Air Liaisons

Posted on Mon Mar 18th, 2019 @ 8:54pm by Major Jacob Asher & Captain Kevin Hawkins

Mission: Aftermath
Location: Project New Dawn, Cheyenne Mountain
Timeline: Current (After Snow Day)

Jake was walking through the corridors of the mountain complex when he saw Kevin Hawkins ahead of him. He jogged to catch up with the captain. "Hawkins!" he called out. "Hey, got a moment to talk? Figure the first time we interact should be when we're not dodging staff weapon fire."

Kevin looked at the man and straightened up more in his posture as he lowered the tablet in his hands in which had the layout and instructions of the base. "Major, of course, sir. I do apologize if this wasn't an ideal way of meeting. Did we have a meeting in your office I needed to be at?"

"Nah," Jake said. "I've just been busy between prepping for our return to mission ready status and getting a little fun in while I have the time. Why don't we grab a cup of coffee or something and chew the fat a bit?"

A simple nod was his response before Kevin finally understood what he was trying to say. "Sounds good, sir. But I must worn you, I'm not a cheap date."

"Yeah, well," Jake said. "My mother always told me, Jacob, nothing in life comes easy, and if you want to make a woman happy, neither should you. DFAC's down this way."

"Sounds good to me," the younger officer responded before the two started down the hall. "So how was the first mission?"

"An absolute clusterfuck," Jake said as he walked. "We bit off way more than we could chew. Not General Wolf's fault. He inherited that plan of action from the guy they put in charge here originally. That guy got the boot, but things were already in motion, so Nathan followed through on those plans. And understand, though he wasn't thrilled with the plan, he did everything he could to make sure it succeeded. But now that it fail spectacularly, he went back to the Joint Chiefs and the President and he got permission to run the kind of operation that will be more appropriate for our situation and that will utilize the skills, training, education, and experience he's accumulated over the last almost twenty three years."

"Interesting," Kevin nodded as they moved through the corridor till they found their destination. He took in the sites and smell as he got used to it all. It was all strange but in the end, this was a comfortable feeling to be in the chow line once again.

Jake grabbed some coffee, a bottle of water, and a turkey salad sandwich. "Mama Edith makes the best damn turkey salad I've ever had, Hawk--can I call you Hawk? It seems appropriate for a guy with pilot's wings."

”Its always been my nickname sense middle school. So I'm good with it, sir," the captain nodded as he grabbed his own coffee and bottle water. But unlike the major, he wasn't hungry at the time. The two sat at an empty table and relaxed. "I know about your background, and the nature of the mission, not requiring a full time pilot. But I am not just a fly boy."

"So I read," Jake said. "Air Liaison Officer, right? Trained with the TAC-P guys? I'd say that means I can trust you not to shoot yourself in the foot, or more importantly to not shoot me in the back accidentally. So, what have you been told about how we're going to be operating since our recent, overwhelming, clusterfuck?"

"Just because I flew a couple plans over head, doesn't mean I can't handle myself with a weapon," Hawk responded as he took a sip of his drink before looking back at the man. "A cluster... huh. Hopefully not all missions turn out that way."

"I don't expect they will," Jake said. "I expect there'll be good days and bad days like any other endeavor. All we can do is strive to make the best of everyday and to mitigate damage from the bad days. I think, though, the thing we have going for us is Nathan Wolf and the latitude he's been given to run Project New Dawn. Unlike what's been going on here on Earth for almost two decades, Nathan will be focusing our resources on groups and communities that actually want our help and will take an active role in both their own development and, where applicable, the fight against the Goa'uld. Nathan knows that this country sucks at nation building, even more so when we try to do it at the point of a gun, but more importantly, he understands why we suck at it, and maybe even how to do it more effectively. He's going to be bringing in people from State and USAID to assist as well, so he's not expecting the military to do this alone."

"Some high praises coming your way for the good General. I am assuming you have some history with him?" The captain asked as he raised an eye brow wandering what all it truly intelled.

"Yeah," Jake said. "I got selected for 24th Special Tactics pretty early, right after I joined 24th Special Tactics Squadron. He ran that outfit back then. He became sort of a mentor to me, helped me make the right career decisions, and sometimes the right life decisions. He's the real deal, Hawk."

Kevin nodded as he took it in for himself. He hadn't really had much of a mentor, as he was more focused on excelling to make his family proud of him, in some way, fashion, or form. But the past hand full of years were never going to be openly shared with them. All they knew about was that he was in the Air Force and that he was a pilot. Still, it meant something to them.

"Sounds good, then. I heard that I was being assigned to one of the teams, your team, but I maybe just on loan to you from time to time, while I'm assigned to the SG-2 team. I haven't officially questioned it, but sense we are sitting here, enjoying a cup of tea, its worth asking ya now."

"I guess that all depends," Jake said. "General Wolf hasn't decided on whether to leave SG-1 at eight members or break it into two four person teams. He'll likely decide that after we see how the next one or two off-world missions go. Larger groups can get unwieldy, especially with the more civilians you take with you. There are two options on the table at the moment. He'll split the team by focus, one cultural, one scientific, or give both teams a broader focus. Like I said, he hasn't decided yet. If I were in your shoes, I'd get to know everybody so if you're asked your opinion on the matter later, you can give an informed opinion based on what you know instead of guesswork."

"Well, that was my plan. Just got to find the time the," Hawk smirked as he took another sip of his drink. "So what about other teams and possible off world bases? What is the future look like? I'm guessing the budge for this program is as questionable as every other thing due to this constant budge restraints these days."

"We're having to backtrack quite a bit, so we're not exactly picking up where the old SGC left off," Jake said. "There'll be more teams forming soon, but as for off-world bases...when they finally got set up down here and got the gate working again, they investigated the Alpha Site. All they found was debris and some remains. No thriving off-world colony, no nothing, and no real indication of what happened to the people we'd sent through during the invasion. So no one is eager to start any off-world colonies just yet. And we already tried jumping into the deep end of the pool. It blew up in our faces and we were lucky to get out alive. So now we test out the shallow end of the pool and work our way up to more challenging depths."

"Makes sense," Kevin thought it out loud as he looked around the room. It wasn't as crowded as he would expect with the stand up of the project, but they were more than likely about to fill up quickly. This wasn't a program to just walk in a little bit of the time, when it came to operational. "So you got a family life?'

"Beyond my parents and some cousins," Jake said. "Not really. Never really had the time, never really found the right person, never really thought it was fair to ask someone to follow me from base to base. The kind of person I'm interested in would probably want their own career, and Uncle Samuel isn't kind to two-career households. You?"

"Same, father isn't with us anymore and mother is ... around. Grew up with my uncle for a couple years," the captain explained slightly as finished off his coffee. He looked inside his cup at the droplets. He rolled around the liquid in his cup around the edges as his thoughts went blank for a moment, before he snapped out of it. "Well I better get going. I have some final in processing done and get with Comm department on some secure tech. Even my previous assignment didn't have this kind of set up."

"Of course," Jake said. "Nice to meet you, Hawk. I'll see you around."