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Chapter 6
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Prometheus , Outer Sol System.
With a grimace, Flying Officer Pauls caught sight of the Prometheus for the first time and his initial reaction was to call her toast, a write-off. He buried that reaction, he knew from helping his father in his shipyard before he joined up that it took quite a lot to really force a ship to be scratched.
In reality, most ships that were scrapped didn't need to be, they were destroyed simple because their owners had gotten a bigger better replacement and that would certainly not apply in this case.
Neither would age and the associated rust for more obvious reasons.
Of course, this ship was battle damaged and that was a genuine reason for scrapping. He didn't think the Americans would be willing to accept that though.
Still… there was a lot of debris floating about but most of it appeared to be armour or external components. There didn't appear to be any through-hits so if there was any structural damage it was likely to be confined to the outer sections of the ship.
They wouldn't know for definite though until they got a proper look at her. He knew what his recommendation would be though; this was definitely a full dockyard job.
He glanced away from Prometheus for a moment as the voice of his wingman in tug five filled his ears, requesting docking instructions from the beast, his eyes quickly giving the other craft the once over.
Nothing visually wrong, which was good, given that it was humping a habitat module about to evacuate the injured from Prometheus. The results of a problem there would be quite disastrous.
He would get to give the ship a through looking over with cameras running in a few moments, for now, he had to monitor the docking of the habitat module and the Prometheus .
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SGC
“Yes sir, a rescue team from Thundersdawn has already arrived at the Prometheus .”
“No sir, as yet we have not received a damage assessment, but we have been informed it's a dockyard job.”
“Yes sir, we will confirm that.”
“Yes sir, goodbye sir.” Hammond sighed as he put the red phone down.
An unhappy president was not a good thing, especially when he had such good reason to be unhappy. The Prometheus was not repairable by any means available to the SGC simply because, as had been predicted would eventually happen, she was not capable of landing, let alone landing safely.
They could of course try calling in some markers with the Free Jaffa or the Asgard and try borrowing a ship capable of helping Prometheus to the surface but that would give the Free Jaffa a closer look at the ship then was perhaps wise at the moment and the Asgard, well they had no way of knowing if they would show up let alone when.
But Thundersdawn not only had the capability, but effectively had Prometheus as well given that it was their support craft that were now on site. That could be considered ‘stacking the deck'.
Worse Prometheus had a lot of technologies no other vessel of her class did, especially not the one the Russians were trying to build and these technologies were now in British hands. They could either tell Thundersdawn and her crew how to repair Prometheus , or could insist on the return of Prometheus , and wonder exactly how many technologies Thundersdawn got a nice look at, either way, the SGC's advantage, gained through the blood, toil and tears of the SG teams had been compromised once more, and…
“Signal from Thundersdawn , 112 saved sir.”
…They couldn't really complain about it. Well, Kinsley would try to, no one else would. At least, not too loudly.
Still, it was getting irritating. Perhaps the only brightside was that the technological edge still favoured the Americans. Their shields and the gauss rifles without which they would not be able to build effective warships or even defend their station effectively.
In some ways, the Brits might have them over a barrel, but the reverse was also very much true.
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Ground Control RAF ST Athan
“Admiral! Signal from Thundersdawn sir!”
Thompson rose from the duty officer's desk and strode over to the cramped and messy comms desk, which showed evidence of many hurried refits and hasty repairs.
“ Thundersdawn to Ground Control, 1-5-5 reports an ETA of 5 hours for the first of the Prometheus survivors, and Medical assistance has been requested on arrival. Shunters 1-5-1 and 1-5-2 have began towing operations, but that is going to be slow, ETA estimated at 2 days minimum. Shunter 1-5-4 is standing by to assist. Captain Peters also requests status on the 1-4 series craft please.”
The admiral smiled, he at least had anticipated this need, the 1-5 series tugs were not atmospheric capable, the 1-4 series, big and ungainly as they were, could re-enter safely, apart from the ever so minor issue of the heat-proof tiles coming off all the time.
“Let her know that I had 1-4-7 crash refitted with the new tiles, its passenger re-entry module too. Lift off in” he checked his watch “1 hour, all the other 1-4 craft will be significantly delayed though, don't expect them to start becoming available for another 72 hours.”
Thompson quite rightly imagined Captain Peters wincing as she heard those words, Thundersdawn was already low on several critical supplies, which the emergency situation with the Prometheus had only made worse; this additional delay could be a problem. Those sodding tiles had grounded the only craft the royals had capable of exiting and re-entering Earths atmosphere, the only source of a number of very important supplies, air and water to name just two.