Chapter 8: Movements
Thompson slowly eased his aching body into the hot water of his bath, and signed with pleasure. 'Finally' he thought, 'A chance to relax'.
As the water began to soothe his aching and abused body, he thought over the events of the past few days, events since that report had arrived brought whole new meaning to the word hectic. First off, both SGC and the RSS began scrambling, desperately searching for qualified and more importantly, cleared personnel to move to the trinary Alpha Centauri system, everyone from construction workers, experienced ship-wrights, and scientists to clerks, medical personnel and a massive guard detachment, all of which had to be moved by the only craft available, the five 1-6 Paladin class craft, which could only carry 20 people at a time and weren't designed for cargo. Thundersdawn had started crash-priority construction of more, but they wouldn't be available for at least another week. If Dauntless was available it would have greatly speeded up the time taken to shift all the personnel and especially the equipment, but strangely enough when Hammond had suggested Dauntless remain on over watch in the Alpha Centauri system, Thompson hadn't argued, this horde was too valuable to leave unguarded.
Thompson smiled, even the MTB boys had suddenly gained priority status, the politicians had tried to scupper that project from the start, believing it to be a waste of resources. The MTB designers had gone and started building the thing anyway, with the assistance of off-duty SGC and RSS personnel at the old earth side Prometheus construction facility. Both Thompson and Hammond had turned their backs and carefully not asked too many questions when equipment and resources had disappeared in that direction, hoping to present the politicians and bean counters with a fait-accompli. Now, it wasn't necessary, the Motor Torpedo Boat was almost complete, and the politicians had bowed as soon as the report, as it had come to be known had come in, they wanted every craft possible to protect the Alpha Centauri system, the MTB design would get a chance to prove itself.
Thompson signed, it would be very helpful if Alpha had a gate, but for whatever reason Ra had never moved a gate to Alpha, probably for the same reasons the RSS and SGC had decided not to move a gate there, Security. A gate while it would make shifting personnel quicker and easier, was another way for Alpha to be discovered, and with as yet unconfirmed rumours coming through from the Tok'ra that Anubis was randomly dialling address's searching for worlds the system lords didn't know about, adding a gate to Alpha was decided to be too much of a security risk.
Right now, Alpha's defences consisted of RSS Dauntless, USS Iwo Jima, who once again had been recalled before they could get too far away, 633 Squadron RSS, and the Black Nights, USMC who had just quietly converted to 302 class fighters, plus about a regiment of mismatched infantry from various units.
At least, Thompson thought, Dauntless now had her Torpedo launchers, and a supply of Naquada enhanced Sparrow missiles aboard, even if fitting the Launcher would be difficult, considering the Dauntless and Iwo Jima were running watch and watch, one craft a full alert for 12 hours then swap over.
Worse thing was, they still had a lot more personnel and equipment mounting up to shift, but it would continue to mount up for the moment. The Paladins were down for some very hasty maintenance; otherwise the constant overuse they were suffering at the moment could cause an accident.
The Prometheus Batch 2 class Eisenhower, the first Prometheus to be completed at Thundersdawn had also been recalled, but was now worryingly overdue. Worse, two scheduled check-ins had been missed, and the last message received had been abruptly cut-off.
Thompson closed his eyes, and slipped under the water, 'enough worrying about work' he thought, 'time to relax'