Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders, only much of the convoluted plot and a few characters and some objects are mine.
Chapter 5 – Deals
It was the naming ceremony of EV20, a lottery of everyone who had been involved with the project put in their choice for a name Professor Wynne was there to choose it.
"Ok everyone the name of our new ship is…" He pulled out the piece of paper from the cardboard box. "Firefox…" There were some blank looks around the crowd.
"Ok who put it in?" He said with a smile…slowly someone raised his hand, was the pilot who had guided the ship on her first flight.
"Umm…it was me Professor…you can choose another…I don't mind…"
"Nah just curious…Everyone grab a drink and then we can winch up a bottle, to christen her…" He pointed upwards, they were standing beneath the front of the ship high above them.
He handed a glass to the officer.
"Well?" He said with a smile, pocketing the piece of paper.
"Umm…well fire…because it symbolises power, rebirth…but I didn't want something like Phoenix…considering what's happening out there…"
They all received reports from Night Wolf command about the magical fighting that it was trying to combat and analyse.
"So umm, fire for powerful…Fox because it's quick animal…and since we're Night Wolf I thought Firefox was a good contrast…" He smiled.
"And?" Wynne asked suspecting it was something else.
"And…" He looked a little sheepish…"Fox was my UNIT classification on my first mission…"
"Knew there was a story…So Firefox…." He turned and shouted to the Sergent operating the winch. "We ready Sergent?" There was a nod. "We'd better stand back."
They walked back to where the crowd was chatting. "Alright winch it up…"
A huge bottle of champagne was winched up inside the huge closed in shipyard like a gigantic air ship shed.
They all put their safety glasses on and watched the bottle swing towards the ship.
"The Firefox!" Wynne cried, everyone cheered.
--/
In Geneva Professor Moore and her colleagues were discussing the…not so much a problem but the interesting situation they were now in.
UNIT now had a spacecraft which very soon would have weapons that could hit any city on Earth sensors which could do the same and look closer than any satellite.
There was also the issue of development of said technologies, all of which UNIT would need to outsource to have happen efficiently.
There was also the proposal from to bring the Australians into the Night Wolf project, in particular the EV project.
"The Australians, the Prime Minister and the Head of their Military want to see EV 20…Firefox before they commit to anything."
"Are they aware they have to sign the non-disclosure agreement?"
"They are…"
"Very well clear it with Wynne and set up a meeting, minimal amount of personnel from their side, get the Marines to escort them…make sure they've…" Moore sighed noting it down in her file.
"They will have."
"I have a suggestion from one of the ethics departments, regarding the weapons and sensor systems…" Moore said passing around the small group a memo. "It details basically that in the event of an alien incursion on Earth Firefox's and any other ship may be able to turn their weapons towards Earth…or any other planet. However in the case of Earth all activity will be logged and the Captain of the vessel must state that the crew are doing so under their order…the same sort of thing we're currently using…"
"What's to stop someone from exterior influence gaining access to Firefox?"
"Sir we have the best screening process in the world…everyone is checked thoroughly before joining UNIT."
"Very well…"
"From the United Kingdom, where Night Wolf is currently located, for future ships, including Firefox…as they are primarily staffed with UK and other personnel, made with UK materials the suggestion is to give them a Royal classification…" Moore said as she passed another memo around, this suggestion had come from the high ups in the UN, the ships would be a UN ship but be 'owned' by their respective country of origin.
"This is an interesting proposal, does this have something to do with the other problems?" The man in the military uniform smiled, Moore raised an eyebrow.
"Not problems sir, but UNIT will continue to provide funds and the technology to construct the ships, and will be in control of them to a point but there has been suggestion that it would suit our members better to have some independence in their ship construction."
"Even though they don't know anything about it."
"Yes. There is a suggestion to name them…Royal Space Core Ships."
"Shouldn't that be Corps?"
Moore smiled, that was…actually she wasn't sure who had commented on that.
"Core as in central as these ships are the centre of the respective countries space ventures…"
"Interesting and the countries?"
"UK and Australia."
"What about the US?"
"As they refuse to sign the amended articles, and according to many…reports they allegedly attempted to sabotage the early space freight missions…"
"You don't trust them?"
"We would prefer to open negotiations with Australia who are more open to Night Wolf, incidentally they already have some knowledge of the wizard world."
"How?"
"We're not sure, we can't discuss that until the amended…"
"Are signed."
"Very Well…Professor Moore, I'd like you to be at the Highlands facility when the Australian delegation arrives, smooth over any bumps that may occur…"
"Sir…"
--/
Glenda Moore marvelled at Firefox, they were still writing in the RSCS lettering on port side of the ship, the UNIT logo was on the starboard side, both near the front of the blocky ship.
It wouldn't probably ever win any awards for the best looking ship, but it was architecturally sound, strong and it could leave the solar system, in less time it took to cook a roast.
That fact she couldn't believe despite reading the various reports that in the time it took for her guests to get here she could have gone and come back to another system.
"Amazing." She said looking up at it.
"Glenda."
"Paul, she's an amazing ship."
"You've had the tour?"
"One of your people showed me around."
He smiled looking up. From the ground it was hard to appreciate it as a ship, you couldn't take it all in.
"How long till they arrive?"
"Your guests?" Professor Wynne asked vaguely.
"Our guests Paul…the Australians…"
"Yes…what about…"
"I signed the papers before I left, extra funding and an extra bay…I don't know where you're going to put it…" Moore sighed seeing Paul smile.
"We've got people doing scans on the other side of the mountain in the valley, we can link the this together with the other, when it's built…"
"Good, and Firefox?"
Paul laughed.
"What?"
"So weird calling it that, it's been EV20 for so long, now it's got a name…do you know we've already got some teams coming up with new designs, they're out of university…."
"I know, I signed a lot of the approval notes…something with all this legislation we're hoping to move away from Geneva…"
"You said…When I showed them EV19 and 20 they…some of them squealed…they couldn't believe that we'd built it." He laughed.
"It's almost beyond belief…even after all the alien invasions…and the magic…"
"How is that?"
"Going? McGeoch brought someone into help him."
"Who…not the Doc…"
"Absolutely not you know our position on him….No someone else…Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart."
Paul laughed again.
"They should get on, The Brig should enjoy being out in the field again…"
"Did you know him?" Professor Moore asked curiously.
"Read his mission reports…" Paul said as a Lieutenant ran over.
"Sir the chopper's inbound 10 minutes…"
"Thankyou Lt."
"Let's go greet them…Professor Moore."
"Professor Wynne…"
Pulling their jackets around them they walked outside the cool ship yard and out into the valley it occupied, the wind was light but it was still freezing up here.
A small chopper was making its way over the mountains, being buffeted slightly by the wind. Minutes later it touched down, two men and 3 marines stepped out of the chopper. The Prime Minister of Australia and the chief of the defence force of Australia walked up to them shaking their hands.
"If you'll come this way sirs, we'll step out of the cold…" Professor Wynne led them to the small door which encased the Firefox.
It took the two visitors a moment to realise what was inside the vast structure.
Professors Wynne and Moore would remember what the Prime Minister said when he saw the Firefox.
"Bloody Hell, we'll take three." He said grinning to the people around him.
'That was easier than I thought…' Glenda thought to herself.
By the end of the tour and when they were sitting down in one of the adjacent rooms to the control room the Prime Minister's face had darkened a lot more then when he had arrived.
"Mr Hawke is something the matter?" Wynne asked.
"This is a fantastic achievement and I'm sure we can come to an agreement…but I can't know of this…this meeting…"
Wynne and Moore sighed a collective sigh of relief.
"Never happened." They said together the army chief and the prime minister looked up.
"We had a similar discussion with the British prime minister. It's perfectly fine…if you'll see the document in front of you, which incidentally yours Mr Hawke is another of the non-existent pieces of paper, so please feel free to look through it." Moore said with a smile. "Details how the Night Wolf command structure, the research and development, funding and everything else, including parallel development, off shoot technologies and any thing else from the program…"
Professor Moore, most of the UNIT legal, ethics, development and future forecasters had come up with what was probably one of the most odd pieces of legal writing for the UN.
They had unilaterally decided that where Night Wolf projects were concerned there would need to be a lot of work put into…maintaining the global balance of power.
It wouldn't be for the UN to hand over projected energy weapons to nations and then have them turn around and fit the alien weapons to their sea ships and tanks…
The gist of the agreement was that they would have access to all the alien technology that the Highlands base and the R&D that came out of Night Wolf command (and any other or future bases etc). However they would need their own scientists, own design teams and use their own materials (unless certain materials were sources off of the Earth) etc to build the ships making the ships country made. The UN would assist in funding but any outsourcing had to be kept within the country of origin to prevent unauthorised information leaks and to control the flow of knowledge of the project.
Any reverse engineered technology which has proved useless on board the ships may be reverse engineered to suit common technology within reason, while maintaining the UN amended articles and other articles connected there with.
The facilities and ships would be staffed by a majority of people both civilian and military based from the country of its origin; however there would be a free flow of personnel from country to country within the UNIT substructure.
There were various sub clauses and whatever, but their legal teams could go through it together, this was the informal version, for them to look through.
"It's a pretty odd deal."
Moore merely acknowledged the Prime Minister with a nod.
"It's a pretty odd ship."
"Does it fly?" An odd question considering they'd discussed what it could do, what it did do.
"Oh yes…I was on Firefox's first flight…"
"How far?" The military man asked.
"Out of the solar system…" Neither man could help their surprise, this was bigger than anything…this wasn't just the moon, or even Mars…Australia was barely getting together its own space program…when Sky Lab fell…
"So you've got a ship that can…leave the solar system…that's…that's bigger than one small step…that's…" The military chief was speechless.
"Of course future ships probably won't look like Firefox…" Wynne admitted, Moore glanced at him, so did Hawke.
"How so?"
"Designs differ, different technologies to be developed and incorporated…" 'Plus there's the minor problem that everything rattles like a budget airline when it's in flight…' Wynne thought to himself. 'But that'll be fixed…they tell me…confidently.' He reassured himself.
"And we'll have to design our own ships…" Hawke said.
"Yes. As per our agreement, we'll provide the original plans for Firefox…"
They nodded in agreement.
--/
Several months later and many meetings and discussions the agreement was signed, various engineers, technicians, architects, ship construction experts, people from all the armed forces were brought in and asked to sign the UN amended articles and connected legislature.
The Australian site for the shipyard, construction bays, research labs was also built underground, on/in a 'secret' government facility in the middle of the Gibson Desert which had previously been a weather research base and training facility for the Australian Army…
The real success came from UNIT: Night Wolf when a 'new' xeno-archaeologist and linguist was going through a storage facility cataloguing the 'unknown' pieces for further study.
A large piece of equipment had been left untouched because the documentation on the initial translation read.
'Unknown technology, Recovered: in cave unknown cave system in Hungry. Unknown power source, does not conform to known alien technologies, preliminary translation reads: destruction total remove all life from area… Move to secure facility for testing and determination.'
The xeno-archaeologist/linguist looked over the initial translation and the original and made an interesting discovery, it actually read:
Area Clearing Device: Danger do not use on living life
It was in fact some sort of alien earth movie technology that broke down the matter into energy, a self perpetuating process.
After being tested it was moved to aid the Australians, in less time that it took to make the Highland facility habitable, the Australians had their facility cleared out and ready…