7: Alpha Centauri

Author: Chaoseternus

Chapter 8: Reaction

Thundersdawn

Commodore Peters sat in her chair, able to relax at last. For once she was slightly ahead with her paperwork, her weekly inspection was complete, the station was now running at full capacity, and there were nothing that required her immediate attention, so she could relax. It felt strange, like her body was no longer used to being able to rest, to have a break every now and again. She knew there wasn't a hope in hell's chance of it lasting, but for the moment she would enjoy it as much as she could.

A knock at the door sounded, and Peters put her cup of Earl Grey down on the desk, calling out "Enter!" as she did so.
"Commodore, we just received word, there's been an accident at the Alpha Prime mines, at least 200 people are trapped under ground"
"Bugger, all right put all the SAR teams on full alert, and get Shunters and Paladins ready to shit them to Alpha if needed"
"Aye Commodore" As the messenger turned to leave his PDA bleeped its receipt of another message, downloading from the master communications server. "Commodore, message from General O'Neill, he's requesting a second capital ship for a triangulated scan of the mines, the mine engineers are desperate for a more accurate sweep, something about collapsing strata?"
"Collapsing strata?? Bloody hell… that'll pancake the whole mine. Refresh my memory, what ships are available?" Peters said, reaching for her tea. "O'Neill has Indefatigable and Blastboat, but Blastboat doesn't have the sensor capability for a deep scan. We have two ships with the sensor capability insystem, Persephone and Liberty but neither is in any state to leave the system, closest ship… Independence, she's outward bound checking on rumours of a fugitive fleet heading in from the far end of the spiral arm, she should still be in range for another hour" "Cut orders for Independence, have her report to Alpha, assist with rescue operations then return to her mission, if the SGC complains, and I really don't think Hammond will, remind him it's a definite rescue mission, not a possible"
"Aye, Commodore" "And tell them to step on it, they don't have unlimited air down in the mines" she shouted after his retreating back.
"Damn" she swore softly, "if it's not a Goa'uld invasion or the NID, then it's a major bloody accident! What does it take to get some peace around here?"

Alpha Centauri

With a flash of light, Independence appeared in space, diving at full speed towards Alpha prime and the damaged mining complex below, radios messages frantically passing between her and Indefatigable as they tried to co-ordinate the scan of the mining complex.
Soon, Independence arrived in orbit, and they were able to start the triangulated scan, the results bouncing down to the mining facility below.

"Oh shit!!" was the simultaneous exclamation from Tarvi and Felix as the data started feeding through.
Angharad turned around to Roberts, and frantically shouted, "get a signal to Alyssa at the secondary access tunnel, stop drilling, now!"
"There's another power source… Christ that's a field generator of some sort… multiple Naquadah point sources… hellacious big cavern… Christ we're right on top of it. This whole area is unstable, could collapse at any time, I'm surprised it hasn't already, why didn't this show up on the initial scan?"
"Indy says there's a modified cloak interfering with the scans… just what was Ra up to here?"