Chapter 6: A settling sensation
"Aww, come on, you can see it now, a few shrubbaries, an E-web in a tower overlooking the driveway, the Imperial Flag fluttering in the breeze..."
"The flag might be overdoing it."
/Somewhere in the Rockies/
Dawn... birds chirped and overlooked the construction site of the Air Force's newest base. Deep in the upper reaches of the rockies, high up in Montana, the new base was more than just an R&D facility. After all, so far away from society, it was perfect for the 1701st to settle their roots as the start of their new life. No empire and rebellion, well, a whole new definition of it, with them in the unexpected, and unexplored realm of being the dirty little terrorist fighters themselves.
The birds flew in, skittering amongst the large block of buildings, the temporarily makeshift road leading into the base busy with military traffic, of the current age, and the more advanced hovercraft of the 1701st... and then the tranquility shattered, as did one unfortunate bird, at a nearby near-sonic transit of an F-302, followed close-behind by a TIE-Interceptor giving practice chase. Various individuals looked up, watching the two give merry hell to their opponents, before screaming back over the horizon and up into suborbital territory to continue their match.
Not a worry in the world at the moment, not a soul within 100 miles that wasn't either directly a part of the SGC, or working for an organization that knew about it. A safe haven for the crew of the Enterprise, and what would become the SGC's future home when they began work on the underground portion of the base. Everything was going well, and his good fortune kept Captain Sheridan with a smile on his face, as he overlooked his crew's work like a proud father watching his children build themselves a new toy.
The sprawling mostly 3 story fortress formed the heart of the base, FTL hypernode comm arrays, sensor dishes, radar turrets and all manners of interesting devices for monitoring what would eventually become a galaxy-wide struggle for freedom and liberation. The gray durasteel of it's prefabbed central core was surrounded by the beginnings of native-built complex that would concern itself with more mundane aspects of the battle, logistics, personelle, fun toys involving superheated plasma...
The president of their host country hadn't really wanted to allow a base to be set up at first, until the SGC had shown him the rather... wrecked state the Enterprise was in at the moment. The crew could have survived on the impromtu spacestation alone, but that would have been rather hazardous, and the offer of a defensive outpost capible of striking back at the Goa'uld from the surface in his country swayed his mind, eventually. Col. O'neill had made the point the best, actually...
"If we're going to make a deal, why not make the deal that lets us SHOOT BACK!?"
The next week had been spent frantically finding the quickest location that they could set up in. Montana had eventually been picked, being one of the most remote and uninhabited states in the continental 48, and within a thousand miles of the original SGC site. A huge strech of land had been for sale, and the Air Force proceeded to snatch it up. The cover story for the new base under construction was that it was being used for a new joint-forces experiment, having all of the combined forces of the US working together closer than ever before to try and develop new joint-forces technologies and strategies.
A truth within a lie, like the Deep Space Radar Telemetry of the SGC. It did look at such things, but more of as a side-result of it's operation, not the actual operation itself. As such was it with Ft. Avalon. After all, they were experimenting with new joint-forces strategies and technologies, along with trying to make all the branches of the armed forces get along. Though it was all a side effect of it's real purpose, the primary ground base for the 1701st, and the crew of the Enterprise, along with the construction facility that would work on the new Prometheus refit that the spare engineers from the Enterprise were working on with the SGC's starship development department.
Sheridan had heard rumors that they were also developing a cruiser class, based off of what had been supposed to become the BC-304 class, and applying the raw talent and ideas of the SGC to the proven ideas of the techniques of the Empire. The Enterprise had found itself now, once it's own refit plans were finished, as a flagship, a battleship, a destroyer of stars indeed. Some of the things he had heard about the plans for his ship frightened him. This EU that had been developed around the stories told of his galaxy, told of a fellow Star Destroyer mounting a Super Laser... and with the new naquada generators and various technologies the SGC had, they expected to be able to fit one spinally on the Enterprise, giving her a fearsome main gun. They suspected that it potentially could get enough raw power from 8 naquada generators to match the original Death Star's primary weapon, though they were not holding hope on that.
It had been... rather interesting, that day when he had tried to get into the design center aboard Bayblon, only to find the various scientists blocking the door with a fairly large human wall. That had not stopped him from catching a glimpse of the new planned shape of his ship, far more graceful and smooth, with what looked like a 303's hanger arrangement on the underside, and landing bays on the dorsal superstructure. Add in a far expanded bridge section that looked almost like a saucer, likely with interesting surprises in store, and what appeared to be the whole ship being expanded, he was worried he wouldn't even recognize his ship at all when they were done...
His ship... the thought was still mind-boggling. Him, the captain of the single most advanced Star Destroyer that had been as of yet, a monster that he suspected would pack far more of a punch once the SGC got done with it and their adding of new technologies. He never would have thought of himself as captain of anything greater than a Dreadnaught, being too much of a maverick, free thinker, and sticking too much to his oath to protect the people. That oath was more for show than actual following, it had seemed like in those dark days before he was swept into this strange new galaxy.
Now, there was hope for his misplaced ideals, of having made a diffrence, to ensure that he actually worked for something worth working for.
He looked back out over the fort that was growing, watching the dust plumes from various vehicles traveling along the unfinished roads. An outdoor theater was going up at the moment, a temporary measure to give the crew something to watch in the nights, as the night-crew worked. He had talked to Col. O'neill to ask about what had been picked out for the beginning run for the theater, and he had replied cryptically, "Star Trek." Then he'd smirked and walked off. What in the heck did he mean by Star Trek?
/ Fort Avalon, Montana, Outdoor Theater, 1900 that evening/
The Eisley Enforcers had finally found their way back to the home camp of the 1701st, after a short stint working with SG-1. Not too much had happened there during their stint, odd considering SG-1's luck combined with their own. General Hammond had been glad when they had left, due to the bad influence they had been on the various SG teams, in the way of dealing with jaffa attacks and packing.
And, just in time for the beginning of the introductory series of entertainent to help make it easier for them to adjust to the new world they had found themselves in. They scooted along the aisles, finding SG-1 already sitting down and enjoying the speculation going on amonst the various individuals in the audience and proceeded to squish in beside them, the infamous squad's status quickly convincing people to scoot over. Teal'c passed over a 2 gallon sized tub of popcorn, which found itself centered between the Jacob's as the outdoor lights began to slowly dim.
"So, what exactly is this 'Star Trek'? I've heard it discussed by a quite a few people in rather reverant tones." Stari leaned around the giant bucket of popcorn in his lap, looking at the smirking SG-1 to his right. The primitive screen that had been set up began to glow from the projection reflecting off of it, re-illuminating the area faintly.
"Now why would we spoil that when you can watch right now?" Jack leaned back in his seat, having watched the film a few times with Teal'c, who had found the series almost as... fascinating, as Star Wars.
The sound of the opening credits beginning focused everyone's attention on the screen, and the assorted stormtroopers, pilots, and personelle learned a segment of the history of the original ship named Enterprise, and began to understand why they looked up. A ship of hope, a name of hope, that is what was implied in the Enterprise.
They smiled at the sight of her leaving dock, some loving her looks, hissed at Kahn, cringed at the sight of her mangling by the Reliant. Stood in awe, humbled by the power of the Genesis Device; and chuckled viciously at Kirk's most infamous line, loving how sneaky the Admiral could be still, despite starting to loose his grip. Cheered the Enterprise on as she evened the odds, and proceeded to lay the smackdown on the Reliant. Booed Kahn as he decided to try and take the Enterprise with him, and went silent, at the spectacle of the Genesis Planet, and the last gasp of Spock.
Nothing the Empire had was that good, almost everything the Empire had being gutted by the Intelligence and Security divisions to be 'compliant' with the Emperor's vision, which was to say: more boring than watching a Tatooine dunescape. But, the sheer magnitude of what the Earthers had thought up astounded them all. A single torpedo that could simply make an entire planet, and fill it with life? An astounding tool... and a far more terrifying weapon than the Death Star. After all, if you could program in a planet, what was to say that they could not put into the matrix... oh, say a planetary level mass worth of ships? Fully crewed and staffed by whoever and whatever you wanted, totally loyal and ready to die at your whim?
The engineers took notes, the ideas of what the Federation had sparking ideas for their projects, as they saw what had inspired some of the design choices of the SGC designers who were working on the Enterprise. Their Enterprise, not the Federation one in the movie. As it was, they had begun to understand what they were driving at, and some of the toys of the Enterprise, especially those 'photon torpedoes' had been interesting. A ship could look beautiful and deadly, after all, which is what the SGC had been starting to go at.
The Eisleys looked over to SG-1, having found the movie to be fantastic. And this popcorn stuff was pretty interesting, too! This whole planet had a fresh look at ideas, a new perspective that was starting to make them wonder why in the hell they had ever considered the Empire a good option.
Toral was the first to speak up, his accent described already by Earthers as 'southeastern country'. "Nice ship, even if a bit impractical. Too bad she was ripped a structurally superfulous new one." He grabbed a handful of popcorn over the objections of Dell, popping a piece into his mouth. Tasty. "And she does prop up some interesting ideas and concepts that I never thought of. Or that we just haven't been able to master. For all that we have a 'disentigrate' setting, it doesn't work very well. Sort of 'burn your flesh from your bones', rather than actually doing the job it claims."
"Remind me to introduce you to a zat, sometime." Jack slurped at his mostly gone slushie, settling back for the second half of the double header. There was number 3 to see next, with 4 and 6 tomorrow. He wouldn't get to see those, having to go back to base tomorrow for another mission.
"What's with those big pylons and the outboards mounted on them? Doesn't seem like a good design." Stari looked around the popcorn bowl, stealing a handful himself, earning another annoyed look from his clone brother.
"The warp drive they were talking about. It warps space to put the ship into a bubble of an alternate space-time where the speed of light is far faster." Carter had studied the series some in order to know what in the heck some of the other geeks in the department sometimes babbled on about. "There are a lot of ideas the SGC has been wanting to try, but we only have a limited understanding of many higher forces."
"Sounds like a project for industrious individuals to work on so we can proceed to confuse and discombobulate some poor fool." Toral smiled and looked over his engineering goggles that he usually wore, an interested and maniacal gleam in his eyes.
/Goa'uld Territory, Anubis's flagship/
The dark god stopped in his tracks, as something far away caught his attention. The game he had been playing had been shifted. He could feel a blind spot, where that meddlesome fool had blocked his vision. Earth... the Taur'i... they had something which could hurt him. It was as if a terrifying force had cried out in anticipation, and had been told to be quiet before it could give away anything.
He turned to his first prime, annoyed still that he could still not move against Earth in any close time-frame. So what if it was a ship of the Federation, from the symbol that the annoying meddler had choosen? 20 Ha'taks and his mothership would be enough. After all, it wasn't like he had summonded a ship from that dammable Imperium of Men from that alternate universe, or any number of other worse case scenarios.
The technologies he could get from the wreck, though... it was a bad day when Q summoned the starship Enterprise to be destroyed...
Too bad it wasn't the StarSHIP, but rather a Destroyer of the Stars... Anubis began plotting, laying out new plans to his First Prime, ripples spreading out from the great game. It would be longer now, though, before Anubis begins his march against Earth. All the better to prepare with. Whispers are constantly heard throughout the galaxy. The Taur'i have new equipment, new ships, at least one more...
An expidition to Earth Space by a system lord finds itself blown away almost as soon as it leaves hyperspace, by something out there. The system lords chalk it up to the Asgard, and decide to leave Earth alone, lest they bring the wrath of the Asgard down on their heads. Every whisper comes back to the dark ascended who has been pulling the strings.
His intrest grows, as he listens to the growing confusion regarding Earth, the growing forces that they field, wielding plasma weapons now, powerful enough to hurt anything the system lords have, and his own Kull warriors. That little surprise quickly caused Anubis's primary focus to shift back to the Taur'i from his quest for the Ancient cities. They should not have been able to come close to doing that.
If he still had a physical body, he would have smirked as he directed a whole legion of Kull warriors to the small outpost the Taur'i called "Alpha Base". It was time to find out what they were up to.