7: Alpha Centauri

Author: Chaoseternus

Chapter 3: Foundry Supplies

O'Neill placed his head in his hands, honesty not believing what he was being told. This was stupid to a monumental degree, somebody arranges for the thousand tons worth of foundry equipment they desperately needed to get here, only to have it stuck within a few kilometres of its destination.

"What do you mean we can't take it down to the surface?" O'Neill asked a threatening edge to his voice.
"It's two heavy for the Alphaheads to de-orbit with sir, well" Marine Major Franco amended, "they could certainly de-orbit with it, they just wouldn't survive the experience. And we can't break the equipment down more than it already has been"
"Fine, for the moment store it. And while you're at it send a priority request to Thundersdawn for the lone of a Ha'tak. They have a hold big enough and can de-orbit safely with that much weight."
"Still might need to take each cargo pod down individually sir" Franco added.
"Yes, but it'll get down to the planets surface safely, where are the Ha'tak's anyway?" O'Neill wondered.
"Last I heard, Del Shakka Mel was on a joint mission with the Tok'ra, and Valour's Hour was on an Intel run, they could be a while sir"
O'Neill cursed, they needed those supplies planetside! And fast at that.
"Thanks Franco" O'Neill replied, dismissing the Marine. He sighed again once the marine had left; this was so typical where bureaucracy was concerned. Several of the planetside mines were online, and their production rate was slowly building up to acceptable levels. But without an operational foundry to purify the ores, turn them into the metals they so desperately needed, the ores were going unused, forming massive piles that were prone to collapse, which was hardly useful. The foundry should have been coming online as the mines did, but the paper pushers had said there was no need to fork out for foundry equipment whilst the mines were non-operational. Even worse, the very same paper pushers were demanding answers from him as to why the ores were building up, instead of being refined. They were acting like it was all his fault, when in truth it was theirs. Paper pushers really made him want to scream sometimes. A wry grin said they tried to block a Ha'tak being sent to assist him, just because he wasn't co-operating and taking all the blame like they wanted him too. He wouldn't put it past them.
He flicked the intercom, "Major Franco, copy that request direct to Captain Peters please"
It would be interesting to see how much of a delay there was between the request getting to Peters directly, and going through the paper pushers that detested him so much.