Title: In the End
Author: Ash's Boomstick
Contact: "Ash's Boomstick"
FR-15 For bad language
Summary: History tells us one thing, knowledge tells us another however ancient legends and hidden myths may yet hold the truth about the past and the future for the people of the known galaxy. A Stargate SG1 Crossover
NOTICE: THIS STORY MAY BE DISTRIBUTED FREE OF CHARGE BUT MUST NOT BE SOLD OR EXCHANGED FOR FINANCIAL RETURN IN ANY FORM.
-COPYRIGHT/DISCLAIMER NOTICE-
"UFO, Space 1999", its characters, and certain technological devices and/or references to such, from the television show, past present of near future, may be or are registered trademarks of, and may be or are copyrighted by Gerry Anderson, ATV Corporation and any new owners in the future.
Only certain characters and technologies are mine and these are the creation of the author who is solely responsible for them as such. Neither Studio is responsible for the content of this story.
THIS STATEMENT MUST ACCOMPANY THE STORY "IN THE END" IF DISTRIBUTED. THIS STORY IS FREE OF CHARGE AND MAY NOT BE SOLD OR EXCHANGED FOR FINANCIAL RETURN IN ANY FORM. THIS DEDICATION MUST ACCOMPANY ANY DISTRUBUTION OF THIS STORY.
Dedication: To the Unusual Suspects.
This is one of five stories that I am posting for people to make their choice on which of these prologues people would like to see the most of.
In the End
"In the days since the last time we were sent through a space warp the Commander has ordered a complete visual check of the exterior of Alpha and the surrounding areas, Eagles One and Nine are en route to the Nuclear waste dumps on the other side of the moon. Fortunately the Eagle pads were intact allowing the of my pilots to explore and clear the immediate area close to Alpha, for now though I'm just happy enough to relax and take a ride across the moon on a milk run."
Group Captain Alan Carter leaned backwards in his seat as he guided Eagle One across the lunar landscape, legs up on the console he looked the image of a bored pilot simply biding his time. Fortunately for the Australian few knew the lunar landscape between the sections of Moonbase Alpha better than he did and his image was just that an image. Even so the boredom of the basic patrols was getting to him, but with more than half of his pilots down from the last set of attacks, the trip through the warp and all round exhaustion, he had decided to take another set of them while roping in others to assist.
"Hey Tony you alive out there?" He said into the radio, Eagle Nine had taken the lower stockpiles and was drifting a few thousand miles to his south.
"Well if you see me ploughing into the ground I'm either dead or asleep."
Carter laughed, "Well considering how quiet it is I expected you to have said something by now."
"Nah just thinking is all."
"Ahh, a bad habit to get into. Besides any more genius ideas like the last one and we'll never get the stains out of the ceiling."
"That wasn't my fault, the equipment should have worked it must have been a fermentation problem maybe a build up of..." Tony cut off his tirade as his console beeped, "Alan, check your low frequency transmitter I'm getting a signal and it's not coming from me or Alpha."
"Nope low frequency is off." Carter sat up, "I'm checking the readings, odd I'm picking it up as well. It's a very low band emission, short range. It's reading as coming from a thousand miles to the North West close to the Mare."
"We don't have anything even close to out that far."
"Hence the problem." Carter frowned, there was something at the back of him mind about this signal, something he should remember instinctively.
"Alright, I'm only a hundred miles or so out from the source." Alan replied frowning, "Could be one of the older probes or something from the earlier moon landings."
"Or a problem with the low gain antenna?"
"Maybe, I'll get it checked out when we get back to Alpha." Carter grinned to himself, I'm heading for the co-ords."
"Watch your back Alan." Tony replied.
"Always do old friend."
Eagle One banked slightly as it's pilot shifted course towards the far off signal, as he closed the signal began to show on his faulty radio system. A small low power pulse emanating from just ahead of him, unease settled in his stomach growing as he approached the area. A lot of the surface of the errant satellite was well known to the Eagle Pilots but this part was more than that to the Australian. The feeling in his mind was becoming clearer with every moment, almost automatically he moved his instruments onto a course and speed lower than he would usually use.
Pulling back on the throttle Carter brought the Eagle to a relative crawl, the signal was directly to his west less than one hundred meters away. With the light of a nearby star already illuminating the area he could see where several rockslides and collapses all around the area, the debris now simply enveloping a small group of buildings and gantryways leaving a bare third of it now uncovered and visible.
"Holy Christ, it can't be."
"Alan say again?" Tony replied.
"How is it still there?" Alan whispered to himself
"Alan." Tony shouted on the radio, "Eagle One this is Eagle Nine, do you receive."
It had been years since he had seen the place longer since he had flown from it, after all these years how could it still have been intact. Orders had been orders and almost nothing should still have existed a decade after it was shut down. Carter shook himself from his fugue and hit the transmission button.
"Eagle One to control, there's something out here" Carter replied "It's a base."
"What? Say again." Paul Morrow replied
"Get the Commander, we've got another moonbase up here."
"Alan?" The familiar voice of John Koenig came over the radio, "What have you got?"
"John, we've got another base up here. It's a lot smaller than Alpha but its intact, just buried in dust and rock." Carter's voice was strangely subdued considering the find.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure John, it's half buried but it's there. Maybe a quarter the size of Alpha on the surface, there might be something worth salvaging perhaps even using the base itself."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves Alan, it might have people aboard."
"I doubt it Commander, I don't think is been in use for quite a while."
"How could you know that for sure Alan? There's nothing in the computer to tell us what it is or who put it there."
"Actually Commander I think I might do."
"SHADO, Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation."
"Alien Defence?" Professor Bergman started.
"In the late seventies Colonel Edward Straker of the US Air Force and General James Henderson of the United Kingdom's Army began construction of a massive multinational defence command dedicated to the interception and destruction of Alien UFOs, in 1980 the group became active and began the continued defence of the people of Earth from those same craft, the first attack was recorded in 1969 which included the kidnapping of humans en masse. For decades flying saucer shaped vessels had been seen by the public more than one, several had even been seen landing over the same amount of time including one or two that had been captured by the US and British militaries."
"Given that they had been attacking for decades at this point we had finally reached a point where the human race could fight back, Moonbase was the front line of said organisation." Carter looked up, "Once contact was made with an incoming UFO, SHADO Command would order fighters into the air, our first line of defence was a small group of one man aircraft stationed in underground launch pads before coming to the surface for take off much like our Eagles do, each was equipped with a medium range missile with a particularly nasty little nuclear warhead. Each would attempt to intercept the enemy ships, hence interceptors. Sometime one would attack sometimes a whole batch of the buggers."
Alan sat at the far end of the table facing Koenig, with his return the Commander had grabbed him and brought him into a meeting with the heads of sheds from the entirety of Alpha. Paul Morrow, Victor Bergstrom, and David Kano sat to one side while John, Helena Russell and Tony Verserchi sat on the other. The Australian pilot rubbed his eyes slightly as he continued talking, it had been a long day and by the looks of it it was going to be far, far longer.
"After the first few attacks Straker got funding to start up a short range defence against the Aliens, a few fighter squadrons across the world got secondary training and black budget funding. It wasn't enough, for years we were barely able to hold the line against the aliens so as their attacks increased so did the budget, pissing off more than a few of the senior officers in the countries attached. Some Generals found their pet projects out of the air or scrapped completely, some like Henderson didn't like the idea that some parts of his territory were being impinged on by Straker."
"Over the next few years new technology and fresh weapons designs came off the boards allowing the fight into orbit then past the moon itself, Moonbase as it was called was created under the pretence of a short term inhabitation by a colony group, three quarters of the way under construction the rest of the world got word that the base was destroyed by a massive shift that buried it. SHADO managed to finish it in peace and keep it running with no-one the wiser."
"Thats a hell of a lot to keep secret."
"It gets better" Alan explained, "Three quarters or more of the attacks were on British or British claimed soil so they needed a command centre that would allow them to come and go as they pleased without anyone noticing."
"Not easy not in England and sure as hell not in the 80s."
"Right so they hid in plain sight more or less." Carter leant back, "Burying SHADO HQ about fifty meters below the surface at the same time as building a large lot above them, SHADO made back most of their budget plus the costs of keeping the film studios above them active. Pissed off the Brass no end."
"I knew I recognised the name."
"Victor?" Koenig asked his friend
"Straker." Burgstrom insisted, "As in Harlington-Straker studios in Bedfordshire, back in the seventies and eighties they put out some of the best films available. The Mob Hill Murders, Abduction of a Hero..."
"Actually that one we made to cover up one of the worst attacks we had to face off, we were lucky it was successful."
"That was one of my favourites."
"I'm sure Commander Straker and Colonel Foster would have liked to hear that, they hated it."
"Back to the topic at hand please gentlemen."
"Sorry Commander, once SHADO was up and running we were able to form a substantial defence especially for the limited technology we had available, as I said first stop was the Moonbase. If the UFOs got past the interceptors and the Moonbase defensive line then the next set of defences would be in position to hit the UFOs inside our atmosphere, usually via one or more supersonic attack aircraft from land or from sea and if they got past those then they would wither be intercepted by ground vehicles including missile equipped mobiles or they would end up landing anyway."
"What did they want?" asked Paul Morrow, "It's hard to believe that they'd come from another star to cause a problem that necessitated such a response."
"When the aliens landed most were captured or killed, more than one autopsy let us know exactly what they wanted. One poor bastard I was unfortunate enough to see taken apart had human organs in place of what should have been something else, still pink and red but tinged green from their atmospheric needs. They were harvesting humans for their organs Paul, hearts, livers, lungs, kidneys, heck even gall bladders were found stitched into their chests. One had almost an entire person's internal organs transplanted en masse." Alan looked at Morrow with a haunted look, "Men, women, children, didn't matter to them who they took and when as long as they could get what they wanted. The first one we took down had stuff from one of my pilots' sister' when she was taken in 1969."
"Oh." Paul replied, "Sorry."
"No foul Paul, you weren't to know." Alan looked back to Koenig, "Then in 1983 about four or five years after SHADO was established a single UFO appeared in lunar space, it was incredibly well equipped, better weapons, better armour and was twice as fast as the originals. It shrugged off two direct hits from the interceptors and a missile barrage from two Skydiver aircraft, it took sixteen people then killed three SHADO operatives and their mobile before getting away. Including our second in command."
"1983." Helena Russell spoke up, "The Albright explosion?"
"Yep, Albright Close. With so many people missing or dead and the arrival of a UFO SHADO had to cover it up somehow, they put the dead operatives in Police uniforms and put them at the scene of the abduction before blowing the place to pieces. No-one knew any different afterwards, nineteen people lost to a terrible accident. Oh several groups were blamed or took credit, the IRA, the Scottish Republicans, hell even the Red Crescent and the Pan-Asian Defence Movement claimed it."
"So what happened?" Victor spoke up
"The Interceptor pilots were cleared of any wrongdoings and put back on duty, but one of the senior pilots couldn't go back onto flight status and left the squadron for other duties within SHADO." Alan leaned back, "The brass decided that if more than one of those new UFOs managed to penetrate earth space then they could take anyone and as many as they wanted to and we couldn't scratch them. A team was assembled was ordered to find a way to take them down, the pilot joined them as one of the few people at that point that had survived facing the aliens.
The pilot stood up at this point and paced behind his chair, the decision to tell them everything had been a very easy one but the telling of the tale was one that was far harder than he would have thought. Silently he gripped the back of his seat and lowered his voice slightly, less of a story and much more of a horrific and terrible memory.
"Eighteen months, the loss of six entire squadrons of Interceptors,, the almost total destruction of the Skydiver fleet and any atmospheric aircraft SHADO could scrounge, One hundred and four ships and planes, five hundred personnel, ninety three agents, and four hundred and sixty seven civilians taken but nothing could be done to stop the bastards. Everything single thing that our defences had built up over five years was gone and we were running out of time, they stopped sending the old type of ship and left the new ships on their kidnapping missions, maybe they had none left or maybe they realised that they only needed to send a few missions with the ability to pick up more victims. At first they came less frequently allowing us to rebuild small amounts of our defence fleet just to see whatever we could send up wiped out, we managed to take one of them down over the straits of Dover took the last of our ships to do it. Oddly enough it was out first and last laser equipped prototype Eagle."
"So what did you do Alan?" John replied, Carter's smile turned to a grin for a second before he spoke again.
"Well it wasn't as if it wasn't obvious." Alan looked at the others around the table, "13th February 1985, the Aliens got cocky. Whoever they had in charge had realised that nothing we could send up even came close to stopping them anymore, as far as they could tell every ship we had was gone, every defence exhausted. For months they were able to attack without a single attempt to stop then, so one day six advanced UFOs appeared in the solar system directly on a course to Earth deliberately moving through every remaining defence we had as if to say 'your attempts to stop us are laughable'. This time however Moonbase didn't go to alert, the last interceptors we had stayed in place and the only proof we'd seen them was the alert from our long range orbital telescope."
February 13th 1985
Trans-Earth Orbit
"Confirmed Squadron Leader, SID has six, repeat six UFOs on direct intercept for the western hemisphere, point of impact Somerset England."
"Roger that Command, Squadron is under stealth, going to EMCON status. Wish us luck."
"Good Luck Shadow Lead. Command Out."
"Wonder which smart arse come up with that squadron call sign." Squadron Leader Alan Carter said to himself, "Ok, engines to idle, main reactor to five percent, weapons to standby. This should be an interesting fight."
To his flanks another eleven ships floated dark and quiet in high orbit of the planet, with the majority of their defences against the aliens all but useless, he had completely retired from the Interceptor wing and returned to the ground side part of SHADO HQ. However his skills as a pilot and higher than average IQ had had him sideways transferred to the World Space Agency's Test Piloting Corps. It hadn't been long before he had realised why he'd been sent there, almost half of the Corps were SHADO personnel under secondment to the WSA.
Prototypes of what was being referred to as an 'Eagle' were already built and under testing when he arrived, compared to what he had been flying with the Aussie Air Force and at Moonbase it was a scow but a scow with a lot of promise. Within weeks he had gone over the specs and made modifications to them before talking to the ground crew of Proto-3, the changes were made immediately and within the month he was at the controls of a far faster, agile and above all more powerful vessel.
Since that day he had tweaked and modified the design beyond its original parameters slowly turning the cargo ship into something far more deadly, the single forward laser was split and enhanced by adding sponsons to the head while a missile battery was added to the main body within the removable cargo pod. Others in the team had looked over his evolving design and changed much of the design, more powerful engines from the Earth-Moon run rockets replaced the less capable ones aboard the Eagle, the armour and structural members were refined and strengthed even compared to the freighter.
Once his design was distributed to the other teams his ideas took flight as one by one the systems were modified, changed or removed totally until a ship very unlike the Eagle took shape, while a very different vehicle it could use off the shelf components from the Eagle, Moon Shuttle and a small number of SHADO based systems.
Within the year he was test flying his dream craft, prototypes had been used and discarded and several later marks had been built for use by the WSA and SHADO however only months ago he had recieved training on the Mark Seven Hawk. This latest version was fast, agile and better armed than some planet based warships, while still a prototype vehicle the Hawk could outfly Eagles and Interceptors in space and the Skydivers in atmosphere, in one fell swoop Alan Carter and his teams had made the other vessels obsolete. One difference between the two generations of vessels was something that SHADO and its pilots had been waiting for, armament that would allow them to take on their enemies once again.
His Mark Seven was armed up the wahoo, the lasers had been increased in power and the missile batteries modified to fit both nuclear and conventional payloads. More weapons were being hashed out for the vehicles but for the moment he was more than happy to fly this wonder of a machine. In a combat exercise he took down three eagles, six interceptor analogues and two lesser Mk Hawks, to say that SHADO command was happy was understating things. With a few more tests under their belts Commander Straker and the General had ordered the production of Hawks to begin as soon as the current eagles were completed, however in that interim the newest Eagles and the single prototype squadron that made up of the majority of the complete hawks were enough.
Six months later however was another matter.
"Detection Confirmed, six Unidentified Objects on direct course." The monotone voice of SHADO's long range scanning telescope S.I.D. sounded over his helmet. "Hawk Squadron in range."
Carter grinned nastily, the look not at home on his usually jovial face. The new Mark Nines were the best of the best, as were the twelve pilots from the Eagle and Interceptor Squadrons trained in their use. Three of the new vessels headed the flights while Marks Sixes through Eights were supporting them, now for the first time they would face the bastards that had taken so many innocents, six ships- the aliens had got cocky and today they would face their betters in a not so fair fight.
"Hawk Lead to all fighters, intercept course now."
He didn't wait for the acknowledgements as he slammed his ship's engines to maximum, accelerating out of orbit and directly towards the UFOs. None of the spinning discs even tried to break away to engage him or his squadron, confident in the fact that the first line of defence had been bypassed continuously for so long the aliens didn't give the new hostiles any thought.
The closest found out his mistake the hard way.
A trio of lasers from Carter's lead eagle stuttered across the UFO's heavy armour shattering the metals and slagging the hull underneath, unable to change course through damage or fear the pilot could only watch as a duet of nuclear torpedoes erupted from the Hawk's belly spinning across space in the blink of an eye before exploding taking the UFO with it. Far more powerful than those originally attached to the older interceptors the missiles all but vaporised the lead ship.
The rest of the alien flotilla facing the unexpected power of the Hawks were jumped by the eleven remaining fighters, lasers, missiles and fusion torpedoes rained onto them from all sides. Unable to return fire or to even evade the human built warcraft the glittering UFOs simply vaporised under the bombardment, first two then three then four came apart under the increasing bombardment.
Number Six by note of being the last in the formation dodged the first few shots from the Hawks, its own weaponry coming into play as the bright energy bolts from the saucer impacted on the flank of Hawk Two. The laser pierced through the heavy armour into the missile storage for the port side launcher, igniting the propellant on most and exploding sending shrapnel and debris flying.
Struggling with his damaged ship the pilot of Two was forced down by another hit to his engine block by the same UFO before it was forced away by his wingman sending it careening into a crossfire from Carter and his own wingman. Three barrages of laser fire centred on the spinning spacecraft annihilating it's outer hull allowing a missile to find its way into the delicate innards.
"YEAH." A shout came across the main communication channel, Carter grinned at the results his squadron had been able to garner. Six dead hostiles for one ship crippled and one slightly damaged, both would be up and running again within the month if the second squadron's construction was kept up to date.
"Hawk Lead to Shado Command."
"We read you Alan." The voice of Colonel Paul Foster came through the helmet speakers. "Great work out there all of you."
"We've got one damaged that won't make it through re-entry requesting permission to escort Hawk Four to moonbase."
"Permission granted Captain, Colonel Straker will be expecting you when you land. The rest of the squadron is to return for refit and rearming."
"Understood, Hawk Lead Out."
"Two years later they stopped coming, small groups of their advanced ships kept trying to break through but by that time three squadrons of Hawks were on site. One on the Moon one in near earth orbit and one on Earth, we'd built faster and better armed interceptors and replaced our moon shuttles with Eagles, we believed nothing would even considering coming after us again. Their final big push came in 1987 when they launched dozens of their small UFO class ships and two bigger bastards we'd never seen before, maybe some kind of cruisers or motherships . They must have been desperate by then to hit us so hard and so obviously, the public would have been alerted to the aliens if they got close enough." Alan explained, "It would have been next to impossible to stop them if they got close enough, we were looking at wide scale kidnapping across the planet."
"The observatories in Kenya and New Guinea were shut down for some reason for about a week that year." Burgstrom interrupted, "We were told there was a problem with the image software both were using, makes far more sense now."
"Every single armed ship that we could assemble met the alien fleet far beyond lunar orbit Professor, the observatories at the time were the only ones capable of seeing the battle. When we entered attack range we let rip, nukes, fusion missiles, laser cannons even old fashion mass drivers were loaded onto anything that could move and we hit them hard. We'd even assembled first generation Eagles and two dozen Interceptors for the attack. Both were modified with Hawk based systems but were short range support at best, both squadrons took the brunt of the attack, they knew they were sitting ducks but still went in guns blazing, they took the hits so the bigger more powerful ships could get close enough to blast the buggers into oblivion."
"Ninety ships went up against seventy six." Alan looked Koenig straight in the eyes, "Twenty three of us came back, and we started again. More ships were built, more defences established and more personnel recruited. That battle was the last time we ever saw those aliens. SHADO and the Hawk Squadrons were decommissioned in 1992 and everything ordered scrapped, salvaged or destroyed on the orders of General Henderson. He had it in for us from the get go, every time we made a stride forward he tried to pull us back. God knows why but he managed it anyway."
"Well that makes some sense." Paul looked at Alan, "You were the only one capable of taking down more than one of those fake Hawks that we went up against earlier this year."
"I think they might have got the information about them from my memory, I knew their weaknesses and their strengths and used it against them. A Hawk is so much more powerful than an Eagle it's stupid, it's why we're trying to rebuild one or two of our ships into something nastier."
Victor broke into the conversation "So the base you found was SHADO's moonbase?"
"Yeah home for about a year."
"Why was is hidden instead of being made part of Alpha?" Koenig asked
"That was way above my pay grade Commander, all I know is that the remaining personnel were redeployed or returned to their respective governments or joined up with the WSA like I did."
"Couldn't stay away from flying Alan?"
"Nope, joining the WSA was the only way to keep flying out here. My experience with the Hawk and Eagles pretty much guaranteed my position as head pilot of the Alpha project." Carter explained, "That's about it."
"Paul what's the possibility in rebuilding the other Moonbase as a backup?"
Morrow frowned as he brought up the lists of spares and equipment that they had to hand, it wouldn't be easy.
"We can get power and life support up if most of the original conduits are still installed, we might have to scrap one of the more badly damaged Eagles to do so though. We've got enough personnel to put together a skeleton crew and rotate them through but it'll be stretch, it might be better to rebuild it into a bunker in case we go through a fight that damages Alpha enough that we need to evacuate." Paul looked up at Alan, "You said that it was a fighter base right?"
"Yep, with luck it should still be most operational it was built to take a hell of a pounding before it was forced offline. "
"It's possible then we could turn it into a secondary Eagle facility as well, move some of the construction and refit docks underground and have a launch pad if we have trouble with Alpha's Eagle platforms." Morrow was understandably concerned with the fact that the Eagle pads had been crippled or disable enough times over the last year that a second set of bays would be a welcome addition to the station. "We don't have the ability to build a transit tube to the other station, whoever we send over there will have to make it home."
"The base if it's still habitable was suitable for about thirty people including pilots and ground crew, we could probably increase that the same way we've been rebuilding the caverns underneath Alpha. I could probably give you a layout of the place from memory, or find the specs when we take a look.."
"Alright then." Koenig began, "Alan and myself will check of the SHADO moonbase, Paul, Kano and Victor I need a full tally of anyone that can be spared for the new station. Any spares that can be used and the possibility of modifying the empty sections for other uses."
"If I may Commander." Tony looked up, Koenig nodded, "When the base was commissioned did it have any kind of close range defences, missiles, lasers?"
"Nothing when I was there, we figured that if it made it past the interceptors there would be little to no reason to hit moonbase. The hangers were too far below the surface for anything except a multi-megaton explosion to even come close to damaging, its possible there was upgrades once i left the base,"
"Which means that the explosion that caused breakway might have compromised them?"
"Possible, but I don't think so." Alan mused, "But you have a point, it might be useless but it's worth a look."
"Very well then, Alan get an armed survey Eagle prepped for launch tomorrow. I want to go and have a look at this moonbase."
"Tomorrow Commander?"
"Yes Alan, you know the station and it's layout and I want you flying us across to it. But i also know you've been on double shifts for the last three days."
"I'm fine."
"Maybe so but get some sleep and we'll reconvene tomorrow afternoon."
"Yes Commander."
****