Smite +1701
Ch 5: The rumbling of distant thunder.
"Smile and wave boys, smile and wave... RUN!"
/1701's Main Engineering Section./
The large chamber was what the unitiated would call a monument to sheer Imperial arrogance, a 400 meter long chamber leading from the main reactor to the engine distribution nexus, divided into compartments partially by the currently sealed blast doors meters thick, and 50 meters tall.
To those who worked the trade of Engineering, it was far more than what outsiders saw. It was a cathedral to raw power, tamed and tapped into a normally awsome and humbling show as raw plasma pumped from the massive mini-sun of the main reactors into the ion thrust drives of the ship.
Right at the moment, the Chief Engineer Gale Averre could only see the ashes of past glories, as the Enterprise slowly bled out her heat and air from gashes that he couldn't repair without help. Or at least access to a generous quantity of Durasteel. Even with the emergancy repairs in so many of the areas of the ship, she still was springing leaks like a bug net trying to stop mynocks. The room was mostly quiet, and dark, with the structural damage. To the fore, the room was shuttered and atmospherically sealed against the breach that clipped the area.
His poor engines... worked on so lovingly for so long, and now silent, lest they rip themselves apart from their damage. The cold, the silent conduit under the platform he stood... the dark shadows overhead... the sudden bright light and harmonic c- wait, that wasn't right...
Sheridan clamped his hand down on Chief Averre's shoulder, eliciting a semi-girlish scream from the rarely excitable engineer. Perhaps too many gloomy thoughts of future ghost stories of the Enterprise. He turned to his captain and the shirt-sleeved Stormtroopers behind him, the Eisley Enforcers.
Captain Sheridan turned around, crisply nodding to the troopers, who split, running diffrent ways to the far reaches of the ship to gather troops and pilots for getting the Pudgeboat 1 portion of Babylon station up and runninging, and for clawing the Enterprise into a close embrace with it's host.
"Mr. Averre, I know we have not gotten along in the past, but we now have a mission. I want you to have a compliment of engineers ready within the hour to hook the Enterprise up to one of the TZ-900s were were escorting, and to prepare for extended repair and rebuild operations using off-spec tech without assistance from Corellea Construction or the Imperial Core of Engineering. I know you will treat this operation with the utmost importance and urgancy, and will have it done properly and on time." Sheridan turned around to start on getting together some of the protocols on negotiations and other issues that would be coming up in the coming months, including the never-really-used joint force protocols and rulings.
And Averre looked on, completely confused as to what was going on. The flash of light, what was that all about. "Sir! Wait, what was all that? The light, the hum th-"
"Mystical jedi altering the space-time continuum and providing me a transporter. Now go on... I've got plans to make. We're mostly alone out here." Sheridan turned around and left before Averre could ask anymore questions. He couldn't easily explain, and he intended to let the situation explain itself. It was fairly uncomplicated after all. He had bigger fish to fry, like getting started on a new galactic goverment. And Gale was fun when he got flustered.
"But, but... THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC!"
"Then I'll let you have fun denying, then!" Sheridan shook his head as he moved for the lift back up to his quarters.
/Enterprise, Section 15 Deck 46/
Jacob Stari slid across the corridor on the still somewhat fresh coating of wax, before his boots caught a grip on the deck and regained traction, his momentum in his choosen direction building again. There were times when he regretted the somewhat ill-thoughtout lift system of the Enterprise, and having to make a run from the engineering compartments forward to the pilot's lounge.
The sound of his boots skidding along the floor as he slid to a stop in the Echo Squadron pilot's lounge got the pilot's attention, a game of sabac halting to look up at the intruder
"Hey, what are you doing here, Gank?" Echo Lead looked up to the familiar, and somewhat liked trooper. He had earned their respect somewhat, and his nickname at the same time. The Eisley Enforcers had been on a infiltrate and annialate mission in support of one of the Enterprise's anti-pirate missions 2 years back, about a year after Yavin. In the middle of it, a wing of starfighters was preparing to launch from the station to take down the bomber wings.
Stari had been in position to see a rebel starfighter, one of the rumored H-wings, being prepped as a gunship, and had decided to do something about it. No-one was quite sure how he managed to secure it, given his propencity for tall tales, and the lack of evidence at the scene for the most part, but it was generally agreed that he had snuck up on the guards, and had proceeded to stab one in the throat, whispering, "You've been ganked." in his ear. The rest of the fight had been quick, bloody, and left pieces of dead pirates and rebels scattered everywhere. Then he proceeded to grab the rest of his squad and make off with the already once-stolen fighter-gunboat, and give the pilot wings a surprise they never forgot as the foursome proceeded to start shooting down pirate uglies and generally flew around making a nuisance of themselves humming the imperial anthem.
The Enforcers had kept the H-Wing, eventually getting help from the engineers in the off-periods to rebuild it into a infiltrator dropship/gunship. It had taken 6 months of work and several head-scratchings, but it could fit a 8-man squad not-so comfortably, had heavy duty TIE engines to replace the old ones, with a set of the TIE systems solar exchange units to help out it's systems, along with weapons upgrades, a modified shield generator, hyperdrive upgrades, and a whole bunch of other goodies that had been scrounged together from wherever they had been found.
And the pilots, well... anyone who could figure out how to fly that big hunk-a-junk through a battle deserved at least a little recognition. And the fact that he sometimes let them borrow it for gunship missions meant that he could get them to do what he asked for.
"We need as many shuttle and transport qualified pilots as can be found. We've got rescuers!" The demolitions expert clone pointed towards the door, only slightly breathing hard as the pilots started jumping up, datapads, sabbac cards and other items that had been getting used flying everywhere in their haste to jump into rescuing themselves. The depressurization of the hangers had been a major pain, but... "Just grab your equipment, and be back here in under an hour for the briefing!"
/Enterprise, Combat Engineer's bay/
The bay of the combat engineers for the Enterprise was a war-geek's dream. Near anything developed by the Empire for war on the ground could be found in it. From remote turrets of all types to massive walker parts, to the base prefabbed for setup, and some of the best trooper engineers that the empire had ever developed in the opinion of Dran Toral, the Corellian engineer of the Eisley Enforcers. They had formed up at seeing the venetrable engineer, who had been aboard for most of the ship's life and was considered one of the leaders for the companies of miracle workers.
Between himself and Averre, the Enforcer's custom ship had been rebuilt out of their trophy they had unoffically kept. He could have just as easily gone into starship engineering, only joining up with the Stormtrooper core because he preferred to give things that personal touch. He was just about the most senior engineer, but he was definately regarded as the engineer with the most experience.
"Gentlemen, as of right now, we are going into full combat readiness. We will shortly be engaged in a war the likes of which we have never seen before. We will be given the ability to cross the galaxy on foot through a narrow 4 meter wide gate, armed only with what we can bring ourselves. Our objective, is to save the ship, and to throw down an Empire that makes our own look like a benevolent democracy." Toral's blunt statement got a few growls and gasps out of the swarmed formation of engineers, the loyalists who would have to be watched making themselves known.
He nodded, his face remaining serious as he started taking mental notes to get with the captain or someone in charge to discuss the problems that would crop up from the die-hard imperialists. "I will also say this, we are alone in the galaxy, cut off from the Empire, pretty much permenantly from what I understand. But, we have the fortune of being in the solar system of an emerging human power, who has garnered favor with an old race that has technologies far beyond anything I have ever seen. Who will allow us to borrow those technologies for ourselves, provided we behave and help them in freeing this galaxy, and forging a new order."
The bay went from a dead hush, to frightened grumblings, to the mighty roar of ready and able engineers who intended to follow through with that promise. They all looked at Toral, ready to follow his commands, the respected old trooper smiling slightly with pride over the troops he had helped to train.
"Get whatever supplies you will need, and be back here within half an hour. We'll be taking a transporter back." At the confused stares, he nodded sagely. "Yes, they have point-to-point transporters." The sudden rush of individuals going to fill personal bags for an extended stay off the ship. Of course, in the case of engineers, this involved equipment instead of clothes. Equipment like pieces for E-webs, base scanners, hull cutters, generator parts, everything that you could carry by yourself to set up your very own ground-base.
He'd trained them well. At least this SGC that he'd heard about had sense to be underground and buried in a mountain. Though from the sluglaunchers they carried, which apparently were all that they had, other than a few captured energy weapons, they didn't have too much time to advance their sciences. Maybe after they got set up he could get the SGC to let them do some home improvement.
/Main Firing Range/
Jacob Dell, the sharpshooter of the Enforcers, and the second of the two clones, looked down the range, at the various leaders and sharpshooters of the Echo Company, 2 Battalion, 1701st Regiment. A few were practicing, trying to keep themselves occupied, but many were listening intently to him, explaining what had happened, what was going to happen. The midset red-headed clone was gesturing wildly with his drink, explaining the whole fight against the Goa'uld.
"So, you're basically telling me that these things, as far as our unproven new allies can tell, and I do stress unproven, can take you over, infiltrate, destroy, and have a god complex the size of a deathstar?" The squad leader was rather dubiously listening, but Dell had his attention.
"Yeah, from what I understand. The squad we caught down below was their flagship team that deals with the same kind of wierd phodo we do. Those energy weapons we took off of them were developed by the enemy. From what I understand, they fight a lot like our more rabbly bottom-scraper counterparts." Dell, took a swing of his drink, before gesturing back towards the aft of the compartment, ostenably towards their home galaxy, wherever in corellian hells it was.
"So they can't shoot for phodo at 50 meters, have little to no grasp of tactics, generally are cannon fodder and don't understand the concept of 'DUCK'?"
Dell nodded, shrugging. "Sounds about how they described them. Pretty encouraging. Though these new 'Kull' warriors that recently appeared sound more worrying. Should prove to be an interesting fight, provided we can shoot at them from a reasonable distance. 5k sounds good." The laughs of knowing individuals filled the local area. Dell was known for making outragous shots, usually involving the biggest gun he could find in the most complicated fashion when allowed to. Well, when the command staff didn't yell at him afterwards.
"So we've got 40 minutes to gather together troops? Sounds like it's time to ruin some wanna-bies' day."
"Sounds like a plan. I'd say be back in 37 minutes to be on the safe side, with a good compliment of weapons. I don't know if we'll be back until they fix the ship." Dell chuckled as he thumped his mug onto the table. He wondered if he was a force sensitive that had slipped through the cracks. Certainly he shot well enough to have been accused of using it once or twice. "And bring friends, too!"
"Shoot 'em where it hurts, Dell!"
"Shoot 'em every time!" The clone got up, looking down the range as the group began gathering people up to get ready. His story was pretty unbelieveable, but the Enforcers were one of the best, though the single most unconventional squad. They had gone through enough strange missions that if they said that a planet was made out of cheese, or that time was looping, they would be instantly believed, and the science department that the ship had would be jumping to figure out more.
The clone gestured to one of the shooters, who handed over his weapon to let the sharpshooter have at it. He took a stance, and fired off 10 blasts to see if he still had it. Even with his loose, casual shots, he punched 10 holes in the rebel-shaped target's center of mass. Wasn't the smiley he was going for, but they were close enough together at 50 meters that he was fairly confident that the jaffa wouldn't be able to tell the diffrence when, or if he met them. He gave the weapon back, and headed for his quarters to grab a few shirts and pants, along with the few personal effects he had.
/Prometheus Main Bridge/
"Are we sure they'll work with us? I would rather not take any chances with an organization that was willing to destroy an entire planet, and that has been shown to be far more destructive and inventive than the Goa'uld." General Hammond watched the radio beacons aboard the Enterprise, 4 of which that marked the stormtrooper squad converging back on a single location.
"Their captain seems a lot like me, with a bit of Teal'c and Danny thrown in for rounding out. I say trust them, and find out the die-hard imperialists in the crew and watch them. The fact that Sheridan seems to be embracing new ideas seems to me like he's one of the better guys." O'neill was back in his shirtsleeves uniform, watching the progress as the Prometheus lined up another of the Pudgeboats next to the other two, lining them up to provide a triangular drydock enclosure for the Enterprise, which they had been assembled around.
"Imperialists, embracing? Jack, your vocabulary is growing." Daniel smiled as he watched Jack scowl, and turn around to face his cheeky alternate.
"A one time deal, Daniel.." Jack turned back to the now shadowed front windows, as the small form of the Prometheus slowly manuvered on it's RCS thrusters into the makeshift bay, hovering very very carefully over the forward side of the Enterprise, inspecting it at almost hull-kissing range. At the close range, the crew of the Prometheus could look out, seeing the myrad micro-damages that had been inflicted. Smaller defensive emplacements sheared off, little pittings from various incidents... the ship was a mess, pure and simple.
"I'm disinclined to trust them, but I'm willing to risk it if you can vouch for them." The uneven lighting of the Prometheus's overhead lights cast strange shadows on Hammond's face as he turned around, facing SG-1.
Teal'c looked dispassionately to Carter and Daniel, raising an eyebrow. He was willing to trust them, now it was a matter of the rest of SG-1 trusting them.
"I'm willing to trust them. The captain well knows now that we're not rebels, and as they pointed out, they have no choice but to trust us. There is no way we can opeate that thing without them, and frankly, they could well be our last hope for stopping Anubis. It's only a matter of time before he comes for Earth again." Daniel knew bits and pieces of the full power of Anubis, a scant few of his ascended memories rising to the surface now and again in his dreams. Horrible memories as bad as seeing Alderann go the way of the dodo.
"I have to agree, sir. Anubis's ships outgun and massively outmass the Prometheus. The technology of the Enterprise might allow us to close the outgunning gap. I hope that she's got enough firepower to stand up to Anubis's mothership, because we still don't have any clues as to the locations of any weapons of the Ancients." Carter was rather dissappointed at having to take this forced relationship of forces. The thoughts of a former bunch of imperialistic brainwashed crazies joining forces with the SGC struck some bad vibes with her, like the aschen had.
"You know me, sir. This is our big chance to score with something that will put the fear of god into some Goulds. Plus, I like the guy. He seems a lot like me. With a crazy ship that has more guns than the entire US navy." Jack smiled like a maniac, wondering what he could do if they ever built a second one. Once they got the first one repaired. His mind was nearly exploding with potential strategems that were possible with the massive mile long super-battleship.
"Somehow I don't think this is going to go over well, though... however, if we don't have much of a choice, then I suppose I can live with your reccomendations. Time until beam-back?" General Hammond turned back to the fore of the bridge, looking to the operations console. The operations officer looked at his running clock, which was half-over.
"24 minutes, sir."
"We'll have to see what they bring..."
/Echo Enforcers Bunk Room/
The small bunk room of the four troopers was a whirl of activity as three of them gathered together all their gear. Duffle bags were tossed fully loaded around, lettering marking them as the troopers personal belongings and gear. Dell's trunk full of sniper gear and low-profile armor slid across the floor, bumping into the rucksack with Stari's pilot alternate helmet and flight-suit and Toral's giant toolbox of goodies.
"I hope they don't mind us taking the presumption of taking up residence in their base of operations as a peace offering." Dell locked the glove of his backup armor into place, the alternate armor being his sniper gear, ligher, with a camo covering that could be shifted between a few default patternings. The angular armor looked little like standard stormtrooper armor, the dark shade-visor over the wide faceplate having a completely diffrent feel than normal trooper armor. The curved faceplate was intimidating in a whole diffrent way from the skull-like standard stormtrooper masks, machine-like, efficient, deadly.
"They won't have much choice, there are too many of us to just be cooped up on the station-freighters. They probably want cannon fodder too. We'll just have to prove them wrong, now won't we?" Stari had on his own backup armor, which was pilot modified like his primary armor. Thankfully, the cockpits of their Tie-H was big enough to take a normal stormtrooper in armor. And detonators, cutting devices and other goodies of all descriptions. The mix of demo man and pilot was odd, grenade launchers and all.
"Heh, they'll probably drool over Imperial base defensive systems. After all, if an enemy gets past this Stargate of theirs, a few dozen e-webs, and other little tricks of the trade will come in handy." Toral thumbed the sharp edges of his massively oversized wrench, easily the size of a Great Axe. It actually worked as a wrench, too, of all standards and sizes, though it was more suited for melee combat. Wrench slayer, he had been called once. He smiled, remembering good ole' times practicing with smashing various large fruits with it, back in the old days. After he had joined the Corps, and gotten senior enough to customize his field loadout, he had taken leave, gone home, and brought back the MOAW with him.
His armor was pretty much standard, save for the equipment bandoliers that covered it, filled with various goodies that he had developed over the years. Remote spy devices, miniaturized grenades, hacking devices, auto-turret pieces... you ought to be prepared for any situation after all. He popped open his toolbox, the light of the various equipment status blinkers shining forth like a declaration of glory. It was keyed to only open for him, and he always tried to make sure no-one else was around to see his full arsenal. He scowled as he felt the gaze of the clones over his shoulders, and he shut the toolbox, looking at them with a withering gaze. "Do you mind?"
The two clones sheepishly backed away and averted their eyes from Toral's toolbox, and the sometimes reculsive combat engineer shut it back tight, locking it with his thumbprint. "Lousy whippersnapper clones..." The laughs from the duo behind him got him to smile, knowing that their goofballishness was part of what had kept the Eisleys from loosing it on some of the worse missions they had been on.
The sound of the hatch opening caught all of their attention. Trik Khaar, the leader of the Eisley Enforcers and a Lietenant in the Stormtrooper core entered in, looking at his troops oddly in the strange tableu. They all stood up for their commander, the crusty and still tanned silent stickler looking at each in turn.
"The captain agrees with our plan, and many of the officers are willing to believe the story. If we can get them to let us join into their efforts, we will be the flagship team for our efforts." Quick as possible and to the point. He headed over to his own bunk, which was already half-packed as it always was. He was one of the liasons between the trooper core and the upper decks and the dampener on the madmen that were the Eisley Enforcers.
The rest of his coworkers shouldered their loads as they headed for the armory for their other weapons. It naturally wasn't good to have their weapons 24/7, too easy for a lone trooper to go crazy and go after some poor victim. Some of the problems with only needing a power pack and some easily stolen gas is that it was way too easy to power up and kill someone. Time for the hand-cannons.
/Prometheus Starboard Landing Bay/
The flash of the Asgard transporter faded away to the sound of Captain Sheridan's voice in a thunderous call. "Atten-hun!" The sound of over 600 pairs of combat boots snapping to attention cracked across the brightly lit bay, the pilots of Echo Flight, and the various troopers of the Echo Company 2 Bn 1701st.
Jack's jaw dropped at the sheer variety of various fun weapons and possibilities that were offered by the troopers. And the absolutely massive sniper rifle of the Eisley Enforcer sniper. It was nearly taller than he was, with a muzzle bigger than a fist. Sheer intimidation in a way that the Jaffa had nothing on.
"Sweet holy hanna..." Carter's astonished shock was worth the annoyance that the imperials had brought aboard so many weapons. Though he could see why they were so feared. They knew the definition of rule 37. Sure, a lot of them had the carbines, but... they had some nasty other weapons...
"Captain Sheridan, what is the meaning of this!?" General Hammond was not happy that 600 crazies had brought aboard the Prometheus the biggest damm weapons he had ever seen, with some other weapon, packs, base equipment, everything save for food to feed them with.
"If you're going to support us in refitting and saving the Enterprise, then the least we could do is provide you with a set of troops well-used to plain out wierd that your tales have informed me of. Ones that don't have to answer to allies, or be recruited clandesenly. Free for you to use as you need." Sheridan stepped forward, documentation on the abilities of Echo company on several data-pads under his arm.
"For anything we choose?" General Hammond was skeptical about this free offer of manpower. There was always, ALWAYS a catch.
"Well, so long as you take my best squad for use as the liason team with the SGC. They are the best I have ever found, and you already beamed them out once. Eisleys, forward!" Sheridan called forth the bodyguard squad of before. The one with the craziest gear. The giant blaster sniper rifle of doom, one absolutely loaded down with engineering equipment and turret components and that wrench! Then the one with the detonating equipment and some other kind of equipment, which looked somewhat like pilot survival gear.
At least the leader was somewhat normal, in a normal stormtrooper armor, though his weapon had a grenade launcher under the barrel and other small changes. Though there had to be something about him.
"They have gone through hell and back again, and will follow your orders. They are crazy and they are at your disposal."
General Hammond could only blink, as Jack O'neill smiled evilly, thinking of the nightmare teh Goa'uld were about to experience. Teal'c raised an eyebrow, looking over to Daniel, who looked back past a semi-catatonic Carter who was already thinking of what she could do with the proven energy technology and Goa'uld varients...
The rules have changed. Bigtime.