Chapter 8: NID

The very thoughts that were filling Hammonds mind had also entered the heads of several highly placed NID agents. They decided to do something about it, several something's in fact.

ABC News Broadcast

"…and in further news, a private benefactor just donated one billion dollars to NASA to help fund the beleaguered agency's space station program. With the collapse of negotiations for the International space station program two years ago, Nasa has been trying to arrange funding for a US only spacestation, with this funding that goal is one big step closer to completion. The donor refuses to be named."

GC St Athan

"Admiral, flash traffic from Operation Watchdog!"

Thompson strode quickly over to the comm. officers station and grabbed the printout, reading it as spooled of the printer. He frowned, his face turning grim.

"Increase our alert status immediately, I want a full covert deployment of guards and Special Forces through out the base. I also want complete security checks on all RSS personnel and all other personnel at St Athan. Signal a security alert to RSS Thundersdawn and RSS Coalmine."

"Yes, sir" the comm. officer supplied confused. He barely heard the Admirals muttered comment as he turned towards his office.

"The NID are coming"

RSS Thundersdawn

"Captain Peters to Command! Flash Traffic from GC!"

Peters cursed quietly as she hurried through the stations corridors to command, struggling to throw her uniform top over her head as she ran, whilst dodging the work parties which crowded this section of Thundersdawn's corridors.

She arrived at command breathless, grabbing the message as soon as she arrived at the comm. officer's station. She read the message and cursed again, not bothering to be quiet this time. She crumpled the message up and turned to the command centre, "As of this moment we are operating under a class 3 security lock-down. All inbound craft, especially unscheduled SGC craft are to be fully investigated before allowing permission to close. A fighter CAP is to be maintained at all times. That is all"

She turned and left, heading for her quarters, "NID, wonderful".

Hill overlooking SAS Headquarters, Herefordshire.

The NID agent was nervous. An ex-ranger, he had spent time with the SAS as part of an exchange, so he had a good idea what they could be like, and what they would do if the SAS caught him spying on them. Not much, really, up till the point they found out he was 'dead', then they would start to wonder, at which point the NID operatives life would quickly get… interesting.

While the SAS were not the best Special Forces group in the world, he had too much pride in his ranger background to say the SAS were the best; they were certainly a contender for the throne. Decent equipment, not the best but decent, excellent training combined with a malicious deviousness that would make any grizzled veteran master sergeant that had managed never to get caught proud made them worthy opponents.

He looked through the binoculars again, the image was not as sharp as he would have liked, but he had blackened the lenses so they wouldn't flash light at the SAS, inadvertently giving his position away. No sign of any unusual activity, it looked like the operation still had surprise on its side. If the RSS had word of the upcoming attack by NID forces, the SAS would be among the first units mobilised.

He looked at his watch, 12 o'clock, time to check in. He dialled a number from memory, and as soon as the call connected he said, "Is the party still on for midnight?"

"Yes, you gonna be on time?" the voice at the other end was bubbly, bright and cheerful. The sort of thing you would expect from someone preparing a normal party, not a NID type party.

"Well, my guest is taking his time, we might not make it"

"Pity, ah well, maybe we can catch you next time if you don't make it this time?"

"We'll try, catch you again some time"

"See you"

He switched the phone off, and turned back to his binoculars.

The watchful eyes five meters behind him looked at each other, then by mutual agreement, the youngest, slowly cautiously slid on his belly backwards down the hill, never taking his eyes off of the NID operative. As soon as he was out of the operatives sight, he turned around, checking everywhere for observers before getting up and double-timing it to the small radio hidden at the bottom of the hill.