Chapter Two
The Void
Five hours later
Mitchell and Yin stood at the viewscreen and watched as the George Hammond emerged from hyperspace.
"Right on time," Colonel Yin commented referring to the fact that the Hammond arrived right when the clock above them struck zero.
"And so begins Operation Tow Truck," Mitchel said then activated his radio. "Hey Sam, this is Mitchel aboard the Sun Tzu. Do you read?"
"Affirmative, Camren. We just did a scan to double-check the Hull integrity and it's good. We are going to turn to position ourselves in front of you so we can initiate the tow. Is Colonel Yin with you?"
"I am here Colonel Carter and we are ready to get out of here."
"Copy that, Colonel. We should be hooked up in a second."
Hammond's Bridge
"We're in position ma'am," McCord said after completing the turn.
"Nice work, Major. Pope, fire the tractor beams."
"Yes' Ma'am."
Two tractor beams shot out from the bottom of the ship and latched onto the nose of the Sun Tzu.
"Colonel, we have a solid connection."
"Camren, we're reading a solid connection on our end. How does it look over there?"
"We got a good reading here too."
"Copy that. Odyssey, this is Hammond, we're about to jump back into hyperspace."
"Understood. Our 302s just returned from their patrol and we're ready on your mark," Colonel Davidson replied.
"Ok. Five, four, three, two, one, mark."
Both ships jumped into hyperspace at the same time and the relief of everyone, the tractor beams maintained their connection with the Sun Tzu.
Five hours later, they returned to Earth whereupon dropping out of hyperspace, they were greeted by a flyover of the sixteen 302s of Neon Squadron from the Victory along with a welcome back message from its commander, Colonel Emily Higgins. Inwardly, Carter felt pleased that she was no longer the only female ship commander in Earth's fleet.
After the Odyssey broke off to take up orbit over the United States, The Hammond settled over China where it released the Sun Tzu for the flight down to its base in the middle of the Gobi desert. Twelve 302s were sent up from the base to escort her.
The moment the crew disembarked in the underground hangar, the maintenance team which consisted over a hundred workers and a few bots began their work on the ship. The first team would be on duty for twelve hours then another group would take over. The process would be repeated until the Sun Tzu returned to the stars.
On January 1st, 2010 the Sun Tzu rose up from its base and returned to orbit fully repaired and outfitted with the upgrades Mitchell mentioned and a few extra ones like an Asgard terminal in its engineering, a pair of tractor beams like the ones the Hammond used to tow it home, and two additional beam weapons bringing its total of APB turrets from four to six.
In the time it took to repair and upgrade the ship, the United States added two more 304s to its fleet the Phoenix and the Pendergast. England commissioned its second 304, the Charger and Australia commissioned its first, the HMAS Melbourne. Russia was still working on the Chekov and the European Union had begun work on their Austerlitz class battlecruiser. France was leading the charge on that one.
Atlantis was still on Earth for repairs and President Hayes was contemplating disclosure of the Stargate program.
Fin.