Chapter 6
Location: Fort Jacob Carter MTP
Date: February 8, 2025
Time: 0630
"Alright, follow this road until you reach the visitors' parking lot and your escorts will be waiting for you there," the Norwegian MP at the main gate to Fort Carter said with one last friendly word to the van full of TNU students, "Welcome to Fort Carter."
The man backed away, waving them forward as another trooper in the security booth hit the button that brought down the large concrete block in the road that prevented anything from driving into the base that they didn't want in. There were three vans full of students that had made it here to Fort Carter, and the vehicles and their passengers were very thoroughly searched with dogs and an unseen and unmentioned scanner mounted on the large security entryway garrisoned by a squad of military police and a team of dog handlers. It was a well beautified entry, with bushes, flowers, and a long row of flagpoles with every nation that had sent troops and crews represented in alphabetical order. The buildings were stark white painted reinforced concrete, and made of perfectly square ninety degree angles and tinted black windows. It was a perfectly modern-looking façade, which was echoed across the hundreds of barracks, office buildings, garages, workshops, and everything in between.
All of the TNU students were getting a good look at these buildings now from their vans as they traveled along the relatively empty road.
"You'd think that the military would prefer to keep their buildings camouflaged," one of the students said as they noticed the rows of open garages, filled with large, heavily armored wheeled vehicles such as the M-403 "Wolverine" Light Joint Tactical Vehicles, and M-404 "Hyena" Medium Joint Tactical Vehicles.
"This is their headquarters, everyone knows it's here. Might as well look good," someone else said calmly, looking at the numerous vehicles and soldiers walking around in uniform, going about their everyday business.
"Whoa! Stop!"
The van came to a somewhat sudden stop as a soldier in full armor with his rifle slung over his shoulder had run out into the road, and was holding his arm out in the universal signal to stop. Another soldier was doing the same thing to the other side of the road, preventing a pair of Wolverines from continuing on their own drive.
The sudden brake had woken up Hannah from her two minute nap which she'd fallen into since it was six o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. She and her class were here as a biology class field trip that was purely an extra credit opportunity. She'd been among the first searched and had sort of fallen asleep in her seat as she'd waited for her fellow students and their equipment to be thoroughly searched and cleared. But now, she woke up to the sudden braking of the vehicle.
"What the…" she grumbled, rubbing her eyes as she sat up.
"Hello there sleeping beauty," her friend Kirsti piped up as she stirred.
"How can you be so chipper this early in the morning?" Hannah groaned.
"Well this is my major, and it's not every day you get to be on the Fortress."
"Whoop-dee-do, military stuff. It's not like the EDF doesn't broadcast how mighty they are all the time," Hannah shrugged, still somewhat grumpy from a lack of sleep thanks to a long night of reading several chapters for her offworld civilizations course.
As she said that a large number of EDF troops marching in formation with rifles, machine guns, and rocket launchers slung over their shoulders. There were probably a company of them, and on their right shoulders, which were facing them, were the EDF patches below another of their country of origin, in the case of this particular company, Japan. The troops passed quickly enough, and the road guards who had stopped traffic sprinted back into formation, allowing their vans to continue to the visitors' parking lot, which didn't take much longer.
The vans were buzzing as the students all saw the five vehicles already waiting on them. Two were the lighter wheeled 4x4 types with covered turrets complete with a fifty caliber triple-barreled heavy machine gun in it. The other three were much larger, being eerily reminiscent of the BAE Caiman or RG-33 MRAP's, with an emphasis placed on survivability and ruggedness by their British and South African designers. They were 6x6 vehicles that were several feet taller than the Wolverines, even without turrets. They had their rear ramps lowered, allowing the students to see into the cabs of the three vehicles lined up in a row. All three were covered in a fabric-like material with loops and strips hanging off of it colored in dark green, black, and brown, It was the exact same pattern that the squad worth of EDF troops sitting in some covered bleachers wore on their uniforms, which was a near rip-off of Singapore's SAF Woodland pattern. They were listening to another man standing in the grass in front of them and finished up their briefing as the vans pulled in.
The lights were on in the large parking lot, as it was still a little bit dark out, but not so much that the lights on their vans or the lampposts in the parking lot were needed. The vans pulled in, cutting across the many empty parking spaces and pulled into parking spots next to the grass with a couple of spots in between each of them, and the students were finally able to get out. Hannah, being next to the door, was one of the first.
With her backpack in hand she stepped onto the wet concrete, fresh from a light shower that had fallen on their islands for a half hour before petering out. The rest of the students were right behind her, taking in the whole experience.
"Everyone take a seat at the bleachers," Hannah heard her professor call out as soon as the vans were shut off.
She pulled at her backpack she'd packed with a lunch, some cereal bars, three powerades, a first aid kit, bug spray, and sunscreen and then walked over to the bleachers that the squad worth of EDF troopers were now vacating to allow the students to sit down. The six professors all went over to the officer who'd been speaking with the troops earlier and shook hands and spoke for a few seconds while the thirty students all piled onto the bleachers as the sun just began peaking over the mountains.
"Alright everyone take a seat and listen carefully," Professor Griswald, the Biology Department Head, called out, "For all of you this is your first time out in the field with us so you're going to have to go through a safety briefing from Colonel Park. This one isn't much different than the ones you have already heard in class. But the military has a few extra points to share before we head out. Colonel."
The former ROK Marine officer stepped forward with that introduction with the assigned squad right behind him.
"Thank you Doctor," he started, "Welcome to Fort Jacob Carter everyone. As I'm sure you've all been told over the past few months this is the headquarters for the Earth Defense Force, which means this is a very large island. And thanks to long-time cooperation with TNU's scientists you have the opportunity to come here and study the unique wildlife and plantlife of the island.
"However, there are some safety matters that we must address. They are broken down into several simple rules that you must follow at all times. Number one, do not go anywhere alone. Number two, do as you are instructed by your military escorts no questions. They are highly trained professionals whose assigned duty is your protection, it only makes their job harder if you put yourselves in dangerous situations. Number three, use your common sense. If something looks dangerous or your aren't sure about it leave it alone and call your professors or your military escorts. They have more experience and training, respectively, out here than anyone. Now, those rules are simple , if they're obeyed we will not have any problems. Any questions?"
The man stood there, his hands clasped behind his back. The students didn't really have any questions, the rules were simple, they'd already had an after-class lecture on what they would be doing down to the minute. So the colonel nodded and turned to the squad behind him.
"Sergeant, help them pack up their equipment and mount up."
"Yes sir," one of the soldiers called out and waved his arm in the arm to signal his squad, "You heard the Colonel pack it up and mount up."
The students were instructed to grab the boxes of equipment on top of the racks bolted to the vans' roofs and this was left to the boys for the most part. The group was also aided by the troops who would place their equipment cases into the racks on the Hyenas alongside jerry cans of water and a couple cases of medical supplies.
"So what's with the stuff on your vehicles?" one of the students asked a girl who was doing a systems check in the driver's seat.
"The Multispec? It's camouflage, it hides our silhouette, matches natural texture, and hides us from thermal and ultraviolet vision systems and we can slip in branches, leaves, and anything else we might need," the blonde said patting the armored beast appreciatively from her seat, which only allowed everyone to see to her knees the door was so small.
Several other guys were standing nearby and were conversing with several of the other female members of the squad and tried being gentlemen about hefting the equipment as they tried flirting with the troops. The process of loading didn't take long, in fact it was over in less than five minutes before the group was ushered into the large Hyena MTV's. A pair of troops was present to make certain that everyone got in alright, and Hannah found herself getting into the lead Hyena vehicle along Kirsti, her friend.
"Here you go, watch your step," the man who she recognized as the squad's leader, J. Hanson as his nametag read, said calmly, offering a hand up the two steps built into the hatch.
"I've got it," Hannah said, thinking she could easily make her way up into the cab.
"Alright, suit yourself, just make sure you duck your head."
Hannah followed his advice, but in the process of making sure she didn't slam her head on the top of the frame she forgot to pick up her feet and her foot just caught the lip into the vehicle, making her stumble and fall onto the black rubber floor of the Hyena with a none-too-graceful flop. Her cheeks flushed a hot red as several chuckles from the troopers helping them in along with some of her classmates.
"Haha, laugh it up," Hannah grumbled as she sat down in the wall mounted seat closest to the driver.
"It says watch your step right there. I thought you college kids were supposed to read," Hanson said with a laugh.
"I thought you soldiers were supposed to make sure we didn't get hurt?" Hannah snapped back, "I wonder what your officers would say if one of us had to file a complaint."
The two troopers gave her a glare, somewhat astonished at how petty she was being, and to be fair she knew she was. But she had to get the attention off of her and get them to leave her alone. That sort of attention was not the way to start the school year with stories of being a klutz. But thankfully the two of them shrugged it off and helped the rest of the students pile into the vehicle without much else happening aside from one of the troops having to order one of the students out of the front passenger seat. The Italian kid was then slapped with several military regulations when he asked why in a tone that the massive man didn't take kindly to.
But as Hannah sat there she noticed that Kirsti was beaming next to her with an enormous smile on her face that Hannah knew Kirsti was wanting her to ask about.
"What's with the funny smile?" Hannah asked.
Kirsti simply showed Hannah her phone which had some new contact info on it.
"I got one of their numbers," Kirsti grinned, "Corporal Andrew Tess, the guy in the driver's seat."
"Really?" Hannah said, her eyebrows perking up as she turned and saw the eyes of the man in question looking back at them through the rear view mirror.
"Hot right?"
Hannah saw the man grin before focusing his eyes back on the road and she lost sight of his face thanks to the patrol caps that each of the soldiers were wearing in the stead of their helmets.
"Not bad," she responded as the vehicle started rumbling forward behind another one of its brothers and the smaller lead Wolverine.
The convoy pulled out onto the road, without much pomp or circumstance. In the lead Wolverine Staff Sergeant Jason Hanson was relaxing in shotgun besides Corporal MacFierce, in her usual odd position of being in the right hand seat and driving.
"I tell ya MacFierce, I'd rather be out there with the rest of the battalion than here babysitting," Jason said calmly.
"Oh it's not that bad Sarge," his driver replied with a shrug as she took a drink of Gatorade as they turned onto the beach front road, "Besides, it's easy duty. No obstacle courses, no PT, and no getting shot at or digging our victors out of the mud."
"I don't mind the PT or the training, but that fucking mud though…"
Hanson couldn't help but agree. The PT here wasn't the stereotypical run and exercise he and the other veterans had done with their own national armies. It was reasonably challenging mentally with numerous obstacles so it was fun once you were in shape. And the combat was as big an adrenaline rush as they got to have and gave the unit plenty of opportunity to mess with their opponents. But fighting the mud that frequently swallowed their vehicles' tires was a pain in the ass.
"Did you see those guys hitting on Anna?" Lily asked as they continued along.
"No I didn't," Jason responded without looking at her. Nineteen-year old PFC Anna Smith was the squad's smallest individual and claimed she'd been looking at a modelling career before the declassification and saw the opportunity to serve a tour in the EDF as a great way to get the discipline that she felt would give her an edge in the industry.
"Well she was definitely enjoying the attention," MacFierce said matter-of-factly, "And she wasn't the only one I hear."
"Yeah I saw Tess get a girl's number as he was stowing their equipment."
"Not just him," MacFierce responded, somewhat agitated.
"Let me guess," Hanson chuckled, looking over and seeing MacFierce holding several post-it cards she kept in her pocket. Each one of them had a cell phone number on their pink nonstick faces.
"Three potential…candidates," MacFierce said with a sly look.
"We'll see how long they last," Hanson laughed.
"I'm not the only one who had some looks," MacFierce replied slyly.
"Let me guess, me?" Hanson chuckled.
"Oh you noticed?"
"Yeah a few."
"I heard one of those girls in the Hyena gave you some lip earlier," MacFierce mentioned as the conversation grew quiet.
"Oh, yeah, the girl just tripped up on the hatch into the cab and fell. No big deal but she didn't like being laughed at," Jason shrugged.
"I'd bet not. There's nothing a girl hates worse than being the butt of a joke. Go easy on her, she's just a civilian," the young Brit responded, "Matter of fact Sarge we might want to go easy on all of them."
"Where's the fun in that?" Jason laughed, noticing a force of tanks in front of them heading in the same direction, "Go around them, Delta Two-Three go around the tanks and make sure you keep your distance."
"Roger," the radio responses came on the radio as the lead Wolverine passed the tank column, themselves covered in the same Multi-Spectral camouflage as the rest of the EDF's vehicles. He could just hear the ooh's and ah's from the students in the back of the Hyenas.
"I didn't hear anything about the armor heading out," MacFierce noted, seeing literally a battalion of armor moving down the road.
"I heard some of the Russian battalions have got some sort of joint op on the mainland with their dropships, supposedly they're testing high speed drops," Tremon said on the radio.
"Where's you hear that?" Waters called out in response.
"Waters you'd better not be driving," Jason growled.
"Uh…no," the response came.
"You stay three lengths back at all times," MacFierce responded testily.
"Yes Corporal," the Brit replied sourly.
"Alright enough," Jason said with a bit of annoyance, "We might have an easy day but let's keep some manner of professionalism. We're under a microscope today, let's make sure our impression is the right one."
A bunch of rogers echoed his orders as the convoy turned onto a paved two-lane road up-slope towards the western end of the island where the area had been cleared of any troops on maneuvers for the sake of safety for the students and scientists of TNU. The concrete wound its way past several outposts, fortified defensive weapons emplacements camouflaged with multi-spectral camo nets, sensor stations, and several parking lots. At the final parking lot which had several bleachers and a bathroom building in it the convoy pulled over.
"Alright, hard dismount," Jason ordered over their radio, "we'll move on foot. 3-2-Alpha's on point, Bravo in the center on both flanks and Charlie bring up the rear and police any stragglers."
"Copy that."
"Shut it off, grab your rifle and pack," Jason said to MacFierce as he grabbed his own pack he'd been ordered to fill with a normal combat load as part of a small workout. His pockets, vest, and backpack had all the necessities: three magazines of red tracers and six magazines of normal rounds of which all nine were a new armor piercing material, two magazines for his pistol, three frag grenades, six smoke grenades in red white and blue, three flash bangs, a block of C4 with detonator, bandages, a half dozen chem-lights, batteries, bayonet, multi-tool, and an MRE.
It was quite a bit of stuff to haul around, but it was a kind of punishment for getting killed on the second night of battalion war games. The students themselves didn't need to know what it was they were carrying, and it was probably for the best. But better to be prepared, and the unit also had their helmets tied to the back of their packs, seeing as the appearance of them in those helmets wouldn't do much for their image and it was more comfortable to wear their patrol caps and sunglasses.
By now the students and his squad were out of the vehicles and were being secured and the professors were starting to hand out cameras, latex gloves, plastic bags, and specimen jars. The professors were getting together with their students, outlining what exactly they were looking for, what to touch, what not to touch. Once that was done the lead professor, Dr. Correia, an experienced Amazon and offworld biologist, walked over to the squad which was gathered at the beginning of the dirt trail.
"Sergeant?" the older woman spoke in her thick Portuguese accent, "We are ready when you are."
"Alright Doctor," Jason said calmly, taking his rifle and making sure he had a magazine in it.
"Move out! Magazines in, safeties on, chambers empty. Doctor if you'll follow me please."
Jason led the way with the experienced biologist right behind him. His squad spread out along the line of students and several professors, several of whom had video cameras or their phones filming the whole experience. The troops were relaxed, just keeping their eyes on the column of students who were now getting into the groove. But there were dangers in this forest, some easily seen, some so-far undiscovered, not even by the might of the Earth Defense Force.
Location: Planet P5X-359
The team had walked into a thunderstorm, a nasty one. They'd been on this planet for several hours, and had to struggle to get four ten foot by thirty foot aluminum supported tents set up. This directly went against what the civilian team wanted to do, which was to begin going out and studying the local landscape, animals, and find any signs of Human or alien life.
"Jeez, how long is this storm going to last?" Dr. Underwood grumbled as he looked out the clear plastic window where he'd been examining the sensor feed from a sensor device that Captain Haley was busying herself calibrating outside in the weather.
"Wrong net Underwood," Haley responded testily.
"I was talking to you," Underwood replied to her.
"I'm sorry I didn't notice that I was reading off of a teleprompter," she responded, "I'm no weather forecaster Underwood. Ask Doctor Lopez, he's the expert in that field and I'm already busy."
"He's also busy examining the rock formations with Brenda. Apparently they're just like some place in South America."
"South America?" Underwood gawked, but then a massive crash of thunder sounded out that reverberated throughout the spacious tent they were sharing with their medical doctors who were busy treating Captain Pauley who'd twisted his ankle in a hole concealed by a puddle, "Well, it certainly rains enough to be wherever that place is in South America."
"Tepui, a table-top mountain in Venezuela," Underwood's assistant, Dr. Ruby Ellis, sounded out, "I actually went there once. It's incredible really, like a lost world."
"Like in Up?" Dr. Katherine Lawson asked from where she'd been talking with her patient and her own assistant who was just finishing wrapping up his ankle.
"The movie?" Ruby asked.
"Yeah, the Pixar one? The one that started out with the shy grandpa, only he's a kid then, meeting this wild and crazy girl, they become friends, they get married, try to have kids but can't have many years of happiness and then she dies. Oh I'm crying just thinking about it," Dr. Lawson, or Cathy as her friends knew her, sniffed sadly, remembering one of her favorite movies.
"I haven't seen it yet," Ruby said testily, "No spoilers."
"You haven't seen Up?!" Lieutenant Gibson gasped from his spot at a fold-out chair where he was playing a game of magnetic checkers on the folding table in the middle of the tent with the team sniper, Lieutenant Patricia Holden.
"That's probably the best animated film of all time," Lieutenant Holden added, putting her own two cents into the conversation.
"Oh I don't know about that, Up is great but I don't know if it can match up to Frozen," Dr. Lawson said looking out into the near distance to contemplate that.
"My daughters love that movie," Captain Pauley spoke up, "For three weeks that song was stuck in my head."
"True it's catchy, but it raked in the viewers."
"And that's what it's all about isn't it?" Holden said as she skipped over two of Gibson's red checkers and smiled a smug grin right at him.
"It's all about winning, whether it's cash or…" Gibson said and then saw his shot, and jumped two of Holden's pieces in one fell swoop, "at checkers. Queen me baby."
"No, no way," Holden stuttered, trying to figure out what had just happened by examining her board, "No way you had that kind of shot down the line."
"I did too, or shall we look at the instant replay?" Gibson said calmly as he tapped the camera on his helmet which was facing their game of checkers.
"It's true, my dear," a new voice sounded out as the team cultural expert, Dr. Bruce Walt, walked in from the storm, "Gah! Dreadful weather we're having isn't it?"
"You been watching us play Doc?" Gibson asked.
"I've tuned in every so often," the older British man replied with a witty smile, "Although I must say this has been driving me bonkers for two turns and you haven't yet noticed it Patricia. May I?"
"Sure," the brunette replied, offering him her place.
Immediately the man took a checker that Lieutenant Holden had had on her second to back right corner and then jumped to the right, taking one of Gibson's pieces, but then continued and took one more on the right side of the board, and as he did so, his direction was forced to switch left again and he ended up on the back row. And in classic form he smiled.
"Queen me baby," the man said with a wink and left the table, and left Gibson dumbstruck as to what had just happened.
"Whoa what just happened?"
However as he was trying to figure things out another new entry walked into the tent, Colonel O'Neill, back from his escort of the team biologist and geologist along with the civilian team leader Brenda Jackson. They'd been gone for several hours with Fire Team One of SG/S-1, not encountering any life whatsoever aside from some little shrubs and a couple of saplings.
"Tell me you have coffee," were his first words after he took off his helmet.
"Yes sir," Captain Pauley said, pointing at the steaming brew where it was resting on the table on a burner.
"What happened with the ankle?" O'Neill asked nonchalantly.
"Hole disguised as a puddle on our perimeter patrol sir. Not a big deal," Pauley replied with a shrug.
"I beg to differ," Dr. Tew responded testily, "You could have broken that ankle if it weren't for your boots."
"I'm fine," Pauley growled as he waved off the younger man.
"Really?" Dr. Lawson questioned, softly hitting the sensitive spot with the handle of her surgical scissors, "Fine my ass."
A wince and a reflexive pull-back rewarded her. He was definitely in pain.
"What'd you find on your circuit?" O'Neill asked as he moved the conversation onwards, knowing the pain but also knowing that any operator here could take that pain on their worst day and keep fighting.
"Nothing much, oh we did find what looked like a sapling, we thought Dr. White might want to know."
"Yeah we saw a few plants, and a lot of rocks," O'Neill said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.
"Brenda getting' to ya huh Colonel?" Underwood asked as he examined his equipment.
"No…okay maybe my nerves are a little bit tested."
A few laughs echoed O'Neill's sentiment as the team settled back in, knowing that the storm was definitely preventing them from really doing much of anything at the moment aside from perimeter patrols. Colonel O'Neill didn't want to take the chance of having anyone lost or hurt in this kind of storm so thought it best to wait it out at least until the thunder and lightning were done.
"Anything happen on your patrol sir?" Lieutenant Holden asked as Gibson contemplated his next move.
"Nothing much besides standing around. I tell ya," he said as he took a sip of the coffee, "It's not the same as it was back in the day."
"Miss the old SG-1 huh?" Ruby asked as she too got her own cup of coffee.
"Of course, spend that much time and fight that many fights alongside one another and you get quite attached," O'Neill responded, "I'm not saying I won't grow to like any of you it's just that this is our first mission together."
"Give it time boss," Dr. Tew piped up as he put away his medical instruments, "You'll see what we can do given some more missions."
"Well it isn't so much the missions, it's the rough times, the times when the pressure is ratcheted up. The old SG-1 had been through so many fights, so many close calls, that I knew I could count on them."
"With respect sir," Holden responded, "There were four of you then. There's twenty of us now with more support and equipment than your old team ever got. We'll pull through for you."
O'Neill nodded at that, he'd picked the military portion of this SG-1 himself from an enormous stack of candidates. He had taken his pick from SEAL's, Delta Force, Rangers, Pararescue, and Marine Raiders to form a hell of a team of operators. But in his eyes they were still untested.
"Hey Haley," O'Neill heard Underwood say into the mike on in his ear, "Have you checked this equipment girl?"
"Of course I have," the somewhat temperamental blonde snapped back at him.
"Adjust your scanning range about twenty more miles, I'm getting some sort of magnetic signal in orbit, it's too weak to be an orbiting moon."
"You have something?" Ruby asked as attention turned towards them.
"I don't know yet, just waiting for…oh there we go," Underwood said as the scanner's range increased, "Hello hello, what have we here."
"Those are no asteroids," Ruby said with intrigue laced through her tone.
The screen on his tablet was showing two objects of roughly the same size but entirely different shapes. The 3-D imaging software laid out the look of what they were seeing to show a ship which had a bulbous front end and four engine nacelles connected by pylons jutting away from the main hull which had a series of scanning equipment scattered all over it. The second ship was different with a design that looked like a pencil with eight large crates bolted to the hull. They were maintaining their orbit in a clearly intended manner. As the group was watching this Haley walked in, eager to see for herself.
"Those are ships alright," Haley said from next to Underwood and then snapped into action.
"Whoa what're you doin' girl?" Underwood gasped as the the scanner went to an entirely different series of settings.
"Scanning the ships in detail and searching for life-signs. Run a search program to see if these ships have been encountered before."
"You know I was about to do the same thing?"
"Of course you were. I just beat you to it," Haley said as the scanner began to feed them the info desired, but was unexpected in exactly what it was telling them.
"Trace elements of highly diluted naquadah in large tanks in both vessels. I've never encountered it, but the data says the compound is…Tylium?"
"Tylium?" Ruby asked, "Never heard of it."
"I have."
Everyone in the tent, who were gathered around the new excitement of the scanning station, turned to see Brenda Jackson walking into the tent with her helmet off her hair dripping somewhat from the downpour they were experiencing.
"Please, share with us," O'Neill offered sarcastically, getting a sneer from Brenda.
"Tylium is the main fuel source of a human entity known as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. The SGC made contact with them several years ago but some misunderstandings with the Colonials led us to break off contact until further notice. Nothing since then has been heard from them or of them."
"Aren't these the people who shot your dad?" Dr. Lawson asked.
"Yeah, he'd gone to a diplomatic satellite we'd positioned in their home system and things got out of control. It was an accident."
"Hey Haley run a life-signs scan for me please?" Underwood asked.
"Already did," Haley replied.
"Well you might want to check to see if maybe you missed the button because I'm not seeing anything."
"No lifesigns?" Captain Pauley now asked, "That doesn't make sense, how are those ships here if they don't have anyone aboard?"
"Uh oh," Haley said, "I'm picking up energy readings, signatures match Colonial FTL's. Lots of them."
"How many is a lot?" Brenda asked.
"From the data I'm getting…fifteen ships, they're out of our range for now but I can fix that," Underwood responded as he tapped at the tablet he now had in both hands.
"Whoa."
The data was now streaming in bigtime. The Colonials now counted nineteen ships, not fifteen. In the center was a ship bigger than the rest by quite a large margin. The data was by now identifying them rapidly as Colonial ships. They were seeing data rush across the right hand side in a separate window classifying them as destroyers, light and heavy cruisers, assault ships, supply ships, and a single Battlestar, Pegasus class. Around them was a swirling patrol of fighters identified as Colonial Vipers and the fleet was headed right for the planet.
"Where'd they come from? And I thought you said there were fifteen ships Underwood?"
"Four of them were already here. And I am reading massive numbers of life signs from them. My scanner is working, so those smaller vessels in high orbit are deserted," Haley clarified.
"Can we contact them?" Brenda asked.
"Sure," Ruby said, "It should be quite simple."
"Hold on," O'Neill suddenly interrupted, "I know these are the people that put your father in a wheel chair, I get it, but do not think that your little vendetta to prove he was right is going to supersede my authority."
"I've been waiting years for a chance to try and fix what went wrong between us. My father had the right idea, if you soldiers hadn't of been so ready to throw down he wouldn't be disabled," Brenda responded.
"Which is why you can't be the one to do it," O'Neill said calmly, knowing, in part, how she felt about this situation.
"Who else knows them better than I do?" Brenda demanded, "I'm the only one of us who has actually met a Colonial. I was at the cultural exhibition. I know they can be reasoned with."
"Are you willing to bet everyone's lives on it?" O'Neill asked.
Brenda hesitated, she knew she could do it. The chance to finish what he father had started was now at hand. However things were more complicated than that. They always were.
"Sir, I have something entering the atmosphere from the Colonial assault ship," Haley called out immediately upon seeing the heat bloom in the atmosphere, "It's a rough estimate but I'd say we have some kind of orbital entry vehicles."
"Can you give me a trajectory?" O'Neill asked.
"They're going to land within a mile of us."
Okay it's up. I know it took forever with this one but I just had a bastard of a time getting started. But that doesn't matter anymore, it's here, now on to the next one. Oh I am also going to put a character list on my bio later on with the character names and the actors I envision would play them if this were to go on screen. You don't have to use them, it's more for me to get a starting point with their characters and slowly branch out and give them all the elaboration they deserve.
Next Chapter Preview: Earth's best see the Colonials in action firsthand, the hidden dangers of Terra Nova emerge, and the Jaffa go to war.