12: Battlegroup
by Chaos_eternus
In the shadow of the events and chaos of Disclosure, the first Battlegroup is formed...
And sent straight into action!
Thirty-Three
Murielle woke slowly, her body aching with familiar aches, familiar pains.
Unwanted pains.
The smell of the hospital filled her noise and she groaned; shaking her head as she carefully opened her eyes, squinting into the overly bright lights.
Her only real thought being 'not again' before it was swept aside a few confused, groggy moments by 'did my people get out alive?' and then, finally, 'did we succeed?'
She took in the room at a glance, small, well equipped, no windows which was unusual though not unheard off. Definitely a private room though. Whose private room though?
She had woken up like this in unfriendly hands before and she knew not to take anything for granted. The clock above the door a standard, earth analogue set which she took as a good clue, wherever she was, they either knew a hell of a lot about Earth or they were of Earth themselves.
Then she felt a familiar, highly irritating sensation down below and knew that wherever she was, they dealt with an age old problem of hospitals the same way they did on Earth.
She glanced across, then frowning; she took a very careful look at the various bits of equipment throughout the room. It was all either integral to the room or very firmly attached. Bolts, straps, lots of what appeared to be dedicated attachment points in the walls.
Even in a major earthquake zone they didn't take this many precautions against equipment moving, which meant a ship or station. That reduced the likely possibilities somewhat…
And whilst a lot of the equipment was modified, it was clearly meant for humans. The question was simple, was this a wet-navy ship or vacuum-navy?
Vacuum navy didn't necessarily mean friendly, it wasn't as if the Chinese had any reason to like her after all, exactly the opposite in fact, but it did reduce the possibilities somewhat. Wet-navy didn't feel right, they didn't tend to have quite such sophisticated equipment and besides, private cubicles aboard ship, even dedicated hospital ships were not common.
Not, this was a vacuum-navy ship, but whose?
Then, a glint out of the corner of the eye made her turn, and she saw a large, sealed bottle of cherry liquor tied with a blue bow. Answered that one, wherever she was, the old fart knew about it.
There was a letter there too, in a script she had not seen in years and she paused a moment, the writing was familiar but not quite… then she sighed. Admiral Winters, his writing must just be getting more crabbed with age. She hadn't even been aware that he knew about the project.
Then again, perhaps he didn't need to; Thompson could have told his old boss about it then dropped the letter off at the same time he did the bottle.
She reached under the pillow, knowing there would be a call button there somewhere but she never got a chance to press it, a tall nurse walking briskly into the room, a quick glance outside of the swiftly closing door revealing a least one soldier standing guard outside the door.
Grimacing, she lay back down again, knowing that this was going to be fun.
She knew there was a reason she hated hospitals and that reason was nurses and catheters…
"Mercenaries," Thompson commented flatly, annoyed, his expression grim, "the 1st Battlegroup lost another forty souls to mercenaries?"
"From the report we received via the Stargate, yes sir, it does appear that way," replied the tall, svelte brunette in front of the desk, her manner screaming competent, self-assured, and her badge proclaiming her to be seconded from the CIA.
"Blast," he replied angrily, slamming his hand down on the desk, winching at the screech the collapsible metal monstrosity made as it scraped for a second across the desk.
He hated that sound, too much like nails on a blackboard, he hated that more of the people he was responsible for were dead and he hated that one of his oldest friends was once in the hospital because of him, just a few rooms away.
He hated that he didn't quite understand this new threat too.
"Do we know who they were working for?"
"That wasn't in the report sent through," she shrugged, "but what was made clear was that this group was unusually well equipped…"
"Six Ha'taks?" Thompson snorted, and then waved the analyst on.
She inclined her head at him, acknowledging the point, "not just in number and scale of the ships used, but also in the technology present. These ships were upgraded and using a curious mixture of technologies from most of the known factions, Maktenos, Anubis, a few Cylon pieces and some of ours."
The Admiral considered this for a moment, and then grimly stated "I really need to read that report."
"I'll have a complete copy forwarded immediately,"
"Okay," Thompson replied, thinking furiously, "you were certainly right to bring this to my attention. I have to clear it with Intel but set up a new desk, you and perhaps three others for the moment. Your responsibility is to trace this new mercenary company and find out everything you can. Usual reporting procedure, but liaise with internal security as well. Finding out how they got hold of any of our tech could be quite important."
"Of course Sir,"
He nodded, dismissing her, but glanced up momentarily puzzled as she reached the door, "your name?"
"Tessa Hammond."
He felt his eyebrow rising in mild surprise.
"My grandfather," she confirmed, before walking swiftly out of the room.
Thompson found himself chuckling for a moment as she left, but soon sobered glancing around his temporary office. The nurse would be by soon to tell her she had finished with Murielle, she had better be.
"Tensions between the Tau'ri Star Service and the People's Liberation Army, Space of China as terms for a cooperation agreement between the two services was finally reached granting the Tau'ri Star Service a certain degree of control over the actions of the warship and any others they might construct and providing an avenue for co-operation in exchange for bringing the Chinese up to date on technologies and equipment procured or created by quasi-military organisation.
The previous contract amounted to little more then a agreement not to attack each other or directly interfere in each others missions."
"Jubilation at Cape Canaveral today as the Paladin yards goes online. The new construction facility, which initially will only build the Paladin support craft, has successfully secured the historic facility and the thousands of jobs it represents against collapse in the face of the far more advanced and capable craft produced by the old Stargate Command and its British counterpart, the Royal Star Service.
Its expected that the economics of scale and mass production will reduce the per craft cost by perhaps as much as ten percent once all the production lines go online.
The production lines for the Airhead and Shunter craft are expected to go online within the next several months, no exact date has been released as yet but it will not be the only major construction going on here.
Several older buildings within the complex are already being redeveloped to construct smaller satellites such as the Firebird or Type II defensive satellites. This will be the first true mass production facility for satellites.
As to the old complexes for minor warcraft and satellite construction, it has been confirmed that most of these will be partially mothballed, ready should Cape Canaveral be taken out to resume their old jobs once more.
Some, such as the St Athan hangers will return to their old jobs of prototype construction and repair work."
"Terror struck this sleepy little town in Alabama today as an American starfighter, an F-302 of the Tau'ri Star Service crashed into the town's main street, tossing cars and debris everywhere and demolishing shops. In one case, a car near to the initial impact was struck by the fighter and tossed over a two story general store into the gardens behind, gardens which luckily were unoccupied at the time.
Nevertheless, the death toll has already hit thirteen and is expected to continue to climb.
There has not yet been any report from Earthforce regarding the cause of this accident."
"Boeing issued a statement today officially announcing its intention to start design work on aircraft and even spacecraft using technologies so far restricted to the Tau'ri Star Service.
This construction will be closely watched and monitored by the military given the highly controlled nature of most of the technologies in use but Boeing feels, it if can find an operator, that civilian flights can be operated safely between Earth and the Alpha Centauri system.
It is rumoured at least three of the surviving airlines and two shipping conglomerates have already expressed an interest in what is likely to be a costly and time-consuming project."