The Omake Files - The Fifth Man
'Tauri Fleets and Commanders'
Normandy
Harry stepped through the door archway into the small cockpit of the vessel. The front and side windows showed the Pegasus Galaxy in the distance. They had stopped in the black.
It was one of his trips to atlantis. The Normandy was one of the fastest ships in their fleet, and as the name would suggested, was crewed by the French. It was the first of its class, and most of those ships were in fact crewed by the French. They took the logistic support role with the Atlantis Expedition.
The Normandy class is an Interstellar high-speed transport. Very light armament and physical defences, relying primarily on its small relative size, speed and manoeuvrability, and the Asgard Shields to survive in a fight.
It wasn't big, compared to the Daedalus Class. It didn't have a launch and retrieval system for Fighters, and its offensive capacity was limited to a couple of short-range railguns, and missile turrets.
It wasn't crewed by a lot of people, either. Two Pilots, two Tactical officers, two Operations Officers, a chief engineer, three technicians and a Captain or Major in charge.
The 4-deck vessel was the space version of the Galaxy transport aircraft.
It was due to its size – only 40 metres at the widest point, 16 metres of height and a length of 100 metres that provided the higher mass to speed power ratio. And yet while the Normandy was smaller, it had similar levels of power output from its' power generation systems that a Daedalus class had.
That lay in the fact that the Power was a distributed system. Most of the systems had independant power supplies were applicable, such as a computer with a Micro-Naquadah Generator instead of the PSU in every networked computer. Any computer switched off, the MNG's would then send power into the Distributed Power Network. Life Support had its' own normal Naquadah Generator, and each of the railguns also.
With the combined power output, normally it wouldn't explain the less-than-one-week travel time between Earth and Atlantis.
It was an invention of McKay's, after a thought the Tok'ra Sina had, that was responsible.
Subspace Capacitors.
McKay had asked how Tok'ra technology drew power, during the time he had spent on Earth after the siege of Atlantis.
Four Subspace Capacitors served to power the entire ship.
Normal operations would only draw on two and the rest of the distributed power network. It was for the combat situation where extra power to the shields mattered. And because of how they sent out power, constantly but with bursts of higher output, McKay had worked out how to control it to the point that they could time bursts to the shield during moments of weapons fire.
And after the test on the Daedalus had been done under combat conditions when a wraith they named 'Michael' was betrayed by his own Queen... The power boost had meant they suffered a lot less damage.
There, four had been working in tandem, each providing a pulse every few seconds, each offset so that the shields received a constant increase, the lowest point in the input flux being quite high, and the highest point somewhat higher. Together it would have been higher, but wraith weapons tended to fire lots of lower power.
Harry had to admit, it had been rather ingenious. And so the idea had transferred over, as the Subspace Capacitors – drawing in energy from Subspace, was a literal renewable source of energy, but the capacitors were smaller units. It wasn't suitable to being the only source of power, hence the distributed power. But with the near-ZPM levels if all 4 worked at peak, meant the smaller ship would be capable of long distance jumps within seconds, and smoothing out the ride by offsetting the bursts allowed greater range at the same speed as a ZPM-powered Daedalus.
They were stopped outside of the Pegasus galaxy on this trip however, because the Power network didn't much like the pulsing power generation. So it had became regulation to stop outside of the galaxies going in and out and between to allow minor maintenance before the minor issues that cropped up became major issues.
After checking in with the pilot (the Major in command was off-shift and so asleep in his bunk) Harry returned to the passenger deck, and his bunk. On a laptop, he worked on the designs for the next series of Earth military vessels. The Daedalus was all well and good, but even with the mining operations on the moons of Saturn, there was not enough resources to justify having another ship after the Apollo, instead of building a few much smaller but just as combat-capable destroyers.
As his time with the Asgard showed, he took great joy in creating something new, instead of destroying as the war with the Goa'uld and Wraith had tended to bring. Simply overseeing the installation or construction of Asgard-derived technology (or indeed, building the Asgard-design hyperdrives of the Daedalus and Odyssey) had not brought so much joy as helping design the newer gargantuan ships of the Asgard Fleet had.
He smiled in remembrance, the first Granger class Asgard vessel had completed production a few months ago, and with its hybrid, human-inspired defences combined with Asgard weaponry made it more than a match for an entire fleet of Goa'uld or replicator ships.
It had kinetic-based weaponry, the Asgards' answer to Railguns, designed to destroy replicator missiles – which were made of replicators themselves, the missiles were designed to penetrate the hull of a ship and the replicators onboard would then proceed to replicate, assimilate and destroy the crew.
With the Asgards' kinetic based defences, the first ship of the Granger class had survived many encounters with Replicator ships. All battles had either been won or stalemated.
Then the inclusion of Anti-replicator guns, firing those energy pulses that disrupted the bonds between blocks... both on a small and large scale...
The Asgard had learned their lesson after the Beliskner. The issue then had been that the transporter sensors didn't overlap except for a certain distance away from a ship. Now, everything was overlapped just metres from the hull. If something happened and Teal'c had to go outside and destroy another deceleration drive, he could be retrieved quicker.
Hearing the pulse of the Subspace Capacitors starting up again, and the slight shift to hyperspace, Harry smiled. He'd be in Atlantis for whatever the latest situation required his presence.
He idly wondered what Cam, Sam, Daniel, Teal'c and their latest member of SG-1, Vala Mal Doran, were doing at this moment.
--
Jupiter Station
The Odyssey and the Apollo both docked within minutes of each other to the large station that served as the primary shipyards for the Tau'ri Military.
Perhaps 'docked with the station' was inaccurate... The station was more of a complex, several outposts and larger facilities, all built within a very large asteroid that had been hollowed out after years of mining for Naquadah that had occurred in the last 3 years.
The asteroid was very, very big. It had taken the Daedalus and Prometheus using specially-designed bombs being placed with pinpoint accuracy and detonated at specific times to get rid of the large rocks' rotation, and then it was simply a matter of placing a complete drive assembly and powering it to slow it down.
Once that had been done, mining work had begun. And after the first large pocket of Naquadah had been mined, the asteroid, with a nice non-decaying orbit of Jupiter and a large space big enough for a facility plus F-302 hanger...
And so the idea to build a base within for the Fighter patrols of the system was brought up.
And thanks to a further mining, the base had expanded, until the idea to use some of the vacuum areas that could be sealed and pressurized as shipyards for the variety of ships Earth needed was put to action.
The first Daedalus-class to be produced from the shipyard was nearing completion, within one of the 'drydock' facilities.
For show, there were modular surface docking facilities, anything from patrol boats to the daedalus class ships could dock there.
Thanks to artificial gravity, the base could be crewed by a large number of people, whom wouldn't be required to transfer out due to zero-G muscle atrophy.
Self-propelled pressurized trains took the command staff of each ship from the docking buildings on the surface, into the asteroid and through the miles of tunnel to the main facility.
The main facility now, was huge. It could garrison as many as 2,000 people, 8 people to a room in every room. With 250 quarters though, the actual number of people during normal operations was not quite so high. The station staff only took up 50 of those quarters. Some command staff, so a single person to some of the quarters each, and then the lower ranks and civilians, 2, and in some cases, 4 people to a room. No more than 140 people.
The other 200 quarters served as VIP and Guest quarters to whichever crew were staying the night before the official launch of a vessel. So many when several smaller ships were completed, like the 60-crew Destroyers.
But those 250 quarters only took up, ironically, a quarter of the total space to the main facility.
A full half of the space, was actually devoted to production of smaller vessels, and the total size of that production area equalled that of Boeings' 747 manufacturing plant.
It was separated into smaller areas, a quarter to producing the weaponry, a quarter to the Talon and Eagle variants of the highly-successful 403 fighter that succeeded the F-302, an a quarter to building the shuttles and drop ships.
Production on each however was a long process, so it wasn't like their production rate was like the automated car manufacturing plants on Earth, where car would be finished every 2 minutes or 2 hours, or anything.
In fact, it was only once a week that a single craft was completed. Sometimes two, when a 403 or a Shuttle was finished.
And the remaining Quarter of the main facility, was the rest of the stuff – Command/Control, office spaces and so on, the launch hanger, and the main hanger, affectionately nicknamed "Shuttlebay 1" by the star trek fans among the station staff.
Actually, there was one last area of the main facility.
The 'Train station'. The lower two levels of the station provided direct access between the cargo hauler trains from the mining facilities elsewhere on the asteroid, and the production areas.
The mid-two levels held 4 lines on each, and since the gap between each level was enough, access to the mid-two levels of the Train Station ran above and below those lines. Each line provided transport access to the various drydocks in the large asteroid. Each line provided access to two drydocks, making for 16 total drydocks.
Only 4 were large enough for a Daedalus-class ship, and while the latest ship was being finished in the 3rd of these large drydocks, the 4th was occupied by the freshly-laid keel of the next ordered vessel. Only drydock 2, 3 and 4 however, were equipped to construct ships. Drydock 1 was mainly a ceremonial one, used to officially launch a ship once it is certified space-worthy and operational.
So with a construction time of 9 months, Offsetting the construction of a ship by 3 months allowed them to commission a ship every 3 months. 4 ships launching a year, top production.
But, with limited resources, they decided that producing two at Jupiter Station, and one on Earth was enough, Production of a ship would begin every 6 months at Jupiter station.
The other 12 drydocks were all to build, service and repair smaller ships, from destroyers to transports. Indeed, 4 of the drydocks were sized for the transports, drydocks 13-16.
Production of a destroyer would start every 2 months. Since production of Destroyer-sized ship took around 6 months, with drydocks 5-8 at production, with 1-2 months gap between each ship, Jupiter station could produce 6 Destroyers a year.
Drydocks 9-12 were inactive, built in the event of ever needing a full production capacity of 16 destroyers.
In the 2 years since it became fully operational at current production levels, the Tauri military had grown significantly.
Jupiter Station had been active since just before the incident with the fall of the Asgard.
Earths' fleet now consisted of several classes of ships. From the support vessels – the French-operated Normandy transports which now numbered 16 in total, all named after French towns or cities; the British-operated Carriers – Destroyer-sized vessels specifically designed to deploy and support large numbers of fighters, of which 4 existed, all on permanent station to key systems, Sol, Alpha Site, Atlantis and Pegasus Alpha. Then there were the multi-national Destroyers. There were two types, actually. One type was not as independent as the other, designed in the anti-Mothership/Escort role in the defence of carriers. Mainly, it sacrificed range and independence for a larger shield coverage, to literally use itself as a shield against weapon fire aimed at the Carrier, and Asgard beam weaponry. The other type were more independant, with a more rounded defence focus, although offensively, still focused on anti-mothership. It didn't however, have much in the way of armour or shields in exchange for speed and manoeuvrability. Of the 8 Escort Destroyers, named 'Escort Frigate' due to being somewhat smaller than their sister destroyers half had been produced by Jupiter station, along with the 4 Carriers. Two each were assigned to the Carriers. The last 4 Destroyers produced by Jupiter station, to total 12 of the 18 ships of that size, were of the other type. 6 of them in all, often supporting a Daedalus class during combat, and provided support to SG teams in both galaxies.
Considering they had 16 transports, 4 Carriers, 8 Escort Frigates and 6 Destroyers, one would think they had enough ships.
But that's not considering that they had started with building the largest ships of the fleet. First the Prometheus, then the Daedalus class of vessels. The Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo, Korolev, Sun Tzu, Phoenix and the Poseidon.
The Prometheus had been lost 3, almost 4 years ago. The Daedalus had been lost last year to some kind of Reality drive.
That left the Odyssey in charge of the Milky Way-based forces, but considering that the ship was home to the so-called 'Asgard Legacy' in the form of the Asgard Library Database, and the Asgard Core – a collection of technology packaged together, Earth was not willing to let it actually lead. The Sun Tzu had taken up most of those duties.
With the loss of the Daedalus, the Apollo had taken command of the deployed forces there, Colonel Chekov on the Korolev having that command when the Apollo was returning to Sol for the quarterly service/maintenance.
The Phoenix was assigned to Pegasus, and when both the Korolev and Apollo were not on station, would support activities there. Same with the Poseidon in the Milkyway.
That meant they had 6 Battlecruisers. Twice the size of a Destroyer or Carrier, yet they had only a quarter the number of fighters a carrier could deploy in a single engagement. However, a Daedalus class could take quite a pounding. Far more than a carrier could, shot-for-shot.
The galaxy was a big, dangerous place, however. And the need for a ship in many places drove them to keep producing them.
Smaller ones to shuttle between when the Stargate was impractical.
The medium sized ones to protect their assets, and support their big guns.
And the large ones for their offensive.
The next two ships of the Daedalus Class were going to be special, though.
While the Korolev and Sun Tzu had received the Asgard-derived technology upgrades like Beam Weapons and improved shields as 'patches', the Phoenix had been built with half of them and yet to receive some of the latest developments, and the Poseidon had been built with the patches, it's keel having been laid shortly before those improvements had become available, the next two were to have a special outfit.
In a way, they would be more powerful than the Odyssey.
They were, first of all, being built with Mark 5 Subspace Capacitors as their power source. Just two of the 6 each ship would have, provided the same power as what the regular Daedalus ships had prior to the introduction of the technology a few years ago. All 6 however, at combined output, theoretically could match a Fully-charged ZPM. As the two technologies were in essence, the same, only the ZPM could extract a constant non-changing amount-per-second at the cost of being only a battery – the self-contained region of subspace, where-as the Mk 5 Subspace Capacitors, the Tau'ri's answer to ZPM technology, produced power in bursts, but never ran out. That the lowest point in all 6 Mk5's output, would match a regular Daedalus', meant the ships had plenty of power to spare. With the special-designed Asgard 'Surge Protectors', offsetting the bursts meant that through the protected network, powerflow would be at a constant level, with few low or high dips and peaks. Something that had been missing from the other ships since the technologies' introduction.
What was even more unique, was that the ships would be capable of cloaking, like the Odyssey.
What made them more powerful than the Odyssey, though, was that they were not to be outfitted with the regular missiles, but instead with a newly developed drone. Literally, based on the concept of Ancient drone weapons. More powerful than Missiles, though less than the ancient drones, and harder for wraith to shoot down. They were quadruple the size of ancient drone weapons, but considering the launch tube sizes for each, and the real-estate available in the VLS area of the Daedalus class, and that was a lot more drones than the others' missiles.
The first of the new variant, was soon to be complete.
The USS George Hammond. It would take the place as the Military flagship, under the command of former SG-1 and Atlantis Commanding Officer, Colonel Samantha Carter.
The ship to follow, was the USS Elizabeth Weir. So named because she was just as important to the Atlantis Expedition as George Hammond had been to the Stargate Program. And like its' namesake, the Weir would have a commander known for his diplomacy.
In Vala's opinion, It was about time that Daniel got some true recognition, even if it was to be the civilian commander of a ship not even named after him.
--
The VIPs who had gathered for the important final pieces of the Hammond's construction watched from the observation deck as the name-plates were lowered onto the hanger pods. With perfect timing, the hanger pods' floodlights that were aimed at the last pieces came on, highlighting the name on the ship.
Harry turned to Sam, the Guest of Honor, and saw the tears and sadness in her eyes.
He stepped up to her, and cupped her cheek. Normally, she would be annoyed at gesture in public, but she wasn't this time.
"He should have been here to see it."
Harry nodded, and pulled her into a hug. "George would be proud of what we have accomplished. And he'd be hard-pressed to find a better commander for it." Harry pulled away, just enough to kiss her on the cheek.
She protested though. But not quite how you'd think.
She simply shifted and kissed him smack on the lips.
Whoops came from the audience, but they both ignored it.
In one corner, General O'Neill watched, his own arm wrapped around the waist of his '+1'. The rest of the former SG-1, gathered near him.
"7 more months and you'll be a bona' fide Captain Kirk." Jack joked to his best friend.
Daniel just laughed, and commented, "I'll be more of a Captain Picard."
"And Vala your Beverly Crusher?"
Daniel winced, and said, "Don't even joke about that, Jack. Have you seen her attempt at first aid?"
Cam laughed at the reminder. Vala however, frowned. Had she kept her memories from a time-bubble 2 years ago, she would have understood the reference. But she hadn't so she didn't. "Is this another Pop Culture reference?"
An unexpected voice interrupted. "Indeed it is, Miss Doran."
Jack, Daniel and Teal'c turned, to see Jonas Quinn.
"Hey guys. You really think I'd turn down the invitation?"
"I most certainly did not, Jonas." Teal'c spoke.
Jonas nodded, and accepted the place to stand that Teal'c and Daniel shifted away from to open up for him. He then turned to look at the couple across the room, who were getting whistles now. "100 bucks says they can make that last for the next 5 minutes." Jonas suddenly spoke.
"No bet." Jack winced. "I've already lost enough money because of those two."
No one was polite enough to hold in their snickers.
Then two voices piped up from next to Teal'c, "Uncle T, don't be mean to Grampa Jack."
This time, the group chided by the two kids who preferred the company of Teal'c when not with their parents, did hold in their snickers, this time directed at the fact that the kids got their own joke in with calling Jack 'Grampa Jack'.
Jonas looked down at the kids, and then bent down to accept their hug.
"My you two have grown. Keep doing that and you'll be taller than T."
"We will not. Uncle T's the talles' Jaffa in the 'verse." Little Janet spoke.
Jacob piped in, "We gotta get taller than you firs', Uncle Jonas."
"Indeed you do." Jonas spoke, laughter in his eyes. "Dare say though, soon you will be."
Jack tried to ignore the continued snickers.
Taking pity on him, Daniel asked, "Harry's got the Odyssey, Sams' getting the Hammond, me the Weir, and Jonas, you're rejoining SG-1 now that peace between the countries on Langara is firmly established. How long you bet before Cam gets a ship too?"
Harry joined in at that point, he and Sam having finished kissing and having walked over to hear that. "Oh, Cam's not due one for... two, three years?" Harry looked at Jack when he asked. "I've had the Odyssey for the last year, the Hammond will be done with the trials in about a month and ready to be officially commissioned a few weeks after that, and given the differences in our ages..."
Cam rolled his eyes at that. "Way I see it, I've got another 6 years on SG-1."
"And to an eventful 6 years for you." Harry grinned unrepentantly at that. "May you last longer than Jack did."
"Hey!"
Little Janet and Jacob walked over, and Sam and Harry obliged the obvious sign that they wanted to be picked up. Harry picked up Janet, who promptly told him, like she had Teal'c, "Daddy, don't be mean to Grampa Jack."
Harry nodded, the teasing in his eyes reducing a little.
Then Jacob piped in, "To easy."
"Oi, you got two troublemakers in the making there, Harry." Jack groaned, while the other members of SG-1, past and present, laughed.
Harry nodded, and was amused as Janet leant towards her brother, who was held by Sam, and the two shared a high-five.
"Marauders in Training." Sam spoke.
"Huh?"
Sam and Harry shared a look, but neither said anything.
After all those years, Harry had finally shared his past with Sam, in full. What remained of her doubts and fears about Harry, had been washed away. She accepted him, who he had been before SG-1, and who he was now after the Odyssey. All that remained was her love and awe.
The gathered audience quieted.
Wondering what was going on, Harry and Sam watched as Jack walked into the middle of the room, and looked around at everyone, whom looked back.
"12 Years ago, I met this scientist. She was a Captain at the time, and eager to get out here and discover new worlds, and stick it to the Goa'uld.
"12 years is a long time to know someone. There has been happy times, sad times, moments when we all thought the other lost, died, or worse. But no matter what, we all stuck together. In 12 years, we became closer than close, we became family. And over the years, that family grew. It started with just Daniel and I, the first mission to Abydos, when we didn't know just what the Stargate was exactly. Then 12 years ago, I met this wonderful man, he was a General, and while we didn't exactly get along right away, I daresay, we couldn't have gotten along then.
"Then I was reunited with my Brother in all but blood, Daniel. And at the same time, I met the Captain. Shortly after, we met Teal'c, and so SG-1 was born, and over time, we became a family of 5.
"General Hammond, Myself, Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c. Then came along Harry. He was just a kid, and believe me, the story behind why he's an old fogey now I can barely get my head around."
People laughed. Harry's story was, 2 years on, still a bit of a talking point.
Amidst the laughter, Jacob and Janet booed, making people laugh a bit more.
"He didn't join SG-1 at first. Not for two years. But still, he did more than his fair share in the fight. And he did so with a risk none of us knew or could understand.
"He wasn't forced, he volunteered. He's the kind of guy I'd trust with the life of not just myself, but the love of my life." With that, Jack looked over at the woman that had accompanied him. After a moment, he looked back at the gathered people. "About a year after he arrived in our lives, Jonas came.
"But it wasn't all happy news. We lost one of us. Daniel. For a year he was gone, Ascended. And Jonas, he joined SG-1. He wanted to prove himself, but more than that, he wanted to atone for something he didn't need to atone for. And so our family lost a member, and gained one.
"And then, sometime before Daniel returned, Harry was accepted onto SG-1. He was almost definitely becoming a member of the family already. And so our Family became 6. And shortly after, Daniel returned, and it was 7."
Everyone listened intently. It wasn't often Jack spoke as he was doing.
"When we discovered Anubis' Kull Warriors, when we tried to stop him from making any more... we almost lost one of us. Fatally wounded. But Harry wouldn't, couldn't accept that. He used forces that many of you would say, should not be in the hands of any single man or woman. And yet you would all say that, if one person did have to hold those forces, you would all agree, Harry is the one person who should.
"He couldn't heal Sam, but he could keep her from death. And he did."
He paused, not sure what to say. Harry coughed and he nodded slightly.
"That was a long, long week. But we came out of it stronger than ever."
He looked around, and then coughed. "And then I became a General, given command of the SGC, and I promoted Sam to Lieutenant Colonel. SG-1 was down to 4 once more, but the family was still 7 strong. But not for long.
"An important part of Harry, that which meant he was in greater risk than the rest of us, well... he was finally feeling that risk. And so he had to spent half a year with the Asgard, lest he die. Jonas was no longer able to visit due to political upheavals on Langara. And so the family was down to 5.
"A few months after Harry returned, and I wasn't at the SGC anymore. The Goa'uld had been defeated and I was placed in charge of Homeworld Security, with the retirement of General Hammond. After his retirement, he still couldn't get me to call him Gen- Geo..." Jack paused, and looked up, "Sorry sir, I still can't." Everyone chuckled a little at the pun.
"SG-1 was split up, no longer 'necessary' according to the IOA." Jack gave a large look at Richard Woolsey, who was present as the IOA representative. "Teal'c was going to help build up the Jaffa government, Sam went to Area 51 and Harry had a stint at Atlantis on the Daedalus, and after the siege, Daniel was raring to go.
"Then some hotshot pilot who almost died saving all our asses over Antartica, after finally recovering from those injuries, is granted his request to Join SG-1 only to find them gone. Mix in a Con artist and we got Cam Mitchell, Vala and Daniel, traipsing around looking for treasure. And then... the Ori became a threat. Vala got lost in their galaxy after majorly delaying their entreaty into our galaxy, and Daniel couldn't go to Atlantis. Teal'c, frustrated or something, never did get the full scoop there, comes back, Harry finishes his tour on the Daedalus and Sam returns from Area 51.
"And so, the family was now 6."
Jack paused to gather thoughts, then he grinned.
"2 years later, and who'da thought, it would be this large? I, Jonas, Cam, Teal'c, Vala, Daniel, Sam, Harry, and the little monsters wrapped around their parents. 10 of us."
Jack looked out the observation window, and spoke again. "If only it were 11."
Everyone was quiet, a somber moment passing.
"Here's to Family. May the future expand it ever more."
"Here here." Someone spoke.
Jack wasn't done. "And here's to the finest couple and Commanding Officers anyone could ever serve with, Colonels Carter and Potter."
--
A/N:
Okay I never imagined this would become this large! At first it was just a 'the tauri fleet isn't just a bunch of ships that take so long to build, when they could build transport ships smaller than that that would be faster because of the smaller size etcetera.'
Then I had to throw in the 'dedication' ceremony to fluff it up with character interaction. I never guessed it would become... this.
I wrote this because it was in my head and I didn't think I'd remember or do it nearly this much justice when i do get this far through writing the entire story.