Project Rooftop (short story)

Project Rooftop
Main character(s):	Catherine Petts, Jenny Maguire, A. Frederick
Main setting:	United Kingdom, Christmas Day 2006
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC
Writer:	BBC webteam
Release details
Genre:	Science fiction
Part of:	U.N.I.T.
Release date:	December 2005
Format:	Online short story
U.N.I.T. website fiction
← Previous	Alien Life
Operations Board
← Previous	Guinevere One

You may wish to consult Project (disambiguation) for other, similarly-named pages.

Project Rooftop, prefixed as Operations Board: Project Rooftop on the story's page, was the seventeenth short story and twenty-second and final release exclusively published on the U.N.I.T. website in December 2005 by the BBC webteam to coincide with the broadcast of The Christmas Invasion. Project Rooftop was the seventh release in the Operations Board series of in-universe chat logs between UNIT personnel.

This short story was set concurrently with another, Alien Life.

Plot

On a secure operations board on the UNIT website, Sgt Catherine Petts tells everyone everything is back to normal... if they discount the two billion lives in danger, a government in crisis, and the official existence of aliens. She tells the other UNIT officers of reports she's received of the clean up, where the armed forces helped with the mass cleaning of broken glass, however she admits that they overlooked that the lack of windows enabled people to loot shops for last minute Christmas presents, but at least the police who weren't helping people off rooves helped mitigate the damage. She concludes that the snow isn't melting.

Major Jenny Maguire mournfully confirms the death of Major Blake, and Sgt A. Frederick informs them that the press situation is difficult as the only staff on duty is a skeleton crew of office juniors trying to put out the "story of their lives" and their editors calling her in a state of "festive-spirit-fuelled rage". She tells them that Blackberry devices have been temporarily disabled, and that they should only tell them "as much of the truth as they can handle". She tells them that a directive has come from the PM's office, that the spaceship blew up of its own accord. Petts asks what it was, and Frederick responds by saying "nope".

Major Jenny Maguire tells them that Major Blake's family have been contacted, and that a memorial service is being arranged, and that the PM wishes to speak at it.

Characters

• Sgt Catherine Petts
• Major Jenny Maguire
• Sgt A. Frederick

Referenced only

• Major Richard Blake
• The PM

References

• Frederick states that "most of Fleet Street are away in holiday cottages in the Cotswalds".
• Frederick notes that she has activated protocol "Delta-Exec" to disable Blackberry devices.
• Frederick doesn't think that telling the public the extent of UNIT's activities over the past forty-odd years would "win anything".
• Frederick, when telling the other officers of the directive from the PM, that they "don't mention... you know... that".

Notes

• to be added

Continuity

• This story is set during TV: The Christmas Invasion, and is following the events of PROSE: Guinevere One.

External links

• Project Rooftop at U.N.I.T. via the Wayback Machine