I own neither the story nor the characters of Roswell.
1130 - Commander's Office, Det. 24, Area 51, Nevada
Although he had wanted to see him in an hour, it took almost the whole morning before Slammer could get Captain Hawthorne worked in to his schedule. There had first been the reception, then seeing off the departing commander. The program brief from the Security Manager itself had taken almost 2 hours, but had only really given Slammer the briefest of details about the research work itself, and almost no information on the history of the detachment. The Program Security Manager himself was an employee of the prime contractor. Slammer had tried to ask him key items that he would need to command the detachment, including specific areas being researched and budgets of the research programs. The man had seemed uncertain about the first, and somewhat evasive about the latter. He needed far better information than he had. His compartmentalized to-do list had grown continually throughout the morning. Slammer knew that, generally speaking, you didn't make big changes immediately after taking over a command. If it was working well beforehand, you wanted to get to understand it before you tinkered with it. But from what the Chief of Staff had said, Det. 24 had NEVER worked well. And that was certainly borne out by what he'd seen this morning. Changes would be needed, sooner rather than later.
"Col Randolph, Captain Hawthorne is here to see you." Announced the intercom.
"Have him come in, Doris."
The door opened and the young Captain came in, he came to attention in front of the desk and saluted. "Captain Hawthorne, reporting as ordered, sir"
Slammer returned the salute, then said "Good to see you again, Captain Hawthorne. Have a seat."
"Thank you, sir."
"What did you think of the change of command ceremony?"
"Uh, it was... uh, very... uh... unique, sir."
"Yes, unique would about cover it. Unique is kind of the opposite of uniform. We had some kind of unique uniforms out there today, didn't we, son?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so, sir."
"So, how many appropriate uniforms did we have out there today, Captain Hawthorne?"
"Well sir, excepting yours... well, I only saw mine."
"Actually, yours was missing a meritorious service ribbon too, Captain. I remember pinning that medal on you myself."
Captain Hawthorne blushed and looked flustered. "Sorry sir... my mistake."
"Have you worn that uniform at all since you went off on your PhD program?"
"No sir, I wasn't allowed to wear it at Berkeley, then when I was assigned here my supervisor told me not to wear it my first trip here. I carried it up to my quarters and... well, this has been the first occasion to wear it since my arrival... and I just forgot the ribbon, sir."
"Well don't feel bad, by comparison with everybody else here, you did great. How long have you been here, son?"
"About six months, sir."
"What do you think of the place?"
"It's uh... unique, sir."
Slammer laughed. "It is that. Well, it's going to wind up being less unique. What are you currently working on?"
"Sir, I'm working with LtCol Barker on project 14B... we believe it's a mechanism for inertia-less acceleration."
"Son, I'm afraid I'm just a plain old fighter pilot, you are going to have to translate that one."
"Well sir, we believe the mechanism we are studying allows high rates of acceleration, without squashing the crew flat. The F-16, for example, can pull about nine Gs. In full gear, you feel like you weigh about one ton."
"That experience I've had. OK, what does your gadget do."
"Well, in theory, you could have any amount of acceleration fifty... one-hundred g's, anything the engine could provide, and you'd still be at one g."
"Now that WOULD be worthwhile. How close are you to having that?"
"Sir, nobody has ever figured out how to get the pod open, we've never gotten inside of it... all we have are theories."
"Well, you have to start somewhere. This project has been going on for six months then?"
"Oh no, sir. I was assigned to the project 6 months ago. The project has been going on since the inception of Area 51... back in 1948."
"And you haven't gotten the lid off the box?"
"That's right, sir."
"Well how many people are working on this project... what's your budget."
"There's twenty of us, sir. I've never been told the budget... but judging by the equipment, it's a lot."
"Well son, they are just going to have to get along without you. You have a new job now. You're the Detachment Executive officer. I need someone to translate this science gibberish to something a fighter pilot can understand, and you are elected. I need to get smart about this place quickly, and YOU are going to help me. We also need to get out the word to every single person that was not in an appropriate uniform...which is everybody, and tell them that they better get ready, because they are back in the Air Force."
"Yes sir."
