John had finally filled the last of the paperwork to have full legal ownership of the former EAS Dauntless with Earth Force, along with uncontested ownership with Earth, the Narn's and Centauri governments for the system which Kharak was located, and he was almost a week behind his planed schedule, since not only was the amount of paperwork extensive and in triplicate on physical paper, meaning that he had to visit numerous different officers not only over Earth Dome but also at the Narn and Centauri consulates that he was beginning to think that this was some very elaborate joke between Q and Minerva, making it worse was that the military transport carrying the Hyperion class plasma cannons was going to be delayed by almost a week, the only thing that had gone right was that the Human form recplicant's and Destiny style drones had finished construction of the various parts that he needed although the crystal components were still behind as the local materials didn't want to conform to the Goa'uld style crystal circuitry matrixes. He sighed and dragged his hand down his face as he checked his omni-tools display once more with the distinct feeling he was forgetting something vital, and was broken from his introspection by a thick Scottish brogue.
"Mr S'Jet," The voice shouted, belonging to one of his first employees and his chief engineering manager Ian Godfrey, an older gentleman that used to work in the orbital docks over Earth and claim to be able to trace his roots back to at least the teams that had worked at Scapa Flow during world war two, he had a thick body which was typical of a retired mixed martial artist that the bright orange hard suit, which John had developed for this workers based on the ones from the second mass effect game minus shields but could be used as a spacesuit in an emergency. He held out his hand to his boss, allowing John to give it a firm shake that seemed to appease the man, if the distinct relaxing of his shoulders was any indication.
"Mr Godfrey." John said causing the other man to nod slightly.
"We've finished draining the tanks for the reactors and are ready to begin shutting down the main fusion reactors."
"Excellent, once the reactors are off-line we can finally begin turning this into something worth being called a ship."
"There is one problem however sir." Godfrey said rubbing the back of his neck slightly nervous.
"There always is," John said as he pinched the bridge of his nose while muttering in a mix of Asgard, Alteran and Klingon as he waited for the other shoe to drop.
"The Dauntless reactors are of a Type VI not the standard type IV which is typical for the construction date of her." Godfrey said looking at his boss and quickly continued with what his team had just discovered, "It basically means that the external doors to remove them are for the smaller VI's so we will have a few problems removing them since we need to remove the doors and surrounding hull armour." He finished handing over a PADD with the information on it.
"Deculture!" John swore. "How long?"
"About two week's sir."
John raised an eyebrow, as he knew exactly how engineers like to cushion their time estimates for work so that they could look like they were miracle workers. "Tell the crews that they have one week to make the necessary modifications, I'll also arrange for a batch of Fatum sustentationem fuci to be sent up from the surface."
"Yes sir."
"Have we received all the necessary parts?"
"Yes sir, those construction things of yours on the surface have the majority of it made while all of the heavy equipment arrived the other day on the last transport from Jericho III, so once we have those reactors out of the way we can start."
"Excellent." John said, while resisting the urge to tent his fingers like a certain billionaire nuclear power plant owner, as he gave an encouraging smile. "I'm going to be present for the majority of the rebuild, but I want everything handled in house either using this stations maintenance bays, the ones on the surface or on the ship directly."
"Understood sir, it's good to know you will be around if needed." He said as he turned to leave, loving the mag-boots that where a part of his hard suit which prevented him from floating around like the docks that he had worked in over Earth, before he snapped back around, "Oh I almost forgot the other reason I was looking for you the representative from Earth Force is here."
"Frack." John shouted as he snapped his look up from the data on the doors while thinking on what he would need to program the Destiny style drones to do. "I haven't finished going through all the damn personal jackets yet."
"That's how he introduced himself." Godfrey said as the neared the transit tube between the docking arms and the habitat ring of the station.
"What in Netu is going on?" He muttered in Goa'uld, before asking in English. "Where is he now?"
"In the command office you've been using sir." Godfrey replied as John turned, entering the main transit tubes car to the command deck and his office.
While the station was originally design as a modified version of Cairo Station, it was slowly turning in to a hybrid version of various sci-fi stations and the original orbital defence platform, which thanks to the constructor replicators working on the surface to build his recently started colony he could pass the designs off as older versions of a Zentradi design he had modified for human comfort. The modification of the station had started a week prior to the completion of John's purchase of the Dauntless so that it would be able to fulfil its designed roll, the modifications had mainly been additional docking arms, design labs, manufacturing centres, and dedicated naquadah enhanced neutrino ion generator plus additional crew facilities.
The docking bays was also the reason that he had picked the Olympus class, as while not the largest ship it could dock it did allow for a comfortable fit with enough clearance for the crew to work without major modifications to the UNSC style dock or constant use of Destiny style maintenance drones. The dock itself had several robotic arms that where attached to the booms of the stations docking arms, while the ship was held in place via four multipurpose magnetic docking arms. The entire area had been encased in a web of scaffolding that was sealed, making it look like the upper section of a Starfleet starbase like Earth space-dock complete with massive space doors, to allow air to be pumped in removing the need for the crews to work in EVA systems.
The whole station, which prior to a month ago had been completely crewless, was a hive of activity as his employees, human-form replicants' and destiny style drones were moving around doing their assigned jobs as they passed John. Several of the newer arrival's where marvelling at the view and commenting how nice it was to be working in gravity or how Earth was finally 'entering a new age' or other such comments which he ignored as he passed through the main promenade heading for the command centre and his office.
The door to the office looked like glass and very fragile, but was in fact made of the same transparent neutronium-trinium mix as the Tsunami-II's own windows allowing the room to be air tight in the event of a hull breach, and as soon as he was in range of the activation sensor it moved up into the upper part of the frame out of view.
His office here was his sanctuary away from all the work he had started, the fact that it had a view to kill for of the local nebular with Kharak filling the sky like the view of the moon on a clear night as viewed from Earth, and was around the same size as a that of a decent sized CEO's office on earth with a large reinforced window that was behind the desk and chair, a chair that was very comfortable and covered in the same material as the Kull warrior body suit which could also pivot backwards, act as a basic version of the control chair on the bridge of the Tsunami-II and had an integrated heat massage system, but was currently occupied by a man wearing the uniform of an Earth Force naval officer. This caused John to clench his fists as he calmly walked over towards the desk, where this man was sat intruding on his personal sanctuary.
"Hello, I'm your liaison officer, lieutenant colonel William Hague." He said smiling as he reached over the desk to shake hands. "I must say I'm already impressed by what I have seen."
"Well I'm not!" John said, his temper barely under control as he looked down at the man sitting in his chair. "I have not finished going over the list of personal that I was given for the post, only to discover that my liaison officer has arrived and is not only in my office, but is also sitting behind my desk. Explain now."
"I volunteered for the post." Hague said, still smiling.
"That does not give you the right, or the leave, to intrude into this office without permission."
"Oh." He said, realising whose seat he was in, quickly jumping to his feet and moving back around the desk to the receiving side. "Sorry I apologise for any, trouble this has caused." He paused spinning his hands to indicate the two of them. "However once I had heard of this posting been available I decided to cut out the paperwork. It also helps that you are using my first command as the test ship, so I know the 'Big D' better than the yard dogs who built her inside and out, bow to stern."
"The 'Big D '?" John asked, his eyebrow raised like a certain Vulcan since officer.
"The nickname that she earned against the Dilgar." He said as he reminisced about happier times on the ship. "The marine Big D first one into a fight and the last one to leave." He chuckled as he recalled how his ECM/ECCM crew would always blast 'The Warrior Song by Sean Household' out on every non-Earth Force comm-channel every time they went into battle, and held out his hand again.
John reluctantly shock the man's hand, not amused by the man's attitude or arrival. "I don't see why you would volunteer, by the time I'm finished with the Dauntless will be an almost totally new vessel. Netu I've got to adjust my plans already for this to work as I'd planned to gut the internal layout and have ten decks and the command module, but I misjudged the internal scale," John said showing the hologram of his original ten main decks with independent command citadel module on top, "But after we finished scanning her a few days ago, I'm going to need to increase that deck count to fifteen."
'Sajuuk's wrath on the Alliance' John thought to himself, 'who the frack designs a corvette as large as a destroyer class, it is almost like they are over compensating for something.'
"It is deceiving a little bit?" Hague smirked. "But she is a tough little ship."
"Little?" John asked, thinking to build a few Defiant class tactical escorts to act as a colony defence force, "When I first enquired about doing this project for the Alliance, and the use of a corvette class ship I was expecting to be sent was something slightly smaller." He said as he took his seat in his own chair, ideally noting the small pile of PADDs he still needed to review or sign, "not the four hundred forty four meter long beast that now sits in bravo cradle."
"Yes it is a little overwhelming when you first see her." Hague said as he too sat, though this time the less comfortable visitors chair in front of the desk.
"If she was a bit longer and taller she would be the size of an In Amber Clad class." John said pressing a button on his desk activating the inbuilt holo-generator and causing a low resolution image to slowly rotate of the ship now docked to his stations bravo dock.
"It's over engineered, underdeveloped and primitive but a very reliable design overall." Smiled Hague.
"Yes I can see that." John said as he tossed a PADD towards the seated lieutenant colonel that had the report on what he had found that needed to be changed, this had seemed so much easier on paper but everything was starting to pile together to fast now.
"What do you plan to do to her?" Hague asked skimming over the report, while looking on astonished at the casual display of advanced technology on display, which caused John to smirk to himself.
"This is how the Dauntless looks now." John said gesturing to the Hologram, "and this is how she will look soon enough." He finished touching a few controls to change the image. It looked as if the ship was totally redesigned with a distinctive 'arrowhead' profile of a UNSC Halberd class destroyer, before it was replaced with an exploded view of the deck layout showing the fifteen decks following the yet to be installed transit tube system. Different colours flashed showing the new systems or modifications, such as the replacement of the heavy turrets with those that looked like a Hyperion heavy cruisers.
"How are you going to power those?" He asked pointing to the separate hologram of the Hyperion class cannons. "The 'Big D' only has type VI reactors."
This caused John to raise an eyebrow at that. "You know about those then?"
"Aye, the 'Big D' was, sorry is a block five pattern Delta construction originally when she was launched, but she to a glancing hit from a broadside by a Dilgar Sekhmet-class cruiser amidships, she then spent just over three months in dry-dock being repaired and refitted into a Theta pattern, it is why she had a, rather large caboose."
"That would explain the problem then." John said leaning back in his chair and messaging his forehead slightly.
"Problem?"
"Yes, her reactor space doors are smaller than they should be." He said sighing, tapping a button on his desk to highlight the doors on the original hologram. "It is another thing on the list I figured was correct to the plans and never thought to double check."
"Yeah, the type VI's are smaller than the IV's but produced I think my chief engineer said around fifty percent more power in combat mode," Hague said, putting his finger through the projection which due to being low level destabilized the image slightly, "yet those Hyperion class cannons are some hungry power hogs. It is why the class has completely different reactors and power flow configuration to a corvette, not that they would work on a corvettes space frame anyway."
"Well, I guess you do need to be brought up to speed since you are going to be Alliance military liaison." John said sitting back up straight. "I'm going to pull them apart and replace them with something with more kick and a whole lot more powerful and reliable." He said, pressing another button on his desk, causing a popping sound and making the lieutenant colonel jump as a set of five rings about sixty centimetres in diameter to slowly drift up about ninety centimetres giving a musical hum then drift back into the recess in the desk leaving a bottle and two glasses in their wake. "Water?" John asked as he poured his own glass and lifting the bottle over towards the second one.
"No alcohol?"
"Not at nine before the high meridian." John said taking a sip, "or anymore. I had my fill on neo-lantana when it almost killed me."
"I'm still on Jericho III time." He shrugged as John shock the bottle slightly. "Of course."
"How, might I ask, did you manage to get here?" John asked as he poured the second glass.
"I pulled rank and hitched a ride on the last transport from Jericho that came in last night." Hague said taking the glass, "had to share my quarters with some of your equipment and materials."
"Oh, I'd have thought you would have come out here by military transport or warship." John said as he used the Alteran version of a replicator to recycle the empty water bottle.
"No, my ship is docked at Jericho station." Hague said, taking a tentative sip of water while watching as the bottle seemed to be vaporised. "Once I heard from 'Old Firestorm' about your project and offer to the Alliance."
"Old Firestorm?" John asked, his face showing a questioning look as he pretended to think before snapping his fingers like he had recalled the name. "Oh you mean General Franklin."
"Yes, anyway he knew how much I loved my time on commanding the Dauntless," he smirked, "in fact when I was given command of my Hyperion the crew had to push me through the air lock almost at knife point." He finished his mini story. "They gave me command of the EAS Reliant" he said taking another sip of water, "and she's a fine lady, and in many ways more enhanced the Big D ever was," he continued before placing the empty glass on the desk, "but she doesn't feel like my command, more like a rented home or a hotel room, not a home."
"I'll admit I don't really care for the Hyperion design." John said, as he downed the last of his own drink and vanquishing his own dry throat. "The command section and hanger location work just fine enough, but the engineering and drive section." He shook his head in disgust at the design. "The drive section looks as if they suddenly remembered the engines," He continued as Hague chuckled having thought the same, "but if the helm officer needs to execute any extreme actions, I'd be praying to Sajuuk that the drives wouldn't be left to carryon along their original vector."
"True," Hague laughed, "but according to the design specifications they are supposed to be able to withstand something like that, not that I've ordered something like that to test it mind you." He said placing both hands on his lap, before he tapped something in his thigh as if remembering something. "Ah almost forgot," He said as he pulled an Earth Force military style pad out of his right trouser pocket and passed it over. "The only known constant in the universe I'm afraid, if you could sign this it will make my appointment official."
John looked through the information on the pad carefully scrolling down as he read it to the end, his mind using the downloaded information of lessons in business management that where reinforced by his own experiences, before he nodded his head and signing it using the attached stylus and hitting the send button. The automated system sending a copy to his local mainframe and another to the Alliance to be counter signed then filled in the never ending storage system of Earth central data-files. "I'll have one of the replicants show you to your quarters, it's not much as this place is still being modified but they will be yours for the length of this project."
"That's fine with me." Hague smiled as he bounced slightly, enjoying the feel of earth normal gravity after almost six weeks in zero-g. "I could come to enjoy this." He said, "I think this is that start of a beautiful friendship." While smiling, as he stepped out of the door to follow the Human Form replicant ensign.
"You have no idea." John said sighing, knowing that he would soon need to deal with colony construction on the planet below, while cursing himself for moving too quickly due to believing he was prepared more than he was. His own plasma versions of the MA-5D and star fleet EM-33 where undergoing the standard four month review and testing phase with the Alliance which was common to the circus that was the small-arms industry across not only the galaxy, but also the multi-verse. It was during this period that he would have to compete against both new companies and the old established ideals, after all the military was a den of old school traditionalist who would cling onto their traditions like a dog with a bone, he also knew that they would be his next challenge once he had proven that this technology works with Earth based technology.
John turned around in his chair to look out at the vista through the window, letting his mind drift as he did some light meditation for a few moments, before turning back to his desk and the pile of paperwork on it thinking of thoughts of a better day.
-{[Dimensional Castaway]}-
The next day John took one of the Alteran mid-range shuttles, that where around the size of an Al'kesh and that the crew had taken to calling a jumper which made him want to break out laughing at the irony, down to the original outpost he'd built when he arrived with two specially programmed Destiny style construction drones. When he arrived he used the outpost's transporter to beam him to a craven that was near an interesting intersection of naquadah, neutronium and trinium veins near the planets northern pole and unleashed the two drones to begin construction of an outpost that was a hybrid of the one the Alterans used and his original with its own special gate room within, but with an Iconian style gateway and specialist remote rather than a Stargate and its accompanying dial-home-device. He then set up a Forerunner hard-light shield, less than a micron from the event-horizon, with access to the site restricted him to prevent it or the control chair that he had reset from being used by anyone without his gene-song.
This would be his version of 'Sword base' from now on, if he ever needed a place to fall back to and start over, and moved the ZPM storage bunker too, on top of placing another full copy of the core connected to in industrial replicator, in the event that he ever lost the Tsunami-II or the original Kharak station with its own Destiny class AI. He would still live on Epsilon station in orbit with the rest of the crew until the command tower was finished on the new Tiir style colony ship, minus its star drive, he was using as a base for his colony. He instructed the Kharak station AI to have some replicant's and Destiny drones to use the former ZPM storage bunker site to build a bunker class planetary shield generator with a jamming field for local hyper-space jump drives, no point in letting somebody try to pull a Cole maneuver and jump close to the surface, under the outpost. This construction work would take weeks to be completed by the stations AI, but since it wouldn't need to use any of the already mined materials to construct this outpost and that area being mineral rich, he could hide its construction from everyone as he continued to oversee the total rebuild of the Dauntless.
As he was about to beam back to his original surface installation his omni-tool detected a low level power source of an active cryo-statis unit that contained something with the power signature of an Alteran within twenty meters of his location, but since he was at a depth of nearly nine kilometres below the polar ice-shelf it was no wonder he had missed it when he had arrived. With a sigh he programed the transporter to beam the whole unit to an isolated and quarantined lab, he figured whatever it was could wait till everything had calmed down a little to investigate this mystery, his readings showed that it had been on ice for almost a century so a little longer wouldn't hurt in the cosmic scheme of things.
-{[Dimensional Castaway]}-
Later on after checking in on the crews working on the Dauntless and with that the surface stations AI was dealing with the construction of his Sword Base, he decided to take care of a few other loose ends that he needed to clear. He left word with those who needed to know that he was taking a quick trip out of the system and returned to Sol using his FTL Thunderbird SHADOW.
Once there, and under full Asgard/ Alteran stealth, he easily located both Bester and Morden and had a micro scarab bomb injected into them which would attach itself to their brainstems but be hidden from all scanners except his, that latter of which would be activated when it was confirmed that the Icarus had been confirmed destroyed, along with arranging some more mundane things such as updating his civilian clothing wardrobe, which lent more towards military or hiking style clothing, entertainment and other related matters to be able to move around in the Alliance. Following that he also did the same to several others who were in need of this special form of exorcism system.
All of this reminded John that he would need to transfer a second copy of his memories to his fall back base along with creating a clone and a copy of his katra with pre-programed instructions that if he is confirmed dead or his neural link shutting down for longer than a year, that it would transfer it into the clone to resurrect him in a fashion. There was no way on this plane or any other he was going to use a sarcophagus even once, as he didn't want to risk the chance it would damage his katra and turn him into a megalomaniac like the Didact. After all nobody know about his 'Sword Base', which would be under both kilometres of rock and ice and an Atlantis class bunker shield meaning that its long-term survival was greater than that of his stations or the Tsunami-II's.
-{[Dimensional Castaway]}-
John wasn't happy, in fact he was rather close to being totally furious with rage as he pulled out yet another useless part for the pile of junk that was an Alliance naval plasma cannon for a Hyperion class. He'd been ripping them apart deep inside them since he had arrived earlier that day, and those working with the nearby replicants to remove the outer armour could hear his muttering and curses getting darker with each passing unnecessary part or excessive amount of material that was removed.
"BOSH'TET DAMNED PIECE OF JUNK!" He finally screamed, 'I half expect to find a fracking vacuum tube is this so called cannon!' he thought as more and more parts were ripped out of the weapon. "It has got enough room for a secondary capacitor in here." He mumbled as he tossed another part out the hatch, his personal HRF replicant making a note of it to remind him later on the PADD he was carrying, when he suddenly paused. "Oh come on, this has got to be a fluke." He said as he dropped out the hatch of the turrets housing and walked over to the Starfleet style pool table work station with displays of both the original basic plans from the Alliance and their own scans of the cannon on. "I'll be a Bentusi's uncle," He said as he looked at the plans, "once you strip away all the Bosh'tet kibble and giblets of this thing looks an awful lot like an oversized Anubis type staff cannon." He smiled as he knocked on the wooden rail around the station twice to displace any potential bad luck. "This might just be easier than I thought!"
"Sir!" A nervous voice interrupted his train of thought on what he might need to change in the design, as he looked over to the sound of the voice that had called to him.
"Nemec," John nodded recognising the man, who was a hard worker and skilled engineer from Chicago, if somewhat awkward in the more social interactions with the rest of the crew.
"Y… yes sir," He stammered, even if John noticed he seemed to straighten up a little with pride that the main person in charge actually knew his name, "the crews that have been working on the Dauntless reactors have them removed and are in the storage bay."
'Finally' John thought, it meant that a job which should only have taken two hours to do normally if the space doors had been redesigned correctly, had only taken four days which was actually three days ahead of schedule. "Excellent." He finally smiled at that bit of good news, as it was a major weight off his shoulders, he reached his hand over to the main controls on the table and called up a copy of the stations master ship display. Which he tapped on the section of the display that was nearest to the dock with Dauntless in. Almost instantly a smaller window opened with up to date information in both English and Alteran about the progress of the project, just large enough for John to read. "Ok have them sent to lab three-one," He said as he continued to read over the various bits of data being displayed, "as soon as I've finished with this piece of junk, I'll head over there to begin their to begin their conversion or refit," He said, causing the other man to nod in understanding, "and have an extra team there to assist." He finished as he pulled out an Asgard data crystal, "Before you go," he said catching McNeil as he turned leave, "give this to Godfrey." and passed him the crystal. As soon as he had placed it into the pouch of his hard suit McNeil turned and almost sprinted out of the door.
John grinned as he turned and walked back over to the turret, this was the first of the four cannons meaning that it would be the worst of them all, yet once he had finished this one's conversion into something like an Al'kesh's cannon he could leave detailed instructions for the rest of the crews to follow as they worked on the refit without him having them to watch over their shoulders or have use to Destiny drones and HRF replicants to correct everything they did, and make them feel like he was an overbearing drill instructor.
-{[Dimensional Castaway]}-
An hour later John finally pressed the last think black armoured data cable into its dock with a satisfying click, the slight hiss as it sealed let him know he had finally finished on this cannon. He let his head fall back onto the deck in exhaustion before he crawled out the turrets housing but this experience just proved to him that the technology of the Alliance could not match up to that of Stargate Command pre-Atlantis mission, he could see they had potential to equal that of the block two BC-304 class ships and even the post Ori war designs, however that was only in terms of offensive weapons technology.
As his feet hit the deck of the maintenance bay after he got out of the turret he stretched and sighed in relief, he was tired and full of aches but he had finally finished. This turret could now put out both the same rate of and blast of fire as an Anubis grade Al'kesh, and he had a pile of useless and unrequired pieces of junk and scrap components that he could either sell off or recycle using his technology at will. He dismissed the exhausted crew, even the replicants looked tired, and who had worked with him as a dozen Destiny drones began to move the scrapped parts to a storage room, since this team had been patient beyond that of a Vanir while working with his ordering them around like new cadets as he cursed in Goa'uld, Klingon and Alteran. He decided to add a bonus to their pay plus give them some extra time off.
As the reinforced bulkhead door opened John was caught off guard as a blast of cold air, making him realise how hot it had been in the maintenance spaces of the turret, since even with the armour plating removed much of the cannons components could only be accessed from one of the two maintenance ducts which was barely big enough to fit a normal sized man, let alone John's augmented frame, as they worked, but the blast wasn't uncomfortable it felt more like walking into a building that had its air conditioning on full after being outside on a hot day.
He turned towards the central transit hub to head back to his office off the stations command centre, nodding to the few humans he passed who returned it with their own nods or smiles as he passed.
Moments later, after getting a brief status report from the command replicant on the construction of the orbital defence nets and other station related matters, John entered his office only to curse in Alteran as once again his Alliance liaison was sat at his desk. "Is this going to be a constant thing leftenant colonel?" He asked, the irritation in his voice clear even to a Drazi, as he moved over to the small food synthesiser to get a light meal. "Me coming in to do some paperwork after a hard day working, only to discover you sitting in my chair behind my desk!"
Hague just smiled as he moved from behind the desk to the visitor side. "Well I was on my way back to the quarters you gave me from the arboretum after dinner in the mess hall, when I received an interesting piece of information from Earth." He said pulling his jacket down as he leaned on the edge of the desk and playing with the model of the Tsunami-II John had on it.
"Oh and what was that?" John asked sitting down with his meal, more annoyed than curious.
"It seems that ambassador G'Kar is requesting a private meeting with you."
"Whys that?" He asked as he slowly ate his meal and took a cold bottle of water from the small Alteran replicator on his desk, before downing two thirds in almost on gulp, and sighing in contentment, all as Hague watched on.
"Command and the state department don't know," He honestly answered shrugging, "but Earth Force Intel believe that he may know about, or at least suspect, that you are working with us to give us working ship based gravity." He finished placing the model back down and moving to sit in the smaller but still comfortable chair opposite the desk, "but he has recently returned from an urgent trip back to Narn."
"So do you think it's a trap or something?"
"Officially no, the spooks in intel feel that he wishes to negotiate a trade agreement for some of your gravity technology or failing that attempt to steal it, all for the good of the Narn regime, although personally having met him I'd say it would say it more likely for a trade agreement given how honourable the man is."
"Riight," John drawled as he finished the last of his meal. "When does he want to meet?"
"Apparently at your convenience." Hague said.
John nodded activating his omni-tools main home screen, and tapped the book like icon causing a calendar like application to materialise pages large enough so he could read them, unlike Hague since it was written in Alteran, and skimmed over several pages using his other hand. "I can do the ninth in two months at twelve." He said after taking into account travel time from Earth to Kharak, he also noticed that the countdown time was running down to the start of the Minbari War. "However he is going to need to come out here." He finished closing his omni-tool with a flourish, "as I have most of that day scheduled for the installation of the new reactors and core."
"Is it wise having him come out here?" Hague asked raising and eyebrow.
"Better on my terms," John said rolling his shoulders as his neck clicked with the movement, "besides we keep finding little things that we need to fix on the ship while having very little time to do it, and I refuse to play politics and cut what time we have to do so." He said standing and moving back to the food synthesiser with his empty plate. "The high Arbiter herself could come on-board, but unless Sajuuk himself was willing to grant me more time each rotation, I would politely tell her to make an appointment. I am a military scientist and engineer damn it not a fracken politician."
Hague laughed at that as he stood. "I'll tell them that," He said still chuckling, "but knowing the spooks at Intel they will want some sort of guarantee though."
"Right now, at this moment in time the only thing I can guarantee is B, F and A."
"I'll let them know." He said leaving the office, chuckling knowing that the words were not the Earth versions as he headed over to the stella-com unit in the stations command centre to send his weekly report and let the spooks know that G'Kar was clear to visit.
-{[Dimensional Castaway]}-