transmission… it's the Yanks! 1^st Starfighter Wing."

 

"Typical Americans!" Peters shot a relieved look at the Colonel, "always late to the party, sic the tardy bastards on our unwelcome guest."

 

"Aye Captain,"

 

"And start running a systems check, I want a quick rundown on status within fifteen minutes," she turned to Carter, "its going to be along day."

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

Chapter 14

 

"The Asguard vessel has engaged both Hatak's!"

"Weapon's locked! Contacts will enter long range in 5 seconds!"

"Captain, engineering confirms all generators on line"

"Bogies in Long range!"

"Commence Firing!" Peter's shouted. The response was instantaneous.

Thundersdawn began shuddering as volleys of laser light left the jury-rigged Pulse Laser cannons. Most missed, at that range it was inevitable, but the Jaffa in their fighters came on relentless, despite the stabbing bursts of energy seeking to atomise their craft, despite the occasional blaze of light as a direct hit was scored.

"Medium Range! Re-setting Lasers!"

The lasers stopped for a second, than restarted anew, the closer range meaning less energy was lost before reaching the Gliders and so Thundersdawns cannons could fire faster and with greater accuracy. It showed. More gliders were destroyed every second, every meter closer they got. It wasn't enough, the Jaffa were too many.

"Short range!"

The pulse cannons reset again, at this short range they were able to fire almost continuously, but then, so could the Gou'auld.

Thundersdawn rumbled almost continuously as the Gliders fired repeatedly into her armoured hull. Half of the gliders were gone now, but those that were left we causing significant damage. One enterprising glider pilot had found a blind spot in the pulse laser coverage and had stopped dead in space firing at the same piece of armour again, and again, and again. It gave. Peters was thrown of her seat as Thundersdawn gave an almighty groan and shifted in space, blown backwards by the force of air escaping from her hull.

"Hull breach! Corridor 34E and Hold 1 are open to vacumn"

The glider pilot grinned; satisfied by the damage he had caused, and moved to a new section. Thundersdawn had yet to stop her uncontrolled movements however, and the Jaffa got a temporary reprieve as the targeting computers failed to lock onto their targets, thrown off by the wild movements of the station as the largest compartment in Thundersdawn, Hold 1, vented its atmosphere to space.

Thundersdawn shuddered again.

"Jesus!"

The softly spoken moan grabbed Peters attention.

"Report!"

"A Glider just hit Dry-dock 4, Captain, it's gone, it's broken off totally"

The Captain stood stunned for a moment, but Thundersdawn shuddered again bringing her to her senses.

"Control, get working on those thrusters, we need to stop this venting now"

"Venting is about done Captain, we should regain control momentarily"

"Sensors just picked up a big explosion captain, someone just died but sensors are to damaged to tell who"

"That had better be the Hatak's"

`Either that' the Captain thought to herself `or we're dead'

"Captain! Pulse batteries 4 and 6 are down, overheat damage"

"Damm!, how long"

"Captain! The gliders!"

Peters turned to the sensor officer, surprised by the interruption.

"They're leaving!"

"Why?" the question was out before she could suppress it.

"Looks like a retreat Captain, as far as sensors can tell they are not regrouping"

Peters nodded, relieved.

"Cease firing!"

REWRITE VERSION

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Chapter 12

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Ha'tak

 

In the grand scheme of things he was not an important Goa'uld, he had never reached system lord status, acting only as a servant of Apothis before he was killed. With the death of Apothis he had gained a, he snorted sardonically, loyal following of Jaffa and his two ships and began planning for revenge on those who brought his master down. In this he was unique, most Goa'uld have little, if any loyalty to those they call master, but not this Goa'uld. His master was his power, the source fo what little he had. It was taking time but he was slowly rising in the ranks, gaining more power, more trust.

 

One day, he would destroy Apothis himself and assume his mantle. That day was likely another hundred or more years away… then Apothis had died. No, not died, been killed by these Tau'ri, with it went his power.

 

Admittedly, he had escaped the turmoil and ransacking that engulfed his master's old holdings with two warships and all the Jaffa needed to crew them but that just made him extra vulnerable.

 

It meant he had enough power to draw the wary and contemptuous attention of the other Goa'ulds but not enough to have any hope of resisting them, of even remotely being considered an equal instead of simply a bug to be squashed.

 

No, he had to make the Tau'ri pay and in such a way as to make the other Goa'ulds grateful and welcoming. Merely wary of attacking him would be a bonus but to do that, he truly had to be bold.

 

He had no option other then to roll the dice.

 

His chance had finally come when he had discovered an abandoned mothership on the edge of what little space he controlled, it was damaged, mostly beyond repair, but its cargo, a trio of advanced Hyper drives were intact. Two went into his Ha'tak's; the third was being built into a new mothership he was constructing using parts from the ancient wreck.  With these new drives he felt he could catch Earth totally by surprise, before any of their allies could intervene, and then leave.

 

"My Lord, we have arrived."

 

He resisted the urge to kill the Jaffa for the implied insult, like he could not see that himself! He did have eyes after all.

 

"My Lord" a dark skinned Jaffa said, his voice strangled with suppressed laughter, "We are picking up a number of unarmed craft; they are ballistic and powered down. They think they can hide from us!"

 

He snorted with contempt, unarmed they were no threat; he would deal with them later.

 

"My lord, the Tau'ri have built themselves a spacedock!"

 

He perked up, a spacedock, such facilities were always heavily defended with the best weapons and ships available, it might actually be a threat. He was interrupted in his thoughts by the Jaffa bursting into outright laughter, he glared at the Jaffa, such conduct was unbecoming the servant of a God such as he, but the Goa'uld noted, considering the crew of mutinous dogs, dregs and banished Jaffa he had as a crew, hardly surprising.

 

"My Lord" the Jaffa added, not bothering to even say My Lord with respect, "the spaceyard, it has no heavy weaponry, nothing that could challenge us!"

 

That was unlikely, unlikely enough to make him rise from his throne and take a look at the sensor readings himself. But for all it was unlikely, it did in fact appear to be true.

 

 "These Tau'ri defeated the great Apothis!" he said, disbelief echoing through his voice, then his eyes caught another icon on the screen and his breathe caught.

 

The Jaffa spoke again, this time all laughter and disrespect was gone from his voice, "My Lord, we have a sensor contact you should see!"

 

He glared at the Jaffa as he turned from the sensor display, mentally cursing. The only good part about it was that the Asgard vessel appeared to be far weaker then most, a valuable prize if it could be captured but frankly, he wasn't sure the risk was worth it given his minimal strength.

 

Not after what happened to the last Goa'uld who actually managed the unusual feat of capturing one of their ships. Perhaps it would be best to keep things simple.

 

"Order the fighters to engage that facility, we will engage the Asgard!"

 

"Yes, My Lord"

 

Within minutes swarms of Udajeet fighters left the Ha'tak's, and moved with deadly grace towards Thundersdawn, the Ha'taks moving aggressively towards Earth, and the waiting Asgard vessel.

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

Chapter 13

 

Hatak

 

In the grand scheme of things he was not an important Gou'auld, he had never reached system lord status, acting only as a servant of Apothis before he was killed. With the death of Apothis he had gained a loyal following of Jaffa and his two ships and began planning for revenge on those who brought his master down. In this he was unique, most Gou'auld have little, if any loyalty to those they call master, but not this Gou'auld. His chance had finally come when he had discovered an abandoned mothership on the edge of what little space he controlled, it was damaged, mostly beyond repair, but its cargo, a trio of advanced Hyper drives were intact. Two went into his Hataks, the third was being built into a new mothership he was constructing.  With these new drives he felt he could catch earth totally by surprise, before any of their allies could intervene, and then leave.

"My Lord, we have arrived"

He nodded, and turned to the sensor display, and mentally began cursing.

"These Tau'ri have been busy!" he commented to him self as he noted a number of ballistic craft, their engines shut down, trying not to be seen. He shrugged them off, they had no weapons and were no threat, he would deal with them later. There were two vessels in the system that did demand his attention, one appeared to be a stationary space dock, a facility under normal circumstances he would attempt to capture, especially when they were as inadequately armed as this one was. The Asguard vessel meant these were not normal circumstances. He looked again at the spacestation, it would have to be destroyed then, no real loss.

"Order the fighters to engage that facility, we will engage the Asguard!"

"Yes, Lord"

Within minutes a large number of fighters left the Hatak's, and headed towards Thundersdawn, the Hataks continued on to Earth.

 

Thundersdawn

 

"Is it just me or did that Gou'auld just do exactly what we wanted them to?"

"It's not you, Captain"

"Hmm, All hear this! All hear this! We have bogies inbound, ETA 2 minutes, we are now running weapons free"

REWRITE VERSION

----------------------------------------

Chapter 11

----------------------------------------

Thundersdawn

 

Kalinda was attempting to walk down the corridor through all the debris of the hasty refit and the extra cabling that had been set up to boast the power of the Pulse lasers and to assist with the power transfer from the hastily installed Naquadah generators.

 

There hadn't been too much of an argument over those which actually surprised her, but then maybe it was a sign that the instinctive indignation and wariness from the Americans was starting to fade and be replaced with more careful thought.

 

Or it could just be that they considered the Brits the lesser of two evils when wondering exactly why the Asgard were doing in town.

 

In truth, whilst it appeared she was walking down the corridor, in reality, what she was mainly doing could best be described as exercising her vocabulary, swearing every time the debris almost made her fall. The young ensign who was accompanying her was taking notes; he hadn't even heard some of those before. She eventually made it to the end of the corridor, and poked her head into the electronics suite at the end of the corridor.

 

"Carter, the bypass cables are up and the circuit test checks out. We'll have to send a team to start clearing the corridors out though; this corridor alone must break at least 20 health and safety regs."

 

With a pleased smile, Carter looked up from her monitor, "the new software seems to be okay and the interface between the stations power grid and the Naquadah generators appears to be stable. Barring a full power test, I think we may be done."

 

Kalinda frowned, "A full power test would be a good idea, but I suggest we leave that until there has been some tidying up done,"

 

At that she shot the Ensign following her a significant look and he nodded resigned agreement before turning towards the comm. Panel beside the door.

 

"For the moment, I suggest we update the Captain," snorting, she continued, "They do so love to know what's going in inside their little domains don't they?"

 

Recognising a rhetorical question when she saw one, Carter just smiled and swiftly locked the computer before following the civilian out of the room. They arrived at the bridge in time to hear the comm. officer of the watch speak;

 

"Incoming transmission from Master 1, captain."

 

"Put it through."

 

"This is Captain Peters of Her Majesty's space station number 1, call-sign Thundersdawn, to whom do I have the honour of addressing?" she tried to keep her voice calm, and it mostly worked. This was after all the Royals first contact with an alien craft, sure the SGC had made first contact, and the Asgard were allied… well, technically allied with the Americans and no-one else but even so she couldn't entirely suppress her nerves.

 

"Captain Peters, this is Colonel O'Neill." She quirked an eyebrow, yep definitely there first contact, someone with his record could hardly be described as 100% human after all…

 

"Thor here says we have inbound, a pair of Ha'tak's just registered on his sensors."

 

"How long?" Peters snapped out, her manner suddenly all business.

 

"15 minutes, they are coming in fast, must have acquired a faster engine from somewhere."

 

"GQ!" she snapped out, her head turning to the duty comm. Officers station.

 

"Will your friend fight?" Peters continued turning back to her microphone.

 

"I will try Captain Peters, but 2 upgraded Ha'taks and their fighters will prove difficult to destroy," the little alien standing next to the Colonel gave what she could only assume was his equivalent of a shrug, "I was only here to check the progress of the new construction and deliver the last batch of gauss weapons. This is not a top of the line vessel either; as such assistance would be required."

 

Peters glanced at Kalinda and Carter, who nodded, speaking simultaneously,

 

"We're done." Kalinda said.

 

"Upgrades complete and online Captain" from Carter, "but not yet tested."

 

Nodding her understanding at the Colonels careful addition, she turned back towards the screen, "we have a problem."

 

"That I can see," Thor noted, "you do not appear to have any real weapons systems, certainly none capable of being a threat to the Ha'taks. I find myself quite surprised at this given how clear my thoughts on the matter have been in the past."

 

Peters eyes narrowed slightly as she caught the wince from O'Neill and she found herself suddenly curious. Did the Asgard know of the situation with the Russian Prometheus? Had they already stated that they did not approve?

 

"The fault is not entirely that of Stargate Command," she admitted, "I'm afraid the American squandered a lot of trust and respect with how that project has been handled and when we discovered what was going on, we started this project without their assistance or knowledge."

 

"I see," he considered this a moment then continued "If we had time the weapons I had brought destined for the Independence I would install aboard your Thundersdawn but given the limited warning I am afraid that would not be possible."

 

"Then I see only one option," she replied, not bothering to hide her pleased grin at the thought of her station being re-equipped with osme real weapons, "Send the fighters our way, our pulse lasers are more than a match for them and fire rapidly enough to really sweep clear, but the big boys are beyond us."

 

This the diminutive alien appeared to accept "I will try to do as you suggest."

 

The channel closed, but Peters was already barking orders out "Comms, send general alert signal `cave', tell all the 1-4's, 1-5's, and the construction crews over at the mining facility to go quiet, shut down all non-essentials and make like a hole in the water! Weapons, set pulse lasers and targeting computers to rapid fire mode, assume hostile fighters inbound, comms, begin dumping our logs to ground control, and get me ship-wide!"

 

"Ship-wide up, Captain!"

 

"All hands, this is the Captain, we have hostile craft, a pair of souped-up Ha'taks inbound and we expect to engage within 15 minutes. This is not a drill people! An Asgard vessel will be fighting with us, but they will be outmatched if we don't do our part. Hopefully we will be able to distract all the enemy fighters long enough to give them a chance, but if that doesn't work we will be next. Good luck and God bless."

 

"Weapons! Lock the Asgard vessel into the targeting computer and label it as a friendly"

 

She sat back at her command console with a sigh, "Now, we wait."

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

Chapter 12

 

Thundersdawn

 

Kalinda was attempting to walk down the corridor, actually, thanks to all the debris of a hasty refit, and all the extra cabling they had set up to boast the power of the Pulse lasers what she was mainly doing could best be described as exercising her vocabulary. The young ensign who was accompanying her was taking notes; he hadn't even heard some of those before. Kalinda eventually made it to the end of the corridor, and poked her head into the electronics suite at the end of the corridor.

"Carter, the bypass cables are up and the circuit test checks out. We'll have to send a team to start clearing the corridors out though, this corridor alone must break at least 20 health and safety regs"

Carter looked up from her monitor, the new software seems to be okay, I think we may be done"

"Good, then we had better let the captain know."

 

Thundersdawn Command Centre

 

"Incoming transmission from Master 1, captain"

"Put it through"

 

"This is Captain Peters of Her Majesty's space station number 1, call-sign Thundersdawn, to whom do I have the honour of addressing?" she tried to keep her voice calm, and it mostly worked, this was after all, the Royals first contact with an alien craft, sure the SGC had made first contact, and the Asguard were allied, but even so she couldn't entirely suppress her nerves.

"Captain Peters, this is Colonel O'Neill" She quirked an eyebrow, yep definitely there first contact, someone with his record could hardly be described as 100% human after all…

"Thor here says we have inbound, a pair of Hatak's just registered on his sensors"

"How long?" Peters snapped out, her manner suddenly all business.

"15 minutes, they are coming in fast, must have acquired a faster engine from somewhere"

"GQ!" she snapped out, her head turning to the duty comm. Officers station.

"Will our friend fight?" she snapped, turning back to her microphone.

"I will try Captain Peters, but 2 upgraded Hatak's and their fighters will prove difficult to destroy, this is not a top of the line vessel, assistance would be required"

"Send the fighters our way, our pulse lasers are more than a match for them and fire rapidly enough to really sweep clear, but the big boys are beyond us"

"I will try to do as you suggest"

The channel closed, but Peters was already barking orders out

"Comms, send general alert signal `cave', tell all the 1-4's, 1-5's, and the construction crews over at the mining facility to go quiet, shut down all non-essentials and make like a hole in the water! Weapons, set pulse lasers and targeting computers to rapid fire mode, assume hostile fighters inbound, comms, begin dumping our logs to ground control, and get me ship-wide!"

"Ship-wide up, Captain!"

"All hands, this is the Captain, we have hostile craft, a pair of souped up Hataks inbound and we expect to engage within 15 minutes. This is not a drill people! An Asguard vessel will be fighting with us, but they will be outmatched if we don't do our part. Hopefully we will be able to distract all the enemy fighters long enough to give them a chance, but if that doesn't work we will be next. Good luck, and God bless"

"Weapons! Lock the Asguard vessel into the targeting computer and label it as a friendly"

"Now, we wait"

REWRITE VERSION

----------------------------------------

Chapter 10

----------------------------------------

Thundersdawn

 

            Captain Peters sipped her tea slowly, as she carefully watched the Asgard ship through the small flat screen monitor built into the arm of her station. To say she was worried was to call the Arctic `slightly chilly'. The impression she had from all the reports on the Asgard she had spent the last 5 hours skimming through was that, when the Asgard come to Earth, trouble either follows, or is waiting for the Asgard on arrival, an impression Carter hadn't tried too hard to refute.

 

Unfortunately they weren't ready for trouble. Thundersdawn was the only operational station in the Sol system, and her weapons when compared to the Goa'uld's could best be classed as laughable. The several test firings they had performed had shown a considerable number of flaws in their pulse laser design. Replacements had been designed, but until the next financial year, there wasn't enough money to build them. Their missiles had nuclear tips, which had proven ineffective against normal Goa'uld shields before, let alone the upgraded shields of Anubis's vessels and whilst the missiles had been modified for use in space, they hadn't been fully tested yet.

 

The 1-4 and 1-5 series craft were unarmed though they were already planning to change that for latter marks, but for now they could easily pass muster as `sitting ducks' to any serious opposition, hell any opposition. As for the 1-6 series craft had been delayed again, but they at least would have some weaponry when they became available in about 3 months. The Lancer Class Star fighters had also been delayed, they were just waiting on the redesigned pulse lasers. They had actually been ground tested already and apart from the weapons they were finished, ahead of schedule.

 

Captain Peters tossed her head back and mulled over that thought, ahead of schedule, not something you often hear in government work, she thought with a wry grin.

 

That left only the Asgard to provide any serious opposition if trouble chose then to come a-knocking, Prometheus didn't even have a reactor at this point as it had been removed ready for replacement. Peters reviewed her stream of thought, and didn't like it, but maybe…

 

"Kalinda, report to command please!"

 

Trouble might be coming, or it might not be, but either way she intended to be ready, and she was sure the Royal Naval Academies top graduate, and a telepath whose IQ required a whole new scale could come up with something.

 

The captains thoughts were interrupted as the airlock at the back of the command deck thudded open, allowing Kalinda and Carter to enter the bridge, Peters listened to them for a few seconds then made the all too accurate deduction that they were so wrapped up in their discussion of some incredibly complex scientific theory that neither of them even realised they had arrived at command.

 

"Kalinda! Carter!"

 

Their heads snapped around, startled, their expressions quickly becoming sheepish as they realised where they were.

 

"Sorry" they said almost simultaneously.

 

Peters quashed the thought that Kalinda and Carter were related, but only because their records said otherwise. Those two acted so alike at times, except, Peters noted, when Soldier Carter came to visit. Kalinda had never entered military service, so did not have that aspect to her.

 

"Major, we could use your help on this one too" she added, trying to keep it informal for Kalinda who still wasn't used to military procedure, and was a bit young to join up anyway "Kalinda, thanks for coming so fast."

 

Curious, Carter and Kalinda approached Captain Peter's duty station.

 

"As you know, an Asgard vessel arrived some hours ago, unfortunately an allied vessel arriving in this system usually means trouble is coming, trouble we are not ready for. There are only two armed craft in this system, the Asgard vessel and us. The problem is our weapons; specifically our pulse lasers and missiles are not up to scratch. We need to get them up to scratch, and fast. I'm not waiting until the next financial year for some weapons to defend this base with!" Peters thumping her hand on her desk punctuated her last word.

 

Carter nodded straight away, her military mind allowing her to quickly asses the danger of being on an under gunned space station, Kalinda took a few seconds longer, but by this time Peters and Carter had already moved to a large clear area, on the command deck, meant for a fighter control station when the Lancers eventually arrived, and were spreading schematics across the deck, she hurried to join them and they began bouncing ideas back and forth.

 

"Prometheus?"

 

            Carter shrugged at Kalinda, "Completely offline and her reactor is in the process of being dismantled."

 

            Peters frowned, "what about moving her to an outboard airlock and using the shore power linkages to power her weapons?"

 

            "Moving the ship would be relatively easy with the tugs you have available," Carter noted, "it would place a strain on the ships power grid, its only designed to draw enough power for basic services through the umbilical's."

 

            "Thundersdawn's power grid is more robustly designed," Peters noted, "primarily because this station was always designed to be expanded upon should the need exist."

           

            Kalinda nodded, "the power grid was primarily Albertines responsibility during the design process, she does have the most experience with the ZPE's after all, but I suspect the grid will handle the draw but that the energy needed to bring Prometheus's main weapon online would exceed the generating ability."

 

            Carter sighed, "of course, the ZPE's generate a fixed and steady amount of power…"

 

            "Unlike a naquadah generator which can be tweaked to temporarily provide more power then its normal rating," the younger of the two geniuses's replied, "not to mention, whilst largely functional, this station is still incomplete. We have about half the generators available as we will once Thundersdawn is fully online. I'm not sure we will have the power to use the pulse lasers to their fullest."

 

            At that, Carter grimaced, "which rules out powering Prometheus and using her main guns."

 

            "Most certainly," Kalinda noted, "I would suggest we need the power more for the station itself."

 

            "Is there any chance of getting some naquadah generators up here swiftly?" Peters asked.

 

            "There are several aboard Prometheus, but again, they're only backups and could only power basic services."

 

            "If we could persuade your government to authorise their release…" she mused.

 

            "Then at least Thundersdawn would be fully powered in the event of an attack," Carter nodded, "I'll speak to General Hammond but it might be a while before we get a response. I would be willing to at least ensure compatibility between the generators and the stations power grid until we get a response."

 

            `Of course you are,' Peters noted inwardly, `it would give her a closer look at the station and her capabilities.'

 

            But in truth, if there was to be an attack then the extra power would be helpful and if all went to plan, Stargate Command and the Royal Space Service would be allied so, "agreed. The main issue remains though and that is dealing with enemy warships. We can give fighters a bloody nose but a warship?"

 

            "How bad?" Carter asked.

 

            "Very," she grimly replied, "the lasers should in theory chew the hell out of fighters, though frankly their power draw is higher then expected, they overheat sooner… but they simply don't have the power to be a threat to a warship. Fighters like the Udajeet should not be a problem, Al-kesh will require concentrated fire, anything larger and we have nothing to touch them."

 

            Kalinda frowned, "the missiles…"

 

            Peters shook her head, "nukes have already been tried against Ha'taks and failed. If their shields are down then its worth trying, but with their shields up…"

 

            "Its possible Thor is just her for a social visit to because he requires help again," Carter shrugged, "I think you may be being a bit paranoid."

 

            "Its only paranoia if their not out to get you," Kalinda cracked.

 

            With a slight grin, Carter acknowledged the point, "true. If it is Thor in that ship then we'll know more the O'Neill reports in. By now, he's probably already been beamed aboard."

 

            "And if it is to warn of an attack?" Peters asked.

 

            "Then Iwo Jima will be recalled," she replied, "but without that confirmation, she will remain on mission."

 

            Kalinda snorted, "That's assuming she will have time to get here."

 

            "True," Carter noted, "but if you are right about why the Asgard is here, then we have little choice unless they stay and assist. Still, I will speak to Hammond about the generators."

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

 

Chapter 10

 

            Captain Peters sipped her tea slowly, as she carefully watched the Asguard ship through the small flat screen monitor built into the arm of her station. To say she was worried was to call the Artic `slightly chilly'. The impression she had from all the reports on the Asguard she had spent the lost 5 hours skimming through was that, when the Asguard come to Earth, trouble either follows, or is waiting for the Asguard on arrival, an impression Carter hadn't tried too hard to refute.

Unfortunately they weren't ready for trouble. Thundersdawn was the only operational station in the Sol system, and her weapons when compared to the Gou'auld's could be classed as laughable. The several test firings they had performed had shown a considerable number of flaws in their pulse laser design. Replacements had been designed, but until the next financial year, there wasn't enough money to build them. Their missiles had nuclear tips, which had proven ineffective against normal Gou'auld shields before, let alone the upgraded shields of Anubis's vessels. The 1-4 and 1-5 series craft were unarmed, and could easily pass muster as `sitting ducks' to any serious opposition, hell any opposition, the 1-6 series craft had been delayed again, but they at least would have some weaponry when they became available in about 3 months. The Lancer Class Star fighters had also been delayed, they were just waiting on the redesigned pulse lasers, actually they had been ground tested already and apart from the weapons they were finished, ahead of schedule.

Captain Peters tossed her head back and mulled over that thought, ahead of schedule, not something you often hear in government work, she thought with a wry grin.

That left only the Asguard to provide any serious opposition if trouble chose then to come a-knocking, Prometheus didn't even have a reactor at this point, it had been removed ready for replacement. Peters reviewed her stream of thought, and didn't like it, but maybe…

"Kalinda, report immediately to Command!"

Trouble might be coming, or it might not be, but either way she intended to be ready, and she was sure the Royal Naval Academies top graduate, and a telepath whose IQ required a whole new scale, could come up with something.

 

Chapter 11

 

The captains thoughts were interrupted as the airlock at the back of the command deck thudded open, allowing Kalinda and Carter to enter the bridge, Peters listened to them for a few seconds then made the all too accurate deduction that they were so wrapped up in their discussion of some incredibly complex scientific theory that neither of them even realised they had arrived at command.

"Kalinda! Carter!"

Their heads snapped around, startled, their expressions quickly becoming sheepish as they realized where they were.

"Sorry" they said almost simultaneously.

Peters quashed the thought that Kalinda and Carter were related, but only because their records said otherwise, those two acted so alike at times, except, Peters noted, when Soldier Carter came to visit, Kalinda, having never entered military service, didn't have that aspect to her.

"Carter, we could use your help on this one too, Kalinda thanks for coming so fast"

Curious, Carter and Kalinda approached Captain Peter's duty station.

"As you know, an Asguard vessel arrived some hours ago, unfortunately an allied vessel arriving in this system usually means trouble is coming, trouble we are not ready for. There are only two armed craft in this system, the Asguard vessel and us. The problem is our weapons; specifically our pulse lasers and missiles are not up to scratch. We need to get them up to scratch, and fast. I'm not waiting until the next financial year for some weapons to defend this base with!" Peters thumping her hand on her desk punctuated her last word.

Carter nodded straight away, her military mind allowing her to quickly asses the danger of being on an under gunned space station, Kalinda took a few seconds longer, but by this time Peters and Carter had already moved to a large clear area, on the command deck, meant for a fighter control station when the Lancers eventually arrived, and were spreading schematics across the deck, she hurried to join them and they began bouncing ideas back and forth.

REWRITE VERSION

----------------------------------------

Chapter 9

----------------------------------------

Thundersdawn

 

            "Captain Peters!"

 

The fifteen-year-old genius strode confidently onto Thundersdawn's command centre, followed closely by Carter. She had, by this time, managed to lose the shell-shocked and slightly amazed expression she had gained when she realised exactly how real the Zero Point Energy Extraction technology was and where it came from and was now hurriedly shifting through her notes, trying to organise them, ready to transmit to the SGC.

 

"Michael says he has done a nice painting of Thundersdawn with Mars in the background, he says you have first dibs if you want it."

 

The Captain turned, and talking to the entire bridge she said, her voice amused and slightly sarcastic "Geez, I don't know, do we really want a valuable painting in this midst of all this artistry and colour?" she gestured at the drab grey walls and the exposed pipes and cabling, "It might be overshadowed by the sheer luxury of this facility."

 

            As her eyes uncrossed, the Genius Kalinda giggled, "Michael says it's a risk he is willing to take, anyway he's packing it now. He's also grousing about how security wouldn't allow him to sell it as sci-fi…"

 

            Peters shot Albertines second a wry grin, "Tell him thanks from us anyway, I'm not going to complain about anything that helps brighten this place up at the moment."

 

At that, she turned and tapped the shoulder of a Warrant Officer at the rear of the room, "Major Carter will need a data and audio channel to…"

 

            An excited shout interrupted Peters, "Conn,- sensors, I'm picking up a hyperspace portal…. New Contact! It's not in the database, designating Master 1!"

 

            Captain Peters cursed, "General Quarters, man Battlestations!"

 

            A master designated contact, trouble. The master designation was reserved for hostile or potentially hostile contacts, mainly used by the submarine service; the convention had stuck here too.

 

            "Conn, sensors, contact just appeared 2 light seconds from Earth, contact does not match known Goa'uld craft, but is definitely an advanced craft"

 

----------------------------------------

SGC

 

            "Morning campers" O'Neill was in a good mood, "any word from Carter?"

 

            "No, sir" the duty airman replied, "she's due to report in within the next 5 minutes."

 

            "Sweet."

 

            The airman was listening carefully to the channels normally used by Thundersdawn and the SGC to contact each other. O'Neill was watching him carefully for any sign of as signal from Carter, so he was first to notice when the airman stiffened, then smashed his hand down on the alarm.

 

            Jack jumped up and stepped towards the console "Airman, repo…"

 

            The airman turned to answer his unfinished order in time to see a glowing outline of Colonel O'Neill fade from the room.

 

When O'Neill re-materialised aboard the Asgard vessel he was not surprised to find Thor there, what he did find surprising was the look of surprise and even mild worry on Thor's face.

 

            "Thor! What's up?"

 

            "Colonel O'Neill, I was not aware you had acquired Zero-point technologies."

 

            "Neither was I" he replied acidly, "Carters getting our first look at them now."

 

            "How can it be your first look at them? These are Earth built craft, are they not?"

 

            O'Neill considered this for a moment, then with a grimace noted, "Long story, so why the visit?"

 

            Thor told him and the Colonels good mood was swept away with it.

 

 

----------------------------------------

Thundersdawn

 

            Peters grabbed Carter and led her over to the sensor station, "This look familiar to you?"

 

            "Asgard," Carter replied, once she had made sense of the readings from the station sensors "but I can't place the design. It could be a Beliskner given the scale but the readings are not clear enough for me to be certain."

 

            The captain nodded, they did not have sensor profiles for the Asgard yet, "How sure are you?"

 

            "Asgard design definitely." Carter was sure about that.

 

            "Stand down from GQ, set condition 2, sensors, lock that profile into the database."

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

 

Chapter 8

 

SGC

 

            Hammond grabbed the nearest chair and sat down in it heavily, rubbing his forehead. He could feel another headache coming on; luckily he was used to SG-1's reports by now and had come prepared. He reached into a pocket and withdrew 2 headache tablets, which he promptly swallowed with the duty airman's coffee. The airman just looked at him sympathetically.

            "Let me get this straight" Hammond said, keying the radio on again "since 1984, way before we opened the StarGate, the British have had classified proof that at least one race of aliens existed AND has been sharing technologies with a group of kids. Advanced technology at that, the sort of stuff all our `allies' have refused to give us"

            "Yes sir" the voice over the radio could be described 2 ways, very meek, and sounding like they wished they had some triple strength headache tablets handy. Hammond rubbed his forehead again, he could certainly sympathise.

            "Even worse, they could have had these technologies and been in space along time ago, but a NID type operation scuppered that" Hammond's mind started screaming about NID and Ammunition to use the next time they came an knocking, "Not only that, but there visitor is generally seen as a glowing ball of light, with something of a superior attitude"

            "Ah, yes sir"

            "Ah… it gets better sir"

            `Gets Better?' Hammond was, he had to admit, dreading this, how much worse could it get?

            "Ah, well you remember those two motherships we blew up in orbit?"

            By this time, whenever Carter spoke, the duty airman was wincing in sympathy, it looked to Hammond like a nervous twitch. He wondered if Janet should be told…

            "Well, there out of town friend was not fooled by the asteroids story sir"

            Hammond shrugged that off, any alien, or human for that matter was unlikely to be fooled by the cover story.

            "Which is when they decided to approach the British government, or rather a 3, now 4 star admiral whom they believed could be trusted"

            "Are you saying the British have all those technologies, their craft and spacedock because of us?"

            "Ah, yes sir"

            Hammond grabbed the airman's coffee again and reached into his pocket, he knew he had some more headache tablets in there somewhere…

 

Chapter 9

 

            "Captain Peters!"

The fifteen-year-old genius strode confidently onto Thundersdawn's command centre, followed closely by Carter. She had, by this time, managed to lose the shell-shocked and amazed look she had gained when she realised exactly who the Royals expert on Zero Point Energy Extraction was, and was hurriedly shifting through her notes, trying to organise them, ready to transmit to the SGC.

"Michael says he has done a nice painting of Thundersdawn with Mars in the background, he says you have first dibs if you want it"

The Captain turned, and talking to the entire bridge she said, her voice amused and slightly sarcastic "Geez, I don't know, do we really want a valuable painting in this midst of all this artistry and colour?" she gestured at the drab grey walls and the exposed pipes and cabling, "It might be overshadowed by the sheer luxury of this facility"

            As her eyes uncrossed, the Genius Kalinda giggled, "Michael says it's a risk he is willing to take, anyway he's packing it now"

            "Tell him Thanks for us, Comm.'s, Carted needs a data and audio channel to"

            "Conn,- sensors, New Contact! Designate Master 1!"

            The Captain shouted, "General Quarters, man Battlestations!"

            A master designated contact, trouble. The master designation was reserved for hostile or potentially hostile contacts, mainly used by the submarine service; the convention had stuck here too.

            "Conn, sensors, contact just appeared 2 light seconds from Earth, contact does not match known Gou'auld craft, but is definitely an advanced craft"

 

SGC

 

            "Morning campers" O'Neill was in a good mood, "any word from Carter?"

            "No, sir" the duty airman replied, "she's due to report in within the next 5 minutes"

            "Sweet"

            The airman was listening carefully to the channels normally used by Thundersdawn and the SGC to contact each other. O'Neill was watching him carefully for any sign of as signal from Carter, so he was first to notice when the airman stiffened, then smashed his hand down on the alarm.

            Jack jumped up, surprised, "Airman, repo"

            The airman turned to answer his unfinished order in time to she a glowing outline of Colonel O'Neill fade from the room.

 

Thundersdawn

 

            The captain grabbed Carter and led her over to the sensor station.

            "This look familiar to you?"

            "Asguard, but not a ship I recognise"

            The captain nodded, they did not have sensor profiles for the Asguard yet, "How sure are you?"

            "Asguard design definitely"

            "Stand down from GQ, set condition 2, sensors, look that profile into the computer"

 

Asguard Vessel in Earth Orbit

 

            When O'Neill re-materialised aboard the Asguard vessel he was not surprised to find Thor there, what was surprising was the look of shock on Thor's face.

            "Thor! What's up?"

            "Colonel O'Neill, I was not aware you had acquired Zero-point technologies"

            "Neither was I, Carters getting our first look at them now"

            "How can it be your first look at them? These are Earth built craft, are they not?"

            "Long story, so why the visit?"

Rewrite Version

----------------------------------------

Chapter 8

----------------------------------------

SGC

            Hammond grabbed the nearest chair and sat down in it heavily, rubbing his forehead. He could feel another headache coming on; luckily he was used to SG-1's reports by now and always came prepared. He reached into a pocket and withdrew 2 tablets; the duty airman just looked at him sympathetically, and passed his cup over. Hammond nodded his thanks, and swallowed the tablets, washing them down with the bitter coffee.

 

            "Let me get this straight." Hammond said, keying the radio on again "Since 1984, way before we opened the StarGate, the British have had classified proof that at least one race of aliens existed AND has been sharing technologies with a group of kids. Advanced technology at that, the sort of stuff all our `allies' have refused to give us. Not only that, but they knew this alien was interacting with children from at least twenty different countries including the US."

 

            "Yes sir" the voice over the radio could be described 2 ways, very meek, and sounding like they wished they had some triple strength headache tablets handy. Hammond rubbed his forehead again, he could certainly sympathise.

 

            "Even worse, they could have had these technologies and been in space along time ago, but a NID type operation scuppered that," Hammond's mind started screaming about NID and Ammunition to use the next time they came an knocking, but then again, they probably wouldn't even care. It was an idea though…. "Not only that, but their visitor is generally seen as a glowing ball of light, with something of a superior attitude."

 

            "Ah, yes sir."

 

            "Ah… it gets better sir."

 

            `Gets Better?' Hammond was, he had to admit, dreading this, how much worse could it get?

 

            "Ah, well you remember those two motherships we blew up in orbit?"

 

            By this time, whenever Carter spoke, the duty airman was wincing in sympathy, it looked to Hammond like a nervous twitch. He wondered if Doctor Frasier should be told…

 

            "Well, their out of town friend was not fooled by the asteroids story sir."

 

            Hammond shrugged that off unsurprised, any alien, or human for that matter was unlikely to be fooled by the cover story.

 

            "Which is when they decided to approach the British government, or rather Admiral Thompson, then Vice-Admiral, whom they believed could be trusted"

 

            This on the other hand required more thought, rather pained thought at that; "Are you saying the British have all those technologies, their craft and spacedock because of us?"

 

            "Ah, yes sir"

 

            Groaning, Hammond grabbed the airman's coffee again and reached into his pocket, he knew he had some more headache tablets in there somewhere…

 

            "I'm going to need a full report from you Major by the end of the day," he finally replied before closing the channel. Now he just had to consider how he was going to report this to the joint chiefs…

 

            Sometimes, this job was just far more of a headache then he deserved.

 

----------------------------------------

Ground Control, RAF St Athans

            "They don't believe us,"

 

            Thompson shrugged, turning away from the control towers consoles to glance behind him, "I know, but what really can they do?"

 

            "They're reporters," Joan replied tartly, "they'll do what they always do, dig and dig until they get an answer that counts as news and if they don't get one, they'll eventually just make one up."

 

            "Perhaps," he shrugged, turning back to gaze through the windows, his eyes following the form of an Airhead as it floated into a landing, a thin stream of smoke floating out the back of the starboard outermost engine, "some will try that certainly, most won't. The groundside missions we have some of the Airheads running will help provide a smokescreen and soon enough, most will forget and these craft will just end up being considered just a new addition to the armoury and not something worthy of an particular attention."

 

            "What we should have done is create versions of the Airheads for purely terrestrial use and with purely terrestrial technologies."

 

            The Admiral shot a smile over his shoulder, nodding pleased surprise, "that is certainly an idea. We still have the 1-6 couriers coming up and that airframe design is certainly more suited to atmospheric flight. With a few adjustments…"

 

            She considered this for a moment, "it won't be perfect; the drives we're using just don't look like normal jets if you get a straight-on view…"

 

            "And the fakes will have to be good enough to justify the apparent numbers of them we'll be using."

 

            "Budget," Joan grimaced, "I don't think the auditors will like it too much."

 

            Thompson smiled as he watched the Airhead roll to a stop, rapidly surrounded by fire engines, "but if they do a good enough job, potentially it will be a money earner."

 

            "Given what the aircraft market is like at the moment, it will truly have to be something special. Perhaps we should get the institute team on it?"

 

            He considered this a moment, then nodded, "speak to Albertine. I know aircraft isn't their normal area of expertise but they have already had to learn quite a bit for the Airheads to be workable in atmosphere. If they start working on an atmospheric 1-6 at the same time as the full couriers, I would imagine it would only increase the capabilities of them in atmosphere."

 

            "Perhaps," Joan snorted, "I just hope the naming committee makes their mind up shortly. Pretty much anything will be better then calling them series one design six craft all the time."

 

            She got a laugh in response, "true. Just imagine what they will be like when we start building warships as well."

 

            Sub-lieutenant Williams grinned wryly at that, "true enough. But in all honesty, I don't think we can progress there until the American Government accepts us and starts working with us. This suspicion…"

 

            "Is a perfectly understandable reaction and one we knew was coming," Thompson shrugged, "nor can we do what the Americans did and go straight to a Cruiser. At this time, it looks as if our first warship design will be a frigate of destroyer."

 

            Joan's eyebrows rose startled, "I hadn't heard that before. Will such a small ship be able to go one on one with the Ha'taks?"

 

            Then she frowned, "no, they wouldn't would they… but as scouts, as support for larger ships, for fleets and escort duties and the like, a larger number of smaller cheaper warships would be necessary."

 

            The Admiral snorted, relaxing a little as he watched the fire engines start to pull away from the damaged craft, "I think the most appropriate word in that was `cheaper'. Certainly, there are a few persons who shall remain unnamed that have made their opinions on whether or not we should be considering the expense of building a warship at this time quite clear."

 

            "It's either that or buy the Prometheus design off the Americans and you know how much they are deliberately delaying the construction of that Russian ship!"

 

            "Indeed," Thompson shrugged, "when you factor in development costs, buying a Prometheus would probably be cheaper at first, but it would give America a greater degree of control over British warships then we would like."

 

            "Isn't that what we are doing to them anyway, in attempting to basically seize control of ship construction and repair?"

 

            "To a degree yes," he accepted, "but whilst we have a few tricks, the Americans still very much control the weapons technologies and for better or worse, that is a monopoly that should be broken. I… have my own reasons to distrust the Russians despite their apparent conversion to democracy but what is happening to them is what we are trying to avoid.

 

            The Americans will have to let them have their warship eventually but until that happens; they still have absolute control over every Earth warship and weapons platform. That one nation should have that degree of control; that is dangerous. Akin to one nation having control over all nuclear weapons and we know what happened when that was true don't we."

 

            "They got used," Joan replied and then shrugged, "I would not worry about their use against earth bound targets though unless the NID manages to seize control over Stargate Command."

 

            "They have managed that at least once before," Thompson noted, "and Kinsey is very much in their pocket, if he does run for President which seems likely…"

 

            "We have a few years yet for that," she sighed, "but is that truly our greatest worry? Kinsey has pulled some truly arrogant ploys before and we don't even know of halve the shit he is involved with."

 

            "That is true," the Admiral replied, "but I already have a surveillance team being prepped to go to America. Hopefully they at least will be able to give us some warning of any moves he makes. Until then, we will just have to do what we always do. Work with what we know and try to plan for what we don't."

 

            Joan nodded, then sighed, "maybe, but for now, I'm going to go get Albertine on the line."

 

            "Give her my regards," Thompson noted as Joan walked swiftly away.

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

 

Chapter 8

 

SGC

 

            Hammond grabbed the nearest chair and sat down in it heavily, rubbing his forehead. He could feel another headache coming on; luckily he was used to SG-1's reports by now and had come prepared. He reached into a pocket and withdrew 2 headache tablets, which he promptly swallowed with the duty airman's coffee. The airman just looked at him sympathetically.

            "Let me get this straight" Hammond said, keying the radio on again "since 1984, way before we opened the StarGate, the British have had classified proof that at least one race of aliens existed AND has been sharing technologies with a group of kids. Advanced technology at that, the sort of stuff all our `allies' have refused to give us"

            "Yes sir" the voice over the radio could be described 2 ways, very meek, and sounding like they wished they had some triple strength headache tablets handy. Hammond rubbed his forehead again, he could certainly sympathise.

            "Even worse, they could have had these technologies and been in space along time ago, but a NID type operation scuppered that" Hammond's mind started screaming about NID and Ammunition to use the next time they came an knocking, "Not only that, but there visitor is generally seen as a glowing ball of light, with something of a superior attitude"

            "Ah, yes sir"

            "Ah… it gets better sir"

            `Gets Better?' Hammond was, he had to admit, dreading this, how much worse could it get?

            "Ah, well you remember those two motherships we blew up in orbit?"

            By this time, whenever Carter spoke, the duty airman was wincing in sympathy, it looked to Hammond like a nervous twitch. He wondered if Janet should be told…

            "Well, there out of town friend was not fooled by the asteroids story sir"

            Hammond shrugged that off, any alien, or human for that matter was unlikely to be fooled by the cover story.

            "Which is when they decided to approach the British government, or rather a 3, now 4 star admiral whom they believed could be trusted"

            "Are you saying the British have all those technologies, their craft and spacedock because of us?"

            "Ah, yes sir"

            Hammond grabbed the airman's coffee again and reached into his pocket, he knew he had some more headache tablets in there somewhere…

REWRITE VERSION

----------------------------------------

Chapter 7

----------------------------------------

Thundersdawn

3 days later

 

            Captain Peters and her Exec hurried from the bridge and headed towards the docking ports. Not one, but two category `A' passengers were now arriving for a perfect simultaneous docking. One arriving from Colorado Springs, one from St Athan, both were more than capable of calculating the odds of simultaneous dockings occurring (when they weren't set-up) but she wouldn't want to place on bet on who would come to the answer first.

 

            It was a bit more likely to be Albertine though, whilst Carter was a scientific prodigy, Albertines skills were always a bit more pure maths.

 

The Exec turned off down a separate corridor to meet Major Carter, the Captain hurried on, seeing her destination ahead, the airlocks already cycling, preparing to open.

 

            Soon, the passengers started to come through, mostly transfers heading for the mining station project. Ignoring them, she waited nervously; one of the design team was here and not one she had met before, despite the fact that she was the leader of their scientific team at the moment.

 

            Soon a young lady comes through the airlock, looking to be in her mid-twenties but with that pale shade of skin that only comes with staying out of the sun far too much. The Captain hurries forward, smiling as she pictured Carters face once she found out who their `expert' was.

 

            "Welcome aboard, I'm…"

 

            "Captain Peters! A mutual friend told me all about you." her eyes momentarily glazed over then she snapped back to the present "He's showing off a load of his paintings at the moment, his Italian Exhibition he calls it, 55 paintings and he still hasn't visited."

 

            Peters was amused, "Does he ever go somewhere he paints?"

 

            "True."

 

 

            The Exec arrived at the airlock just as Carter left it, a small group of SGC engineers and scientists following behind her. This wasn't a Airhead or Shunter dragging a transport module or even the ever delayed 1-6 series courier, this was an SGC shuttle, the only craft available to Stargate Command and the Royal Space Service specifically designed for passenger transport.

           

            With a slight grimaced, he nodded welcome at the two American Marines as they stepped out of the shuttle and took up position either side of the airlock, preventing unauthorised entry. Unauthorised entry in this case meaning anyone involved with the RSS, until the politicians and diplomats finished their negotiations that was.

 

            "Welcome to Her Majesty's SpaceDock 1, Thundersdawn"

 

            "Thanks" Carter replied briskly, her outward expression blank but her eyes betraying her curiosity and perhaps even her orders as they flicked around the station, noting and assessing, "What's the status of the Prometheus?"

 

            "Sealed in Dry-dock 2, gravity is off in that section, but we were able to pump atmosphere in. At the moment there don't appear to be any kind of contaminants leaking from Prometheus, but we are monitoring. Her reactor is cold, and all systems are shut down" he replied, shrugging "You should be able to work without full spacesuits, though you will be required to wear a basic skinsuit and an emergency air tank."

 

----------------------------------------

SGC

 

            Hammond was in a much better mood, whilst a large part of him didn't like the abrupt way in which control of the skies had been snatched by the British, he had to admire the sheer gall, brains and guts it took to directly challenge them in that way. To build a spacestation and support craft, to hide the creation of their parts and then to just choose their moment and go for it despite knowing that without the experience and technology available to the Americans, their stations, their ships would be far more vulnerable then they needed to be…

 

            It was ballsy; it deserved a certain amount of admiration. It also dropped him right into trouble with his own brass for the breech of Stargate Command security that it represented and had happened on his watch.

 

            Yet… if he was in their position he might have tried the same thing. Once they knew, they had two real options, the conservative option was one. That meant letting them know they knew and technically blackmailing America into allowing access in exchange for support. That was an option which he had little doubt the Joint Chiefs would have preferred and possibly even welcomed, the second option was the bold option.

 

            This was the option they had chosen, to refuse to accept a somewhat subservient role, to hide their knowledge and build up a position of greater strength… in this case, quite literally. In time, America would certainly have had to build support craft and orbital stations but that March had been stolen by the Brits and with it, they had what they wanted. The ability to negotiate greater access, greater control then even the Russians had managed.

 

            They could of course have gone for the third option, disclosure, but frankly, that option was insane and a simple assessment of the risks, costs and benefits was probably all it took to convince the bulk of those in the `know' to shelve that option.

 

Of course, he had little doubt a certain amount of Nationalism was involved as well, they were talking about a nation that was once the greatest power in the world and the loss of that Empire had never entirely sat well with certain elements of the British population and that was only to be expected.

 

He didn't think he would be too happy if America dropped of her pedestal as the worlds foremost power either. Yet, the route they had chosen, to create the support structures and not the warships themselves, at least, not yet, told its own story.

 

It was an acknowledgement, a very powerful one that Britain knew they could not stand alone in this and that, for all they wanted a certain degree of control; they knew it would be America that would remain the most powerful of the star-faring nations. They couldn't match the available resources, the available money the Americans had.

 

And that they would simply have to be willing to support her to a degree.

 

So, whilst he didn't entirely like what had happened, he did understand. He could also acknowledge the benefits this would represent for the American effort in space, which he knew was a large part of the point anyway.

 

The incident with Prometheus in many ways just helped to illustrate the point. He had managed to convince his superiors of the inevitability of Thundersdawn and by extension the United Kingdom getting a good look at Prometheus technologies, a task that had been made easier when it was agreed Carter could look at the Zero Point Generators.

 

That was a technology that Carter pretty much said she would believe when she saw it, for once with the complete agreement of the Tok'ra Anise who didn't made her disbelief in Earth's ability to develop such advanced technologies quite clear.

 

The Prometheus's survivors had arrived as well and most were out of the infirmary already, the others would not be far behind them and even better, Kinsey had cancelled an appointment with him. That alone was enough to make his day.

 

            A knock sounded at his door "Enter."

 

            "Sir, Carter is on the radio for you."

 

            "Coming."

 

            He moved quickly down to the control room and the radio.

 

            "Carter, you're early, any problems?"

 

            "Sir, I just got a look at the Zero Point Generators, and they are genuine sir, it will take me a while to understand all the maths behind them but they are genuine."

 

            "That's good news Carter, our Naquadah use was getting a little high."

 

            "I just met their expert sir, you are not going to believe this………."

 

ORIGINAL VERSION

 

Chapter 7

 

Thundersdawn

3 days later

 

            The Captain and Exec hurried from the bridge and headed towards the docking ports. Not one, but two category `A' passengers were now arriving for a perfect simultaneous docking. One left from Colorado Springs, one from ST Athan, both were more than capable of calculating the odds of simultaneous dockings occurring (when they weren't set-up) but she knew who would get the answer first, and it wouldn't be Samantha Carter. The Exec turned off down a separate corridor to meet Samantha, the Captain hurried on, seeing her destination ahead, the airlocks already cycling, preparing to open.

            Soon, the passengers stated to come through, mostly transfers heading for the mining station project. She waits nervously; one of the design team was here.

            Soon a young girl comes through the airlock, looking at most fifteen. The Captain hurries forward, smiling as she pictured Carters face once she found out who their `expert' was.

            "Welcome aboard, I'm"

            "Captain Peters! A mutual friend told me all about you" her eyes momentarily gazed over, then she snapped back to the present "he's showing of a load of his paintings at the moment, his Italian Exhibition he calls it, 55 paintings and he still hasn't visited"

            Peters was amused, "does he ever go somewhere he paints?"

            "True"

 

            The Exec arrived at the airlock just as Carter left it, the small group of SGC engineers and scientists following behind her. This wasn't a 1-4, 1-5 or even the delayed 1-6 series craft, this was an SGC shuttle. He quickly motioned the guards to their posts in front of the air lock then greeted Carter.

            "Welcome to Her Majesty's SpaceDock 1, Thundersdawn"

            "Thanks, what's the status of the Prometheus?"

            "Sealed in Dry-dock 2, gravity is off in that section, but we were able to pump atmosphere in, there don't appear to be any kind of contaminants leaking from Prometheus, but we are monitoring. Her reactor is cold, and all systems are shut down. You should be able to work without full spacesuits, though you will be required to wear basic protection and air"

 

SGC

 

            Hammond was in a much better mood, he managed to convince his superiors of the inevitability of Thundersdawn and by extension the United Kingdom getting a good look at Prometheus technologies, a task made easier when it was agreed Carter could look at the Zero Point Generators, a technology that Carter pretty much said she would believe once she saw it, for once with the complete agreement of the Tok'ra, who didn't believe Earth capable of developing such advanced technologies, the Prometheus's survivors had arrived and most were out of the infirmary already, the others would not be far behind them, and even better, Kinsey had cancelled an appointment with him. That alone was enough to make his day.

            A knock sounded at his door "Enter"

            "Sir, Carter is on the radio for you"

            "Coming"

            He moved quickly down to the control room and the radio.

            "Carter, you're early, any problems?"

            "Sir, I just got a look at the Zero Point Generators, and they are genuine sir, it will take me a while to understand all the maths behind them but they are genuine"

            "That's good news Carter, our Naqueada use was getting a little high"

            "I just met their expert sir, you are not going to believe this………."