Disclosure
by
Chaoseternus
The Truth Is Out At Last, Are You Ready For It?
Fifty-Three"Is it over?"
"No," Peters replied, slowly shaking her head, "it's never over, it just goes away for a while"
"Time to breathe then, time to regroup" Enerina sighed, laying her head in her arms on the table.
"That's all we ever get," Peters shrugged, "and sometimes not even that. We had hoped that Disclosure we be far better then this…"
"Somebody knew, somebody was waiting," Egerist noted, "but I am afraid it is often that way"
"True," Peters grimaced, leaning back in her once comfy, now battered faux leather seat at the head of the briefing room table, her hands caressing a thick, strong cup of tea as her eyes gazed out the thick, heavy glass windows into space, "this has truly been a baptism of fire"
"We survived," Enerina shrugged slightly, "anything else is a matter for time"
"Perhaps," Peters grimaced, "I've had the report back by the way. Your hyperdrive cleaned up the sunnyside of fifty missiles, it's confirmed your CIWS batteries got the rest, congratulations. Unfortunately, it is a complete replacement job"
Enerina sighed, "Perhaps that is a good thing"
"How so?" Peters asked, not really paying attention as she gazed out the window.
"Well, it's about time I had some children don't you think?"
Commodore Peters tea dripped slowly down the armoured windows as she gazed at Enerina, stupefied.
"Too many jobs, not enough ships" O'Neill commented, darkly wry as he gazed across the status displays and assignment chits scattered across his desk.
Admiral Thompson shrugged, placing the bug-detector he had been sweeping around the room on the floor, "welcome to the navy, it has always been that way and yet, we will make do. We always have, even if it gets tight at times"
O'Neill grimaced, "oh, those first few years at the mountain… lets just say I have an idea about what you're talking about"
"Perhaps," Thompson walked across to the table, placing his hands on his heavy marble surface, a gift from the Planetary Governor below, the first marble mined and worked on Alpha Centauri Prime, "but this is a step forward, the first permanent… well, semi-permanent formation of warships in space. For us, at least"
"Perhaps, but wasn't there a memo a few months ago stating that assignments for the group had already been decided?"
"There was," the Admiral sighed, "and events mean those assignments are now totally useless. We need to maintain our commitments in both allied spaces, increase pickets in both this and the home system as well as the nebula, arrange a few roving patrols, a few ships ready for swift deployment and still have enough ships to form a battlegroup. I don't think we're going to do it"
O'Neill nodded, seriously, "I know. Well, patrols and ships ready for swift deployment will have to count as the same thing. We may" he reached forward, tapping at several of the chits, "have to make that exclusively a patrol boat thing for a while"
"Patrol One is under strength," Thompson noted, "two birds in the body and fender shop. Patrol two is Colonial, patrol three is under construction and will be tied to Edonia, patrol four is not only under strength, but at your Alpha Site. Both PDF squadrons are understrength too"
"More squadrons would be useful,"
Thompson snorted, "'more' is always useful and we cant ask for everything. More craft are under order, but we wont get more squadrons until replacements have been issued and Atlantis has her two"
O'Neill raised one eyebrow swiftly, "following the colonial pattern of attaching two MTBs to the battlestar?"
"They've proven it works and as an effective force multiplier too," Thompson tapped at the chits, moving two red marked forms to the side, " Britannica will form the core of the group until Atlantis is launched. If we get enough ships together later, we may just split those two off to centre separate battlegroups but that's a while off yet"
"Okay, so fighters for the Atlantis? "
"177 and 767 squadrons are equipping with Viper VIIIs now. Those assignments are cast in stone" Thompson noted, shifting two red chits across and placing them on top of the form marked Atlantis.
"Destroyers…" Thompson reached across, gathering together a small pile of papers, most were green, but one was red, "we have eight available, but Defiant is down for repairs and for various reasons, its best we don't tie her to a battlegroup anyway"
The red chit was dropped to one side, " Invincible was told a while ago to prepare for battlegroup operations, I see no reason to change that assignment. She's a type one, very useful for hit and run attacks, rapid reinforcement duties and the like. If we could free a type II as well it would be nice"
"The group has a destroyer now," O'Neill grimaced, "gotta see what's left over from the other assignments first"
"Six destroyers left," Thompson noted, "at least two in the sol system has been demanded by the politicians"
"Youch,"
"Yes," Thompson nodded, "and I don't think we can actually do it"
The desk bleeped, and O'Neill groaned, pushing several papers to one side to reveal a black phone labelled simply 'Command', "I said we weren't to be disturbed"
O'Neill's eyebrows rose at the response and he said 'thank you' before placing the phone down, " Sentinel reports ready in all respects to launch"
Thompson grimaced, "had to be a Colonial bird first, still… its one more ship"
"Okay," O'Neill shook his head, "we need a bird for Edonia, one for sol, one for Alliance space, one for Vulcan Alliance space and one for Alpha Centauri. That's five, leaving one free and the Defiant once the repairs are done"
"Currently there are no destroyers in system," Thompson didn't check the papers, he didn't need to, "both Stingray and the General Hammond are in sol, we'll need to free one of those two up, either that or pull either Indomitable or Interrogator out of alliance space"
O'Neill grimaced, "Alliance space needs all the warships we can send, hot zone after all, we shouldn't be taking them away"
"Then, for the moment we leave both there," Thompson dropped two chits to a clear side of the table, "and pull…. Stingray out of Sol. Perhaps send Devonshire to reinforce the Vulcan's and Andorians. That leaves no destroyers spare"
"Okay, how many crusiers?"
"Eight, two red sheets and the Jinaghu over which we have no control" Thompson replied, " Yorktown is queued for repairs, Endeavour is coming towards the end of a repair/refit cycle but is headed back for Vulcan space as soon as she is cleared as safe"
"Any ships preassigned to the battlesgroup?"
" Persephone, currently they are in the sol system" Thompson noted.
"Keep that assignment," O'Neill suggested, "if they were informed, they've most likely gotten some simulator time in for fleet operations"
Thompson nodded, dropping a green sheet down on the battlegroup pile, "we've got two birds in Alliance space, one at Edonia, and one coming back from a long patrol"
"None operational in sol?"
"None," Thompson shrugged, "so Gettysburg gets the job. We can't actually do anything else unless China decides to cooperate, which they haven't yet"
" Yorktown is in the repair queue so will be red-sheeted for a while, no point giving her an assignment" O'Neill noted and Thompson quickly distributed the remaining assignment chits for the Prometheus class, noting as he did so that only one ship had actually been reassigned.
"Ha'taks," Thompson sweep up half the remaining sheets, "six operational but three need a full refit"
"And where do you suppose that's going to happen?" O'Neill asked annoyed.
"Slip Three, Ravenbright station and one at a time, there's no other way to do it. Until then, those three are best recalled to picket duties here and at sol where there will be other ships around to support them"
"That leaves three," O'Neill shook his head, "we may need to authorise a few extraction missions, we need more hulls"
"Not that easy," Thompson noted, "Maktenos we have a treaty with and we cannot afford to compromise that, Anubis we cant get to that easily and frankly, he has a mere handful of Ha'taks´ left, we do know of a few abandoned hulls including a full mothership but in each case retrieval would be unsafe in the extreme"
"Damn," O'Neill shrugged, "should have known it wouldn't be easy"
Thompson nodded, "Dawn of Valour, Dawn of Justice to assign. Valiant Heart is the most powerful Ha'tak we have so I suggest we leave her guarding the nebula. Dawn of Justice is in Vulcan space, which leaves Dawn of Valour to send to Alliance space"
"That," Thompson noted, "is it for the warships. The support craft are already assigned"
O'Neill shook his head, "I asked for this didn't I?"
The Admiral shook his head tiredly, "you did mouth off in front of the wrong people yes, all it told me was that you needed to exactly the problems we faced as far as ship assignments goes. The vessels we have are, for the most part, among the best, but we have so few and that is where the trouble comes in"
"Great," the General shook his head, "message received; now new construction assignments?"
" Watcher will complete shortly, but she is Colonial bound, we get Overseer, Searcher and Seeker, but obviously they will be pretty green. No other launches for a while"
"Great," O'Neill shook his head, wishing he had a few headache pills to hand, "well, a four ship battlegroup is of little use, I think we need to assign two birds there and the last… reinforce the sol picket. Its home after all"
Thompson nodded slowly, "agreed"
