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Chapter 3: Launch

To those in dry-dock ones viewing area, seeing Dauntless begin to leave through the great clamshell doors was a solemn and moving occasion. To some, it was the final result of years of work since Chocky had revealed herself to Thompson, striving towards this day. To others, it was watching a beautiful new ship being born at last. To many, it was one more vessel ready to hold the line for humanity.

Thompson spoke softly, and solemnly, "May luck and hope follow you, Dauntless"

"Let Honour and integrity be your watchwords" Peters added.

"May you always stand as a shield against the night" O'Neill added, the rest of SG-1 looking at him in shock.

"Amen" Hammond said, a word that was quickly repeated by all present.

"Amen"

The space around Thundersdawn was unusually clear, occupied only by the USS Iwo Jima, with a CAP of Lancer fighters orbiting almost out of visual range, for today at least the pattern had been cleared, no craft on approach, no craft leaving the massive, but scarred station. Dauntless was launching, and Captain Peters was taking no chances.

Captain Harris watched as the great clamshell doors of the massive dry-dock slowly began to open, releasing the faintest wisp of air loose into the vacuum of space.

"Heads up people, she's coming out" Captain Harris warned his bridge crew.

Slowly, almost hesitantly the RSS Dauntless left the dry-dock where she had been built, grown really from plans laid down a year before, almost being born, not into the arms of a waiting mid-wife, but into the cold, unfeeling vastness of space, her natural element.

Harris watched as small jets of flame danced for a moment from Dauntless's outsized thrusters, pushing her with a firmer hand into the vastness of space. Dauntless crawled away from Thundersdawn, away from the beating breast of her creator, moving to a safe distance.

"Iwo Jima, this is Dauntless. Cleared Thundersdawn with no problem, going engines Hot! Ready to play chase?"

Harris looked to his bridge crew, and nodded, satisfied by what he saw.

"Dauntless, your chase plane is ready and smokin' the tyres"

Captain Dafydd laughed, "Roger that, Iwo"

"Sir, detecting energy emissions consistent with Naquada generator startup from Dauntless, and… Geez! Hot Start! They are generator HOT sir!"

"Already? I thought only the man-portable generators went hot that fast"

"Dauntless, this is Iwo, we are reading you as generator hot"

"We confirm that, Iwo, no problems so far"

"Roger that"

Harris moved over to the sensor plot, gazing at the energy patterns radiating from Dauntless. Right now Dauntless was radiating energy, almost bleeding it as every generator, main and backup was brought fully online, but without any major systems powered up to use the energy.

"Iwo, this is Dauntless, all generators hot, power grid stable, energy dissipaters… heating up, but still nominal, you copy?"

"Not reading anything unusual here, Dauntless, I'd say you were clear for the full program"

"Concur"

"Reading STL drive start-up and… Geez! Hot start again sir!"

Harris groaned suddenly, "Sons of a bitch!"

"Sir?" Ensign Kilbourne, the sensor analyst asked, confused.

"They're using our next-generation systems, created using the lessons learnt from our current systems. They will go Hyper-Hot PDQ too. All these are things the SGC techs said they could build into the next-generation craft, now they knew how to get it working"

"Son of a bitch!" Kilbourne cursed.

"And we gave it to them, Schematics, test data, the works"

"Hook, line and sinker" he said, grimly.

Dauntless come to a jarring crash-stop a mere 10,000 yards from the outer fringes of the asteroid belt, before rolling her hull over to bring the largest asteroid within range into the firing arcs of their guass-rifles. Dauntless waited, almost expectantly, until at last the Iwo Jima came to a far gentler stop at her assigned station.

"Dauntless, this is Iwo, very funny! You know we are supposed to stay together for your systems tests, left lying in your exhaust hardly counts as 'Staying together' wouldn't you say?"

"Roger that, Iwo" Dafydd replied, amused.

"All right", Dafydd turned to his crew, "Last test now people! Tactical, bring all weapons on-line"

"Yes, Sir!" Lieutenant Tomas replied her voice cool, calm and collected, reflecting none of her inner excitement. Tomas was 4th generation Navy, and it showed, in even the worst of conditions she had been proven, in combat, to keep her head. This, and a personal interest in astrophysics was the reasoning behind her posting as Tactical officer on Dauntless. It was an honour she was determined to prove herself worthy of.

"Pulse Lasers Hot, diagnostics good, training now, good target lock. Gauss rifles hot in 3.2.1… Guass rifles Hot, diagnostics good, training now, Gauss 3 refuses to train, diagnostics indicate manual lockdown active, all others read diagnostics good, Lock good"

"Dafydd to Engineering, we have a manual lockdown on gauss 3, care to explain why?"

"No idea, sir, we're removing it now, markings indicate it's a dock-yard lock down unit captain"

"Chief Engineer Barlow, may I suggest a thorough search of the entire ship for any more surprises" Dafydd bit out the word, he didn't like surprises like this, in combat a one-minute delay in getting a weapon online could prove fatal.

"Yes, sir, alright you heard the man, Davies…" the channel clicked off.

"Captain, all weapons are now hot and ready, and we still have good locks"

"Very well, fire at will"

Captain Harris on the Iwo Jima watched critically as HMS Dauntless let rip with every single weapon in her arsenal, rolling over so every gun could be brought to bear. Those pulse lasers, he thought, have a minigun like rate of fire, but, noting the damage they caused on the asteroid, have little power behind them. He checked his briefing on his PDA, primarily anti-fighter and CIWS role, well they had power enough for that, and certainly fired fast enough. He moved on, checking the Gauss rifles this time. They were the same gauss rifles as Iwo Jima and all the other vessels of the Prometheus class mounted so no real surprises there.

He snorted, Dauntless needed more Gauss rifles.

"Helm, move to bring our main weaponry to bear, weapons bring 'em online and prepare to fire"

Iwo twisted in space, moving swiftly to close above Dauntless's position, where she simultaneously fired everyone of her main weapons at one point on the asteroids surface, the asteroid cracked, and began to break apart.

"Dauntless to Iwo, have you finished showing off yet?"

Harris laughed, "I think we're done here anyway Dauntless, Good luck and Happy Hunting!"

"Roger, same to you Iwo"

The asteroid cracked and split open, spilling debris into space as Dauntless and the Iwo Jima turned and left, the Iwo onto its next mission, and Dauntless, onto its first.