In 1967, the disembodied force known as the Great Intelligence infected Central London and only a handful of the British Army "Yetiforce" survived. At the pressing of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, the United Nations initiated a global rapid-reaction and intelligence taskforce to counter alien threats.
In the 1980s, the political climate in the United States saw UNIT fall out of favour. However, the US couldn't simply drop out, that would look bad. Instead it just… de-emphasised UNIT-USA in favour of domestic groups.
The move of HQ to Lawndale was completed in 1989.
Brigadier Angela Li was installed in 1997, June 1st, 1500 hours. The huge wave of cuts came in 1501 hours, starting with the toilet paper budget. The Great Dropout began on June 2nd. UNIT had to find new recruits who could meet up to the standards of those who'd left.
Private Kevin Thompson was brought in June 3rd.
Operation Blue Sky, a swoop on a suspected front organisation for an alien menace, was a go on April 25th 2008. UNIT-USA HQ Lawndale was informed of this, right after a list of more crucial stations like UNIT Catering Supplier #252 (the Pizza Hut in Scunthorpe).
All operatives were placed on standby, all leave was cancelled, all vending machines were under stocked.
In Ops Command, Colonel DeMartino was screaming with rage – and sometimes just screaming – as the computer's superfast real-time overview image of Earth continued to show a twirling hourglass icon.
"Curse you Windows Vista! Damn your shoddy code to a thousand digital hells!"
"I want response teams ready to deploy the instant we get a contact," barked Captain Landon down the phone. "Get the APCs ready—Oh. Still not fixed? Okay, get the cars… sorry, get the car ready. …well, just squeeze someone in the trunk then." She sighed. "Where did the maintenance budget go?"
In the corner, almost hidden behind the stacks of unsorted paperwork, Scientific Advisor Morgendorffer spoke up: "Well, Li had to find the money to bug the staff room somehow. Anyone could be an alien infiltrator. Especially the ones caught badmouthing the admin practices."
"No no no, program, don't shut down from an error! Come back! AAARRRRGGG!"
"Captain Landon, permission to get earplugs."
"Permission denied."
The automatic door to Ops hissed open (and then got stuck open) as Brigadier Li strode in, flanked by Sgt Thompson. She looked like she'd found an extra penny down the side of the sofa, he looked like the girl's changing room walls had become transparent; Daria's spirits fell.
"Good news, brave defenders of Laaaaawndale HQ! We're bringing in a specialist advisor-"
Please, God, not Tommy Sherman, please not Tommy—
"-Colonel Sherman to guide us through the operation!"
God is dead. A suicide.
DeMartino raised an eyebrow. "Won't it be confusing for our brave meatheads to have two colonels in charge?"
"Hmm. Fair point. In that case, I better promote Sherman to Brig-" She paused, thought it over. "I better demote you to Lt Colonel for the time being. Carry on!"
He made a few strangled noises but took the situation well, only shooting one computer to exorcise his anger.
By the time Sherman had arrived, the alien menace had been identified and poisonous gas was blanketing every urban populace on Earth. UNIT Lawndale's troops were confined to base, since even Li knew the two gas masks would never go around. They'd heard UNIT-UK was on the frontline, fighting to hold the aliens' bridgehead outside London. After that, the rest of the organisation stopped bothering to take Lawndale's calls.
On the plus side, they'd found a Windows XP installation CD and were busy downgrading their systems to something less horrible.
On the kill-yourself-now side, Colonel Sherman was in the same room as Daria and talking. And had taken five minutes to realise she was a person and not a table ornament he could lean on.
"…and that was how Colonel Sherman got to meet the President and get awarded this medal for saving the nation from those giant ants!" He paused. "Anyway, wasn't there, like, an operation or something you needed to be told what to do about?"
"Don't worry, the slow lingering death of the human race by poison gas isn't as important as your crippling need to hold on to your few glory days."
"Exactly!"
She sighed. "Latest report was 'Code Red Sontaran'; they've been placing devices in cars that were supposed to absorb carbon emissions, but are now ejecting en masse an unknown toxin. The Sontarans are a race of clones, bred and trained to be the perfect military race; they work in groups and show no mercy, heavily armed and trained to…" She noticed Sherman's eyes glazing over and tried again. "Sontarans aliens. Bad."
"Thanks, Morgendorker." He turned to the silent crowd of UNIT soldiers. "Huh? Get it? Morgendorker? Cos she's a dork? Come on, people!"
DeMartino began to look at his uniform pips and sob again.
"All right! Only one thing creeps like that will respect: a beatdown! We're going to make a frontal assault on the Sonteee… the San… the alien battleship, using the teleport tech being developed by our bro's in the USAF's own America Whomps Extraterrestrials division! We'll show those pansy guys in Geneva how it's done!"
Captain Landon raised her hand. "I… don't think it's advisable without reinforcements, if they're-"
"See, this is what happens when chicks are given rank. We'll show those pansy guys in Geneva how it's done! Move out!"
The UNIT forces duly moved out; amongst them, Sgt Thompson began to laugh as he finally got Sherman's pun.
Left on her own, her advice ignored and the soldiers clearly marching to doom, Daria knew she should take action. On the other hand, she'd just reached the really good part in Brave New World where Bernard was going to be exiled to Iceland.
Action. Book. Action. Book.
"Damn it."
First person to call was Jane, the slacker who was certainly not the investigative reporter for Sick Sad World codenamed "Jane Lane Smith" (she said she was hiding in plain sight) and certainly hadn't pilfered an alien supercomputer from a crashed ship. Jane's face came up on the UNIT screens, courtesy of the JaneCam.
"Jane. Where's the three plucky children and the dog?"
"Now that's not a nice way to talk about Mystik Spiral. But it's quite an accurate one depending on who's the dog."
"I leave that to your capable imagination. Can you use your supercomputer for something besides Photoshop and monitor the Sontaran battle fleet? Get me intel on the mothership's vulnerable points."
"Roger, wilco, tango."
Next up… oh god. Next up was her contact within A.W.E. Division. Oh god.
Scientific Advisor Amelia seemed really happy to get Daria's call, making her feel a bit guilty about how she felt about the girl (but not too much).
"Oh wow, it's been so long since I've heard from you! Oh god, you know Captain Skip's been trying to organise inter-agency meets at Camp Grizzly-"
"This isn't a social call." Duh. "That teleport tech you guys are developing: UNIT-Lawndale is about to arrive and ask to use it to board the Sontaran mothership."
"Are they insane?"
"Quite probably."
"A.W.E.'s been completely forbidden from taking action until a sizeable, prepared attack force can be assembled! We need probes, something expendable we can send to gather intel- Oh god, your friends are going to be sent up to die!"
She blinked. "My frie- Oh. Right. Um, look, can you make sure the teleporter 'fails' to send them? Keep it up as long as you can."
"Of course, Daria! Anything for a friend!"
"Yeahhh."
Third point of call: Sloane Aerospace, the world's largest private space organisation and the people who'd secretly intercepted the monster Gigan before he made planetfall. Talking to her ex-boyfriend was always a bit tricky, as she always felt she should be feeling more angst than she did about it. (She felt something, but she had eaten the Mystery Meat in the canteen earlier.)
"You want one of my expensive shuttles for a kamikaze mission against superior forces?" Director Tom Sloane grinned. "You owe me pizza for this. I got a high-speed probe shuttle designed for the Mars programme, I can give remote control of it to you right now."
"Not me." She sighed. "Time to call my contact of last resort."
"Quinn?"
"Worse."
"Hur hur hur hur hur / heh heh heh heh heh"
The greatest experts on exploding and demolishing unusual targets on Earth. She had to talk to them. She had to.
"Go on, say our name! Say it! Heh heh! Say it!"
Saving the world took sacrifices.
"Torchdong."
"Hur hur hur hur you said dong hur hur hur hur"
With Jane's intel, the two idiots could certainly turn Tom's shuttle into a missile capable of blowing the mothership. As long as they could remember how keyboards worked, and that wasn't hyperbole on her part.
The outside security cameras showed the sky burn, just for a second, and then the poison gas was gone. The greater UNIT must have found a countermeasure for it. Now the Sontaran fleet was all that remained.
On her screen, Amelia was coming back on. "This is bad, D! A.W.E. Command has the teleporter working again! Colonel Sherman is preparing to teleport grenades in, then take the attack squad! You've got two minutes maximum!"
Horror shot through her like physical pain. Her secret army's plan was going to go ahead in one minute forty seconds. Exactly one minute forty seconds. If the Colonel took his forces before then, they'd all die and it'd be her fault.
Worse, if he sent the grenades at one minute forty seconds, just as her team were blowing up the mothership…
"And after seeing him single-handedly decimate the invading hordes with his improvised attack, it is my pleasure to declare Colonel Sherman is to remain at Laaaawndale permanently as field commanding officer!"
Lt-Colonel DeMartino looked how Daria felt.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This fic takes places at the same time as The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky from the 2008 series of Doctor Who. In the episode, it was the Doctor and another character who blew up the Sontaran warship… unless they also stole Daria's thunder! The "secret army" was pinched from The Stolen Earth, with alterations.
I blame this fic on watching Doctor Who episodes and the Complete Daria boxset in the same timespan, and having a lazy Sunday.
Daria is © and TM of MTV; UNIT, Sontarans and Torchwood are © and TM of the BBC.