Stargate The Pathfinder (Version Two)

Prelude: The Master

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
Disclaimer: The following is a fanfiction story; therefore, I, as the author, do not own anything that is associated with the franchise known as Stargate. It is owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Please support the official release!

Stargate SG-1: The Pathfinder
Version 2.0


Written by,

William R. Woods
aka, "Deathzealot", or "deathzealotzero"

Brief Foreword

So, I would like to welcome you all to the second version of my Pathfinder story, which will follow the adventures and such of the USS Prometheus, the first human space warship ever built by human hands. Along with its crew! As mentioned, I did do a version of this story a few years ago, but it kind of grinds down to a halt after a few written chapters. I did want to do a fundamental rewrite, just going through the already-written chapters and changing a few minor things. However, that never became a thing; therefore, I just generally forgot about it until I went through some old files that had a rewritten first half of the story's first chapter, and I got the idea for this story.

Okay, that said, there are going to be some things different from the original version of this story, as I had wanted to generally follow the overall timeline, the story, and much of the Stargate SG-1 series. However, that would be quite different in this version of events, as I think that kind of threw a wrench into my plans for the earlier version of the story. Hence, I am totally going to be changing some things here and there with the timeline of the series. For example, the Disclosure meeting between the ambassadors of the various countries of the UN Security Council will happen soon after the start of the story, which is around season six and not during the season five storyline. The other significant change to the story would have the Asgard not just give the SGC and Earth itself plans for their stuff like beaming tech. As I always thought that was a bit of a cheat in the scheme of things. Instead, the Asgard will work alongside and train human engineers to create something like a new hyperdrive or the weapons on the ship itself. The rest of the changes to the original story and that of the Stargate SG-1 story would be smaller than those two significant changes but still will change some things. So be warned!

Okay. I do believe I talked enough about what I am changing with this version of the story, and it is time to get to the main event. I hope you all enjoy the story and everything! Thanks for reading!

Prelude: The Master

The USS Prometheus, while officially a prototype design, was still quite a solid space warship design, especially after its first major refit. It would turn that first prototype design from a general basic concept of a space warship to a proper space warship that would be pretty capable and go up against more than one Goa'uld Ha'tak Class Mothership and win. It did this with general human ingenuity, human experience in naval combat, and the help of the Asgard, who worked with human engineers to create things like a completely new hyperspace drive design after the failure of the original drive of the ship. However, even the most powerful warship in the entire galaxy would be nothing without the men and women who would crew the vessel. Not to mention the ship's overall commander, which with the Prometheus would be Air Force Officer and veteran NASA Astronaut Colonel Lionel Pendergast who go a long way in making the Prometheus into one of the most famous ships of humanity's infant space force…

- The Pathfinder: A Look Into The Human's First Space Warship


-o-o-o-

Area 32-92 – "The Yard"
Northern Mojave, Nevada
United States, Earth
September 7, 2003AD


As the small personnel elevator descended ever downwards, the figure of Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast of the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration could only frown in some concern. He had been a member of the United States Air Force for over twenty years since his early twenties and seconded to NASA, the United States' leading governmental space agency, for the last decade. He had been reasonable for various things inside the space agency, including commanding six Space Shuttle missions and helping with the construction of the new International Space Station. Then there were a couple of different military-only missions using the Space Shuttle, which he couldn't talk about at all. It had been quite a while since he had been yanked around like this by the Air Force and the rest of the United States military. Not to mention dragged somewhere that did not officially exist to his knowledge. A small shack in the middle of nowhere that hid a small elevator he was now in and located several miles from the facility known as Area 51 or the Groom Lake Facility. It was quite a headache for him to be dragged out here, and he briefly speculated in the safety of his mind that it was something to do with aliens. No matter how crazy that happened to be, making Pendergast mentally snorted before shaking his head. He turned his attention to the other uniformed Air Force officer that currently shared the elevator with him and who had met him at McCarron International Airport to escort him to this mysterious facility.

"So, Major, can you tell me anything about this facility?" he asked, tired of the silence from the man since they first met after greeting one another at the airport and the couple hour-long drive from Las Vegas. The man turned to him with a slight smirk on his face before replying.

"I am sorry, sir, I cannot say anything till you have been briefed and signed your Non-Disclosure Agreements. After that, General Ronson will brief you on this project and everything aligned with said project," the man mentioned, and with that, the elevator finally slowed down. Pendergast blinked in some surprise at this and the outright amusement he picked up on in the body language of the younger officer. However, before he could say anything to that, the elevator stopped, and the doors hissed silently to show the two of them a short passageway leading right to a large armored hatchway. Pendergast's eyebrows rose in surprise at not only the hatch itself but the full squad of fully geared-up Air Force Security Force soldiers standing guard around the hatch itself. He followed the younger Air Force officer down the short passage but was quickly led up down a slightly hidden side passage that sported other branching passages that led elsewhere in the facility giving Pendergast the impression that the facility was relatively more extensive than he first thought when he arrived. Before finally, the two officers arrived at a regular-sized wooden door. After a quick knock and a quiet reply, the Major ushered Pendergast into a small busy-looking office which sported a large covered window on one wall and a large desk taking up the opposite wall. Standing in front of the desk was an older man in a US Air Force Class B Uniform with the single star of a Brigadier General on the collar.

"General, Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast," the Major mentioned with a wave of his arm towards Pendergast before turning slightly and waving an arm back at the General, "Colonel Pendergast, General William Ronson."

"General," Pendergast said with a cautious air and a salute which the other man returned with a slight smile on his face before reaching out with a hand.

"Colonel Pendergast, a pleasure to meet you finally," the man replied, shaking his hand before turning to look at the Major who had escorted him to the facility.

"Majors thank you for escorting him here, and I shall see you in Washington at the next security conference," the General mentioned with a nod dismissing the younger officer.

"Sir," the man replied with a salute of his own and turned to walk back through the door leaving behind a confused-looking Lieutenant Colonel and a slightly amused General behind in the small office. That done, the General turned his attention back to Colonel Pendergast.

"Colonel, I like to be the first to welcome you to the Yard," he mentioned with a short wave of his hand towards their surroundings. Before turning to stride towards his desk and taking a seat behind it while nodding his head for Pendergast to take a seat in front of the desk, who did so looking a bit confused at what in the world was going on here. The General looked at him briefly before nodding and sliding a regular old manilla folder across the desk towards the other officer.

"Before we get started, Colonel, you need to sign these NDAs and other such paperwork," he mentioned now with a stone-like face making Lionel a bit worried about what was going on here. Still, he only sighed and opened the folder. Inside the folder were the standard-looking NDA Documents he had become quite familiar with over his years with both the Air Force and NASA, including those space missions he did solely for the US military. Nodding, he gave it a quick read-through. Before he signed along the bottom and moved to the second page in the folder, his eyebrow rose in some shock for this version of the NDA he had only heard about in stories from his older colleagues in the Air Force. From the bad old days of the early Cold War against the Soviet Union. Still, after reading through this paper, he signed it as well and briefly wondered once again that whatever was going on here in the middle of the Nevada desert was far more than just a simple top-secret facility. He signed a few more pages that looked far more normal than the first two pages, mostly stuff about his reassignment and other more standard military paperwork, before finally coming across the last page, which made him blink in shock. He looked up at the General, who patiently awaited him to sign the paperwork.

"This is a form for an extended long-term deployment?" he asked the general with a narrowed gaze, for the Air Force rarely, if ever, used this form for their personnel. It was more often used by the United States Navy with lengthy cruises, often up to two years at a time. It quickly brought to mind his family, making him flinch slightly before looking back at the General. The man simply smiled with a nod before getting from the chair and moving to the large window that took up the entire opposite wall of the small office.

"Quite correct. For now, leave it right there since you signed the NDAs already; therefore, I can give you the briefing for the project and what we have planned for you. However, if you do not want to go through with what we have planned for you, there are a couple of other placements we could use you for, or you could simply return to NASA if you wish. It would not be the first time we had some people inside NASA in the know about our activities," the General mentioned now with his back to the younger Air Force officer with his hand on a nearby switch making Lionel narrow his eyes at the back of the General for that wasn't typical for the Air Force or any branch of the United States military. You went where the military needed you, and nothing would stop that outside of a few instances.

"To start the briefing, I like to introduce to one of the main objects of the said briefing, so come up here please, Colonel," the General directed with his opposite hand at his side. Sighing, Lionel did as he was directed and came alongside the General at the covered window. When he did so, the General looked at him with an almost sad smile.

"Colonel, what I am about to show you will change your life entirely even if you return to NASA. Your world will be expanded beyond your imagination. It did the same for me about three years ago. Now it's your turn," the man was saying, and before Lionel could say anything to that statement, the General hit the switch at his side, raising the armored cover over the window with a loud shudder. As it started to rise, Lionel Pendergast began to see what was on the other side of the covering. It was a vast, opened underground space with what looked like some sort of docking facility at its center. Inside said docking facility was a large gray-skinned, almost ugly-looking ship of some sort that towered over the sizeable underground dock that surrounded it. A similar-looking but still-under-construction ship graced a second bay alongside the first bay. After his first shocking realization of what it was, Lionel saw it wasn't designed for any sort of ocean, sea, or river but for the blackness of space. This second realization saw him looking over the ship with his experienced eyes for spacecraft and seeing everything about it.

"Lieutenant Colonel Pendergast, I like to introduce you to the USAF Prometheus, humanity's first-ever large-scale spacecraft and our first operational space warship," the General at his side said with a short chuckle before continuing on, "and your new assignment."

"What?" Lionel asked in surprise, tearing his eyes away from the ship to look over at the General.

"You are to take command of the Prometheus after she is finished with her latest refit, and from there, you are to take her on a little jaunt through space," he mentioned with a certain glint in his eye that hinted at more, but for now he turned back to look down at the ship in front of them.

"She is about five hundred sixteen meters in length, two hundred fifty-eight meters in width, and finally three hundred twelve meters in height. She sports seventeen decks and will have a crew of three hundred souls on board. To get around, she sports a pair of two Simms-Carter Mark I-C Sub-Light Engines, which can take the ship up to 110,000 miles a second, but the crown jewel of the ship is actually the Hyperdrive which allows the ship to be an interstellar ship. From what I understand from the engineers and physicists, this drive will allow the Prometheus to make it to Alpha Centauri in about an hour," the General mentioned with an almost proud-looking smile on his face before nodding his head at what looked to be large turret-like components along either side of the almost u-looking backplate of the ship.

"For weapons, the Prometheus sports about a dozen newly designed plasma cannons gathered into several new turrets. Including a larger main weapon, just a larger version of the smaller cannons on those turrets. Then it has a couple of missile batteries, including forward and aft-mounted torpedo batteries. Of which will be able to fire normal high explosive missiles along high-end Nuclear Warheads along their ammo magazines. Finally, for close-in defense, the Prometheus now sports quick-firing railguns spread across the ship's hull. Each of those guns is quite capable of tearing apart any modern jet fighter in under a second if they get in range," the General went on, making Lionel blink in outright shock at the heavy firepower on the ship. At this mention, Lionel looked closer at the turret-looking bits on the ship's hull to be actual turrets of some type. There are six of the weird-looking double-barrel turrets that he could see from this angle, two on the almost circular-looking endpoints of the backplate with another pair mirroring the first two just upside down from the first, and the final two further along the backplate, almost flanking the towering superstructure of the ship. Additionally, if he strained his eyes, he could see several smaller turrets all along the ship's central hull. They looked normal from up here but still maybe different as those most likely were the mentioned railgun turrets. This was no unarmed space exploration ship of NASA's future dreams but a stout space warship.

"For defenses, the ship sports an honest-to-god shield to protect itself from danger along with the ship's armored hull. All of which, combined with those mentioned railgun turrets, are to protect the ship from any threat," the General went on to further explain the ship before the two of them. Lionel blinked at the idea of a shield, but it would make some sort of sense. As outside of a few sci-fi stories, he was aware that the majority of sci-fi stories do have some kind of shield. He internally snorted at this idea before focusing on the General as he finished off his little ad-hoc briefing on the ship.

"Finally, the Prometheus can carry up to sixteen F-302B Specter Space Superiority Fighters which are launched via a single bay right beneath the ship's main superstructure, which is linked via two large elevators to that of the ship's primary hangar inside the main hull of the ship," the General finished his introduction of the ship giving a nod to the large open bay at the "base" of the ship's superstructure before turning to look the now recover and thoughtful looking Lieutenant Colonel at his side. Lionel could not even imagine such a ship and the reason for its construction, not to mention how much it must have cost to build. Or all of it could have been hidden so well.

"Now I am sure you are wondering why we need such a such that a ship that has the firepower to destroy this planet if given a chance," he mentioned with an almost sad-sounding sigh turning from the window to make towards his desk once more. Lionel blinked at this, turning to watch as the General retook his seat and retrieved an even larger folder that was bound closed with various warnings about opening it. On top of the folder was an emblem that he had never seen before, with the words Stargate Command Introduction and Operational Briefing printed beneath it.

"Take your seat, Colonel, for we are going to be here for a while since I need to read in on Project Bluebook and the overall reason for the Prometheus, along with any future sister ships to be built," the General said with a wave towards the seat in front of him. Lionel did as the general bid and retook his seat before leaning forward in his chair as the general unbound the folder.

"It all started in 1928 when…" the general started, and Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast was introduced to the overall larger world of Stargate Command and, through them, the larger galaxy along with the threats that would destroy the entire world. By the end of the briefing, the man knew that this was something that he had to do and formally accepted the position of the Prometheus Commander.

-o-End-o-

So this was originally was going to be part of the first chapter of the story, but I separated it from it when the first chapter became a bit longer than I originally planned. Basically, this chapter does give you all a brief look at the character of Colonel Lionel Pendergast, who has changed a bit from what little we do know about the character from the series itself. For one, he is not only an Air Force Officer but a veteran NASA astronaut, which is carried over from the old version of this story. He was also dragged to Nevada to be introduced to the Prometheus and the base that built her. Instead of the SGC. I actually liked it like this over once again, seeing the SGC. The other thing that has changed with his character is the bit about his family in this chapter, which will be expanded in later chapters. In the series itself, Colonel Pendergast apparently has a family, as mentioned by Mitchell at the end of the episode Ethon, but here something has happened to them. This is mostly due to Pendergast and the Prometheus going on long space cruises. Funny enough, one of my early ideas for the first version of this story was to focus on Pendergast's family and how having him away for an extended length of time saw his wife ending up somehow finding out about the Stargate Program and what her husband is doing inside said program. So I am dropping that idea from this version as it makes little sense to me. Besides, this story should focus on the good old Prommie and not someone not even part of the ship's crew.

That said. We get the first taste of this version of the Prometheus, which sports plasma weapons instead of the helical rail cannons of the original idea. We get a more thorough look at the new weapons of the ship in the next chapter. Though for those who liked the idea of the rail cannons of the first version of this idea, well, they will make an appearance on another ship. Meanwhile, if you noticed, I am using the dimensions from the Fleet Yards Videos and not the original dimensions from the DVD Collection Magazine. Outside of a slight change two the height and width of the ship from those figures. Added two meters to each of them, mainly due to the video showing the F-302 barely having any clearance for the tips of its wings when launching from the hangar. Still, I am not going to focus on how the Air Force was able to produce such a large ship in secret without anyone knowing about it. So sorry not going to explain that little fun tidbit which is the reason most have accepted the smaller dimensions of the Prometheus. Do not want to have that headache! Sorry. Oh. I almost forgot, yeah, I am not including the good!Asgard tech in this version of the Prometheus like a high-end hyperdrive and beaming tech. As I mentioned in the foreword, I never understood why outside of new shiny tech. Beaming tech always seemed like cheating to me, so outside of the ring transports, the Prommie will not have it. Shrug. As for the things that required some beaming in later seasons and the story overall, like Atlantis, I do have an interesting idea to solve that little tidbit, but it will not be in this story.

One last thing to mention is to prepare yourself for a large data dump in the next chapter. I tried to keep it down in this chapter, but that soon became a thing in the next chapter. So I do apologize for that.

Okay, I do believe that is about it for these notes. I went overboard a bit on them; I apologize for that. I was trying to keep my foreword short, which kind of saw a bit more talk here in response to that. That is about it. See you all in the next chapter!
 

Spartan303

In Captain America we Trust!
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Osaul
You have my attention sir. I look forward to reading more.
 
Background File 01

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
NOTE: So here is the first background file of the story, which covers the new version of the Prometheus and is near sisters. I have changed the Atlas massively from the original version of this idea. While Korolev gets turned into Russia's version of the Prometheus using the plans the US gave them after giving them the other Stargate. Anyways. Chapter One should be up either tonight or sometime tomorrow afternoon. I want to get a good portion of Chapter Two done before I post it. Till then!

Background File: X-303 Prototype Space Warship Prometheus

The prototype space warship design known as the X-303 and later known as the DSW-303 Prometheus would be the first ever space warship designed by human hands on Earth. It would be designed to defend the planet earth and the vast amount of people living on it. However, it is known from the start that the Prometheus was to be a prototype design, and there was no real need to produce more than a handful of the design. That would become the DSC-304 Daedalus Design later introduced by Earth's engineers. Still, even as a prototype, it was designed from the start to serve as a space warship design, and all that entails including sporting a few weapons on its hull, along with the ability to carry a small number of fighters to defend itself and to take the fight to enemy fighters. However, at the time of its commissioning in late 2002, it would sport an underwhelming armament of a dozen missile tubes and a dozen railgun batteries as close in weapons. The missile tubes sported the ability to launch a couple of different missiles, including the still experimental Mark VII Naquadria Enhanced Nuclear Anti-Ship Missile, Mark VI Nuclear Anti-Ship Missiles, and the non-nuclear Mark V-B Spacelord Heavy Anti-Ship Missile. Sadly, these weapons had performed quite poorly in the two times the ship went into combat and the handful of exercises it took part in.

This had mostly been thanks in part to the report drawn up by the US Air Force's Future Space Combat Committee that had been put together in an effort to formalize a means of combating the alien Goa'uld and their galactic empire. The Committee mainly believed that since the Goa'uld had no real long-range missile weapon, any future space warships of Earth should focus primarily on a heavy missile armament. However, during one major combat operation that pitted the Prometheus against a single Goa'uld Ha'tak Mothership, the ship's missile heavily damaged the ship's shields, but the ship remained intact from a heavy barrage of missiles from the slightly smaller human-built ship. Then there was a battle against an unknown alien ship where the ship's handful of Mark-VII missiles was useless against the shield of that unknown ship. This would later be further explored in a series of different military exercises against several Free Jaffa and Tok'ra piloted Goa'uld ships including an aging Cheops Mothership.

It took the results of these exercises, and a paper was done by former NASA Astronaut and Aeronautical Engineer Brianna Carter of the Project Titan Engineering Team of Area 32-92 Facility to debunk the idea that a missile-armed space warship was superior over that of Goa'uld or other space warship designs. It would be thanks to Engineer Carter and a couple of members of her team, along with the Asgard Advisor Brokkr, who would come up with a proposed refit for the Prometheus to make it better viable in combat. The resulting so-called Deep Space Warship refit would give the prototype space warship design a hefty armament of heavy anti-ship plasma cannons back-engineered from Goa'uld Capital Staff Cannons, an improvement to the ship's missile launchers, and a large increase in the close-in railgun batteries including a few larger versions of the weapon to be used against heavier enemy strike craft like Al'kesh. The resulting refit truly turned the Prometheus into a dedicated Space Warship that even the Asgard believed to be a viable warship design. The resulting refit would then be improved upon and made the standard for the DSC-304 ships currently under construction.

Still, while the Prometheus was to remain a singular ship of its class, there were a couple of designs that were heavily based on the design of the prototype design. The first of which is the Deep Space Auxiliary Atlas which was made out of the half-finished second ship of the class that had been under construction when the decision was made to introduce a new space warship design. The construction of such a ship was to gather further data and such for later-designed ships, which would become the later-titled DSC-304 design. Still, the unfinished hull was still there, and the Titan Engineering Team would soon find a use for it. A new space support ship to help keep the other ships of Earth's still infant space force in operation longer. The resulting Deep Space Auxiliary design would be quite an interesting design as it would retain the heavy shields, armor, and weapons of the Deep Space Warship refit of the Prometheus. While now sporting a large cargo bay replacing the fighter bay of the original Prometheus, complete with large payload doors on the top of the bay itself. Further, a large crane arm is mounted at the base of the ship's superstructure allowing an easier time moving cargo from and into the opened bay doors. Still with a need to further defend the ship from an enemy ship saw that the former hyperdrive emitter pods of the original design would be redesigned to serve as hangar pods for a reduced squadron of eight fighters plus a couple of support craft. This was mainly thanks in part to the newly designed hyperdrive not needing these pods anymore due to the Asgard having a hand in their design process, allowing for the repurposing of the pods. The resulting DSA-303B Support Ship was quite an interesting support ship that had a large cargo capacity while at the same time could handle itself while in a fight. It could easily run cargo from Earth to an off-world base and later be used to resupply a deployed space warship like its sister the Prometheus or even the Russian-built near-sister Korolev. All in all an interesting design that went a long way to keeping Earth's small space fleet operating independently from the planet for longer than they would be able to without the support ship.

The second major variant of the design would be the Russian-built Korolev which, at its core, is a slightly different form from the original Prometheus Class design received by Russia in exchange for their recovered Stargate. One of the changes made to the basic design was the change in armament from primarily a missile armament to that a cannon-based armament. Well before the new refit of the Prometheus changed its armament. The Korolev originally sported five double-barrel Helical Railgun Cannon Turrets and supported a dozen side-mounted missile launchers along with normal point defense railgun emplacements. It would only be during the final phase of the construction of the ship that new weapons were added to the design. This being three Type 12 Double Barrel Plasma Cannons, the same type found on the newly refitted Prometheus. These cannons are placed around the ship to support the Helical Railgun Cannons, with one in front of the ship's superstructure, the second below the ship's bow, and the final one on the ship's ventral hull facing aft. Finally, another change from the original design was moving the fighter hangar from the central hull to that of the ship's front end. This hangar facility was quite interesting, with three levels, including a launch bay and retrieval bay, allowing the Korolev to carry the same number of fighters as the Prometheus but having an easier time moving them about the large hangar. One interesting fact about the Korolev was that it was most often used as a direct guard ship for Earth itself, while the Prometheus would be on missions outside of the Sol System. While this mainly could be thanks to sporting the old, repurposed Cheops Class Mothership hyperdrive that got the Prometheus home from Tagrea, it still saw some level of trust between the United States and Russia.

Overall, Prometheus and her two near-sisters would pave the way forward for further ships built to defend Earth. Over time the ship would become notable for destroying or even capturing dozens of Goa'uld Ha'tak Motherships and other Goa'uld ships throughout its career. A record that wasn't beaten till the Odyssey, the third ship of the Daedalus Class, which took part in the mission to bring down the Lucian Alliance. It would even witness the downfall of the Goa'uld and see a sort-of peace emerge in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Prometheus would also serve as a basis for new ships designs, including the Earth-built DSC-304 Daedalus Class, the true successor to that of the Prometheus, and the Thor Class Deep Space Battlecruiser that would become notable as the primary space warship design of a few different allied worlds of Earth. All in all, a very interesting design that would serve the humans of Earth admirably and would become quite notable across the galaxy.
 
Chapter One: The Firebringer

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
Chapter One: The Firebringer

Really the original version of the Prometheus was quite underwhelming in the weapons department, sporting a dozen missile launchers as its primary armament and a dozen small railgun batteries for point defense. That had been what the Air Force's so-called Future Space Combat Committee had come up with after studying reports about the Goa'uld's Space Combat Doctrine from the SGC. They mainly saw that the Goa'uld did not use any sort of missile weapons or point defense; therefore, they believed that the best way to have the ship fight against a Goa'uld Ha'tak Mothership was to bombard it with heavy anti-ship nuclear missiles from long range.

However, things started to change with the failure of the modified nuclear cruise missile used against the Ha'tak of Apophis in 1998. Then, the following tests of Operation LONGBOW in late 1999 gave us better data on using nuclear weapons against shielded targets. Even then, the
Prometheus would be launched in 2003 still with nuclear warhead-equipped weapons as its main armament. It would be Operation SPACE SHIELD, a series of minor military exercises between the Prometheus and several Free Jaffa and Tok'ra piloted Al'kesh Bombers in the orbit of the planet Tagrea. Then the brief battle against a Goa'uld Ha'tak Mothership on its journey back to Earth would finally put a final closure on the whole Primary Missile Armament for any future space warship of Earth…

- Taken from a series of notes done by Engineer Brianna Carter after studying the design of the
Prometheus soon after its commissioning

-o-o-o-

Catwalk A-01-22
Bay Zero-One
Area 32-92 – "The Yard"

A couple of hours later found Lionel standing on a small catwalk that ran above the central hull of the Prometheus. He had been quite surprised by the General's briefing and overall introduction into the expanded world of Stargate Command, including a future meeting to bring their planet-bound allies to the table. Afterward, the General gave him a permanent security pass to the entire facility and left him in the office to accumulate everything about the briefing. However, Lionel didn't remain in that small office and instead decided to get a better look at what will become his new command later in the week after a more formal ceremony. Hence, he now found himself leaning against the safety rail of the catwalk, looking down at the large space warship below him along with a similar-looking ship next to the Prometheus, the still not finished sister ship to Prometheus, the Atlas. He already peeked in at the Yard's other main bay, which held the half-finished form of the far larger successor to that of the Prometheus Class, the Daedalus, and its own sister ship, the Odyssey, which had just been started to be laid down a few weeks beforehand.

Now he was silently giving the Prometheus a more thorough look over than the quick one he had from the office's window, and while he was pretty impressed with the ship's design. His more NASA-trained mind was a bit unhappy with the design. However, he didn't let that deny him from admiring the overall looks and design of the ship. It wasn't an Orbiter or NASA-built spacecraft for space exploration but a space warship that was meant to fight the new alien enemies of Earth away from the planet. Hence, the reasoning for the aggressive-looking main turrets and missile batteries that graced the hull of the ship and its almost block-looking nature gave him the impression of a US Navy warship. Something he was quite familiar with, thanks to his grandfather showing off a few Museum Ships he served onboard during his time growing up with the man. That was mainly due to him being a twenty-year veteran of the Navy before the man retired to take care of himself and his sister.

It wasn't meant to look pretty but to take the fight to their enemies; from what he understood from the briefing, the engineers and such who had first designed the ship wanted to have every advantage they could with the design. That included a far heavier armor scheme that was said to be expected on other space warship designs that the designers were aware of at the time. The other advantages the designers wanted were the heavy missile battery and a faster hyperdrive. Unfortunately, neither of them was successful, with the prototype hyperdrive failing and blowing itself up, almost taking the ship with it. At the same time, the missile battery did not have the heavy anti-ship missile to quickly blast through an enemy's shield to destroy their ship. Hence, the current reasoning for the new weapons layout the current refit of the Prometheus. Meanwhile, the hyperdrive was replaced with a new version designed jointly by a human engineering team and a couple of alien engineers. From what the General said, it wouldn't be as fast as the old version, but it was far more stable.

He frowned, knowing that the newer Daedalus Class would be from the start built with everything that the Prometheus now had but would be far superior as it would be built from the start with everything developed for the Prometheus. Not to mention having some stuff that was developed for the Daedalus Class, like the flight pods along either side of the design, giving a vastly superior fighter capability to the Prometheus. Also, from what he saw when he peeked earlier sported a few more turrets and sported a large modular VLS-looking missile launcher on the ship's bow. Lionel shook his head at this before looking back at the Prometheus, knowing he had to make it seem like the ship wasn't just a simple prototype with a more powerful production-type design in the near future capable of replacing it. Instead, being an actual warship that may not have all the bells and whistles of the newer ship designs, but still a capable ship in its own right.

"Yeah, you, what in the world are you doing up here?" came the totally annoyed, almost angry-sounding question from his left, jolting him out of his inner thoughts and making him turn his head to the left to see quite a familiar looking figure walking towards him down the catwalk with a determined almost angry look on their face. He blinked in surprise before chuckling, for this did explain some things.

"Hello Brianna, funny to see you here," he mentioned with a slight smile on his face, looking over at the short red-haired woman to see her blinking in some surprise, making her come to a shocked halt.

"Lionel! Lionel Pendergast! What in the world are you doing here?" former Air Force Major, aeronautical engineer, and NASA Astronaut Brianna Carter managed to say after several moments of shocked silence. This drew a laugh from Lionel before nodding down toward the Prometheus.

"I am her new commander, apparently," he explained with a short chuckle making the woman blink in further surprise before seeming to facepalm and letting out a laugh her own. She then came up alongside him at the handrail of the catwalk.

"So you are the new commander of the Promie, huh," she mentioned with a shake of her head, throwing her new longer hair to one side, making him smirk slightly as he was pretty used to seeing her with short hair. He did blink in surprise at the shortened name for his new command but could only smile in some appreciation that it was better than some of the old Orbiters' nicknames over the years.

"Yup, it was quite a surprise to get yanked from across the country to a military base in the middle of nowhere. A military base that, by the way, officially did not exist at all. That hadn't happened to me in a long time," he mentioned with an almost annoyed tone to his voice, making Brianna snort in some agreement of her own.

"So, I take it you have been here since you left NASA after that whole hush-hush launch with the Endeavor in ninety-eight?" he asked with a thoughtful look on his face making Brianna snort and shake her head at him. She and two other military-trained astronauts had launched with the Shuttle Endeavor from Vandenberg in almost complete secrecy with no feed down to the NASA Mission Control Center at Houston. One thing mentioned in his briefing was that the launch was actually at the request of the SGC to retrieve one of their teams that managed to get stranded in Earth's Orbit after they managed to save the planet from an alien invasion.

"Pretty much during the trip back, I got to talking with then Captain Carter, the second-in-command of SG-1, and she introduced me to a few people at Area-51 who were starting the process of designing a full-on space warship to defend the planet. Soon afterward, I retired from the Air Force and became a civilian but was assigned to the design team to get our first space combat craft running, which resulted in our now primary fighter, the F-302. After I finished with that, I was shoved onto the design team reasonable for the construction of old'Prommie here soon after it finished its commissioning. They wanted my help in furthering the design of the 303, and after I reamed them all out after taking one glance at the design of the Prometheus, I was made the team leader of a future refit. So here I am," she answered with a sigh, making him nod and look back down at the ship in question.

"So, it wasn't because someone found out that you liked girls like the rumor said it was?" he asked in return, making her look over at him in surprise and shock before snorting and shaking her head.

"No, it wasn't, and that wasn't even my cover story about the reason I retired either, but I am not all that surprised, really, with a few people we both know in NASA and the Air Force," she replied with an almost weary look on her face. It wasn't the first time he saw it on her face, as he had been one of the few of her friends and co-workers to know of her sexual orientation.

"Well, I am quite glad you did manage to land on your feet like this after leaving NASA and the Air Force Brianna," he mentioned after a moment of silence between them. He then threw an arm around her shoulders, hugging her to his side, making her sigh at him before shrugging off the hug and giving him a slight glare making him chuckle. Finally, he turned his attention back down to the Prometheus with a frown on his face.

"Still, the briefing the General gave me didn't really say anything about the ship outside of simple explanations about its new weapons and such. Care to give me a more technical briefing on it?" he asked after several moments of comfortable silence between them, making her look up at him in some confusion. She then groaned and shook her head.

"I recently gave him a thorough briefing on the new refit and everything, as he is still listed as the commander of the Prometheus. At least till you become its official commander in a few days," she mentioned before sighing, "And he didn't say anything to you about it?"

"No, like I said, he just mentioned something about the plasma cannons and the other weapons, nothing more specific about them at all," he replied with a shake of his head, making her groan once more as she lowered her head to facepalm at what was going on. Finally, after a couple of seconds, she looked back at him before sighing and looking down at the Prometheus in front of them.

"Okay, the first thing I will mention about the ship is its defenses. I am sure the General mentioned something about the shields?" she asked, making Lionel lightly nod, remembering the General mentioning something about that in the brief rundown he managed to do about the Prometheus.

"Well, the ship is equipped with a dedicated sci-fi-like shield that protects the ship from any sort of damage. However, this doesn't make the ship invulnerable, and like the shields on a Goa'uld, Ha'tak Mothership can be battered down with enough firepower. Right now, the shield on the Prometheus is a back-engineer and improved version of what would be on that same Ha'tak Mothership. That said, where the original version of the Prometheus can be said to be superior over that of any Goa'uld ship is its armor. One of the good things the original designers and engineers did with the ship was to give her a heavy armor belt around her hull. As from what we have found out with Goa'uld ships and any other alien ship we have looked at over the years, is that they often rely on their shields, not any sort of heavy ship armor. So, if the shield on the Prometheus goes down, you still have some protection. Still, once the armor is breached, there isn't really anything else defending the ship," Brianna explained with a wave down at the ship, making Lionel raise an eyebrow in some interest at this point from his friend. It was good that the shield wasn't the only defense he would have on the ship when he took the ship into combat. Suddenly he blinked and looked over at Brianna.

"Is that the reason the new ships in the other bay have what looks to be a plate over the top of the majority of its hull?" he asked her to make her blink in turn at the question. She snorted at this before looking down at the Prometheus.

"Yes, and no. It was an extension of the u-shaped plate you see on the back of the Promie, but yes, it could be used as an extra layer of armor over the hull of the new 304s," she replied before waving down at the turrets that were built into that same mentioned u-shaped plate.

"Moving on to the ship's weapons, as I am sure the General mentioned, the ship recently has changed its primary armament from missiles to turreted cannons, mostly seen on the back plate there," she said, returning to the requested briefing. Lionel nodded at this because the General mentioned a refit of the ship.

"So, first, the turrets you see are actually a sort of magnetic plasma cannons that are basically completely rebuilt versions of the Capital Scale Staff Cannons found onboard the Goa'uld Ha'tak Motherships. We improved the overall design thanks partly to our greater understanding of magnetics, which does see a slightly longer and normal-looking barrel being added to the weapon. They also use a superior material – Trinium – in the barrels themselves, allowing them to be fired faster than a Staff Cannon onboard a Ha'tak and a bit more powerful as well as a result of this," she explained, pointing down towards the large turrets on the ship's u-shaped back plate. Lionel knew there were a couple other turrets he couldn't see underneath the ship itself, including a single larger three-barrel version of the regular turrets located directly underneath the ship's bow. Thanks partly to his earlier wandering about the bay he had done after leaving the office.

"The next thing you need to know is that the turret underneath the ship's bow is a vastly improved version of the other turrets that sport longer barrels on the cannons and a third barrel added to the turret. It is something we developed for the newer X-304 Project for its own main armament but is being fully tested on the Prometheus before the 304's construction goes any further. That said, we had some help from Asgard engineers with its design, and it's far more powerful due to their own contributions to the design, which was mainly having it based on an old Asgard design instead of Goa'uld," she pointed towards the ship's bow and the turret located there making him nod in understanding. That was most likely the main cannon the General mentioned in the short and sweet briefing he received a few hours ago about the ship. He believed it would have been some sort of fixed center-line mount, but that was primarily thanks to him being a fan of a couple of Japanese anime series. This was far better as it would allow the primary weapon to have a wider firing angle, though at the same time, since it was underneath the ship's bow, it didn't have that much of a firing angle for any target right in front or above the ship's bow. Even then, that was covered by the ship's other turrets quite capable of engaging these targets.

"The missiles, meanwhile, have been vastly improved over the older design we were going to use with the Prometheus and the 304s. This was also thanks partly to the assistance of the Asgard, who overhauled the entire design of our missiles and launchers. They now sport a smaller version of the engines found on our new version of the F-302 Fighters, which gives the missiles a vastly superior delta-v and general maneuverability over the older modified rocket engines they had in the past. As for launchers, we decided to keep the horizontal launchers from the original design called for but added a couple additional launchers to the ship's bow allowing for a full-on missile salvo of twelve missiles with five seconds reload time, allowing you to throw up a hefty missile barrage in a matter of minutes. But, again, that is something we kept from the original design," Brianna mentioned turning her attention to the ship's long-range weapon options making Lionel nod at this as well. He knew from the General's earlier briefing that the original design of the Prometheus had the missiles as its main armament. As that was something the various civilian experts and military officers had gathered together to do – devise space combat strategies. Mainly thanks to the Goa'uld not sporting any sort of missile weapon or any sort of point defense. However, that idea became entirely pointless as the engineers and such who had been designing their new missiles for use in space combat couldn't come up with a way to breach or bypass the shields of a Goa'uld Mothership outside of the brute force method. Now with some help from their allies like the Asgard and a bit from the Tok'ra, they were able to come up with a far better design for the ship's armament.

"Another new weapon that has been added to the ship is a single twenty-four cell VLS launcher on the ship's aft which can launch smaller anti-fighter missiles at an enemy force of space fighters. Again, these missiles are a bit different from that of normal missiles found on, say, a Navy Destroyer or Cruiser. They are also made to work in tandem with the last weapon found on the ship," she continued on, pointing down towards the back of the u-shaped plate at the back of the ship. Lionel could vaguely see the mentioned VLS Launcher in that location, making him nod, pleased that they really went out of their way to make the ship heavily armed.

"For more direct point defense, the Prometheus sports twenty-four dual-barrel rapid-fire railgun cannon turrets spread across the ship's hull. These are slightly improved from the original design's railgun turrets with an improved barrel and a vastly superior targeting program built-in, along with an improvement to their automation. They are further supported by a half-dozen larger single-barrel railgun cannon turrets mounted in a couple of points along the ship's hull for use against larger strike craft attacking the ship like, say, Goa'uld Al'kesh," Brianna finally came to a close for her own quick and dirty briefing about the Prometheus. Lionel meanwhile gave the entire ship a more approving look as having a dedicated ability to counter enemy fighters and bombers would be vital. As he would most likely be outnumbered by the enemy till Earth built up a more extensive fleet of ships to defend the planet. So he would most likely use his fighters to harass other ships in a fight instead of countering the enemy fighters. He already had some ideas for further strategies and such for combating the enemy with just one ship.

"Yeah!" Brianna called out with a slap on his shoulder, making him blink and shake his head as he returned to the present. He looked over at his friend to see her looking at him in some annoyance which made him flinch slightly as most likely she had said something to him, but with him busy in his thoughts, he didn't hear her.

"Sorry was in my thoughts there for a moment. What did you say?" he asked a moment later, making her sigh and roll her eyes.

"I pretty much said: That is about it for the weapons on the Prometheus," she started to say with a shake of her head, "Was there something else you wanted to know about her, or should we get in a quick tour?"

At this question, Lionel hummed in thought at this before looking back down at the Prometheus, knowing that a quick tour of the ship would be a great idea. However, as he looked down at his new command, his eyes quickly slid over to its sister ship laid up next to her with a confused-looking frown on his face. He had just noticed that the hull of the ship was different from her sister, with its central hull looking quite different from that of the Prometheus. Though it did look like it was getting a similar-looking armament to that of its sister ship. This had him turn to look down at Brianna with that same frown on his face.

"One more question for you, Brianna: What is going on with the Atlas?" he asked with a nod towards the ship in question, which made Brianna blink in surprise at this before she sighed, looking down at the ship in question.

"That is a bit complicated. The Atlas was originally started to be built about halfway through the construction of the Prometheus when we finally managed to expand this bay a bit to allow the second berth in the bay. However, soon after its construction, the 304 was undergoing its final design phase and would have started construction. The 304 would be superior to that of the Prometheus as the Asgard was on the design and construction of the ship from the start, unlike the 303. Still, we had a half-finished ship and no real will to finish it, as the 304s would be quite superior. So it remained half-finished till someone mentioned that the one thing our small space fleet would need was some sort of dedicated support ship. Hence, the construction of the Atlas was once again started. This time as a sort of dedicated support ship for the rest of the fleet," she mentioned with a frown on her face as she leaned away from the catwalk's handrail. This made Lionel look on in some interest before the last bit of Brianna's statement made him look over at her in confusion.

"Sort of? What do you mean by that?" he asked, making her snort and eye the half-finished hulk of the sister ship to that of the Prometheus.

"The original idea that was proposed was to make the Atlas truly a support ship where it would have two larger pods along either side of the ship. Similar to hangar pods on the new 304s, just a bit larger and made to carry cargo. From there, several crane arms and such would be added along either side of the pods to allow another ship to come alongside for help in repairs of their hull if needed or a resupply. However, that was declared to be too expensive to modify the half-finished Atlas into. So instead, they decided to do something different with it," she explained with a scowl and a wave at the under-construction Atlas. Lionel raised an eyebrow at this and looked down at the Atlas and saw nothing on it that would advertise it as a support ship of any type. Instead, it did start to look like a complete twin to that of that Prometheus, complete with what looked to be similar turrets found on its sister ship as he saw earlier. Though once again, something was different from the central hull, and after glancing between the two ships, he believed he found the difference between the two of them.

"Basically, they decided to remove the ship's hangar and replace it with a larger centrally mounted cargo bay that would be capable of resupplying another ship. However, that does remove any sort-of natural defense those fighters may give the ship. Still, they did take my suggestion of still arming the ship, but without any sort of fighter cover, it wouldn't be that useful while in a fight. It is basically an armed transport and doesn't sport anything further to make it able to further support another ship," she continued with a soft grumble and glared down at the ship. Lionel hummed at this before narrowing his eyes because he didn't see any way of getting cargo carried by this ship to another ship.

"How would it transfer the cargo to another ship?" he asked slowly with a frown on his face making Brianna snort and turn to look over at him.

"Either through the same bottom-mounted cargo access door as the Prometheus sports or through the four ring transports placed onboard the ship. As that is how a Goa'uld Ha'tak is supplied after all," she answered, making him blink in outright shock at this for what he had heard from the General. The cargo access door and ramp on the Prometheus were designed to load and unload cargo while landed and not while in space. As for the idea of using those ring transports, that was worse as not everything cargo-wise could be transferred that way or even just broken down to allow such a transport to work. He took another glance down at the Atlas, eying the ship's still-under-construction central hull, and gave a hum of thought as he got an idea.

"You know they could put in some dedicated large cargo doors over the cargo bay itself and maybe put a crane arm where the hangar entrance would have been if it was the Prometheus. So it would be kind of like the payload bay doors on an orbiter if you do it correctly," he mentioned his idea out loud to that of Brianna, who froze in surprise at this before groaning and facepalming.

"I call myself a former NASA Astronaut, and I didn't think of that!" she mumbled to herself before turning to stare at him with a frown, "Though to further explore this idea of yours, how would another ship receive the cargo from the Atlas?"

Lionel smiled at this before nodding down at the Prometheus itself, which currently had a large crane lowering something down on the ships forward deck in front of the hangar entrance. This saw Brianna looking down as well, just in time for the workers around the lowered object to started to be pushed into the hangar. This made her look thoughtful and look over at her fellow astronaut to see him nod with that same smile on his face.

"So, cargo transferred through the ship's hangar. That would work especially on the larger 304s with their large hangar pods. Though the crew receiving the cargo would need to be in space suits for such work," Brianna said to herself with a shake of her head. Lionel meanwhile just sighed and shook his head at this statement.

"Actually, Brianna, have you forgotten those studies NASA did on introducing some sort of orbital space work pod that would help with the construction of the International Space Station? I am sure with the new materials and tech we got through the Stargate would allow you all to develop such a vehicle," he almost casually mentioned making Brianna to once more freeze in shock and surprise before she groaned in some annoyance at something else she should have proposed thanks in part to her history in NASA.

"Okay wise guy, let's go and get you that tour of the Promie," she mentioned, starting to walk down the catwalk towards a nearby lift to take them down to "ground level."

"Though I am definitely going to be put together another report of suggestions for the general and the other engineers about these ideas along with that other idea that I had earlier," she managed to mumble under her breath, making Lionel chuckle as he turned to follow behind his old friend. He smiled once more for while, he complained about being dragged halfway across the damn country. He was glad the Air Force did so, for he never would have known about this. At least till it was released to the public anyway. Shaking his head with a short chuckle, he got into the lift with Brianna and prepared himself to start getting to know his new command.

-o-End-o-

Okay! After struggling with it over the past few days, this chapter is finally finished! Grumble. I really wanted to cut down on the info dumb, but it wasn't working correctly without it. Not to mention the character of Brianna just wouldn't shut up about the Prometheus. Sigh. Anyways, I am sure you have noticed some things that were mentioned in the main thread of the previous version of this story. Like the mention of the work pods, the Atlas being a Support Ship, the rebuild staff cannons as the main weapons, and a few other things. Speaking of which, I radically changed the idea of the Support Ship Atlas, which was the original idea mentioned in this chapter, to a different version. Basically, replacing the ship's fighter hangar and replacing it with a larger cargo bay for carrying the needed cargo for any other ship. The Orbiter-like payload bay doors that Lionel mentioned as an idea were something I came up with while writing this chapter. That said, that isn't entirely what I have planned for the Atlas. There are still a couple of further things I plan to add to the ship's design.

Still, I do hope you all liked this chapter. I worked enough on it and hope to finish the next chapter as soon as possible. That chapter will see us getting a dedicated tour of the ship and a more thorough explanation of the new version of the ship. Not to mention meeting up with some key members of the ship's crew. Okay, that is about it, everyone! See you all next chapter!

EDIT: So here is the promised chapter one of the story. We get a further look at what really has changed with the old Prometheus. As mentioned in the last chapter, the weapons on the ship have been completely redone. The Plasma Cannons are something mentioned in the thread for the first version of this story. The larger triple-barrel turret is something that is going to be the main armament for a slightly different version of the Daedalus Class, which we will not be seeing in this story. The sequel, however, will feature the new version of the Daedalus and her sisters. Meanwhile, in the first version of this story I had a VLS launcher on the ship's central hull like the Daedalus Class, but rewatching the various episodes of the series with the ship in it and I noticed that it actually has torpedo-tube-like launchers. Both forward and aft-mounted. Hence the reasoning for them to be included in this version of the ship's design.

Okay. That is enough chatting about tech. I have Chapter Two halfway finished and hopefully can finish it off some time tomorrow. However, I will not post it till I am well into chapter three. So hopefully, during the weekend, it will be posted. My original idea for this was to get a few chapters written up and then post them around this time. However, I sadly got distracted from the story by another idea I had, and that prevented me from truly getting into writing the story. Now that I am focused on writing this story, I shall, hopefully, see about pumping a new chapter every couple of days. However, that does depend on things like school and real-life - Hello, Thanksgiving! - so it is not all set in stone. Okay. Again I shall see you all in the next chapter! Thanks for reading!
 

Spartan303

In Captain America we Trust!
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Osaul
Looks good. A but heavy on exposition but that's alright in my book. Looking forward to when they really get the show on the road.
 
Chapter Two: The Tour, Part One

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
Chapter Two: The Tour, Part One

When I first met Colonel Pendergast, I was surprised to find out that he had been a longtime member of NASA, which gave him more experience in commanding the ship. What with it being a spaceship. At least over that of now General Ronson, who had previously been a bomber pilot with the Air Force and had no real experience in that space. That was shown during the only two combat engagements we took part in during his command. Not to mention the extremely poor results of the military exercises we took part in. I sometimes wonder if that was why he was relieved of command of the ship when they brought the ship in for its needed refit. I know he is now in control of our growing but still tiny space fleet, replacing General Greer. I honestly believe he would be a better fit for that role than the commander of an individual ship.

Still, the idea of a NASA Astronaut in command of the ship comes with a couple further problems, as the colonel had been with NASA for so long, he hadn't been in combat since the start of his career. At least, according to what I could see in his military file. He also hasn't even been with the program long, having been transferred directly from NASA to just take command of the ship after its much-needed refit. Hence, he doesn't have any sort of experience with what the program has been running into over the past few years. Granted, I only have a couple of years on him, but I had been involved with the ship's construction from the beginning. So, I really do not know how him not having any sort of experience would work with commanding an actual space warship like the Promie.

While I am a bit excited about being under the command of an actual NASA astronaut, I still do not know how this will work out in the end for the ship and its crew. However, I do have to admit he has to start somewhere. I just hope everything does end up working and nothing goes wrong with this new commander of ours.

- Taken from the Journal of Lieutenant Colonel Erin Gant, Executive Officer of USS Prometheus


-o-o-o-​

Personnel Airlock S-3
USS Prometheus
Berth Alpha, Bay One
Area 32-92 "The Yard"


The two of them did not take long to get to the nearest personnel airlock. As they did so, Lionel could only whistle in some appreciation at the ship's sheer size. It is one thing to hear about the size of the ship, and it is entirely something else to actually see it up close like this. He couldn't help but wonder how in the world had the SGC and the US Military as a whole was able to keep such a large ship secret like this, not to mention how they hid the funds needed to build the damn thing. He briefly considered asking Brianna about this but shook the question off. He could ask that later when he is actually a bit more experienced in the program. Still, it didn't take them all that long to get to the airlock from the overlooking catwalks, which was built right at the bottom of the ship's superstructure. As the two of them approached the airlock, Lionel was surprised to find a pair of personnel in front of the airlock as if waiting for the two of them. He raised an eyebrow at this, looking at the corner of his eye at Brianna, figuring out she had called for them when she had fiddled with the phone in the lift from the catwalk.

"Colonel Pendergast, I like to introduce you to Major Erin Gant, the ship's executive officer, and Major Cameron Mitchell, the commander of the ship's fighter squadron," Brianna quickly said with a wave towards the two waiting officers before turning to look at the two of them, "Erin, Cam this is Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast the new commander of the Prometheus once all the paperwork goes through. Like me, he is trained as a NASA astronaut though he has been with NASA longer than I managed. Though unlike me, he has some combat experience from an earlier part of his career."

Brianna introduced them all, making them aware of each other and all that stuff. Lionel gave a quick glance over the two officers in front of him. The long-haired blond female officer that was introduced as his XO was giving him a glance of her own while the taller short-haired brunette male officer next to the Lieutenant Colonel just grinned at him. He had raised an eyebrow when Brianna introduced him as a NASA astronaut instead of the brief frown that appeared on the woman next to him. He sighed internally at this, most likely knowing the reason for the woman's unease. Still, he exchanged salutes with the two other Air Force officers.

"Nice to meet you, Colonel," the Major said with a slight drawl and accent that made Pendergast raise an eyebrow in some interest before shaking the man's hand. But then, he blinked, for he suddenly remembered where he had heard the other man's name.

"Same to you, Major. Though I believe we have a common acquaintance," Lionel mentioned with a slight grin on his face as the other man's own blink of surprise.

"Oh, who would that be, sir?" he asked, a bit wary at his grin.

"That would be one Doctor Amy Vandenburg. She was recruited by NASA a few years ago from MIT. She is currently working alongside JPL on the next Mars Missions from what I understand," he mentioned making the Major's eye widen in some surprise before he grinned in response.

"Glad she is doing alright," the major replied before Lionel nodded at him, moving his attention to the younger-looking major.

"Major glad to meet you. I hope we can work together," Lionel mentioned to her with a smile and once again frowned internally at the hint of displeasure on the face of the female officer. He knew that thanks to him being a longtime NASA astronaut, he had minimal combat experience compared to other combat-rated Air Force officers his age.

'I am going to have to have a talk with her later after I officially become the commander of this ship,' he thought to himself with an internal sigh. While he had little combat experience, he had plenty of experience in space operations, not to mention various little bits of space combat exercises several military-trained astronauts had undergone over the years. Which he now personally believed to be somewhat connected to that of the Stargate and Stargate Command. Shaking his head to clear his own inner thoughts, he focused on Major Gant, whose face no longer had that hint of displeasure on her face reaching out a hand towards him.

"Sir, yes, I hope we can work together," she replied with a small smile on her face, and Lionel was pleased that she wasn't letting her own internal dissident thoughts be known to others and let it stain any relationship they would have in the future.

"With you all knowing each other, know I shall get going. These two will give the grand tour of the ship Lionel. I now have a General to yell at and get those ideas we talked about into a report," grumbled the voice of Brianna from next to Lionel and an annoyed look on her face. Lionel blinked at this, turning to look at Brianna with a look of some surprise at this statement.

"Okay, I understand, Brianna, but I do hope we can get together later to talk and such?" he asked with a smile to his friend, making her chuckle lightly before nodding to him before she moved to leave the group moving towards a distant armored hatch along the wall of the underground space grumbling all the way. Lionel, hearing this, only watched her go with an amused smile on his face before turning back towards the other two Air Force officers.

"I really hope she won't be too hard on General Ronson," he said with a shake of his head, "Still, let's get this tour started, Majors." He directed with a wave of his hand towards the large hatchway that made up one of the main airlocks of the ship. The two quickly nodded with their own amused looks on their faces before leading Lionel into the ship itself.


-o-o-o-​
Bridge
USS Prometheus


"And here, sir, we have the ship's bridge," Major Gant mentioned as she led Lionel into a decent-sized room with a large window looking out into the construction bay. He had been quite surprised to find the overall look of the ship's interior both reminded him and not so of US Navy ships he saw as a kid growing up with his grandfather, a twenty-year Navy Veteran. It had that look of a Navy ship, but at the same time, it didn't. Which was quite interesting, to say at the least, for he would have believed it had some sort of similar internals with that of Navy ships, but he really shouldn't be surprised with, one, being a spaceship and two, built by the US Air Force, not the US Navy or one of its civilian contractors. Now on the bridge, he was briefly reminded of the pictures of the cockpit of the Navy's two Flying Aircraft Carriers mixed somewhat with a regular Navy ship bridge. Next, he looked around to see a few displays around the walls of the almost rectangular room, along with three small displays mounted above the bridge's viewport. From there, he noticed three centrally located stations in the center of the forward area of the bridge. Two of which were just forward of the central chair, and each sported an impressive amount of controls and a couple of different displays. The central chair, meanwhile, didn't sport many controls, though it still sported a few controls built into either armrest. He then looked over towards the aft end of the ship to see four other smaller stations along either side of a sizeable see-through display panel. It looked like some sort of plotting display, and he figured that it was for navigation of the ship. He then looked towards the front end of the bridge to see another pair of smaller-looking stations built into the walls along either side of the main viewport.

"Impressive," he mentioned looking over at Major Gant, who was patiently waiting by the hatch leading out of the bridge. Major Mitchell took a few steps to look out of the bridge viewport with an impressed-sounding whistle as he looked down. Gant meanwhile moved away from the hatch and stood next to the centrally mounted stations.

"Yes, sir. This is the command chair," she mentioned with a wave towards the central chair before waving at the other flanking chairs, "while these two are the ship's main Tactical and Sensor Stations."

Lionel raised an eyebrow as he eyed the command chair before bending down to look over the tactical station's controls and briefly wondering what the various controls actually did. However, he guessed the majority are for the ship's multiple weapons. He soon moved over to the sensor station and raised an eyebrow at the controls on this station. These were a bit more familiar to him as they reminded him of various aircraft he had flown. The major moved a bit forward of the command chair and pointed over to the two stations flanking the bridge's viewport.

"Here we have the ship's helm and communication stations," she said while Lionel following behind her, looked over and hummed in some thought. Like the other stations, he briefly looked them over and again. Some of the controls were a bit familiar to him. The helm station he saw looked like it was expanded vastly from that of the piloting controls of a Space Shuttle, while the communication station looked far larger than the simple radio and communication board on the Space Shuttle or any terrestrial aircraft.

"Huh. Communications isn't tied into another station?" he asked out loud with a hum of thought.

"The Communications Officer of the ship is not only reasonable for the ship's own communication equipment but also the ship's own internal communications along with directing any sort of damage control," Major Gant replied with a raised eyebrow, making Lionel almost wince for he needed to remember that the Prometheus is a ship, not an aircraft or even the Space Shuttle. At the corner of his eye, he saw Major Mitchell chuckle at this before he moved away from the viewport and towards the communication station.

"From what I hear, they also are reasonable for the large database of different languages that the SGC's Linguistics Department has put together over the years since the start of the
program," the man mentioned with a nod toward the station, making Lionel give the other man a nod in understanding. For it did make some sense, for he was certain alien races didn't speak English as a matter of course.

"That is correct, Colonel, and now we have these last bridge stations," Gant mentioned now in the back of the bridge, right behind one of the stations along the plotting display he had noticed earlier when walking into the bridge. Both Lionel and the Major looked at one another before shrugging and moving towards Major Gant.

"These two are the ship's navigation stations and are reasonable for feeding data to the helm officer. While also doing the work on plotting hyperspace jumps," Major Gant leaned against the first of the two navigation seats making Lionel nod in some understanding. She then turned her head to look through the see-through plotting display to nod at the stations on the other side of the display.

"Those are the ship's Auxiliary Weapon Station and Electronic Countermeasure Station. The Auxiliary Weapon Station is focused mostly on supporting the tactical station and coming up with targeting data for the ship's missile launchers. The Electronic Countermeasure Station is reasonable for directing the ship's electronic and physical countermeasures," she informed him with a small smile on her face. Lionel blinked at this and frowned down at the Electronic Countermeasure station.

"I would think Alien Races would have their own more superior defenses against stuff like electronic countermeasures and other such things?" he asked in an almost shock-sounding voice looking over at Major Gant, who smirked at this while Mitchell only snorted behind Lionel.

"The Asgard, oh yes, they can easily counter anything we do in ECM. For they have a greater understanding of such things. Heck. They can sit in the orbit of the planet, and we cannot detect them with anything we have. Either on the planet or in orbit directly," Mitchell said aloud with a short laugh. Major Gant nodded along with that before looking out at the viewport almost as if she was in experiencing a memory of a past event.

"Meanwhile, the Goa'uld don't really care about it, and the Jaffa, due to that, know very little of what we could call Electronic Countermeasures," she mentioned before looking back at the Colonel.

"That is how we managed to face down and eventually destroy a Goa'uld Ha'tak on our way back to Earth. Once we started broadcasting jamming and other such countermeasures, they could barely detect us as we approached. That was after their shields tanked a full spread of missiles from our forward missile launchers," she mentioned with a wistful look on her face. Mitchell meanwhile grinned proudly as he finished the story.

"While the ship peppered the Ha'tak with its railgun batteries. I personally lead a team of marines and SFs to board the enemy ship via the ship's ring transporter. We were carrying the warhead of one of our Mark VII Anti-Ship Missiles with us and placed it nearby the ship's reactor before retreating to the Prometheus. Once we did that, we sent the signal to the warhead, and it exploded, taking out the Ha'tak entirely," the Major mentioned with a beaming smile on his face. Lionel blinked at this before nodding at the man.

"That was quite a ballsy move, Major, but I am glad it worked," he replied to the story before turning to look over at Major Gant.

"Anything else you need to show me on the bridge?" he asked her, and she blinked at this before she looked around the bridge for a moment.

"Not really. Outside of having nine stations on the bridge, there is normally around a few extra personnel supporting the rest of the bridge crew. Though they wouldn't be seated at a station. For example, someone would support the navigation stations and work on the plotting display on the orders of the main navigation officer. Other than that, I do believe that is about it, sir," she answered and was about to step away from the navigation station to start moving further into the back of the bridge. Lionel blinked in surprise at her explanation before shrugging, guessing it was not really all that important. However, before she could do anything else, Lionel blinked as he got a thought and raised a hand to stop her.

"One more quick question, Major: Since you are the ship's XO, where is your usual station during combat?" he asked out loud of his earlier thought. Major Gant blinked in surprise before sighing and looking around the bridge. He could see she was surprised and a bit impressed with his question. Hopefully, that will help in getting her to trust him as the ship's commander.

"Before, it was either the Tactical Station or the Auxiliary Weapon Station, but when the advisor we had hired to help us with the refit saw that we had the majority of our senior officers stationed on the ship's bridge, he kind of lost it on General Ronson. So, since then, we moved my combat station to that of the ship's CIC where I can take over if the bridge is taken out or damaged in any way," she mentioned making him nod in understanding, for it did make some sense to him. That is normally how a Navy ship would operate with officers not only on the ship's bridge but in the ship's CIC located elsewhere in the ship's hull. So, if the bridge was hit at, all and the officers there killed the ship weren't completely leaderless when it happened.

"Understood. After you, Major," he said with a wave towards what he was surprised to see a second hatch built into one of the rear corners of the bridge, which opened at their approach. The two majors went through the hatch and into what looked like a decent office/lounge.

He blinked as he looked around at the space around him. A decent-sized desk took up one wall of the small, almost triangular-looking room with a couple of office chairs in front of the desk, and a comfy couch took up a second wall. At one of the three prominent corners of the room, right next to the large couch, sat a small table with what looked to be a house plant perched on it. To his immediate right was a wall and what looked to be another hatch leading elsewhere. Further from that wall was a bit more free space that surrounded a thin-looking viewport that dominated that bit of wall. In that corner was a large shelving unit that looked to be pretty bare at the moment though the shelves of the unit touched the viewport. A quick look into the nearby hatch saw him looking into a small bathroom with a tiny cube-shaped shower and what looked to be a built-in wardrobe/closet on the other side of the bathroom.

Turning around, he saw a massive emblem-like display on the wall opposite wall, along with a few different smaller shelves clustered around the display. Above the emblem, he saw the ship's name written in an almost whimsical font. Taking a closer look at the emblem, he saw it to be a modified form of that of the emblem of the US Air Force Space Command. The main chevron at the center of the emblem now looked more like the Point of Origin for Earth which he had seen in the briefing notes as part of the SGC emblem. Also, the planet behind the chevron was no longer there; instead, a general outline of the Prometheus replaced it. Finally, along either side of the outline of the ship were a pair of what looked to be a pair of torches that were leaning away from the ship, making a v-like look. Along the bottom of the emblem was a Latin phrase he quickly assumed to be the ship's motto. Looking around, he was pretty impressed that such a place was shoved into what looked to be a ten-by-ten room.

"This would be the Wardroom/In-Space Cabin for the ship's commander. The couch can be pulled out into a bed, making it into a cramped but livable cabin for the ship's commander," Major Gant mentioned, making Lionel look quite pleased at what he saw. As with this cabin placed right behind the ship's bridge, he could easily be on the bridge when something happened that required his presence. However, he looked over at Gant at the mention of a Space Cabin because it sounded similar to an At-Sea Cabin for US Navy Captains, which is where the said officer would bunk when at sea.

"I take it since you mentioned it being an In-Space Cabin that I would have a second, larger cabin somewhere else in the ship?" he asked and was a bit pleased to see the surprise on the major's face. Once again, she looked quite impressed with his questions, and once more, he hoped it would help her trust him more when he officially became the ship's commander.

"Correct, sir. This came about for two main reasons, the first being that when General Ronson was in command of the ship, he was not all that pleased that he had to go up two decks to reach the bridge from his quarters when something happened. The second reason was that the advisor we had hired had mentioned the idea of putting an in-space cabin into the design to the General soon after he was hired. The General liked the idea and approved the introduction of such a cabin behind the ship's bridge to allow the ship's commander an easier time getting to the bridge. This area of space was pretty much a void of space behind the bridge, and nothing was done with it during the initial construction of the ship. Therefore, this was the first major thing added when the refit started. The former primary quarters of the ship's commander were then turned into the commander's in-port cabin, which can also double as the cabin for a taskforce commander if we ever carried one onboard during missions," the major explained, making Lionel nod in understanding before looking around at the cabin once more. He was quite impressed with it. He turned once more to look at the large emblem on the shared wall with that of the bridge.

"I take it that this is the ship's chosen coat-of-arms?" he asked, turning back to look at Major Gant, who looked pleased with this question and nodded.

"Yes, sir. Originally, we didn't have any sort of custom coat-of-arms for the ship. We just had a slightly modified US Air Force Space Command Emblem on our patches, but when we started to commission a couple of captured Goa'uld ships into our service and the construction of the other ships starting. So a few officers came together and proposed the idea to the General, who then brought it up to General Hammond of the SGC and General Vidrine of the United States Air Force Space Command. Both of whom liked the idea and gave us the go-ahead to design our own coat of arms. The result of which is that" she explains, pointing at the almost glass-looking display. He nodded at that with a smile before looking back at the display and made a quick note to himself to look up the motto.

"Okay, what's next, Major?" he asked, turning away and starting to walk towards the hatch back to the bridge. However, before Major Gant could answer him, Major Mitchell pipped up instead.

"Let's go and show him the ship's mess, Erin. I'm sure the Colonel would like to meet with the advisor?" he mentioned out loud, making Gant look over at her fellow major in some surprise before she nodded. Meanwhile, Lionel looked quite interested and wondered why the advisor was still around after the majority of the ship's refit was completed. Not to mention why they were now in the ship's mess hall.

"Okay then. Let's head to the ship's mess," Major Gant said, turning to move back into the bridge with the two men following behind her. Lionel looked over at Major Mitchell with a confused look, but the other man only smiled at him before waving him to keep following Major Gant as she started to exit the bridge. Again, Lionel only shrugged at this before following close behind her.


-o-o-o-​
Main Mess Hall
USS Prometheus


It didn't take the three of them all that long to make it down three decks toward the ship's mess hall. As they moved through the ship, Major Gant explained some things to Lionel about the ship as they moved through the ship's major crew space heading towards the ship's main mess hall on the opposite side of the crew space. As they did so, they quickly peeked into a couple of different crew cabins, which made him look quite impressed with them all. As the standard crew cabins on this ship looked quite different from what he knew to be crew berths on a US Navy Ship which were quite cramped and had no actual means of crew comfort in the berths themselves.

While still being shared between more than one crew member, these cabins were only shared between two to four crew members, depending on their ranks. For example, senior enlisted and NCOs are bunked down in two-man crew cabins, while junior enlisted have to bunk down in similar-sized four-man cabins. Both crew cabins looked quite similar to one another, with a pair of bunks along either side of the cabin, complete with small wardrobes right inside the hatch on either side. Then towards the back of the cabin is a small living area complete with a single desk, a small table, a couple chairs, a couple of shelving units, and a small bathroom facility complete with a tiny showering cubicle. The only difference between the two was that the four-man cabins sported a pair of bunk beds, and the two-man cabin sporting desks plus chairs built into the lower part of the bunks along with a bunk above the desk.

They also took a quick look at one of the officer cabins, which was similar to other cabins but sported one more comfortable looking bunk on one wall. A couch, a complete closet on the opposite side of the cabin, and a slightly larger living area at the back. The bathroom room was also a bit larger, including a larger shower cubicle. There were also a couple of different types of crew lounges around the crew space of the ship, which included things like a crew library, relaxation areas, and various types of game rooms including; he was surprised to see a room with a couple of pool tables in it, and other forms of entertainment. There was even a mini-Theater Room which, according to Major Gant, could show things like movies, TV shows, and other notable videos. Then there was a pair of gym facilities, including a full basketball court and other notable fitness recreation facilities.

Finally, after taking a peek into the ship's four guest cabins, which were slightly larger versions of the officer cabins, they arrived at the ship's main mess hall. Which was located along the ship's aft and apparently, according to Major Gant, was one of three mess halls around the ship, along with a pair of smaller private messes. Like on a Navy ship, the other two mess halls were an NCO mess and an officer's mess. While the two private messes were for the use of the ship's commander and that of the ship's fighter pilots. Of which Major Mitchell mainly mentioned that it allowed the fighter pilots to eat between sorties as the fighter pilot mess was literally right next to the ship's hangar. Still, as they approached the main mess hall, they were surprised to hear raised voices from it, and when they entered, they saw everything a bit darkened with the dozen or so tables of the mess having their chairs stacked together in one corner of the large space.

"I told you, Captain, we are going to need everything that I ordered," came a rough and scratchy voice from the mess hall's kitchen. Lionel raised an eyebrow at this while Gant sighed and grumbled under her breath as they approached the kitchen.

"I understand that Chief, but I do not think we need everything on that list, as in the crew. Like I really doubt we will need all those spices you ordered," came a younger-sounding but still a bit rough voice as the three of them entered what looked to be a top-of-the-line kitchen like one found at a nice civilian restaurant in a decent-sized city.

"Captain Casey, what in the world is going on now?" Major Gant almost yelled as she entered this very nice-looking kitchen. Lionel looked over the two men that were arguing in the center of the kitchen and raised an eyebrow in some interest, for both couldn't be all that much different. The first man wore an Air Force Battle Dress Uniform complete with a blue beret of a United States Air Force Security Forces member, while the second wore the same blue-colored one-piece flight suit of his two companions, just with a white apron over it. The first man looked to be a typical member of the Air Force Security Forces though what made him different from anyone else was that he was tall and big. Lionel guessed he was somewhere around seven feet tall and looked to be quite heavily muscled. He briefly wondered how he got that tall, for it was clearly not normal. The other man was far older, with long, almost white hair that was gathered together in a neat ponytail down his back. He looked rugged, and Lionel thought he looked quite similar to his grandfather.

"Major Gant, ma'am. Mister Kelly here just put in a massive order of foodstuff and such to be delivered, including tons of spices," the large man mentioned with a shrug of his massive shoulders. The Major sighed at this before turning to look at the shorter older man who looked like he was willing to argue his case against her.

"Mister Kelly, I know the General did mention you can order whatever you needed for the ship and the crew itself, but still, isn't that a bit excessive?" she asked the man, who only snorted at this.

"Major, the food order I put in is only about seventy percent of the usual amount of food that an aircraft carrier carries on their cruises. You Air Force types need to understand that a ship like this will need a lot of food and such to keep your crew going. From what I understand from the General, this ship is planned to go on cruises around the galaxy, lasting around two years or so. I would think your quartermaster types would have told you about that," the man mentioned with a frown on his weathered face. Lionel blinked at this and nodded, for it made sense to him. Usually, the Air Force didn't have something like year-long cruises like the Navy ships did, as a matter of course. They had the majority of their personnel in nice and secure air bases across US-claimed territory where they would be resupplied by civilian delivery companies. Mostly those from the closest city to the air base in question.

"Besides, Major, I am not having it all delivered all at once as, yes, that may be a problem. Instead, I will insert parts of it into the normal load Nellis gets, which then can be transported to Groom Lake and, from there, transported to us here at the Yard. It will be weeks until this ship is ready to go. Therefore we can split out the order during that time," the man continued on with his little speech. This made Lionel almost chuckle at the man's passion, and he looked over at Gant to see her a bit flustered at this, which he saw at the corner of his amused Major Mitchell very well.

"Okay, everyone let's all calm down," he managed to say with a flash of a smile on his face. The captain frowned at him before his eyes widened at his rank. While this, Mister Kelly only eyed him in some concern before he, too, saw his rank and straighten up in some form of attention.

"Captain Casey, Mister Kelly, I like to introduce you to Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast, who is going to be the ship's new commanding officer once the paperwork goes through," Major Mitchell said, introducing him as he stepped forward before turning to look at Lionel, "Sir this is Captain Gavin Casey the commander of the ship's contingent of SFs turned Marines, and this is John Kelly, the advisor we had mentioned earlier. He is hanging around as the ship's official head cook."

"It is nice to meet you both," Lionel mentioned as he saluted the captain back before turning to look at the lone civilian in their midst.

"Mister Kelly, was it? Well, I agree with you about that order, and I shall talk to the General about it when I see him later. But, also, good idea about not doing it all in one order, for that wouldn't be good for our secrecy here," he mentioned to the man holding out a hand to shake with him, who looked quite surprised at his comment.

"Thank you for that, sir," the man mentioned shaking his hand before leaning in close to look at Lionel, "Say you wouldn't know James Pendergast, would you?"

"He was my grandfather, sir. He practically raised my sister and me after he retired from the Navy in 72," he replied with an almost sad look as he was once again reminded of his grandfather. That made Mister Kelly nod pleased at this, before letting go of his hand.

"James was a good man, and I was proud to serve under him a few years on the old Black Dragon when I was a young lad. Shame I couldn't get transferred when he took command of the Long Beach a few years later. Still spent the vast majority of my own career on deployed ships across the world, before I retired myself where I somehow managed to find myself overseeing the USS Texas Museum," the man mentioned making Lionel blink in some surprise at this, knowing that the mentioned Black Dragon was actually the USS New Jersey, an Iowa Class Battleship that is now a museum in New Jersey. Meanwhile, the Texas was another Battleship that became a museum and is now at San Jacinto Battleground Historical Park near Houston, Texas. A place he had visited a few times over the years since he was with NASA, as he spent the majority of his free time in Houston.

"So that is why you were hired by the Air Force to advise them on this refit," Lionel mentioned out loud with a smile on his face. The older man snorted at this before nodding as he looked around the kitchen they were in and maybe even the rest of the ship.

"Yeah, soon after I was going to retire from the position of overseeing the Texas, the Air Force came swooping in and wanted to hire me for something hush-hush. Since my wife passed a few years before, I figured why not and went along with it," he mentioned before grinning slightly and something "Then, when I saw what they were planning and everything, I decided to stay around as the ship's head cook for a happy, well-fed crew makes a happy ship after all. Besides, I originally joined the Navy to see the world; therefore, seeing new places on different planets will be quite a thing."

"I, for one, am glad you are here, Mister Kelly, and I agree we will be asking these airmen and such to go on these lengthy cruises in space. Naturally, they are going to need to be well-fed and happy. So, thanks for staying on," he mentioned with a nod to the man, who only returned the nod with a slight smile on his aged face.

"Well, I better get going. I need to see about finishing ordering a few things for the pilot's private mess," he mentioned before shaking Lionel's hand again, giving a jaunty wave at Major Mitchell, who returned it with his own smirk and a look at the captain before leaving the kitchen behind. The now four Air Force officers left behind with a mixture of different moods, with Major Gant only sighing and shaking her head, Major Mitchell only grinning in amusement, and the tall Captain Casey glowering after the shorter man as he left. Lionel, meanwhile, could only smile at the back of the man, for he was interesting, and he was right about the whole bit about feeding the crew. Shaking his head, he turned to look at Captain Casey now with a frown and looking a bit confused.

"That said. I have a couple of questions for you, Captain," he mentioned to the towering Security Force officer, who blinked at this before turning his own attention to Lionel.

"I shall hopefully have the answers for you, sir," the man replied with a nod to him.

"First of all, when Major Mitchell introduced you earlier, he mentioned that you were the leader of the SFs turned Marines. What did he mean by that?" he asked and was quite surprised by the groan of Major Mitchell and the wince from Major Gant while the captain himself only sighed and shook his head.

"Originally, Colonel, we were going to have a short company of marines onboard to serve as the ship's primary deployable infantry formation with a smaller platoon of SFs to serve more as a dedicated security force. This was mostly due to Goa'uld often using boarding tactics in combat. Therefore, having marines onboard would be the best way to counter such a thing. However, there is currently some good-old cross-branch political fighting going on right now along the senior staff of the different branches of the Armed Forces. Mostly as the Navy wants a piece of the pie that is the Stargate and demands to have control of all of our ships. The Marines are pretty much caught in the crossfire; therefore, to better appease a few Navy senior officers, it was decided that my Security Forces guys would become the ship's primary onboard deployable infantry force as well as serve as the ship's security force," the man mentioned with another sigh making Lionel shake his head and groan himself. That is one major reason he likes working with NASA, even with their own internal politics and such going on.

"Oh boy. That does explain a few things, then, doesn't it? What about the training of your SFs Captain? Are they able to act as Marines when required?" he asked, realizing a bit too late at what he said, which saw him almost wincing at the glare on the captain's face.

"Yes, sir. All of my men have at least three years of experience serving at the SGC, with a few, even like myself, former members of an SG Team. We also have been training hard to actually allow us to be used as direct combat troops and everything that goes along with that. Including hostile boarding and counter boarding training," the man explained, making Lionel nod, quite impressed with what he was saying.

"I understand and apologize, but I was simply curious. I should have been a bit less blunt with my questions," he replied with a nod in apology to the taller officer who only nodded back at him with a small pleased look on his face. He then opened his mouth to ask his second question when he suddenly stopped himself from saying anything and only sighed. He was sure it would have been a stupid question to ask, basically asking if his overall size was natural. Not something he really should have been asking at all. Especially since he knew about the Goa'uld, hence there may be a story to it that he really shouldn't bring up. He internally cursed at himself for, as mentioned, he could be too curious at times.

"Everything alright, Colonel," came the voice of Major Mitchell, jolting Lionel from his own internal lambasting of himself. He sighed and only nodded at the man before turning to look at Captain Casey, who had an almost knowing look on his face before the man nodded again with a smile on his face.

"I am quite alright Major just had a thought in my head, and I told the NASA part of myself to shut up," he mentioned with a small, amused smile on his face making Mitchell chuckle lightly before a light beeping made him look at a watch on his wrist before wincing and looking back up at him.

"Sir, sorry to bail on you right now, but I have to get a meeting I need to take part in," the pilot mentioned with a regretful-looking face. Lionel only nodded at this, for he was sure that their impromptu tour did interrupt their plans for the day.

"No worries, Major. I shall hopefully see you around later," he mentioned with a wave of his hand. However, before Mitchell left, he turned to look over at Captain Casey with a look of his own.

"Captain, I do believe you should help finish up the tour as you have been somewhat involved in some parts of the refit; therefore are the best person to answer any further questions of the Colonel," the pilot mentioned making the captain wince before sighing and nodding his head at this idea.

"Of course, sir," he mentioned making the pilot smile pleased at him before the smile turned a bit crafty, which made both Lionel and the Captain look a bit concerned.

"Though I am sure you can show off your armory to the Colonel. As I am sure he would be quite impressed with it," the man mentioned, almost innocently confusing Lionel, but he soon saw the captain's sigh and a roll of his eyes.

"Understood, Major, I will do that. Don't you have a meeting to get to," the captain replied, making the pilot looking down at this watch before he winced and quickly left the kitchen before going off further into the ship.

Through all this, Major Gant looked a bit pained before she turned to look at the captain and asked, "Are you sure you want to do this, Captain?" The man only smiled at her before nodding in agreement and turning to look at Lionel with an interested look on his face. Seeing this, Lionel got the hint and looked over at Major Gant.

"So, Major, where should we go next?" he asked, simply trying to get things moving. Major Gant exchanged a quick look with the captain before turning to look at him.

"I believe we should get a good look at the ship's engineering, as the captain can explain everything better than I could. We can then call it for the day. I am sure you have some other things you need to do before the day ends Lieutenant Colonel. Not to mention there are a few other things we can show you later on if you are still interested," the Major mentioned making Lionel nod in understanding.

"On the way, we can follow Major Mitchell's suggestion and show off the ship's main armory, for I am quite proud of it after all," Captain Casey mentioned drawing a smile from the Major while Lionel only lightly chuckled at the man's comment.

"That will work. Shall we, gentlemen?" she said, and with a wave of her hand, the three officers left the kitchen behind them, heading towards the nearest deck elevator.


-o-End-o-
So! Here is the next chapter, and we are really getting to the start of the story. Not to mention a general idea about Prometheus in general. I am sure you all have noticed some things have changed from what we know about the ship. For one, the Alien Ship from Grace does not jump the ship on its way back to Earth. Instead, ending up running into a Goa'uld Ha'tak Mothership, where the ship's weapons proved unsuccessful. This was mentioned earlier in the story, and this chapter brings up a better explanation of it. Speaking of which, our boy Cameron Mitchell has appeared! Figured since we do know he was a member of the ship's crew in the series, he should make some sort of appearance. Also, he was chiefly reasonable for getting the Prometheus out of the battle with the Ha'tak. Figured a future member of SG-1 had to have some sort of crazy-ass idea that ended up working. For Cam, it was him leading some Marines and Air Force SFs onboard the Ha'tak to personally deliver a nuclear bomb to the ship's reactor. Combined with his later stunt with that, Al'kesh, during my version of Battle of Antarctica, will get his foot in the door to join, *cough* lead *cough*, SG-1 later on in one of the sequel stories.

Also, in this chapter, we are introduced to two further characters who will impact the overall larger story. Unlike the first two new characters introduced in this story, these two are pretty much original characters. Though one is modified from a one-shot character seen in an early episode of the series. The first is, of course, John Kelly, who is funny enough a character that was never introduced in the first version of the story and one that I planned on introducing in said story. He was to advise the Air Force on the refit of the Prometheus, and that was about it for him. Hence, the only things I changed with him are that he is in charge of a ship museum and that he will be sticking around with the ship. I figured that since we later see civilians like Doctor Novak serving onboard Earth ships, therefore, it shouldn't be all that much of a stretch to have someone like Mister Kelly serving onboard the ship. The second character introduced is Captain Gavin Casey, one of the first members of SG-2 during the series' first episodes. After he was injured on Chulak, he pretty much disappeared. Here, he returns to SG-2 and eventually stumbles onto a Goa'uld nanotech experiment similar to that of those poor people on Argos, just bulking him up instead of aging him fast. Speaking of which, I have also mentioned the idea of the troops onboard the Prometheus being specially trained US Air Force Security Forces instead of Marines. This is something I figured happening in the background. Expect similar things to happen in the future of this story and its sequels.

That said. I have a few more things to mention before I get into writing the next chapter. This does neatly bring us to said chapter. My original plan would have the next chapter covering the first official mission for the Prometheus after Colonel Pendergast taking command. However, the Tour part of this story took a bit longer than planned. Therefore, I am separating the chapter into two. This is mainly thanks to how fun I was having with it. For example, to better expand on the Commander's Wardroom/Space Cabin, I actually, for the first time ever, drew up a little floor plan for it. That was a bit of fun and funny in that the shape of the room looked kind of like the state of Nevada. The state I am currently living in! And no, I did not plan it out that way. Okay. That said. I have one last thing to mention before I get to write the next chapter. I have introduced a small subplot in this chapter: Erin Gant's unease with what she sees as Colonel Pendergast's having little combat experience. Do not think I did it justice, but I hope it still came through.

Alright. That is about it for these notes. Really need to stop having them so darn long. OH. I almost forgot a couple things to mention. First, for those AO3 Readers, I put up the SGC Intelligence File Codex for those lore hounds out there. So far, it has the background files for the Prometheus itself and the new version of the F-302. I will post the background file for the Atlas and the Korolev when they are genuinely introduced into the story. I also have a Goa'uld Weapon List and a Goa'uld Ship List Background Files when I get a bit further into the story itself. Next, so far, I have had little response to the story. At FFN, I have only the one review, while Spacebattles and The Sietch only have a handful of responses going for them. I usually wouldn't ask for responses, as I always hated it when I was reading a story, but I know myself that if I do not have an idea on if people are enjoying the story, my excitement for the story will start to wane. And I really want to get a good amount of this story to be written. So please give some feedback and such for the story. Thanks.

Okay. Now I am done! See you in the next chapter, everyone! Please read and review!
 
Chapter Three: The Tour, Part Two

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
Quick Note: Oops! Sorry, should have gotten this out earlier! Sadly as mentioned, I was having some issues with the next chapter and the idea I needed a breather from NaNo before doing any further writing. Then got the brilliant idea to add something else to the armory scene, which took some time to get to work right. Finally, this a doozy of a chapter, and took some time to look it over properly. However, I may have still missed a few issues. Thanks for waiting, everyone!

Chapter Three: The Tour, Part Two


When the Prometheus was first constructed, she had just the one large Naquadah Reactor, that was somewhere around twelve times the size of the prototype reactor that was developed earlier by the engineers at the SGC, and a few smaller secondary reactors which were somewhere around twice the size of the locker-sized Naquadah Generators that had been in production for a few years now. However, when it was decided to refit the ship that old reactor was said to be ineffective with the increase in the ship's armament. Therefore, with the help of a couple of Asgard experts in Naquadah power the Titan Engineering Team would develop the Mark-III-S Shipboard Naquadah Reactor. The Prometheus would then have two of these smaller reactors installed where the older larger Mark-II-S Reactor had been located. Meanwhile, the new hyperdrive for the ship incorporated its own Mark-III Reactor in its design. This allowed the power from the other reactors of the ship to be used for other things like weapons and shields. In fact, as designed, each of the reactors onboard are dedicated to power one of the two main power draws of the ship: the shields and weapons. The rest of the ship's power is provided by a half-dozen Mark-IV-A Auxiliary Naquadah Reactors spread out between three auxiliary power rooms across the ship. In emergencies, the ship's crew can tie in several of those small locker-sized Mark I series naquadah reactors into the power grid, which can be stored in emergency lockers around the ship. All told, this was to better allow the Prometheus the capabilities to further stand up against more than one Goa'uld Ha'tak Mothership…

- Taken from the notes taken by the Chief Engineer of the
Prometheus Major Lynn Evans about the refit

-o-o-o-​

Main Armory
X/DSW-303 Prometheus


After doubling back to the ship's main lift, the three officers found themselves right outside of the ship's main armory. Of which look quite larger than what Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Pendergast guessed at it being. It even had some defenses including a pair of straight-faced blue-beret wearing Air Force SFs of Captain Casey's unit standing guard outside of it. So, he was already impressed with it even before stepping inside it. However, soon the three officers were inside a decent sized room which was dominated by various weapons which were spread across the rooms in a variety of different racks and tables. He could only whistle in some surprise before he noticed that he didn't recognize any of the weapons at all. Oh. He could see a handful of modified FN P90 Personal Defense Weapons secured in a covered weapon rack in one corner of the room along a couple dozen of looked to be some sort of variant of the Colt M1911 Pistol in another large rack. However, the rest of the weapons in the armory was nothing he recognized at all with a couple even have some sort of glowing feature on them. Had he spent so much time at NASA that development of new weapons kind of left him behind?

'No. I have requalified on a few different standard weapons of the US Armed Forces every year since my secondment to NASA. I would have noticed if something changed,' Lionel thought to himself before he turned to look at the amused looking Captain Casey.

"So, Captain care to introduce me to some of these weapons?" he asked with a nod to the weapons that he did not recognize at all. The man only nodded with that same amused look on his face though Lionel did see a hint of some excitement in his eyes.

"Of course, sir," he mentioned before starting towards one of the weapons that Lionel had never seen before now.

"However, first I need to give you some background. At the start of the Stargate Program the teams we sent through the Stargate mainly used MP5s for smaller first-contact teams like SG-1 and the M16A3 rifle for our Marine Assault Teams. Of course, along with our heavy weapons like say a machine gun liken the M249 SAW or rocket launchers like our FIM-92 Stinger Launchers. This had started to change as the SGC started to need a weapon that a bit more power. Hence, over the past year and a half or so the SGC had started to replace those weapons with the FN P90 for smaller first-contact teams and a modified G36 Rifle for the Marine Assault Teams. Both of which could fire a modified 5.56 NATO armor-piercing round that was made to help pierce through the armor that Jaffa wore in combat. Though it should be noted that a couple of Army Combat Teams that have started to be used by the SGC would continue to use the M16 platform although modified slightly to fire the same modified round as the G36 rifle," the Security Force Captain explained as he stopped briefly by the rack of P90s before moving to a large rack carrying a strange-looking rifle that while looked to have been created by someone from Earth it did look very different from any other weapon Lionel had seen before in military hands.

"Even with the introduction of that same modified armor-piercing round and the new weapons SG teams still needed anywhere from five to seven rounds to punch through the body armor of a Jaffa. Apparently, that chainmail they wear so often sports a strange mixture of naquada and trinium in it, which is quite lightweight and very difficult to shoot through. Depending on the Goa'uld in question this Jaffa armor varies in thickness with some of the small-time Goa'uld having their Jaffa equipped with very thin or even regular old steel links instead of wonder metal like Trinium. Easily countered by our weapons. However, when we started to go up against the Army of Sokar, which improved the armor quite a bit from the standard Jaffa that we started to need a new weapon to counter these more heavily armored Jaffa. So, the SGC's armorers with the assistance of some of the engineers on base, like Major Carter of SG-1, started a new project to counter this," the man continued on and lifted up one of the strange-human-designed weapons he noticed earlier. It had a smaller and shorter barrel than he was used to seeing on human-designed weapons. Almost looking like a barrel from a carbine or a similar-sized weapon.

"The result of that project is this weapon. The Micro-16 Assault Rifle," the captain proudly mentioned looking down at the weapon, "It fires a modified armor-piercing 7.62 NATO Round, and the barrel sports a magnetic coil plate wrapped around it. Allowing it to have further power in the round when it leaves the barrel. Not fully a handheld railgun like something for a sci-fi story but still having plenty of power to pierce through Jaffa's body armor with a couple of rounds."

The man described the weapon with an almost pleased-looking twinkle in his eyes. Meanwhile, Lionel could only gap in some surprise, for he never even thought such a weapon was possible to create in this day and age. He really shouldn't be all that surprised with what the SGC had recovered through the gate over the years. Captain Casey suddenly sighed and put down the weapon back on the rack he got it from.

"Sadly, we do not have the fully styled weapon with the magnetic coil barrel and have this shortened non-magnetic form of it. As with the coil barrel, this weapon could end up putting a hole in the ship where there shouldn't be. Still, we have about two dozen of these weapons, which alongside our modified P90s are for everyday use." the captain said with a fond pat of the weapon and a wave at the rack of P90s before he moved onto another weapon. This one looked to be a weird mix of looking like it was human-designed with a few alien-looking bits attached to it.

"This Colonel is something that the research and development team at Area 51 created, with some help from SGC's engineers, in the past month. The Type 11 Plasma Repeater Rifle," the security force officer explained picking up one of the strange looking almost alien-looking rifles with a comically looking short barrel.

"Basically, these weapons take one of the Plasma Repeaters captured from one of the Kull Warriors of Anubis and place it into a small rifle-like casing complete with a pistol grip with a standard trigger. Also, inside the rifle casing is a series of small heatsinks to help cool the weapon as, like any of the Goa'uld Plasma Weapons, it can overheat. Normally the regular Repeater can only fire in short five-round bursts before having to cool down. The Repeater Rifle, on the other hand, can fire a full twelve-round burst in a matter of a couple of seconds before a few more seconds are to cool down, and then you can fire again. Also mounted in the casing of the rifle is a pair of the same liquid Naquadah power cell of a Staff Weapon allowing the weapon to fire a couple of thousand shots before they have to be replaced," the captain explained picking up one of the weapons, which looked quite small in his large hands and flicked something on the side which then started to hum almost ominously. Before he switched it back off and laid it back down on the weapon rack, it came from.

"Sadly, we only have about a half-dozen of these weapons as we haven't captured all that many Repeaters from Anubis. The only reason we have these is that the engineer who designed it and created them owes me a favor or two. The rest of the weapons we managed to create so far have been shipped to the SGC for further field testing," Captain Casey explained before moving over to another more alien-looking weapon that were in their own individual locked cabinet in a corner of the large room. The captain slid a keycard through the lock and after a couple of seconds pulled the door open before pulling out the heavy alien-looking weapon out from the cabinet.

"This type of weapon is quite interesting and has a bit of history. Originally the SGC brought back tons of Goa'uld Staff Weapons to Earth. However, after a while, we stopped recovering them as outside of them being a terrifying powerful weapon in their own right they were some of the worse designed weapons we have seen in many years. It took an uneducated local from the planet Abydos to actually get the idea to improve on the regular Staff Weapon. Basically, cutting off the majority of the staff end of the weapon and placing the head of the weapon onto a modified M16 frame allowed it to be fired a lot easier. Not to mention far more accurate. The armorers at the SGC, when they heard about this, took the vast majority of our captured Staff Weapons and started to convert them into Type-09 Staff Rifles. The majority of which we gave to the growing Free Jaffa Movement who were more used to the original weapon than we happened to be," the man explained bringing the weapon up to his shoulder and showing off the bulbous head of the weapon which Lionel quickly realized look similar to the pictures of the staff weapons in the briefing the General had given him earlier.

"However, it wasn't really known till over a year ago that there is actually more than one type of Staff Weapon. For example, the guards that Ra brought with him to Abydos carried a staff weapon that was far more powerful than the Staff Weapons the SGC would start to encounter over a year later with that of the Jaffa of Apophis. The SGC had always thought that those Staff Weapons were an anomaly or just the reports being wrong, as it was quite chaotic for that first mission. It wasn't till we managed actually get our hands on one of these so-called Type 3 Heavy Staff Weapons that we started to know how wrong we were. For these Heavy Staff Weapon had a larger plasma projector at the head which focused the plasma far better then the standard Staff Weapon giving it that heavier power in its shot. A power that was witnessed to be able to be able down a Kull Warrior in three shots. Therefore, when the SGC and its armorers heard about that they created this weapon the Type 15 Improved Staff Rifle out of the handful of captured Type 3 Heavy Staff Weapons. Since they were capable of downing a Kull Warrior, they were spread about the various units under the umbrella of the SGC. Including us as the SGC higher ups are afraid of Kull Warriors trying to board us if we encounter a force from Anubis," Captain Casey wound down his little briefing about the weapon before placing it back into the cabinet it came from which soon locked once more.

"Still, we only got five of the weapons, and thanks to them quite capable of doing damage to the interior of the ship if we are not careful with them. They are locked up like this to prevent just anyone from coming in and trying to fire it inside the ship to damage it," the man continues to explain, turning away from the cabinet and making Lionel nod in understanding.

"So is that all the infantry weapons we are carrying?" Lionel suddenly asked making the Security Force captain to blink in some surprise, having been somewhat in his own little world. He looked around at the larger armory before shaking his head sadly.

"Yeah, outside of a couple of dozen Zats and these modified M1911 handguns for sidearms we don't have anything else. We really didn't need any heavier weapons, like machine guns or heavy ordnance, on the ship as we are not meant to be really going into direct battle with the enemy only defending the ship when needed. If we do end up going up against a large amount of Jaffa on a planet or somewhere else we might end up getting heavier weapons to support us," the man explained making Lionel nod in understanding. It did make sense for the security force troops onboard where not onboard to actually face off against a large Jaffa army but defend the ship and some limited missions like guarding the ship when it's landed somewhere in both hostile and semi-hostile controlled areas? Still, Lionel frowned as he looked around the armory and saw how many weapons were stored in the room. He wondered about the reason for the ship to have so many weapons in the armory when it was not only at the dock but at the tail end of a major refit of the ship. However before he could voice the question in his ehad Captain Casey suddenly perked up and started to advance towards the back of the large room where a large armored closet-looking and sized container was mounted alongside a security hatch of some sort he guessed led into another room of the armory. On the other side of the armored closet-like container was a rack for what looked to be sets of standard tactical armored vests and combat webbing.

"Oh. I almost forgot the best part!" the Security Force officer mentioned in some excitement as he once more did the whole security card swipe and such on the door to the tall, and large, container before opening the doors. Lionel could only stare in outright surprise at what is inside of it. What looked to be four sets of advanced looking fully enclosed combat armor. He could only stare at this before shaking his head with a chuckle. As he really shouldn't be all that surprised. First the advanced alien-looking guns and now honest-to-goodness sci-fi-looking combat armor.

"This is the Advanced Defense Combat Armor System, or just called the Carapace Armor by many in the SGC. Again, the history behind these things is a bit interesting. As ever since the early days of the Stargate Program, there had been a directive to introduce an advanced combat armor system to help protect the soldiers on the frontlines from the high-powered Staff Weapons of the Jaffa. However, that particular project never really saw any sort of fruit outside of introducing ceramic/carbon trauma plates for our combat vests. The project got a kick in the pants when the Kull Warriors of Anubis were first introduced as their plasma repeaters were quite lethal to our frontline Stargate Teams," Casey mentioned as he stared at the armor comfy in their storage bays wincing slightly at the mention of the power of staff weapons both because he had been personally hit by them a couple of times and seeing friends getting hit by them as well. He also kind of sighed at the mention of the lethality of the Kull's Plasma Repeaters as he had witnessed them in action himself against friends and fellow soldiers of Stargate Command.

"Sadly, again the project could not get any sort of results for trying to create one was just out of our reach. It was only by chance that the project received a much-needed boost in the arm when the SGC was in the middle of purchasing a large order of fully sealed flight suits for our fighter pilots from Spacers Choice a subsidiary of the larger Tech Con Group of the planet Hebridan and the SGC representative mentioned sadly that it would great if Hebridan could also produce advanced combat armor for soldiers in the field. The Spacers Choice representative mentioned that yeah, the armor their own soldiers wore was not all that much different from our own armored combat vests. Though they did have a full-body armored suit in the works by another Tech Con subsidiary, Aramid Ballistics. The only reason the Spacers Choice rep knew about such a project was that his wife was one of the engineers working on the project," the Security Force captain continued to explain now looking a bit amused at his story while Lionel could only stare at the man in outright surprise.

"The two representatives then somehow managed to get the overworked engineers working on the SGC's Advanced Combat Armor Project and the stressed-out engineers working on Aramid Ballistics Full Body Armored Suit project in the same room. This strange team up soon had a viable proposal worked out and would pitch it to the higher ups in Tech Con who would approve the whole thing. Within two weeks the first of these new combat armors were rolling off the production line. As thanks for our help in its development, we got a dozen free examples along with a small discount on further orders of the combat armor. The four here are actually prototypes for a slightly slimmed-down version of the full-on first production version developed for use by the likes of shipboard combat troops like my own unit. Which is the reason we have these included," he said as he started to come to a close of his story and waved at what looked to be five large slabs of armor stacked in a rack along one small side of the large container.

"Are those actual shields?" Lionel could only sputter out in some shock making Captain Casey outright laugh at his reaction.

"Yes, one of the SGC's engineers came up with the idea during the original design development of the Armor. As that was another wild idea the engineers had over the years of the Stargate Program. Basically, large arm-mounted shields which could be used by Stargate Teams exiting the Stargate and those using Ring Transports. However, that idea never really went anywhere as shields like that couldn't like Riot Shields used on Earth in anti-riot or police operations. No, they had to be thickly armored to allow them to stand up against Jaffa Staff Weapons which no one outside of myself or Teal'c of SG-1 could carry in the field. At least till the introduction of semi-powered advanced combat armor like this Carapace Armor. We have these shields to allow my men and I to more easily fight in corridors of a ship like the Prometheus. In fact, these shields are actually made out of the same armor that is mounted on the Prometheus. Five-Inch Thick in the center. No Staff Weapon or even a large Staff Cannon could pierce it in one shot. It would take several shots for it to be actually pierced through," the man managed to explain after he was done laughing. Lionel a bit embarrassed at him being laughed at like that could only be quite impressed at both the armor and the shields.

"You said they are semi-powered?" he asked out loud making the captain nod and reach into the container to pluck something out of it that was glowing green and about the size of a large soda can.

"These are Liquid Naquadah Power Cells which are just larger versions of the smaller cells powering a Staff Weapon. They can fully power a full Carapace Armor suit for up to a week of constant combat or a full month of no combat before they have to be switched out for a new Power Cell," the man explained holding up the Power Cell for Lionel to inspect.

"Interesting enough. These new Power Cells are also going to be able to power some newer heavy weapons the SGC is currently in the process of developing. Still, though we only have about a dozen of these cells and only four Carapace Armors as the SGC right now has priority with getting them. It would a couple of months till we have enough to actually equip all of our troops with them," Captain Casey said before returning the Power Cells to its slot in the back of the container and starting to close the doors to the container.

"Very impressive," Lionel mentioned with an impressed look on his face. He then looked around the Armory once again and remembered the question he had been about to ask before the captain had started to show him the new combat armor.

"A quick question for you, Captain. I am quite impressed with everything here, but I had a thought earlier: Why in the world do we have a full armory like this when at dock and undergoing a refit? Wouldn't the weapons be loaded onboard before we first launch?" he asked with a frown on his face as he once more looked around at the various weapons spread out throughout the room and the container with the combat armor inside. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Captain Casey had looked a bit angry before he sighed and answered the question.

"Normally that would be true, sir, but this ship has been almost taken over by a hostile force twie before now, and both times was while in this particular dock. The first was before the ship was finished, and the second time was a few months later, right before the ship's commissioning ceremony. Both times were by the rogue NID who wanted the ship for something or another. While the first time was semi-successful, the second time was only a failure for the rogue NID thanks to a quirk in the paperwork that had a crate of P90s and Sidearms onboard when there shouldn't be. That allowed the Security Troops onboard the ship to arm up and fight off the NID boarders. So ever since then, we had the ship's armories fully stocked to prevent another attempt," the captain explained with an almost angry scowl on his face. Lionel nodded at this, for it did make some sense, for he had heard about that first attempt. He also heard about the sheer outrage many in the SGC have for the rogue NID and their currently unknown masters.

"Understood. Anything else I need to know, Captain?" Lionel asked of the man after a few moments of silence between the two. Captain Casey blinked at this and looked around the room before nodding his head.

"Yes, sir, this is only the ship's main armory which has the majority of our handheld weapons along with carrying our very few heavier weapons. It also has the ship's small gun range right next to it along with one of the ship's small machine shops," he started to say pointing at a pair of smaller hatches one at the back of the room, the one he noticed earlier next to the container with the combat armor, and another right next to the hatch leading out of the armory itself, "The ship also sports a handful of smaller secondary armories across the ship just in case we get blocked off from this armory. There are also a dozen or so emergency weapon lockers spread out along the ship. A couple is around the ship's bridge. Though if you and the bridge crew have to actually open them and arm yourself, things will be going quite bad for my men and me."

This made Lionel blink and wince, for that was quite true. If they were boarded and he needed to arm himself, something had gone very badly wrong for the Captain and his security teams. Still, he made a note to get the locations of those lockers just in case.

"I understand and I shall see about getting those locations later on. Though I do believe we should move along," Lionel mentioned making the larger man nod in agreement.

"Yeah, I do believe that is it for this particular area. Time to move on to the engineering deck," the security officer mentioned waving at the now-opening hatch where Major Gant had been patiently waiting for them to be finished with the armory along with the two guards who retook their position flanking the armored hatch. The three officers then quickly made their way further down the ship towards engineering.

-o-o-o-​

Main Engineering
X/DSW-303 Prometheus


As the three officers came out of one of the main lifts of the ship, Lionel noticed something interesting about the corridor they entered. While it looked like the ones, he had seen on the other decks it did seem to go on forever further into the ship. Confused, he looked at his escorts to see the two of them looking a bit amused at this making him frown before taking another look at the corridor and blinking as he got an idea of what was going on here.

"This corridor is longer than the ones we saw upstairs, isn't it Major Gant?" he asked the most senior of his escorts who chuckled lightly before nodding at him.

"Correct, sir this is one of the ship's full-length lateral corridors, which goes through the majority of the ship. There are four of them, and this particular one goes through the entire "bottom" of the ship from the engineering section to the most forward part of the ship. These corridors, plus the few dozen or so maintenance conduits spread across the ship, allow the crew access to a good amount of the ship. Even past the main crew spaces of the ship, which by necessity are towards the aft of the ship," she explained, making Lionel look a bit surprised but he knew that he really shouldn't be, for there had to be some way of getting access to the rest of the ship after all.

"And we also have those four Ring Transport on the ship. Those allow us to in an emergency get across the ship much faster than walking along these long corridors," Captain Casey quickly chipped in with a nod of his head. Lionel looked thoughtful at this statement and briefly wondered about security for those Ring Transports but a mental note to ask that later.

"Understood Major, Captain shall we continue on towards engineering?" he mentioned, and with that, the three of them continued on, but it didn't really take long for them all to arrive in the main engineering control room as it wasn't that far from the main lift. As they entered the room, Lionel quickly noticed the large window that took up the far wall of the room. He then noticed the circular control station at the center of the room, along with a few different further control stations and other such pieces of equipment along the walls around the room. Though looking closer, he did notice a pair of vastly smaller windows on either side of the room in between some large pieces of wall-mounted equipment.

"Colonel, this is the main engineering control room that overlooks the ship's engineering deck that runs through a good sixty percent of the level right below us. The window over there overlooks the ship's main hyperdrive engine, which allows the ship to go faster than light. This particular drive is the ship's third as the first was destroyed during its shakedown cruise thanks in part to its unstable naquadria power cell, the second drive was a scavenged hyperdrive from a Goa'uld Cheops Mothership, and this particular one is custom-built by a team that was helped by a couple of Asgard engineers," Major Gant started her overview of the engineering section as she walked towards the mentioned window with both Captain Casey and Lionel following behind her. Looking through the window, Lionel could see the rectangular main hyperdrive system and was quite impressed such a powerful system looked quite underwhelming. With a wave at the window, the Major continued on with her spiel.

"While this is the ship's main hyperdrive, the ship also now sports a vastly smaller auxiliary hyperdrive which is located further along the engineering deck. It doesn't have the power of this drive and has to cool down after every use, but it will allow the ship to still have the ability to go FTL if the main drive is damaged or destroyed for some reason," she explained before she started to move along the wall towards one of those smaller windows Lionel had spotted when he first walked into the room. Through it, he could see a large sphere-looking piece of equipment though he didn't know what it happened to be, though it did look somewhat similar to the central part of the hyperdrive and looked over at Major Gant in silent question.

"This is one of the ship's two main Mark III-S Naquadah Reactors. Both of these reactors have replaced the old Mark-II-S Reactor we had at first, which could barely fully power the ship without the support of auxiliary reactors. That was without any energy-hungry weapons that we know sport. What makes these reactors so special is not only did the Asgard help us with their construction, but they are made to be tied directly into the two most power-consuming parts of the ship," she started to explain, looking at him and at the confusion on his face she smiled before continuing on, "This being the ship's weapons and the shields. Both of which draw the most power than any other system across the ship. The ship's shields are more so than the ship's weapons. Thanks to this direct feed, the ship's weapons are a few magnitudes more powerful than the similar weapon systems onboard a Ha'tak Mothership. The shields, meanwhile, are quite powerful and can take a pounding from more than one enemy warship. Both of these ideas are a means to give the ship a dedicated force multiplier to use against an enemy force. Whatever that happens to be."

At this Lionel blinked in some surprise before he turned to look through the small window once more at the innocent-looking sphere-shaped device. Turning around, he looked at the other side of the room at the second small window and figured that is where the mentioned second reactor happened to be located. However, he looked at the larger main window and had a thought along with something else he noticed in the major's little spiel about the reactors.

"Okay. What about the Hyperspace Drive and the other major systems of the ship, like the life support?" he asked, looking over at Major Gant, who looked a bit pleasedwitht these questions from him. Once again, she was testing him, and he sighed at this but did nothing, waiting for her to answer his questions.

"The Hyperdrive sports its own attached Mark-III reactor along with a pair of Mark IV-A Auxiliary Reactors which are double the size of the old Mark-I Reactors the SGC have been using in the field for years. They are all separate from the rest of the reactors though in an emergency, the power from the reactors can be routed to the ship's main power grid. As for the rest of the ship's systems, the ship also sports six further Mark IV-A Auxiliary Reactors spread across the ship, which power the rest of the ship's systems, including life support. If any of those reactors are damaged or destroyed in combat, the ship can have a dozen or so Mark I-E Reactors stored, which can be tied into the ship to provide the needed power," she explained, making Lionel blink in some outright surprise. That was quite different from, say a ship of the US Navy that may have some sort of auxiliary wouldn't have something like carrying around some emergency power supplies, but after a moment of thought, he figured that it was a further means to allow the ship to against a superior number of enemy warships. Not to mention, the ship is planned to be on missions lasting months to over a year; therefore needed the means to get them home or at least get help when the worst happened.

"Very impressive, Major. I take it some of that was from some thrown-around ideas after what happened to the ship with its first hyperspace drive and got stranded," he mentioned out loud and was pleased to see the small smile on the face of Captain Casey, who was the door to the engineering section while Major Gant only blinked in some surprise at that statement from him before she shook her head with a smile on her own.

"Somewhat, Colonel. As that incident did kind of scare a few people in power, therefore, some ideas were thrown around about preventing that from happening again. Combined that with trying to give the ship every possible advantage we can give it as till we can start mass production of our own ships, it will always be outnumbered," she replied with an almost wistful look on her face. This made Lionel look at her in understanding, for it was quite true while they had a handful of captured Goa'uld ships along with the nearly finished forms of the Atlas and the Korolev however, that was nothing against the hundreds upon hundreds of Goa'uld Ha'tak Motherships in the galaxy. That is not even considering other enemies that may be out in the galaxy that they may run into in the future. The galaxy was quite large, after all. At least they could start mass-producing ships of their own with the needed advanced technologies to better fight against anyone wanting to do Earth or her people harm.

"I do understand that Major," he mentioned after a few moments of silence in the main engineering control room. He then turned away from the small window showing one of the ship's reactors and started to walk toward the main hatch.

"That said. Is there anything else I need to see before we call it a day? As I am going to need to get my quarters on base squared away and have some of the stuff shipped out here from my place at Houston," he mentioned, not noticing the looks between the other two officers in the control room before Captain Casey cleared his throat.

"Well, sir. You are a pilot; therefore, we can get a quick look-see of the hangar and your first look at our F-302 Fighters?" he mentioned out loud, making Lionel look back at him with an almost excited glint in his eyes. He had heard about the 302s and everything that they could do from that briefing the General gave him. The ability to go from the atmosphere and into the orbit of a planet was quite an interesting thing, especially to a veteran Astronaut like him. He should know he had done it several times on top of a large rocket, but the idea of doing it in the cockpit of a fighter like the 302 was both just as exciting and not as exciting. He doubted that flying the 302 from the atmosphere to that of a planet's orbit would be as blood-pumping as going into space on top of a thundering rocket booster. Still, the idea of it is what makes it exciting to him.

"Shame we don't have Major Mitchell still with us as he would talk your ear off about the 302s all day, really," Captain Casey mentioned with a chuckle making Major Gant nod in some agreement with an amused look on her face before she eyed Lionel with a further chuckle of her own at that excitement on his face.

"The hangar will be pretty much on the way to the ship's main airlock and back to the base proper. So why don't we do that but sir, I have to say we cannot spend all that much time in the hangar," she mentioned making Lionel look a bit disappointed, but he understood the reasoning behind that.

"I receive you loud and clear Major. Let's go then," he mentioned with a wave towards the hatch letting the Major lead him and Captain Casey out of the Engineering Control Room.


-o-o-o-​

Pilot's Lounge Area
Ship's Hangar
USS Prometheus


Just around thirty minutes later found the three of them entering what looked to be an overall small lounge area that had a large window looking into that of the ship's main hangar. During that time, both Major Gant and Captain Casey had given Lionel a quick tour of the hangar facility. As they did so, they pointed out bits of the hangar and such along, with briefing him further on the entire facility. They even got close to one of the four F-302 Fighters that was currently in the hangar bay. Lionel was quite impressed with the design as he walked around the craft before they quickly moved on.

As they walked through the hangar, he was quite surprised to find out that the hangar for the ship was actually two levels with a large central hangar located in much of the ship's central hull, which is around three decks high, about a hundred meters in length, and about a hundred twenty meters in width. It is here that the majority of the ship's fighters are stored, serviced, and everything else needed for the fighters, while the upper deck is connected by two large main elevators at the aft end of the hangar. Each one is capable of carrying two of the 302s angled just right to allow them both to be on the one elevator. At the same time, the upper deck of the hangar bay was around fifty meters in length and about two decks high, which led to a slightly shorter launch bay. From there, the fighters are launched through the hangar opening at the bottom of the ship's superstructure. Though from what he heard from Major Gant during her briefing Lionel was a bit concerned that the launch bay could only launch one fighter at a time and the upper deck could only hold somewhere around four fighters readied to launch from the launch bay. With further fighters able to be readied on the elevators themselves as they are ready to take them up to the upper bay when the fighters in that bay were launched. Rinse and repeat till all of the fighters were launched from the ship.

According to Major Gant, during the military exercises going on before the start of the ship's refit, the ship's fighter squadron and hangar crew were able to launch the entire complement in a matter of fifteen minutes. A time that there were going to try to improve in the months ahead due to some improvements to the entire hangar facility and the experience from those same exercises had given the ship's hangar crew. While Lionel was concerned about the deployment time and such, he was quite pleased to learn that the Prometheus now sported a recovery bay at the forward part of the ship facing aft, which had a winch system and elevator that transported a retrieved fighter from the recovery bay to that of the ship's main hangar floor. Such a system gave the ship the ability to have a dedicated fighter rotation without a delay on either side of the rotation to have fighters land or launch from a single bay. Major Gant hoped that this new system would improve the overall deployment time of the ship's squadron.

With all the quick tour done, the three of them had arrived at the pilot's lounge and Major Gant asked if he had any questions about the entire facility. Lionel took a moment to look through the lounge's large window that was squeezed between the two main elevators. Outside he could see the eight different angled "stalls" along either side of the hangar, each one capable of storing a pair of the fighters in a nose-to-tail position. With each of the fighters stored in those angled positions, it left a large amount of space in the central area of the hanger, allowing an easier time moving the fighters from their stalls to that of the elevators. There was also a large central heavy cargo lift built into the center of this open space that connected the hangar with that of the ship's main cargo bay on the very bottom of the ship. It was supported by a smaller pair of lifts along either side of the aft-end larger elevators leading to the upper bay. Shaking his head, he could clearly imagine how the hangar would look when it had the entire squadron on board the ship. That done, he turned to look at Major Gant, who was still looking at him.

"You know, when I first saw this bay, I wondered the reason for the hangar to be so tall. Not to mention so much space in the center of the hangar. Along with that open part in the far corner of the hangar. Is there any reason for this?" he asked with a thoughtful look on his face. Major Gant nodded her head at this interesting question and traded a look with that of Captain Casey leaning against a hall nearby the hatch leading out of the lounge.

"That is a good question, sir. When the ship was first designed, it was thought that there would eventually be a dedicated shuttlecraft of some kind that could be stored down here along with the fighters, which is the reason for that open corner. However, with the Rings included in the final design allowing for an easier time to transfer light cargo and personnel between that of a dock and the ship, the shuttle design was never fully explored. The ceiling of the bay remained that way during the final construction of the ship for whatever reason, maybe a future expansion in the hangar or even a future need for that shuttle. That said, from what I have heard from the SGC Grapevine and such, we can carry a pair of our modified Tel'tec Cargo Ships in here as we haven't really upgraded the hyperdrives of them all that much. Hence the need for them to hitch a ride onboard the Prometheus," the Major explained, making Lionel look quite interested in such an arrangement. However, he was kind of amazed that no dedicated shuttlecraft wasn't in the works. That did not make any sort of sense to him, but he made a quick mental note to ask Brianna about it when he met her later. He was sure there was another, more interesting, reason for such a thing to happen.

"A very interesting idea which would have truly made the Prometheus a sort-of full-on pocket carrier with not only the ability to carry fighters but support craft. Shame it wasn't further explored, but I do like the idea of carrying around those modified Tel'tac Ships. The General did mention we managed to secure several Goa'uld Ships over the years and said that some of them have been modified for a variety of purposes," Lionel mentioned out loud and looked back out through the window at the hangar where he imagined a single Tel'tac in the hangar along with the fighters. Shaking his head, he looked back at his escorts.

"Okay, I do think it is time to bring this tour to a close. I am sure both of you have other things you need to do today. So, let's get out of here," he said, motioning towards the hatch.

"Understood, sir," Major Gant mentioned, and the three of them left the pilot lounge behind them, heading towards the ship's main airlock. As they approached the airlock, Lionel turned to look at Captain Casey.

"Captain, thank you for your help, but you are dismissed. I hope to see you later on sometime," he mentioned to the man who saluted him before exchanging nods with him and left, heading further into the ship. That done, he turned to look at Major Gant.

"Major, thank you for your wonderful escort today, and I shall hope to see you later after I get some rest," he said to her, making her salute him as well with a smile.

"You are quite welcome, sir. I hope to see you later as well," she replied and with that said she left him at the airlock. Lionel meanwhile cycled himself through the airlock and started to head into the base facilities of the Yard where he could get his assigned on-base quarters to straighten out with maybe a quick nap before seeing if Brianna was available to meet up for dinner. However, before he got to the main armored hatch leading further into the supporting facilities of the Yard, he turned to give the massive Prometheus a look, and with an almost proud-looking smile on his face, he exited the construction bay.


-o-End-o-​

Whew! Finally done with this darn Tour plotline! It kind of dragged on more so than I first planned. Grumble. Still, it did what it was supposed to introduce the readers to the ship in question and a few key members of its crew. Not to mention some my ideas for what is going to happen in the future. It just kind of kept on going and going. Now we can get to the true meat of the story: the first mission of the Prometheus under the command of Pendergast. And the first major story thread of the overall larger story. Do not bother asking, for I will not mention it, only that it is going to be interesting and somewhat part of an overall larger storyline from the series itself.

Okay. That said, I need to mention a few things about his chapter to you all. First up, the armory scene. My original plan did call for it, but I soon threw it out as it would have no real sense to have the ship's armory fully stocked when the ship was at a friendly dock and undergoing a major refit in the said dock. However, one of the readers mentioned something about "are they also going to give something for the Poor Bloody Infantry that is better than a P-90?". Well, here is your answer SemiSaneAuthor. As an aside, I did have the Plasma Repeater Rifle in the works well before your post, funny enough. Speaking of which, the Type 11 Plasma Repeater Rifle is visually based on that of the FAL-2 Laser Pulse Rifle from Robotech. Sadly, the SGC and the projects under it only have a handful of the weapons as they haven't captured enough Plasma Repeaters to fully mass-produce the weapon. Yet. Though, to answer my earlier worry about it not being viable, well, the Rogue NID is at it again and tried to take over the ship. Hence, the reasoning for having a fully stocked armory like it does in this chapter. Even with it being at a friendly dock along with the stationing of the Security Force Guard briefly mentioned in this chapter. Though I do believe there were a few others stationed throughout the ship that were not mentioned at all due to them not being important.

The Type 3 Heavy Staff Weapon and its Staff Rifle Counterpart are something that I have been planning on for a long while. This came about after looking for something else on the Stargate Wiki. I noticed the mention of the Staff Weapons used in the Stargate Movie had far more power than those in the series itself on the Staff Weapon page. Hence the creation of the Type 3 and, later, the Type 15 Improved Staff Rifle. Thanks to its power, such a weapon was only really assigned to the troops assigned to Ra, and a lesser extent Ptah. Not even the Horus Guard used by his "son" was able to use such weapons. As for the tidbit of it is possible to take down a Kull with three full-powered blasts from one of the weapons. That was something I figured happening with an improved, more powerful version of the regular staff weapon. A further tidbit about this version of the Staff Weapon that didn't make it into in the story is that it is possible to rapid-fire the weapon with three successive blasts. This came about from Bra'tak able to do something similar in an early episode of the series, in which, in this version of events is explained that Bra'tak uses a Type 3 Heavy Staff Weapon in place of the lighter Type 2 Staff Weapon. How he managed to acquire it is a story for another day.

Speaking of which, yes, I am bringing in the whole idea of the Staff Rifle. However, to separate my version of the weapon from the one famously seen used in the XSGCOM Series and, to a lesser extent, the one seen in the Goddess of Wisdom fic story, I had it first developed by someone, not at the SGC but an off worlder. I may have hinted that it was Skaara who was using information he got from being the host to Klorel for a few years to develop such a weapon. I figured it would be an interesting little add-on to the story itself and the overall larger series of stories. We will see more of these weapons later on in the New Tau'ri Fleet Saga Series. Then we get to the Micro 16 Rifle mentioned in this chapter, or better known to some as the Carter Special. Out of the universe, this weapon apparently was used mainly as the proper P90 blanks were in short supply thanks to the operations happening in the middle east at the time of the production of the series. I basically took this idea and made a more proper background for it in this universe. Not to mention it is something I have wanted to do since I first learned about the Micro 16 a few years ago.

Then we get to the combat armor featured alongside the new weapons. Honestly, this is a latecomer to this chapter, but it is still something I wanted to do for a long while. As I have seen other Stargate fics out there, give the SGC the needed body armor to allow one of their SG team members to tank a couple of hits from a Staff Weapon. I decided to do something similar. Enter my new Advanced Defense Combat Armor System, or as I am going to call it in the story: Carapace Armor. Yes. This particular body armor system is heavily based on a modified helmeted Titan Armor from the new modern XCOM games. As for why I am calling it Carapace Armor instead of its proper name, well, I already have the Titan Engineering Team and did not want them to get confused. That said. I managed to tie in a later bit I was going to introduce later on in the story. Fully sealed flight suits for F-302 pilots. Which was something a reader wanted to have introduced in the earlier version of this story. So, I got the bright idea of bringing in Hebridan another advanced human planet that sadly wasn't really explored all that much in the series. What we do know is that they are largely a corporate state, and their defense force is primarily made out of advanced speedy starfighters. Or I may have just picked that from Fanfiction. Shrug. Still, I figured they would have access to a flight suit that is fully sealed to allow 302 pilots to more easily bail from their fighters when damaged or still alive if their cockpit is breached. This comes to the idea of Hebridan helping the SGC develop that needed combat armor system for their troops. Ergo. The SGC now has a full sci-fi-looking combat armor system to use. The shields were another idea I had which got added in at the last moment.

Finally, one last thing to mention before I bring this long, rambling, post-chapter notes to a much-needed final end. The next major scene in the story explores a bit about giving Prometheus a very large leg up in taking on more than one larger enemy ship. Hence the reasoning for the separate reactors for the ship's weapons and that of the shields along with a dedicated built-in reactor of the new hyperspace drive. Speaking of which, I know that it is a common belief in the Stargate Fandom that the "reactor" that the Prometheus dumped in episode Memento was the ship's reactor, plus its hyperdrive. However, it is my own belief that it was only the ship's hyperspace drive, along with the Naquadria Power Cell powering the drive itself, that got dumped. My evidence to back that up would be the ship still able to move and such even after the big blast from the hyperdrive going critical. From there, it spent several days on a planet, and nothing bad happened to its power systems. Hence, my belief is that the Prometheus had a separate main regular Naquadah Reactor that powered the rest of the ship while the unstable power cells powered the Hyperdrive itself. You know, speaking of the Naquadah Reactors, I am always baffled that the SGC didn't take that extra step and introduce larger versions of the standard reactors. For their ships and off-world bases. Shrug.

Anyways. All that said, I like to thank the ones who replied to the latest chapter. It got me out of a funk I was going into after not having anyone replying to chapter one. Okay. Enough further chatting from me. It is time to get to the next chapter in the story. One that I am going to enjoy writing! So again, please read and review. See you all next time!
 

Spartan303

In Captain America we Trust!
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Osaul
A lot of stuff in there. I don't disapprove but I'd like to see this journey get underway
 

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
A lot of stuff in there. I don't disapprove but I'd like to see this journey get underway
Yeah, I do agree. The whole tour and introduction of the Prometheus really went on longer than I actually planned! Sorry about that. That said. My next post is the new chapter, where we have Prometheus going out on its first mission. Not all that exciting, really, but the next chapter will be a bit "spicy." I promise~!
 
Chapter Four: The Mission

deathzealotzero

Mecha Guru
The Alpha Site is the SGC's codename for their primary off-world base. Originally introduced as a combined fallback point and off-world research base, the Alpha Site has evolved over the years since its inception. In the first years of the Stargate Program, it was mainly used as a dedicated fallback point for SG Teams that, for some reason, couldn't get to Earth or were somehow compromised. It would also serve as an off-world research base for any sort of alien technologies or new developments deemed too dangerous to be looked into on Earth. This original version of the base was mainly some tents and prefabricated buildings surrounding the base planet's own stargate and looked more like a temporary base or expanded campsite than an actual military base. Later its mission statement was changed slightly as the ultimate fallback position when it seemed like Earth was overrun and that some portion of its population needed to survive after the people on Earth were killed or made into slaves of the Goa'uld. This was the first time that plan would be started to expand the whole temporary looking base facilities of the older version of the base and into a more dedicated long-term facility. However, this wouldn't become a thing till well into the start of the sixth year of the program when the SGC's second Alpha Site base was destroyed by an attack from Anubis.

Therefore, instead of just another similar-looking off-world base with its tents and prefabricated buildings, a whole new base design would be started with the help of the Tok'ra and Asgard. The Tok'ra supplied the SGC with some of their tunneling crystals to help in the construction of the base, while the Asgard helped the SGC choose a suitable planet to use for a new Alpha Site. The world chosen would be somewhere around five hundred lightyears from Earth's sun in a small solar system with a blue dwarf star at its center with a small Mercurian-type rocky planet, then a large asteroid belt, and a small Saturn-type gas giant before another large asteroid belt that took up the rest of the solar system. Around that gas giant orbits a couple dozen moons, with three of them capable of supporting life. The largest of these moons would be chosen to become the site for the new Alpha Site of the SGC. From there, the construction of a new, more permanent-looking off-world base would begin. Not to mention being the site for a new idea put forth by the outgoing President of the United States, Earth's first official off-world colony. However, that will take a few more years to come together. Still, construction of the new Alpha Site would begin in March of 2003 with three teams from the US Army Corps of Engineers and a couple of teams of more civilian-minded construction engineers on the project. The construction is projected to be finished sometime in early 2004...

-Taken from Opening the Gate: A look into the Early Stargate Program (1997 to 2007), written by historian Eric Blye, 2060AD


-o-o-o-​
Bridge
USS Prometheus
Docking Bay One, Genesis Station
Sol-Earth Third Lagrange Point
September 21, 2003AD


As he entered the bridge of the Prometheus, the figure of newly promoted Colonel Lionel Pendergast could only sigh in some exhaustion but also smile in sheer awe at being the overall commander in charge of Earth's space warship. It had been a week and a half since he first took command, while it had been two weeks since he arrived at the construction facility hidden underneath the sands of the Mojave Desert of Nevada. Now his time had taken up with various drills, paperwork, and other such events to get him into the grove of commanding the ship. He even commanded the ship as it left its little nest in the desert to test out its new refit and some quick training exercises with Earth's handful of captured Goa'uld craft in the orbit of Mars. Away from the prying eyes of the various orbital and ground-based telescopes across the planet. He had been quite excited to see the red jewel of Mars, which had always been a sort of dream of his since he joined NASA all those years ago. He was even more impressed with the current location of the ship: an actual space station, which is located at the Sol-Earth Third Lagrange Point. Allowing no one on Earth to be able to spot it with telescopes as it was on the opposite side of the sun from Earth. From what he understood, NASA had been in the process of planning to put a dedicated large satellite at this location to better observe the sun itself for solar flares. Though he was sure, those plans would never come to fruition unless the Stargate Program as a whole would be disclosed to the world at large. Still, he was quite amused at the choice of this particular location for a hidden space station as in classic science fiction, it was used as a place to put a sort of "counter" earth that was opposite of earth itself.

As for the station itself, it wasn't really a real whole space station that he was familiar with, but a hybrid design using alien technologies. The central area of the station was actually a former Goa'uld Cheops Mothership, the one that actually donated the second hyperdrive to the Prometheus, and expanding from each side of the pyramid-looking former mothership was a fully enclosed dock facility. Each one had actually been constructed with the help of the Asgard outside of the solar system and then towed by an Asgard ship to be grafted onto the superstructure of the former Goa'uld mothership. The four docking bays would then be outfitted by human engineers and fully sealed, allowing a single large ship, like the Prometheus, or a couple of smaller ships to be docked inside. Meanwhile, the former Goa'uld ship served as the central axis of the station and sported the needed crew space for nearly a hundred engineers and technicians that would be able to work on the docked ships. Right now, only two of the docking bays are fully finished and ready to receive ships. Bay One, of course, holding his own ship, and Bay Two, in the middle of a dedicated refit of a pair of captured Al'kesh Medium Bombers to turn them into what the SGC would come to call Guardian Class Support Gunships. A design that was designed from the start to support SG Teams in the field thanks in part to the brand-new hyperspace drive based on the new design found onboard the Prometheus allowing for higher hyperspace speeds than their original Goa'uld designed drives.

All of this was something he really did not expect after seeing the underground shipyard facility that was the Yard in the Nevada desert. Though he shouldn't be all that surprised as from what he understood, Genesis Station is mainly for general repairs and resupply for Earth's growing fleet of ships. There were apparently plans on expanding the station with a second Cheops Pyramid grafted to the bottom of the first one, which put it upside down from the first former mothership. Then four more enclosed docking bays along the sides of that second former mothership. From there, several exterior docking bays would fan out from the "top" of that particular former mothership which would have the top of the pyramid removed, allowing for the exterior docking bays to have access to the larger station through thin docking tubes. Though currently, those plans were a bit into the future as the current bays were plenty for the current fleet. As once the other two docking bays came online over the next few days, it would be enough to allow the several captured Goa'uld Ships operated by Earth and the Prometheus, along with its nearly completed near-sisters, to be easily supported. From there, it would be nearly a year before the next new ships of the fleet would be commissioned into the Fleet. Outside of further refits of captured Goa'uld ships anyways.

Meanwhile, back at the Yard on Earth, plans were started on expanding the facility to include a similar sized two-berth third bay as plans for further construction of new Daedalus Class ships were started. The berth that the Prometheus had used for its own refit was in the process of preparing to start construction on a new ship once further talks with other aware countries were finished. According to his friend Brianna who worked with the Titan Engineering Team, which was reasonable for much of the construction of the new space warships, that particular berth may end up constructing the Moryana Russia's own Daedalus Class though that was still up in the air. As apparently, there were some talks going on between the US and of Russia about the latter's own hidden shipyard facility, hidden somewhere deep in the Slavic Mountains. Along with how it was going to be doing in the months that followed as discussions between the other countries continued after the first stage disclosure meetings were finished. Was it going to continue to operate as a shipyard, or was it going to be downgraded to serve as a dedicated repair facility to support Genesis Station? If the former happened, then the funds and supplies that were being prepared for the construction of a third bay for the Yard would instead be funneled to that site instead expanding it to be similar in size to the American facility along with upgrading it fully. The latter reason wouldn't be all that great for Russia or any other country now involved in the Stargate Program.

'Politics. And I thought politics in NASA itself was bad,' he thought to himself in some annoyance at what was going on right now. Though on the bright side, Russia apparently took a page from the US and decided to appoint a veteran Cosmonaut as commander of their own first space warship, the Korolev. A cosmonaut that Lionel was quite familiar with, having run more than a few different missions over the years during the early stages of construction of the International Space Station. One Major Alexandra Volkova, formerly of the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency. It would be nice to see the woman again after she had retired from the Russian Space Agency due to being injured during a mission on a separate Russian Soyuz mission. An injury he heard would be taken care of by some sort of alien tech that would allow the woman the ability to have her injured leg back up to full operation.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he saw the form of also newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Erin Gant rise from the bridge command chair. She had been running a quick tactical drill when a communication came in from General Ronson over a dedicated subspace channel which she had quickly sent a message to summon him from the discussion he had been having with the ship's chief engineer down in the ship's engineering deck about some adjustments they had to make to the ship's reactors after their working up exercises showed some issues with them. Not to mention an idea Lionel had about the dozen backup Naquadah Reactors they had stored onboard.

"Sir, I had communications route the General to your wardroom," the woman mentioned with a nod of respect toward him. He returned it, and he hoped that she was more comfortable under his command after their earlier exercises. Though he still made a note to have that planned talk with her in the near future.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel," he mentioned with a wave as he started towards the door to his wardroom, exchanging nods with the rest of his bridge crew before he turned back to look at the now sitting form of his XO.

"Oh, and XO?" he called out, making the woman turn to look at him over her shoulder with a hint of unease at this tone of voice.

"Yes, sir," she called back.

"I do believe this is what we have been waiting for, so see about gathering together a report on our readiness to launch," he ordered, making her look a bit surprised before she nodded, for it did make some sense.

"Understood. I shall do that, sir," she mentioned in reply, making him turn back to the wardroom door with a hearty, "Carry on then, XO."

He entered his little wardroom-slash-space cabin he looked around with a hint of a smile on his face. As one of the first things he did after he took command was to really make the place his own. Folded up on the top of the couch/pull-out bed was the homemade quilt his grandmother had made for him when he first joined the Air Force. Drabbed on the back of the chair behind his desk was the ragged form of a black military-style jacket that sported not only his NASA patches but some of his military patches as well sown onto it. On the wall behind his desk was a trio of shadow boxes. One contained the patch for every single space mission he had gone on over his years with NASA, the second his various military awards and such, and the final one, the smallest, carried several things to remember his family. Including his grandfather's dog tags and the handful of pictures he still had of his own wife and children. He gave a good look at that shadow box with a mournful look on his face as everything else he had of them had been destroyed in the fire that killed them. Sighing, he turned his back on the shadow boxes as he sat down in the seat, which put him at eye level of the ship's motto emblazed at the bottom of the ship's coat-of-arms which made him smile and be drawn from his sad thoughts of his family. He had finally managed to research the Latin phrase a couple of days ago and was quite impressed with it. It read "ad custodiam terrae" which could be loosely translated into English as "for the protection of earth," which described the mission of the Prometheus and its crew quite well in his mind. At the corner of his eye, his smile grew a bit at the presence of a few things on the top shelf of the large shelving unit that was built into the corner of the room next to the desk.

The first, of course, was a model of one of the NASA Space Shuttles, the Endeavour in this case. However, joining it was a model of the Prometheus herself. He had been gifted with it by Brianna when he officially became the commander of the ship. She had known of his hobby of collecting models and building them. So, she had somehow managed to create a scale model of one of the most top-secret things in the entire United States alongside the Stargate itself before giving it to him. He gave a glance at the models with another smile on his face before turning his chair to the other side of the desk and looking at the small monitor located there. Leaning forward, he pressed one of the buttons on the small control panel next to the monitor, which was blinking with a steady light. A moment later, the blackened screen of the monitor flashed once before bringing up a connection-ready message and then displaying the face of his overall commander Brigadier General William Ronson. Now at home in his new office located in a newly built annex located directly underneath the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which has now become the official headquarters for the United States Air Force Space Command's Deep Space Operation Group. Of which, the Prometheus fell under the control of its First Tactical Wing, which was set to defend Earth itself, though that may change in the near future.

"General, thanks for waiting. What can I do for you today?" he asked the older man, a respectful nod of his head.

"Colonel," the General said, wasting no time, "I have a mission for you and the Prometheus but be warned, it is a simple thing to get your feet wet, sort of speak." Lionel worked hard to prevent the disappointment from being noticed on his face at this announcement. As it does make sense, for not only did he have little experience, but the crew needed a decent mission to get any problems with them worked out before any sort of serious mission.

"I understand, General. What is the mission?" he asked instead of protesting the order like he wanted to do. The higher-ranked officer only nodded at this with a hint of amusement leaking through his own blank face. Lionel could guess that his measured and calm response would be a good mark on his record with the General. Not to mention the other senior officers involved in the defense of the planet.

"Good. You are to undock from Genesis Station before then taking the Prometheus back to Earth and dock at Berth One at the Yard. Where over the next several hours, we are going to load up your cargo bays with a lot of construction supplies and vehicles. Once you are fully loaded, you are going to launch and head for our new Alpha Site, which is currently being constructed as a full-on base where you will unload your cargo," General Ronson started to say, making Lionel raise an eyebrow in some interest. As this was the first time he had heard of a permanent off-world base being in the works. Granted, he was a commander of a space warship and not directly part of the larger Stargate Command.

"That isn't all, for the Prometheus will be joined by the Hercules, the Imhotep, and the Ajax on this mission. The Hercules and the Imhotep are going to be launching several satellites around the orbit of the planet and further into the system. Mainly communication, observation, and weather sats, along with a couple of dedicated deep space sensor platforms. The Ajax will be assigned to patrol the system and protect the Alpha Site directly," the General continued on, making Lionel blink in some surprise. He knew that the first two ships mentioned were members of the Argos Class Cargo Ships, which were converted Goa'uld Tel'tac Cargo Ships. The last ship was a member of the Hector Class Orbital Gunship and was also a converted Tel'tac. Though unlike the Argos Class, which just had some limited improvements to its interior design, the ships of the Hector Class were completely rebuilt to serve as dedicated gunships, including its interior, which pretty much converted the majority of its limited cargo space into comfortable if still cramped crew space for its four-man crew. From what he understood, the interior refit of the Hector Class took some design cues from the Space Shuttle and other similar long-term space vehicles like the Apollo Command and Service Modules. The ship's new armament included a light double plasma cannon turret on the top of the ship, mainly in place of the tip of the almost pyramid-looking rear of the ship, and a pair of plasma repeater cannon turrets in nose and aft mounted turrets. All told, it is a ship that wasn't all that capable of taking on larger Goa'uld ships but could be a decent patrol ship along with the ability to support larger human ships in combat when required. From what he learned over the past few weeks, currently, Earth itself had a small wing of four Hector Class Orbital Gunships patrolling around the solar system along with a pair of larger also converted Al'nash Heavy Gunships, the Bellerophon Class System Patrol Gunships. This Ajax was the fifth member of the class and, for a while, maybe the only real means of direct orbital defense the Alpha Site was going to have, as much of the efforts would be focused on defending Earth itself. Though he wouldn't be surprised if the Alpha Site gained a squadron of F-302s to improve its defenses in the near future.

"I guess we will be carrying them onboard during the journey?" he asked, as he did remember that both types of converted Tel'tacs retained the aging slow hyperdrives that they came with after the SGC got their hands on them. Unlike the Guardian Class conversions, they were not required to move out of their assigned solar system, and their older, slower drive could easily move the ship across its assigned solar system quite easily. Hence, they would need to be carried onboard the larger Prometheus during the journey to the new Alpha Site. Not to mention neither of the converted ship classes had any sort of good long-term crew facilities onboard, making such long journeys not so comfortable for their crews.

"Correct. Since we are still having issues getting a full squadron of fighters together for your ship, you should have plenty of space onboard for all three ships," the General mentioned with a nod of his head, making Lionel narrow his eyes in some annoyance at the reminder. For due some issues with the single production line for the new F-302B Specter fighters, the Prometheus currently did not have a full squadron as the older F-302A fighters they did have onboard had been taken from their onboard squadron and shipped somewhere off-world. Still, they did have six of the new fighters onboard, so they weren't completely without fighter cover during this mission.

"However, that is not all. Once you are done with the Alpha Site, I want you to make a stop at the Douglas Mclean Memorial Observatory on Hanka, where you will unload a new telescope and attending equipment for them. Which also been loaded onboard the Prometheus though should be separate from that of the supplies intended for the Alpha Site," the General continued on with the briefing. Lionel blinked in some surprise at this, for over the past few weeks had looked through some of the reports about the SGC and what it had done over the years. The mission to Hanka had stood out to him thanks in part to knowing the person who had led the original mission to the planet, the observation of a nearby black hole. Doctor Douglas Mclean had been an astronomer working for NASA before he suddenly left for some strange reason. Soon afterward, it was reported that the man had passed away after getting sick with something. That particular mission also got his interest due to what happened to the planet and its population, thanks to a Goa'uld.

He also knew that over the years since then, the planet had been resettled through the handful of Hanka residents that had survived the engineered plague by living in the handful of small farming hamlets that were located several miles away from the main village of Hanka that, like all former Goa'uld controlled worlds was not that far from the Stargate. As well as the SGC resettling a few small populations from other attacked worlds or former Goa'uld-controlled worlds to Hanka. The Douglas Mclean Memorial Observatory was formerly made out of a series of prefabricated buildings assembled around an old grain silo that had been hastily converted into the observatory's main building, complete with a dedicated long-range telescope. Currently the facility was now a permanent series of buildings with a larger, modern-looking observatory building. While it retained the mission of observing the nearby black hole, it also now had a more military mission: the detection of a series of unique series of blueshifts that indicated a ship traveling in hyperspace. With the Sol System only seventy or so lightyears away from Hanka, such a mission was quite important. He guessed that the new telescope was to help with that mission or at least observe something else nearby the planet.

"I understand, General. We shall get the mission done," Lionel replied, making the General look a bit pleased.

"Before I sign off, do you have any further questions for me?" the man asked, making Lionel think a moment before shaking his head in a negative and a quick, "No sir."

"Very well. Good luck, Colonel, on your mission," Ronson replied and, with a salute, signed off from the communication line. Lionel meanwhile groaned and leaned back in his almost sinfully comfortable chair. Shaking his head, he once more put his annoyance at such a mission on hold before getting up and moving to the bridge to get things rolling for this mission.

-o-o-o-​

Several Hours Later

After being loaded to the brim with cargo and supplies to get the construction of the new Alpha Site Base started, the Prometheus found itself back in orbit around Earth. With that done, the ship prepared itself to enter hyperspace and was on its way out of the system. On the ship's bridge, the ship's bridge crew was getting the ship ready for hyperspace under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Colonel Gant. While Colonel Pendergast used his right as the ship's commander to sit in the command chair, watching everything around him. He could only wait in some excitement as they prepared the ship for hyperspace. Still, he took the time to observe a few members of his bridge crew. There was Erin Gant herself, his Executive Officer, who was hovering around the Tactical Station as newcomer First Lieutenant Kevin Marks went about preparing for hyperspace. The young officer had been recruited two years out of the Air Force Academy when he was applying for a position at NASA. The SGC had quickly swooped in and grabbed him before NASA could, which had some mixed feelings for Lionel.

Next up is newly promoted Major Peter DeLouise, who was at the front of the bridge where he was helming the entire ship. The Major is a longtime member of the ship's crew who had once been a pilot for the sneaky B-2 Stealth Bomber who had been personally chosen by the then Colonel Ronson to serve as the ship's main helm officer. After being chosen, he was trained from the ground up to serve as the helm officer of the Air Force's new space warships. From what Lionel knew, he was currently in the process of training a replacement to succeed him before joining a Colonel Davis Kirkland, who was putting together a dedicated training program for the future crews of the under-construction Daedalus Class Deep Space Battlecruisers. It would be a shame to lose him, but his successor, who was now at the Navigation Station at the back of the bridge, First Lieutenant Catherine Womack, was a deft hand at controlling the ship.

Then sitting next to Lionel at the sensor station is Captain Peter Grodin, who happened to be another veteran of the ship's crew, having been personally selected to be part of the ship's crew after it was nearly finished. Previously he had served as the ship's weapon officer but transferred to sensors as he had been involved in the process of getting them integrated into the ship during the refit. Lionel had surprised to find the captain onboard the Prometheus when he took command, as the man was another former member of NASA. Though he was trained as an astronaut, he was mostly involved in the International Space Station program on the ground side of things. Lionel really was a bit surprised to find that plenty of NASA-trained personnel had been headhunted for the US Air Force's program of constructing a dedicated space combat force. Though he really shouldn't be all that surprised as that was mainly the reason he was recruited for the program after all.

Shaking his head, he turned his head slightly to look at the youngest member of the bridge crew and, in fact of the entire crew of the ship as well. This was Second Lieutenant Mary Howe, who had only graduated from the Air Force Academy only a few months beforehand. He had surprised to find a newly graduated Air Force officer on the crew and was even more surprised to find out that the young officer was quite adept at languages. Having already able to fluently speak four languages by the time she entered the Academy. Having been raised in the United States, she, of course, had English as her main language, but she is also capable of speaking German and French due to her mixed family. She then, at a whim, picked up Spanish as an elective in High School, where she found out how good she was with Languages. Since then, she added another two languages to her skills, and when she was personally headhunted by Stargate Command to join the program, she ended up picking up two of the main Goa'uld dialects along with a start on Ancient. Hence, the reason she had joined the ship's crew so young.

Finally, behind his chair, he knew that the two stations for the ship's countermeasures were empty as they wouldn't be needed for a simple launch into hyperspace. Though the station on the opposite side next to the Navigation Station was occupied by Major Lynn Evans, the ship's chief engineer who had temporarily configured the Assistant Navigation Station to monitor the engineering deck. Mostly the ship's hyperdrive, as this is the first time, it would be activated outside of simulations. Standing next to the tall brunette engineer was the equally tall but weathered form of Chief Master Sergeant Mike Stern, the ship's gruff senior non-commissioned officer. From what Lionel understood, the man had been ready to retire when the newly promoted General Ronson managed to convince the man to join the crew of the Prometheus. Now with a needed promotion, he served as what would be the Chief of the Boat if the ship was a Navy submarine instead of a space warship. He had been on the bridge to discuss something with Lieutenant Colonel Gant but stayed on the bridge when that discussion was finished. Mainly to witness the ship entering hyperspace, something that he had never seen before now.

"Sir Vandenberg has cleared us to activate our hyperspace drive and mission start," the youthful voice of Lieutenant Haw jolted Lionel from his observations of the ship's bridge crew. Blinking, he turned to look at the young officer.

"Thank you, Lieutenant pass, on our thanks to Vandenberg," he calmly mentioned to her before turning slightly to address Major Delouise at the ship's helm.

"Major, let's go," he said with a nod to the man, who only smiled slightly in return before turning to his station. A moment later saw a blue-purple-colored flare in space appeared in front of the ship, and without any further fanfare, the Prometheus dived into the flare disappearing from the orbit of Earth. However, as this happened, what appeared to be a series of ripples could be seen moving away from where the ship had opened the hyperspace window. A brief, almost ghost-looking image of an almost bullet-looking ship with a box-like back-end appeared before disappearing once more. Unknown to anyone on the surface of the planet. For now, anyway.

-o-o-o-​
Commander's Private Dining Room
In Route to Gemini 131 Solar System
12 Hours Later


It would be some hours later that would find Colonel Pendergast and a few of his officers dining with the commanders of the three embarked light craft in the private dining room of the ship's commander. Something that Lionel had been surprised to find was a thing, but it doubled as his private meeting room and even a second officer's mess when required. Still, it was nice to have such a room at his disposal, as he could do things like this dinner. Something he knew his grandfather had done when he was in command of the USS New Jersey during the latter days of the Korean War. As he took a sip from his water glass, he took a moment to look around the dining room to see the other diners finishing up their own dinners.

At his left was the figure of his XO, Lieutenant Colonel Erin Gant, who he had almost physically dragged into joining the dinner. This brought a small smile to his lips as he eyed the almost overwhelmed-looking female officer who was deep in conversation with the figure of the ship's Chief Engineer, Major Evans, sitting next to her about something or another. On his right was the figure of Major Ian Davidson, the Commander of the Gunship Ajax, who was joking with Major Mitchell, who was a good friend of his from the days of their training. Then there were the two figures of the commanders of the two Cargo Ships on the opposite side of the table from him, Major Tracy Sobel of the Hercules and Major Frank Levine of the Imhotep. Both of which apparently had been cargo plane pilots for the Air Force in the past. Therefore, looked to be quite uncomfortable with the likes of veteran heavy bomber pilots, fighter pilots, and astronauts gathered around the table with the two of them. Both Cargo Ships, like the ships they are based on, were not even armed and mainly served as lightweight cargo ships transporting material around Earth and nearby space. From what Lionel understood from talking with them before the start of dinner, both officers and their ships have heavily been reasonable for the construction of Genesis Station. Also, this mission wouldn't be the first time they used their ships to deploy satellites as they had been reasonable for deploying camouflaged deep space sensor satellites in high Earth Orbit, and right before this mission, they deployed two dozen so-called Ring Sats, which were dedicated satellites to allow the use of dedicated Ring Transports spread across the planet. This finally allowed personnel working for the overall larger Stargate program and its on-planet allies to more easily move about the planet, as well as to orbiting spaceships.

"Will that be all, sirs?" the figure of John Kelly, the ship's former Navy senior chef, asked from his position next to the Colonel. Drawing the attention of the rest of the table to the man.

"No, Mister Kelly. I do believe we are finished, thank you," Lionel mentioned with a smile to the older man, who gave him a short nod of his head and a small, proud smile before starting to help his own assistants to clear the table of the dishes. After a while, the dishes were cleared outside of the drink cups.

"Will any of the officers care for dessert?" the man mentioned after several moments of clearing the dishes and shepherding his assistants out of the dining room. At this, Lionel looked around the table at the other officers to see the majority of them shaking their heads at his silent question.

"No, I do believe you have stuffed us enough, Mister Kelly. Thank you for the great dinner," he managed to say to the man which was soon copied by the other officers gathered around the table with smiles all around. The man simply smiled almost proudly at this before looking around the table and nodding at the various officers who thanked him.

"Very well, I shall be going then, and please, if you change your minds or need refills of your drinks, please summon one of my able assistants," the man mentioned, and with a short bow, the man left the room leaving the gathered officers to their post-dinner discussion.

P4X-650 (Nova Terra)
Gemini 131 Solar System
Milky Way Galaxy
September 23, 2003


Over thirty-five hours later saw the USS Prometheus slowly but surely entering the atmosphere of the planet known to the SGC as P4X-650, having left its three attending small craft to their own missions in the planet's orbit. Within moments the ship came through a layer of clouds to witness the site chosen to become the SGC's Alpha Site. A single towering snow- and cloud-capped mountain stood almost alone along several vastly smaller mountains and some low-lying hills. Construction could be seen not only at the base of the mountain, where the entrance of the planned base would be located but also nearby to the mountain's summit. With a hiss and some grinding noises, the landing gear of the Prometheus extended as it came downwards towards the prepared landing site for the large space warship. A few moments later saw the ship settling onto its landing gear and with that, the loud hum of the ship's engines, along with its gravity control equipment, came to a sudden stop. For several minutes, the ship was silent as a small welcoming community approached the ship, and then with a loud whining noise, the ship's primary ramp started to lower to the ground. From the ramp came the figure of Colonel Pendergast, along with a few members of his crew. Behind them, several small one-man forklifts started to traverse towards the ramp with large cargo containers on their fork-arms.

"Colonel Pendergast, I assume?" the US Army officer standing at the head of the welcoming committee asked with an almost impressed look on his face as he stared up at the large ship.

"Colonel Edwards," Colonel Pendergast replied with a salute and a thoughtful look on his face which the other man replied with his own salute along with a searching look to match the Air Force officers' look.

"Welcome to P4X-650, Colonel, or as my crew started to call it, Nova Terra," the Army officer mentioned with a hand waving around them at their surroundings before holding it out to the other officer.

"Glad to be here, Colonel," Lionel replied as he shook the hands of the Army officer. He looked around and nearly whistled, impressed at what was going on around them. He knew that his ship had been carrying a lot of supplies and equipment to help in the construction of the new Alpha Site, including heavy construction equipment. However, from what he was seeing around the area, the construction was going ahead quite well with what supplies had been sent through the Stargate itself.

"Quite impressive, Colonel," he mentioned looking back at the Army engineer who only looked a bit smug as he, too, looked around the site before shrugging with a grin.

"My teams and I have been doing similar projects for the last few years. So, we have started to get a good idea of doing construction projects like this one. Not to mention the SGC itself has gotten much-needed experience in getting much-needed supplies through the Stargate as fast and efficiently as possible. The only real thing they cannot really put into the Stargate is the heavy construction equipment we needed to actually put a permanent base down on this planet," he mentioned making Lionel nod in agreement, turning to look behind him seeing several members of the deck crew of the Prometheus started to move the needed equipment down the ramp to the waiting members of the Army Engineering Corps of Engineers running the project. He also looked around the area once more and raised an eyebrow as he saw more than just simple tents and simple prefabs huts but the start of what looked to be actual buildings in the distance.

"I thought the base was to be entirely inside the mountain, Colonel?" Lionel asked, pointing out to the distance at those half-finished surface buildings. The Army engineering officer raised an eyebrow and turned to look at what he was pointing out before he chuckled lightly.

"That is true. However, this planet had also been chosen by the President to serve as the site for our first true off-world colony," Edwards replied, making Lionel blink in some surprise before he hummed in some thought. He was actually surprised nothing like that had been done in the past though he was sure trying to get enough colonists with security clearance for such an idea would be hard. Not to mention the friends and families of those colonists would wonder where in the world those people had disappeared to.

"Huh. I would think it would be hard to set down a true colony like this and actually find the people to fully populate it," he mentioned his thoughts out loud, making the other Colonel let out a short laugh as he continued to watch the supplies and equipment continued to be unloaded from the Prometheus.

"That is quite true, Colonel, but the President had an interesting idea. The first colonists for this colony will actually be a carefully selected list of five hundred people. Many of them are either family to a member of the SGC or someone that has no real family or such outside of friends inside the military itself. Many of those people would carefully have them becoming dead to many on Earth. Mainly by carefully salting their names in recent disasters and such while the military personnel assigned to the colony would have their names put on the KIA list for some of the more recent military operations around the world," the engineer explained, making Lionel blink in outright shock at such things happening. It sounded a bit cold, but he could understand the reasoning. However, he really shouldn't be all that surprised with all the secrecy around the program.

"The core of those five hundred colonists will actually be from the so-called Doomsday List that the SGC had put together at the start of the program and had been used twice so far. Hence, those people would have some experience in traveling through the Gate and becoming colonists," the engineer continued on with the whole story.

"Finally, after those colonists from Earth itself are settled, then the SGC will start a careful and thoroughly screened relocation program of some off-world human settlements that we have been in contact with over the years. From that program, two thousand carefully selected candidates would then be settled alongside the Earthborn colonists for a final total of the first phase of the colony settlement of around two thousand five hundred colonists," he finished the whole story making Lionel look quite impressed with the whole thing. As he was sure, there have been many different human settlements and villages that had been contacted by the SGC over the years since it started operations.

He briefly paused in his thoughts as a large Zebra Mark-IV Mobile Crane Vehicle thundered down the cargo ramp and onto the planet itself along with a pair of regular heavy transport trucks. He frowned at this, for thanks to those heavy vehicles, the majority of his fighters had been stored in the upper launch bay and the retrieval bay. His main hangar had been quite thoroughly stuffed with various different construction vehicles, like that crane and the three converted Tel'tak Cargo Ships. It had been a freaking nightmare juggling the various heavy vehicles, the fighters, and the auxiliary craft when they launched the three light craft earlier. Still, he frowned, eying the large vehicles, and wondered briefly how in the world the Air Force managed to get those vehicles out to the "The Yard" to be loaded onto the recently docked Prometheus without anyone guessing on where those vehicles were headed towards. Shaking his head, he knew that he really shouldn't be thinking about things like that and turned his attention to Colonel Edwards, who had kept talking.

"Still, though, that is some months away. We would need to get the Alpha Site itself a bit more built up before such a thing could be started," the Engineer said after several moments of silence between the two Colonels as they continued to watch the last bit of supplies and equipment being unloaded from the Prometheus. As this happened, Lionel looked upwards a bit and could barely see the distant construction going on along the mountain's summit he had seen briefly when the ship approached the construction site that he could now barely see currently with the bulk of his ship in the way.

"Also, I was wondering why there is construction going on up there near the summit?" he asked the Army Engineer, who blinked in some surprise at this before looking up as well before he chuckled lightly.

"Well, that is going to the base's own docking facility. Originally, it was planned that much of the production of our future space warships and such would be off-world to better keep the secrecy of the program. However, that idea was axed as it would be a nightmare and a half to get the needed supplies and materials through the tiny Stargate to construct the ships. Still, the idea had some merit, and when the plans for this new long-term base were started, it was decided to include a dedicated docking facility would be included for the use of our growing fleet. Then once we have the likes of the Atlas in commission, we could then start the construction of ships here in those bays. With all the needed materials and such to construct such ships carried in the large cargo bays of dedicated transport ships, like the Atlas, to be transported here," the man explained, making Lionel once again look a bit impressed at this idea. Before he could ask any follow-up questions, he heard a loud whistle and looked over at the cargo bay ramp to see the figure of Chief Master Sergeant Sterns, who had been overseeing the unloading of the cargo, wave a hand indicating the last of the cargo being unloaded from the cargo bay.

"Hmmm… It looks like that is about it," Lionel mentioned seeing this to the man next to him, who also looked seeing the last cargo container being handed over to his engineers.

"Agreed. That said, Colonel, I am sure it is going to take a bit longer for those Cargo Ships to deploy those satellites, so do you want to get a quick tour of the facilities located here?" the engineer asked, making Lionel raise an eyebrow in some interest at this offer.

"Sure, this is the first time I have been off-world, after all," he replied with a nod of his head.

"Okay, this way," Edwards replied and started off somewhere further into the large construction site. Lionel took another look at his ship before turning to follow the engineer. He briefly paused and raised a hand to the small radio headset he was wearing and quickly notified his Executive Officer about what he was going to do before continuing to follow the other man further into the future Alpha Site.

-o-o-o-​
Orbit
P4X-650 (Nova Terra)


It was a few hours later found the Prometheus back in orbit around the planet known as P4X-650 taking onboard the two cargo ships their own mission completed. The Alpha Site now had access to its own decent-sized constellation of weather, sensor, and communication satellites. That latter included subspace communication ability that connects the planet with that of Earth and even Prometheus herself when required. Sadly, though, it would be quite a while before the Alpha Site could have direct access to the growing internet of Earth, much to the general annoyance and such of the crews assigned to the still-under-construction base. Though from what Lionel understood, there were eventually plans to somehow get the internet out to the Alpha Site and the other off-world bases. He didn't understand how that would be possible, only that it was being planned. Shaking his head at this thought, Lionel instead looked down from his position at the front of his ship's bridge, watching as the last of the two Argos Class Cargo Ships, the Hercules by the look of it, slowly entered the hangar entrance of the ship. That was literally almost nearly right under his feet currently. As he did this, he could also see in the distance the tiny form of the Ajax as it started its own orbital patrol around the planet. Once he couldn't see the Hercules anymore, he turned away from observing it and looked around at his bridge seeing the officers ready to receive his orders to start for home.

"The hangar crew reports the Hercules is now onboard and stowed. We are now ready for hyperspace, Colonel," Captain Grodin reported from his station, making Lionel nod in understanding at the man.

"Ajax Actual wishes us a good journey back home, sir," came the youthful voice of Lieutenant Haw from the communication station, literally right next to him. Lionel smiled slightly at this, for he had found Major Davidson a fun individual to be around during his time onboard the Prometheus during the journey to this solar system.

"Very well, pass on our thanks to the Major, Lieutenant, and with that said, helm, take us out of orbit and prepare the ship for hyperspace back to Sol," he ordered, turning away from the front of the bridge to take his place in the central command seat of the bridge. He barely heard the responses to his orders and settled in as he watched as the Prometheus moved out of orbit before jumping into hyperspace on a course for home.

-o-o-o-​
Edge of Solar System
September 25, 2003


Around a day or so later found Colonel Pendergast and his executive officer Lieutenant Colonel Erin Gant, having that long overdue talk about his own lack of combat experience in his space cabin. With only a few minutes from exiting hyperspace, the Colonel was winding down from the discussion when a large jolt nearly sent the Colonel to the floor from his position standing behind his desk. He blinked in some surprise at this, having not experienced all that much with hyperspace travel, and due to this, looked at his XO to see her now looking a bit worried, making a slight tension in his gut start to appear.

"We just came out of hyperspace," she answered his silent question, and his eyes widened at this statement. For they weren't supposed to be coming out of hyperspace for about ten minutes or so, according to Major DeLouise, who was currently holding the watch on the bridge. However, before he could say anything to that, the lights in the room started to flicker slightly, and the medium-sized screen that was mounted along the wall next to his desk suddenly went dark from it displaying the ship's own coat-of-arms rotating slowly, which was the screen's standard screensaver when in direct operation. The slow tension in the Colonel's gut started to flare up a bit more at this instance, and he didn't waste any more time moving towards the room's hatch leading directly into the ship's bridge. He could barely hear his XO mumble something as she raced after him towards the hatch, which opened to a sense of chaos happening on the ship's bridge when his mind suddenly caught what Lieutenant Colonel Gant had been saying.

"Oh, this is what having a feeling of déjà vu feels like."

-o-End-o-

AND THIS CHAPTER IS DONE! Finally!! As I mentioned previously, this chapter really was giving me some trouble. First of all, I really did not want to become yet another infodump chapter, as that was what the last few chapters were all about, after all. However, since I wanted to start to give you all an impression of the wider Tau'ri Fleet, I started to include a few things. Like the lengthy opening infodump to the chapter and the later dinner scene. The latter I have rewritten a couple of times which delayed this chapter a bit. Most of the info dumped in that scene is actually included in the opening data dump, which expanded it vastly than I planned on it being, and a bit during the conversation with General Ronson. Then came the landing on the Alpha Site planet, which included a look into my own future plans for it. So really, yet another infodump chapter when I didn't plan on it being. Sigh. I do apologize to everyone for that.

Then I had some trouble with the "talk" between Pendergast and Gant that I have been alluding to over the past couple of chapters. Mainly about the little combat experience Pendergast has, thanks in part to being part of NASA for so long. Originally it was going to be at the start of the chapter, but that ended up being the mentioned infodump which went far longer than I planned on it being. Then it was around the time of the dinner scene, which really didn't work out either, as that was about the other officers and not on the pair of Prometheus senior officers. Therefore, I finally placed it at the end of the chapter, but then I ran into further troubles. Mainly about how it came about, I wasn't really trying to have it hostile, but as I started to write it out, it kind of ended up being a bit hostile between the two for some reason. Finally, I just decided to pretty much glaze over it and maybe come back to it in the future as a short omake-style side story. I think it does work better this way, for it focuses the end of the chapter on this new trouble the ship and its crew are going to encounter.

With that said. I like to mention that I now know the reason why there was no Lieutenant Colonels as dedicated ship personnel in the series. Outside of members of visiting Stargate and Atlantis Recon Teams. For some reason, the Executive Officers for the several Earth-built ships seen in the series have always been Majors and not a rank right below of the ship's commander. Granted. Those officers could have been Lieutenant Colonels themselves, but that was never said to be their rank for those characters. Therefore, as planned, we have a Colonel who's in command of the ship, and a Lieutenant Colonel, who I planned on being the ship's Executive Officer. However, having two "Colonels" around is quite exhausting, if I do say myself. Hence, I started to use the title of XO to address Lieutenant Colonel Gant instead of her full rank. I think I am going to start having that as a sort of tradition that is emerging in Earth's growing fleet, for the other ships are going to have similar issues.

Deep sigh.

Okay. Then we come to the mentioned introducing bits of the expanded Tau'ri Fleet and the start of a larger fleet. Speaking of which, I really should whip up an info codex for the various repurposed Goa'uld Ships that the Tau'ri has started to use in secondary roles. Like the mentioned Guardian, Argos, Hector, and Bellerophon Class ships in this chapter. I have a couple more planned to be introduced, so that may prevent further info dump in later chapters when I introduce them. I already have a dedicated codex that I have been very slowly working on, which covers the different Goa'uld Ships. So it shouldn't be all that much of a difference to further explore those repurposed Goa'uld ships.

Next up, I wanted to briefly mention Genesis Station, which did get featured at the start of this chapter. I never really planned on including such a station in this story when I first started to write the story. No. That came about after I recently started to reread a few old favorite Stargate fanfictions to keep myself in the mood for Stargate. One of which was the Thunderdawn series done by ChaosEternus, which introduced an orbital space station that the SGC uses to support its growing fleet of ships. I then remembered an older idea I had in the past, which had a damaged Ha'tak Mothership being used by the SGC as a sort of space station facility, mainly its central pyramid, which later had several Midway Station-styled sections added to its sides. For Genesis Station, the central section would be the old Cheops which had its hyperdrive torn out to give the Prometheus a needed drive to get home. It now serves as the central section of the larger space station. And to better expand on my approach to the SGC's alien allies helping the Tau'ri expand their tech base had Asgard-built docking sections added to the overall larger station. Speaking of which, I really need to see about doing a prelude that explains all that a bit more, along with the discovery of the Goa'uld Ship Graveyard mentioned once or twice during this story. Which is where the majority of the repurposed Goa'uld ships the SGC/Tau'ri are now using came from.

Anyhow. I do believe that is about it. Hopefully, the next chapter is not going to be all that difficult to write. Though it may not be really done till the New Year, I am sorry to say as I am heading out of state for the holiday to spend time with my family. I shall see about doing some work on it during that time, but if I know my sisters. They will be dragging me along to different places. Sigh. Okay. That is about it, folks. I hope you all enjoy your holiday, and I shall see you all, hopefully, after the New Year. Till then, I bid you all Happy Holidays!
 
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