1: Dawn Of Thunder
Third Edition
Author: chaos_eternus
When Earth is threatened, the USA and the UK join forces to protect our world…with help from an old friend.
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Chapter 2
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Southern Wales, United Kingdom
Calmly and confidently the young Lieutenant Peters strode into the cluttered office, every surface, every wall covered with schematics, plans and classified blueprints, all the paraphernalia of a new force being founded, created from scratch. Standing a respectful distance from the desk, her body at parade rest Peters addressed the commanding presence of the man hunched over a warship blueprint on the heavy polished oak desk.
“Sir, Airhead 's 9, 8 & 7 are now on route to Mars with hull segments, numbers 6 & 5 have lifted the Shunter 's to orbit and are on re-entry, Airhead 3 is boosting with another hull section, 1 is delayed and 4 has been declared an engineering causality, the fire caused more damage than was initially anticipated”
“Damn!” Thompson cursed, shoving his chair backwards from the desk, the sun from the window to his right glinting off the four gold stars attached with military precision to his uniform “that's 2 down already! And we can't afford to replace any, not now, it's too soon”
“Admiral, I have started a new schedule to compensate, but the loss of two of our cargo birds will cause delays regardless of scheduling, Engineering is breaking up number 4 for spare parts now, but it's doubtful anything will be salvageable from 2 sir, she was at the centre of the fire and suffered accordingly”
“Okay” he signed, running his right hand through his hair in an unconscious gesture of frustration “get the updated schedule to me by 2100 hours please, good work Lieutenant”
Nodding, Peters turned and briskly left the room leaving the admiral to his thoughts and his work.
Inside the office, Thompson had turned to the window behind his desk overlooking the main hanger where about 20 of the best brains in the Queens Armed Forces had were being shown the new craft, by the children who had developed them.
‘A 5 billion pound budget in the hands of some kids', he turned from the window, amused, and grinning.
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SGC
Hammond stepped through his office door into the briefing room, and almost stopped in sheer shock. All of SG-1 was there, on time, no waiting for Daniel to be dragged from a translation or Carter to be pulled from some new device or theory. He hid a small smile as his mind began to play “that's great it starts with an earthquake….”
Shaking his head slightly, he moved to his chair quickly and sat down.
“So…” O'Neill asked expectantly.
“NORAD says at least 7 of these unidentified craft have left RAF St Athan so far, 2 of which are now re-entering our atmosphere having left a pair of what appear to be tugs behind” Hammond paused, “the CIA are not happy, they had an agent on the base, but she turned up unconscious at the US embassy in London, with ‘better luck next time' tattooed on her forehead.”
O'Neill smirked at that, trading a grin with Carter, they could imagine at how impressed the CIA was with that.
“The President got in contact with the British Prime Minister, who claimed ownership of the craft, and then told the President that they would share as much technology with us as we have with them, nothing, or Damn near it.”
Hammond took a long look around the briefing room table, making eye contact with each member of SG-1, StarGate command's premier team in turn before continuing.
“SG-1, you are going to Wales , recon RAF St Athan but don't do anything that might cause any kind of incident, understood?”
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RAF St Athan
Peters knocked once at the door then followed the knock swiftly into the room, “Sir, according to ‘Murielle', SG-1 just boarded a plane to Cardiff-Wales International”
He looked up from the paperwork and raised a sardonic eyebrow “Cutting it a bit fine aren't they? I would have landed a bit farther away.”
Peters grinned as she looked out of the corner window, a 747 descending to Cardiff-Wales clearly in view “Like outside of visual range, sir?” her voice and expression would have fooled a Angel into thinking she was an innocent, the admiral smiled, he wasn't fooled, he knew she occasionally displayed a mischievous streak a mile wide. “ London perhaps?”
The admiral just shook his head amused, but continued seriously “This will have to be handled very carefully. Right now the Yanks could shut us down without too much trouble and if Kinsley and the NID have any say in the matter we will either become subservient to them or we will be shut down, by any means necessary”
Peters nodded, “They could just park a ship in orbit, shoot anything we try to launch into orbit, and laugh at us because we can't complain due to the secrecy of this project.”
“And Thundersdawn will never get built.” Thompson said, agreeing.
“Well, what's is the plan then?”
“Simple really, they need to be kept of balance, reactive” Thompson shrugged, “So I will have to overwhelm them, dominate the situation and keep them from thinking too much”
Peters nodded, agreeing, “What do you need sir?”
“Get me a RA Corporals uniform and have a squad ready, let's start as soon as they arrive shall we? I think a reception might just be in order”