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It was only two days since general O’Neill hinted that she might actually be getting her wish, and she was already back on her way to the dock. She couldn’t help but keep a stupidly victorious smirk off of her face once she had the details of her assignment and exactly how much freedom would she be given. After constantly bashing heads with Williams on board the [i]Langford[/i], that was a source of great relief. There were some key personnel she would have to request from offworld, but that could wait.

O’Neill walked out the elevator as it came to a halt and the door opened, turning to Catherine. “You know, I’m tempted to relieve you off command simply because of the smirk on your face. If you don’t stop your face is going to be stuck like that forever, I don’t think anybody wants that.” He walked over to the blast door and slid his card through the reader, the door opening on front of them, to show… nothing. No ship.

“Huh, I’m sure this was where I parked.”

Black straightened her expression with a faked clearing of her throat for a few seconds before she pinned O’Neill with a curious stare. “I’ve seen your face when you were excited about something, sir. Please...” she smiled, “I get to have IOA off of my back, don’t tell me you wouldn’t like that.”

She did not find the sight in front of her amusing. Blinking a few times, her mind tried to make logic of the situation but so far was coming up empty, leaving her just standing there with an empty stare. “This is either the prank of a century, crazy dream, or the proof that you are in dire need of a vacation, sir.”

“Come on Catherine, do you really think I’d do something like that?” He nodded to an airman behind them, who handed him a bottle of champagne. “This was going to commemorate the start of your journey, but I guess that’s a bust-” He then tossed it, which took more effort than he would have liked to admit, out into the hanger. Where it then shattered the liquid going everywhere as it hit the hull of the currently invisible ship.

“Huh.”

The bottle did the trick. After a while, Catherine burst into giggles. “It’s the thought that counts, sir. Might want to save it for someone who can appreciate it next time though.” she said apologetically before patching into the local comms: “Cloak works doc.”

O’Neill moved his hands a little a she spoke, in an almost theatrical appearance. “I just really thought it would have… [i]broken[/i] something. I’m a little disappointed actually.”

Lawson was standing in the command and control centre when the comm came through, since all the systems had been patched into the room he had taken to performing most of his tests in it. It was the most important room on the ship after all and it wouldn’t do [s]Captain[/s] [i]General[/i] Black any good down the line. He smiled slightly at the remark, before pressing a number of controls as the ship shimmer again as it became visible. 

He hit the comm button. “You know, if it didn’t by this point I’d happily activate the self destruct.” Sounding obviously exhausted. “I would have if the champagne bottle had caused it to fail, on that note someone threw a bottle of champagne at your ship's hull ma’am. Should I power weapons?”

Chuckling at O’Neill’s comment, she shook her head. “You took my chief engineer off of my ship in the middle of things to design this thing. If it didn’t work, I’d give you both hell.” she winked.

“God, no, Phil!” she called back, “Clear the hangar first!” she grinned. “Well, sir, do you need a cab back home?” she offered.

Hearing the exchange through the radio Lawson chuckled. “If you haven’t been making my life hell to this point thats a threat I’m seriously scared off.” He just laughed at the rest off it, as he cut the comms and extended the boarding tube as he began powering up more systems waiting for Catherine to reach the bridge.

At the same time O’Neill looked really torn. “You know me, I love both maidans and voyages… however I have an absolutely [i]thrilling[/i] meeting with the IOA to go to aboard the [i]Langford[/i]. Right on the observation deck in Earth orbit-” He threw her a wink. “So I guess I’ll be taking the old… Chappa'aii back to Earth.” He threw her the least official looking salute he could muster. “See you on the other side General.” Before turning around and walking back out of the hanger.

Before the blastdoor could close he leaned to look underneath it. “Also no spying through windows, drink driving or speeding. Or I’ll see your license-” The door slammed cutting of the end of his sentence.

Returning the salute, she said her thanks, wishing the general good luck and strong nerves. She resisted the urge to throw the nearest fire extinguisher his way through the blast door.

Turning around, she took a deep breath of the recycled, conditioned air. “Ah, finally the smell of home.” Kat smiled for herself, heading straight to the C&C.

The ship looked a lot better than two days ago. It didn’t look just new, it was polished. Dropping her bags at the door, she greeted the doctor. “It would seem your gift of farsight remains intact.” she smiled, offering a hand.

Before stepping down from the centre podium Lawson hit several commands in the panels beside him, a different interface came up much the same as the General would be used too. He then stepped down, and shook her hand. “You know, I’ve read reports on people having that gift and I would really like it when designing a ship. Yes I designed the 547s but this…” He shuddered.

“Lets just say that designing the latest ship, full of goodies isn’t the least stressful way to spend your time. Yes I had help but-” He raised his hands. “This is very much my baby.” He pointed at Blacks chest. “That’s why I wanted you. I don’t think I’d trust anyone else with this ship. I also don’t know any other captains but that’s besides the point, I could have met some.”

He scratched the back of his head. “Anyway before I ramble anymore, you have the con.” As if on cue one of the other doors opened and personnel walked in, though there were five stations only two were taken. Lawson shrugged. “You’re on a Skeleton crew as well so go easy on them. They’re not as used to you as I am. Any questions before you launch us, preferably after opening the door.”

“Yes, yes, unfortunately I wasn’t told for sure until few hours ago. I suppose I’d still have to pick out the rest of the crew - so looking forward to that...” Catherine sighed, shuddering at the memory of the previous IOA directed selection process. “I wonder if my former XO would be available, I’m going to need to make a long distance call once we’re home.” A disturbing thought came to mind: “You’re coming with, right?”

Rubbing her hands, Catherine didn’t head for the command post. Instead, she grinned and gone to the helm’s seat. “You say the nicest things, doctor. Don’t worry, you know I take care of my own.” she said as she loaded her personal preferences into the interface. “Take my post, I bet you need more screens than I do. Done the system checklist yet?” she shouted over her shoulder.

“System checklist? You know how many times I’ve checked systems?” He walked back up to the podium and smirked. Unlocking his own interface - naturally he had a slightly more advanced one so that he could alter programming on the fly. “Also of course I’m coming with. Secrets of the Asgard? New unexplored regions? Who knows what else? They did try and ship me back to R&D but thankfully O’Neill said you’d want me.”

He swiped one of the controls up, as a group of holographic screens appeared around the C&C showing an array of different views of the ship from the hangers camera, just so he could show off some more to the General. “I think you’ll like what we’ve done with the hull. We’ve actually [i]finished[/i] it. Seems to hold in atmosphere a lot better now.”

He pushed his finger on the bottom of a slider on one of his screens, and begin pulling it up as a low hum resonated throughout the ship. “You’re engines are online, she’s all yours helmsman.” He said that with an implied wink. It did seem like her however, do everything you expected of your subordinates at least once. Also he knew she’d never be able to resist flying the [i]Nyx[/i] at least once.

Nodding and popping the joints on her fingers, Catherine tapped the controls. “Boarding tube retracted, docking clamps released, antigravity pod powered, inertial dampeners operational.” Kat said, more for herself than anything. She knew a voice behind her would notify her if she forgot anything. “Shipyard control, Nyx. Requesting permission for takeoff.”

After half a minute the roof indicator flipped to green, indicating the route was free. “Nyx, you have a green light. Bon voyage.” Acknowledging, Kat grabbed the controls and eased the Nyx out. Once they cleared the hangar, she pushed the throttle forward. The roar of the engines could have been felt rather than heard, something that would go away after they were out of the atmosphere.

“Shield is at 100%, did you test the weapons as well or have you saved some fun for me?” the general called back.

Lawson was bringing up screens and going over telemetry constantly. The hanger itself was designed so it could purge itself of atmosphere, shielding and modules in the hanger itself let them test most systems however the first flight was always the big moment. So even though everything worked perfectly he wanted to see how it [i]performed[/i]. That’s when the comment was called back.

“We’ve tested them to a degree, though if you’re feeling a bit rusty the spine cannon could do with some exercise on a local asteroid belt. It’s on our way out of the system anyway-” he checked his readings. “-That is if you feel like pushing the sub-light and taking a detour.”

“Done!” Black nodded, plotting the course and slowly bringing the engines to their safe maximum. Pulling up a screen displaying the power drain, she directed power to not just the spinal gun but all of them. So far so good. “So this gun is a first, I get that it can go for ever until it hits something unlike the plasma beams, but what are we looking at in terms of effective range?”

“Well obviously the closer you are to the target the more explosive the hit will be, you also have to take your aim into account. Other than that… Well I can’t really say for sure as it’s not been tested out in space yet. Really however it’s range is however far you can aim comfortably, a tag missile from a 547 will be useful in that regard.” 

His hands ran over the controls, bringing up a larger asteroid in the centre of the belt, smaller ones occasionally moving in front of it blocking it from view. “Lets see how many you can take out in one hit.” His hands ran over several more controls, of course she’d learn many of the functions herself however they were technically on the clock. “Deploying main gun now.”

Elsewhere in the ship a hatch opened as the end of the barrel deployed sticking out from the main hull of the ship. Lawson pulled up a screen of a camera facing it. “We decided to keep several of the external cameras on the hull. I’m glad we did, it lets us see sweet moments like that. The gun itself is in the spine of the ship, gives us a nice long barrel to speed up the projectile. The reason it’s hatched is so that anyone looking at the ship doesn’t just go [i]Oh shit, it’s got a big gun[/i]. It’s a little more subtle this way.”

“Good thinking. It’s one more thing that could break, but sure beats getting preemptively shot at.” Kat nodded, “Watch the power grid, I’ll see how much it can take. Going into military thrust.” she notified, pushing the lever to the setting.

The dampeners struggled for a little while to deal with the vibrations, but the acceleration was every bit as good as Lawson advertised. Coupled with the fact that there were six smaller engines instead of two large ones and they were better armored, she had to once again admire the design.

“Target locked. What sort of ordnance do we carry?” she inquired, wondering if she could lob a nuke at someone at a reasonable fraction of light speed if the need arose. No one would be able to detect that in time. Still she selected the kinetic projectile if only to save money. “Targeting solution calculated, let’s see what this thing can do.”

She pushed the button. The ship shuddered and she felt it slightly decelerating as the reaction to the shot pushed the ship back. The muzzle velocity was added to the speed of the ship. She slowed the Nyx down and put up the target view on her own screen. “Clocking the shot at .65 C. Still it will be a minute until it arrives. that’s going to be one hell of a bang though at that velocity, right?”

“If you mean impact, then yes.” He brought up the best screen he could as the asteroids were torn to shreds, the projectile actually kept going after vaporizing the first as it had been designed for much heavier targets. “She should be able to take down a Ha’tak in just as many, maybe less hits than an Asgard beam weapon. If you’re talking about an actual sound or heat signature we’ve managed too…” 

He took a moment to think of the best way to phrase it. “We’ve managed to effectively put a silencer on it. Someone with as advanced scanners as us will be able to work their way passed them it no doubt but anyone with say Goa’uld level technology or lower will have a hard time detecting the shot until their sensors identify it as a threat.”

He shrugged. “In terms of armament that’s pretty much it. We’ve thrown ideas about throwing a nuke in the barrel but in the end we can’t make the warhead effective enough. Either we make the casing strong enough to withstand the extreme acceleration within the railgun and then the radioactive material is so minimal it’s barely worth it or we risk the chance of a nuclear explosion in a spinal gun. I didn’t think you’d like the idea of your own weapon ripping your ship in two. By any means we’re working on new designs based upon energy which are turning up some interesting results. Though that’s still not quite ready.”

“Works for me- Whoa.” Catherine said as she gazed on the bright flash as the shot impacted. The resulting release of energy was a lot smaller than it could have since the asteroid broke apart, but the blast still took out everything in a decent radius.

“You say you have something stronger in the works? Hard to imagine.” she whistled, powering the unnecessary systems down. “If the engines are holding up, let’s get to it then. I’d like to see if we can approach Earth undetected.” she suggested, remembering what the good general mentioned about her old ship.

“We’re [i]trying[/i] to get something stronger in the works. Though you know me, I’m kind of fed up of weapons. I’m more about the hard science, I’ll make weapons if I need to but right now-” he just shrugged. Which he saw as pointless as she was facing away from him. He brought up the hyperdrive controls, the co-ordinates for Earth were already pre-programmed into the computer and he selected them. “Initiating Hyperdrive, we’re not that far away so at max speed it should only take half an hour.”

He rubbed his eyes, as he stood down from the podium. “Just so you know there is a brief pause between exiting hyperspace and powering the cloak. While we managed to make this time lower than it is for Goa’uld cloaks it’s still there. That said we shouldn’t be noticed unless Earth is actively scanning for us, and I don’t see why they would. They’ll just be waiting for us to turn up.”

“No rush, you know best I appreciate the cloak the most. It would have prevented a lot of trouble back in the day.” she said, shaking the memory off. “I figured out as much, if the hyperspace window wouldn’t tell them. That’s why I’m dropping us out behind the Moon.” Kat said with amusement.

With a bit of time to kill, she got up from the helm’s station to go and look over the doctor’s shoulder. She liked to know her equipment, but the sheer number of outputs he was observing was overwhelming on it’s own. “Well, I took theoretical physics, but apparently I’m way too rusty.” she admitted. “So doc… We might be going away for a while. Don’t get me wrong, having you here would make me sleep a lot easier, but I have to ask this - are you OK with leaving for so long? Does your daughter know?” Catherine asked softly.

Lawson pressed a series of controls and the outputs normalised to what the General would usually see. He rubbed his eyes again. “Yeah, I’m not though. She’s running fine. Best ship in the fleet.” He chuckled slightly, not really through humour more from nervous exhaustion. He stood down from the podium, the light directly above it dimmed. It being designed to ensuring the person on the podium had the most light necessary to see around easily, without being blinded.

“Ruth? Ah, she’s grown up now General. She’s twenty five, musician. Plays the piano. Pretty good at it actually, dabbles in art. She got all the creativity I missed out on. Got it from her mother. Anyway it’s not like nowadays it’s not impossible for us to keep in contact from the other side of the galaxy. Besides, you should know better than anyone strong pull doesn’t let you give security clearance to whoever you want. As far as she’s aware I’m stuck in some research base in the middle of nowhere trying to come up with a new form of power generation. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I wish I could tell her so much more-” He raised his arms to signal the ship.

“-I mean I want to share this accomplishment with her but I know why we can’t. So I just have to hope, that no matter what happens I’ll be able to be there for her. Besides, we can surely pick up a gate if needed and I hear that SG-7 is trying to bargain for a supergate from the Children of the Ori or whatever they’re calling themselves these days. So-” he offered her a smile. “-It should all be fine, though I’m officially putting in for holidays if she gets engaged or pregnant in advance.”

“Duly noted.” Catherine nodded with a smile. “And just give me a call if something changes. I can’t promise to do much more than put in my word behind that security clearance, but least I could do is talk to her.”

---Several minutes later---

The alarm she set up at the helm beeped and she promptly returned behind the controls. “Dropping us out.” she notified and gave the ship the command. A few seconds later she had the cloak up and was plotting a course. “I’ll slingshot us around and cut the engines, that should minimize our trail. I believe a certain general might actually be looking for us, let’s not disappoint him shall we?”

doing as she said, she carefully maneuvered the ship as the navigation computer told her. “Intercept course for the [i]Langford[/i] plotted. Time to wave her goodbye.” she grinned.

A couple dozens of seconds later, she began decelerating using only the maneuvering thrusters before putting the ships into a close formation and instructing the computer to keep it and told one of the crewmen to man the controls to ensure no crashing occurred. “Care to join me on the observation deck, Doctor?”

He sat silent through the exchange. The [i]Langford[/i] while a great ship hadn’t been taken from him, he understood that the General had some unresolved issues and with a ship like this, such a prank would be easily excusable as [i]testing the system[/i] much as General O’Neill’s plan back at the hangar where he had cloaked the ship specifically for Catherine coming to see the ship. So he just played along. “It’s a pity our nose is designed as a hangar and there’s no observation deck closer to the front, though nothing a little ingenuity doesn’t fix.”

“Ingenuity or skill. I was a fighter pilot before this, and let me tell you…” Catherine chuckled as they came to see the view outside, “...the [i]Nyx[/i] fits me like a glove.” she boasted. The ships were parked in a way where the [i]Nyx[/i] was upside down and facing rear in relation to the [i]Langford[/i], their observation decks lined up so close she could make the shapes of general O’Neill and Mr. Williams in the 304’s deck. “Put on your proudest face, for she is a masterpiece.” Kat said as he whipped a salute. “Drop the cloak and open a channel.”

The whole ship shimmered as the cloak disabled, and he opened a channel. In the briefing of several IOA members and General O’Neill in the [i]Langford[/i] it took several of them a second to figure out what they were seeing, and there was a look of shock on all their faces but one. O’Neill, if he could be seen was beaming a smile and trying to contain a laugh.

Instead, he just started to clap. After a couple of seconds others in the briefing room joined in, and it was the first sound heard over the comms. Lawson could almost cry.

“[i]ES Nyx[/i], reporting to earth as ordered, sir.”

“Nice entrance Catherine. Anything we can help you with or are you doing exactly what I told you what [i]not[/i] to do?” Replied O’Neills voice, some of the IOA members still seemed too… shocked to say anything.

“Merely here to report that the 307 is performing as expected… and to say goodbye to a former home. We will be assuming polar orbit and start beaming up supplies. Please pass along my most heartfelt greetings to Mr. Williams. [i]Nyx[/i] out.” she said, saluted again and instructed the helm to break formation and head above McMurdo.

As they flown out of view, Catherine couldn’t hold a straight face any longer. “Those faces - priceless.” she wiped a tear of mirth out of her eye. “Well, we’re here, and for now, we’re done. Now, could you do your commander a favor? Please go and take a day off. You’ve been looking ready to fall asleep the whole time.” she smiled.

“I’ll be spending some time with family, just give me a couple of hours warning when you’re ready for me. I’ll see you later General.” He nodded before walking off the observation deck.
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