Stargate Academy: Calling Card

Seeing no objections, the Major turned back to the screen and changed to the next diagram. "The Daedalus-class deep space carrier is Earth's current space platform, capable of carrying as many of sixteen F-302s into combat or support situations," he began. "It carries a complement of personnel that can actually commence their own self-sustaining expedition, as exampled by the Ida Task Force. Your tablets have an overview of that project. DSC-304s are often used to resupply expeditions such as Atlantis, the Delta Site, our allies, and other locations. They are capable of inter-galactic travel. Currently, Earth has seven DSC-304s. Four are currently assigned to the Milky Way, the Daedalus, Apollo, Odyssey, and George Hammond. Daedalus and Apollo are mainly utilized for tactical and combat support, with Odyssey and Hammond alternating between Earth defense and specializied missions. The Sun Tzu is operated by the Chinese government and not fully dedicated to the Milky Way. The Aeneid and Iliad were assigned to the Delta Site prior to that expedition's standing-down, with the Iliad currently under retrofit and the Aeneid on assignment in the Delian Galaxy."

Turning to the others, he continued, "The current operations of the Stargate program and Homeworld Command, as well as Earth's defense are highly contingent upon these DSCs being available."

Outside the briefing room, a muffled yell was heard. Two Air Force enlisted members ran by the glassed-in area that the room they were in saw out to the other areas through. A red glow appeared at the intersection of the walls and ceiling, pulsating slowly. Sean leaned forward in his chair out of concern. The Major turned to the group, and said, "Everybody stay put." Connolly replied, "What's going on, sir?" Deline went to a phone mounted on the wall and punched in an intercom number, waiting for a reply. "It's Deline, what's going on?" he paused and listened before running a hand over his face and raising his eyebrows. "Mm-hmm ... yes ... understood." He hangs the phone up and turns to the group, taking a breath and addressing them, "Alright ... Earth is under assault. We need to move to the Operations Center.

With Webster now standing in the back of the Operations Center, the chaos was apparent but organized. Seated at a centralized station near the middle of the room, a blonde Master Sergeant was listening to her earpiece and swiveled toward the command area, saying, "Colonel Paulius! We just lost contact with SGC. Reports of multiple Al'kesh and gliders descending over Colorado Springs. Hammond is one minute out." The slim Lieutenant Colonel was the ranking watch officer, and barked over to the communications technician, "Send out a subspace distress call to all vessels, wide-band: Protocol 17 in effect." The technician nodded and began relaying the information. The Master Sergeant stood up from her console and looked shocked. The watch officer said, "What is it?" The technician pulls herself together enough to switch one of the main monitors over to two local news stations, broadcasting images of a 304 breaking apart, debris raining down from the sky over Colorado Springs. Gasps erupted around the Operations Center, but Paulius commanded, "Keep it together!" After a moment, he said, "Alright ... we need confirmation that this is tr--"

He was cut off as the entire facility shook hard. A light fixture's cable holding it in place snapped on one end, swinging down and slamming the communications technician out of her chair and across the floor, unconscious. As team members went over to check on her, another blast rocked the facility. "Report!" the Colonel ordered.  The sensor technician called out, "Three gliders attacking out positi--"  He was cut off as another massive shake rocked them and he was slammed into the nearby wall.  The elevators had to have been taken out for anything to be getting at the facility.  The Colonel rubbed the side of his face and called out, "Alright, who's versed in IT or sensor analysis?" Sean spoke up, "Meyers! See is you can get heads or tails over there." Paulius nodded, and continued, pointing at each station in kind, "Intel, tactical, operations, communications. We need to find out what's going on overhead and what we can do about it!" Connolly nods and says, "Dr. Hyde, with Carlson over at Intel. See what we can figure out and if there's anything we can take out of what makes them tick that would get us ahead of them at all.  I'll help the Colonel with Operations."  A security officer called out, "I'm trying to bring railguns online for those gliders, but I don't work in here usually!"  Sean pointed to Nicholas, "Syaira, help out the security officer at tactical."

Shannon was dreaming of her time with someone special. The dream was romantic and included a secluded spot in a nice garden with glass of wine and….”Meyers!brought her groggily out of the dream only to shout in return, ”36 rotations per second on a….” before she realized where she was once again. Slouching back into the chair, she listened to her orders. That’s when the first blast knocked the Junior Grade across the floor slamming into someone’s overturned seat. The bump on her leg would leave a nice bruise and a moan of pain commenced when the second blast only came moments later.

”So much for a training exercise” she mumbled crawling over to the knocked out personnel. Feeling her neck for a pulse, she found a weak one. ”She needs medical attention right away. Her pulse is weak Sean!” A cable came tearing down sparkling like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Shannon covered the unconscious soldier with her own body until the cable barely missed her and the comrade underneath. She could only hope that cable wasn’t coming back for seconds.

After the young women seemed contained by others, Meyers crawled over to a control panel. It was totally blown into another galaxy. ”Sean! This is going to take a while. Whoever did this knew exactly where our main power source is. The control panel is fried. The only chance I have is possibly hotwiring it of sorts to maybe get the damn thing back online.” Another large spark shot from the panel making the officer almost jump out of her skin. ”Make that a few more minutes.”