Got my post up, had a lot of fun writing it. Exciting start to things!
I can already see some of the differences to the canon coming through; we get FAST packs at the beginning rather than later through the SDF-1's journey back. Also they work in atmosphere, I'm guessing. 
I assume that at this point the ship has no attached ARMD cruisers or aircraft carriers, so we'll be launching from a bay instead as well?