StargateStrikw Witches: Aurora Strata

by Evident Disaster

The Promethean Knight, carrying SG team Delta under the command of Jonathan O'Neill is displaced after a mission. The ship and it's crew now faces quite a predicament, with a damaged ship and an uncertain situation the crew is forced to adapt to the world it finds itself in. Meanwhile the 501st Strike Witches must come to terms with the unknown. Chapter 1 uploaded.

Chapter 1: Expectations and Eventuality

Location: Janus Corridor- Arad Proxy Psi
Date: 19/02/2017
Time: 20:33

Operation: Casus Ordinate

Routine missions, they're routine since nothing's happened yet, but when they do, you're thrown into an endless variety of situations, none of which can always be predictable, but still you need to deal with them, regardless of whether or not you're ready. This is probably why this mission had gotten so messy when it did, what had been a routine sweep in the Janus Corridor, sweeping for Lucien Alliance elements which still operated out in deep space plaguing UNEF and allied shipping lanes.

Their investigation had revealed a small raiding installation which was once operated by the Goa'uld system lords, the installation had been built during the days of the Goa'uld System Lord Apophis who had constructed massive amounts of outposts outlying the territories of a few other System Lords, these installations were long range listening posts and defensive installations.

Each were outfitted with shields and a cloaking shield to ensure they could operate without being discovered, amazingly they were all constructed before the end of the Apophis's reign and after his death the installations were ultimately abandoned since they were generally large targets without sufficient naval support since the Goa'uld system lords fought one another.

It was then the Lucien Alliance forces had moved into the area, deciding to go and repurpose the station for their own ends, the warlord in charge was busy establishing a major facility when the UNEF had discovered the installation. Seeing the threat of a Lucien warlord operating such a heavily armed installation near UNEF space was unacceptable, the UNEF Promethean Knight had been sent to disable the installation as soon as possible.

To this end SG Division Delta had been dispatched, Delta was the elite military paramilitary branch from the main SGC branch on Earth, as the original had operated the SGC had teams of military operators who explored but also acted as the UNEF's hands and eyes in operations deep out in space. Delta was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan O'Neill, the cloned version of Jack O'Neill, created in 2005 (This is in canon for the TV show, check it out!).

Their mission was similar to the original SG-1, though their base of operations was to be largely committed off world and their missions encompassed a wider variety of roles, mainly exploration, but also interdiction and intervention. For the most part Delta was a special operations force than it was an exploratory one, they did get the occasional mission to explore worlds, but this was varied, mostly to assess the conditions of each planet.

For the most part their mission was orientated around dealing with various threats posed by remnant forces like the Goa'uld, even though most were defeated, there were still their fragmented remnants playing hell with the UNEF. Another problem was the Lucien Alliance which filled the power vacuum, the UNEF had been hard pressed to defeat this faction, but with every warlord they defeated, there was always someone else to replace them.

A stabilising element was required to bring a stop to the Lucien Alliance's activities, but this wouldn't happen for a while, until then the UNEF had to deal with the political upheaval that would ensue. Their attack on this installation being one key aspect of weakening the Lucien's powerbase in the region and allowing the UNEF to counter further attempts at expansion by the feuding warlords.

Of course these missions varied, and as Helmuth von Moltke said in the past "No plan survives first contact with the enemy."
"Fire in the hole." Sargent Grogan yelled as he let loose a rocket propelled grenade from his M48 assault rifle's underslung barrel launcher.

A distinct grenade pop followed before a loud explosion, down the corridor his grenade had detonated against the floor between two bulkheads and caught a squad of Lucien troopers in the blast, perforating them with shrapnel, the sounds of men screaming was heard as the men dropped down with blood pouring from wounds.

Their mission had been going predictably swell besides the armed force of enemy Lucien troopers attempting to kill them all, for the most part the battle was a grinder for the most part. The enemy kept throwing themselves at them trying to overwhelm them, but the team could repulse them with precision response.

Grogan's personal shields held out against the spray of gunfire from the Lucien soldiers, the Lieutenant returned fire as soon as he could, his rifle sending hypersonic bullets through two soldiers unfortunate enough to stick out of cover. 6.8mm HPSAP rounds tore through their body armour and flesh in seconds.

Jonathan asked a loud as he fired his SMC in the narrow corridor of the installation. "How many more of these fodders are there?"

"Too many to count." Kevin replied as they continued to exchange fire between them and the faceless masked troopers of the Lucien Alliance.

The fighting was brutal and fast, but they were holding their own well enough under the circumstances, the real trouble was how long they'd be able to hold out.

"Eli how's the status on the last demo charge?" Jon asked as he replaced his third magazine from his assault rifle.

"Almost done." He reported as he finished priming the detonation code of the bomb he was working on.

The rest of the squad continued to provide support for their tech specialist as he worked on the bombs, the tedious process was necessary since these were high yield charges meant for blasting through reinforced structures and heavily shielded plating. It was annoying how the inventor of these bombs didn't bother to design a faster process of setting these charges up.

Their mission had been a slugfest since things had down shit creek fast, the unintended slip up was actually no one fault, but the enemy's actually. An accidental system breach caused the whole system to go haywire and set off alarms, thinking they were under attack; unfortunately they ended up bumping into the team in a data storage centre where things went down.

It was a stroke of blind luck and stupidity on the Lucien Alliance's part that things went from bad to worse; it was more amazing that no one had died yet. But their time was running short and the Promethean Knight had arrived to extract them from the station, the trouble was getting their final objectives completed before they were overwhelmed.

As he ducked down, the wiry brown haired man called to the woman on his right who was in the process of reloading his carbine.
"Hailey, how's our escape routing looking?"

"Not good Colonel, we've got multiple hostiles crowding around our initial route."

"Then we're going to have to cut across from here to the other extraction point."

"That's going to be a problem." Another replied as she chimed in from the corner on their left flank.

"What's wrong Satterfield?" Jon called over the squad com.

The lieutenant had her portable slicer on hand; she brought up a compact display of their surroundings with highlighted sections. "Sir, the Lucien's severed the controls in that section, all the automated control links are dead, we'd have to manually open them section by section."

"Not like we have a lot of other options. We'll take it; hopefully you and Eli can work through this quickly."

"Yes sir." The young woman replied promptly, but she did have a tone of apprehension given that their exit would be going down a long detour to get out of the facility before they got overwhelmed by the Lucien troops.

XXXXX

Meanwhile outside of the installation the battle was raging around a single Prometheus-class heavy corvette, the warship lay down fire as it attempted to keep the Alliance's captured Goa'uld warships from reinforcing and cutting the Prometheus off from the station. They had to keep the enemy at bay as long as possible from taking the station or Delta wasn't going to get out any time soon.

On the bridge, crewmen bustled about, some relaying information, others tracking the enemy forces and updating information, all around them the battle raged on, but they kept their cool and followed the procedures as they came along.

"Arianne report!" A well shaved man in his late 30s sporting a full dress uniform called out amidst the blaring alarms.

He received a response from a glowing projection of a woman on his left; this hologram was of a woman, in her late 20s, long auburn hair with greyish eyes and a calm personality. She held herself calmly as she turned and stated briskly.
"Shields are sustaining consistent impacts, so far they're holding steady at eighty three percent, dropping at a rate of one point four percent per minute."

"Status on our guns?" Williams asked as he did a status check.

"We're holding charge steady, but Promethean was never meant for sustained combat like this, either her shields will give or the guns will, their maximum output is affected by how much our generators can put out."

"We'll have to make do then."

"Returning fire." The tactical operator replied as the ship continued to engage.

From the forward view of the bridge the scene of the battle was a truly awesome and frightening sight, beams of bluish light pierced the void lancing out against the shape and form of multiple vessels. In response the enemy vessels returned fire in brilliant yellowish gold bursts from a multitude of different cannons.

"Hammerheads one to eight are firing." The weapons operator reported as they returned fire.

Heavy anti-ship missiles let loose from multiple VLS launching cells, each trailing a bluish white plasma exhaust as they speared through the void. The Hammerhead missiles splashed against the shields of one warship before modulated shield penetrators burst through the barriers releasing their secondary payload, a high yield anti-ship warhead with a deadly payload.

The payloads managed to penetrate the outer hull of the Ha'tak warship, slamming into the golden outer layer of the ship before burrowing deep into the hull, sections of the interior were breached before the secondary warhead detonated. In an instant, multiple explosions followed, rupturing the super structure of the ship, ripping it open in a brilliance of a white hot fireball which consumed the exterior of the ship.

Cau'ska type destroyers were peppering the Promethean's shields with a crossfire their broadside guns, the lighter weight destroyers were highly manoeuvrable, but in terms of firepower they couldn't withstand getting hit in return by the Promethean's secondary gun mounts, the smaller twin barrelled guns pivoted to intercept the enemy craft, striking one with two direct hits while the other managed to lance through the rear engine section and blast apart the underside of the hull.

The first Cau'ska was obliterated in a brilliant explosion of gases and the reactor detonating, and the second ship merely spun wildly out of control as its engines detonated and sent the craft adrift. The battle continued to be waged as the Lucien Alliance fighters attempted to swarm in, the cheap mass produced Death Gliders were just that, cheap.

But their sheer numbers and ease of use made them troublesome to deal with, especially with the numbers being thrown at them, the close in weapon systems on the Promethean Knight continued to spew out anti-air missiles and close range fire against the enemy fighters with mixed results. So far their attacks were being dissuaded by the amount of anti-air fire, but they continued to pelt the ship.

But the captain of the ship knew well that there was only so much that his single vessel could handle under the given circumstances. Tapping the controls on his command chair he brought up the com line, selecting the appropriate channel he asked. "Engineering, what's the status of the hyperdrive?"

"We're almost completed secondary charge for the drive; it'll be complete within five minutes assuming we don't have to divert more power." The chief engineer reported in.

"Understood, we'll need to make an exit soon." He said before switching his attention to the ship's AI who was waiting patiently. "Arianne, how much longer until Delta-1 is off the station?"

"They've completed objectives one and three; they're in the process of dealing with the final objective." The AI reported in as the ship shuddered from a detonation along its outer shields.

Williams tensed as he felt that blast as well. "Tell them to hurry; our shields can't sustain more of this." He stated as they continued to exchange fire.

However it seemed the enemy had other plans, the AI suddenly pipped in. "Captain, one of the enemy ships is on a collision course!" She exclaimed hastily.

"Impact time?"

"Forty three seconds."

"Can our guns stop it?" The captain asked as their guns continued to pound the oncoming vessel.

Arianne took a moment to give her report as she analysed the vessel's overall structure and shielding. "Not fast enough, it's focused its shields to the forward arrays; it'll take longer to penetrate the shield from the fore."

"Damn it. Bring us about, circle around try and disable its engines!"

The Promethean Knight did exactly that, but as they went to get around the shields, they missed the small craft exiting the Ha'tak, speeding off towards the installation at high speeds, followed by two smaller transports. The beams of light indicating transport flashed off within moments, the crew knew that the enemy had succeeded in running their blockade.

"Captain the enemy has managed to board the station."

"Risky move and they called our bluff." The commander said with a modicum of respect for the gusty attack.

"Whoever's in charge must have a death wish."

The ship trailed onwards as it limped to the station, gaping holes in its hull, but it was still moving, the Promethean unleashed a salvo of missiles to strike out against the ship, six missiles raced to the damaged vessel. But whoever was aboard was likely transporting over to the installation. As the missiles collided with the vessel, a beam of light was embittered from the ship, a short pulse of lights followed before the missiles collided with the ship.

Six simultaneous impacts followed as the ship's hull breached and the interior was boiled outwards, the vessel exploded in a fireball of gold and orange as the power generators detonated. Debris rained across the void as the Promethean withstood the wave of fragments pelting its shields. As much as Williams wanted to stick around and dispatch aid for the team on the station, his bigger concern was stopping more enemy troops from boarding the station.

"Tell Delta they've got more company coming." He ordered to the communications operator as he signalled to Arianne.

"Make preparations for our exit, keep the pressure up and load sledgehammers. We'll buy the team what time we can afford."

"Aye sir."

XXXXX

Their exit from the station hadn't worked out as planned, the intersection they had entered into was heavily guarded and several cannons were blocking their path. Grogan was able to shield their group with his shield bracer, but it wasn't meant to tank fire for sustained periods and thus forced them to withdraw.

Hailey and Eli now had to take them through an alternate path out of the station, though this was slow and arduous since they were stopped by various locked doors, and the Alliance was smart enough to fry the door controls in the intersection to lock them, hard overrides weren't good. Delta had gotten halfway out of the installation now, the trouble was getting the rest out of the way, and their exit was currently blocked by the Lucien troops in the area ahead of them.

"Eli, please tell me you've got a means out of this hole?" Jonathan asked as he fired his M12 carbine.

He felled two while catching a third Lucien soldier in the shoulder, ripping a hole clean through his arm and sending the man screaming in pain. Around him one of the others attempted to reach him before he was cut down by Kevin on his left side. Grogan was nearby with his SMC shredding anyone stupid enough to poke their head around a corner.

Hailey was attempting to help Eli, but between defending and operating a compact drive slicer, this was proving problematic, leaving Eli to do this on his own.

Eli thinking as the battle continued in the corridor, he was clearly thinking of something, but he wasn't sure. He checked the data on the corridor running it against his preliminary assessments on how much longer they'd be able to hold out against a prolonged assault, so far his assessment was less than stellar, he determined they couldn't get out through any direct path without getting overwhelmed.

Lt Satterfield was on his left side covering the corner from which the Lucien troops were attempting to circle around from, she fired her M48A2 assault rifle, pinning the enemy from moving up.
"I've got another three mags and then I'm down to my M9 and MP5K."

"Eli." Jon shouted over the exchange of fire.

"I'm working on it." He replied hastily as he looked at the controls of the door, but he knew that they weren't doing so well, the enemy would pin then down in the next section or attack from it, meaning they were surrounded.

'It's not like we could just get to an airlock now can we?' He thought before an idea suddenly clicked in his head, he tapped is com and signalled to the others in the squad. "I've got an idea, but it's not going to be pretty."

"Don't hold us in suspense." Jon said as he shot another Lucien soldier through the stomach, the man went sprawling on the ground screaming.

"I need to collapse the shields in this section." He replied distractedly as he began hastily removing his det charges, he still had sufficient amounts of spare to work with.

"What do you want to do?" Jon asked as he ducked behind cover, his eyes flicking to the man with a look of contemplation.

"We need to disable the shields around this section; I think I can do it from over there." Eli said as he started to wire the remaining det charges together.

"And then what?" Jon asked while giving him a rather intense look.

"Well there's one way out of this place, but it's going to get messy." Eli replied as he pulled the pouches of explosive detonators out.

"How much time do you need?" Jon asked the man.

"About five minutes." Eli said with his left hand indicating the amount visually.

"You've got it." Jon said as he turned back to the enemy waiting down the other end of the corridor, he then yelled. "Hey, assholes stop shooting at us!"

For a moment there was nothing, but then suddenly as if by reaction the fire stopped, from all directions the team looked around, Satterfield indicated that the Lucien troops had stopped and so did Kevin and Grogan. The enemy had halted their advancements, and it looked as though they wanted to talk.

There was a pregnant pause before they heard the distinct sound of a loudspeaker being turned on.
"Tau'ri, meddlesome scum of Earth, here you are again, interfering where you shouldn't." A deep voice called across the corridor.

Jon gave his response to the speaker. "Mind if I point out we're not the ones attempting to use this place to raid shipping lanes." He snapped back.

"You think this is about shipping lanes? What about our families and their children having to live under the oppressive rule of those who have little care for them? We have suffered thanks to your carelessness and blind machinations." The speaker retorted clearly unamused.

Jon shrugged and replied with snark. "Well it's not like we asked to be out here, but we're here, whether you like it or not."

"Why have you asked for this ceasefire?" The speaker inquired.

"I prefer to know who my enemy is that's all." Jon stated promptly.

There was a moment's pause before a response came. "Very well, I am Toa Vadis, warlord of Leodan." The man announced himself as he stepped forward from behind the cover of his troops.

Jon took a few steps forward before he replied. "Nice to make your acquaintance, name's O'Neill."

The troops immediately tensed up at the mention of O'Neill's name, their body language was clear, given O'Neill's reputation for having destroyed a few of their fleets and wiped out a couple of their armies not to mention killed several members of the Lucian Alliance leadership in one operation, he was infamous throughout their entire hierarchy.

"O'Neill, your reputation precedes you, though I expected you to look older." The warlord narrowed his focus on him trying to assess O'Neill's posture and ascertain what he was thinking.

"Thanks I had a makeover." O'Neill replied sarcastically.

The warlord either didn't pick up on the sarcasm or didn't care enough to register it; he looked at the colonel intently.
"I figured you were more of a man of action than words, so I'll be blunt, shall we dance a dance of death?" He gestured to his retinue of elite guards.

Two men stepped forwards with weapons ready, double ended staff weapons, Jack knew them as Mo'tura dual staff repeaters, kind of an innovative and annoying design, a weapon which could fire in multiple directions. It was a highly useful weapon in the hands of a skilled operator like Teal'c, but given these were Elite Lucien guardsmen he doubted it really mattered.

"Well I can't say no to a request." He said as he turned to Eli in the corner of his vision.

Eli motioned to Jon with his hand, putting up 3 fingers to indicate the amount of time he'd need, Jon understood. He needed to buy a few minutes for Eli to finish setting up the bombs around the place he intended to make their exit, hopefully this all worked out or they'd be in a lot of shit. He stepped a few paces ahead before replying to the warlord.

"But if you don't mind me asking, why you'd suddenly show your face to us right now, I mean you've got the numbers. Doesn't seem like such a great idea to jump at us." He said with a calm gesture at his troops.

Toa paused for a moment he didn't seem to be in too much of a rush thankfully, he seemed fine with humouring Jon. "Hmm, I came aboard from my flagship, it felt like the most appropriate thing to do given how time consuming the battle outside was. Besides I knew you were planning some kind of action to destroy this installation, I felt a personal touch was required."

"So you figure it'd be in your best interest to deal with us yourself?" Jon asked as he looked at the man with a raised brow. He wasn't surprised by this action.

To be perfectly honest this was like the seventh time this had happened, it didn't occur to people that going in to deal with a matter only worked if you knew how to deal with an enemy correctly. The act always brought the risk of getting killed unintentionally in a potential crossfire, regardless Toa seemed confident in his decision.

"Isn't it not more satisfying to see the life snuffed from your most hated enemy?" Toa asked.

"Depends on your perspective." Jon stated promptly. "Whether or not you're the one snuffing them out." He holstered his weapons.

He took up a stance before finishing. "I have no qualms about getting down and dirty." He ended snappily before gesturing to the two men.

They didn't need more inclination, the fully suited men went forwards, staves at the ready, and he saw them pull the palm triggers on their weapons, allowing them to expand the end of their weapons. He knew these men liked their staff weapons, he positioned himself carefully at least two arm lengths from these men; he knew he had to be careful to avoid getting hit.

Jon ducked as the two made their attacks, as he had expected these two weren't as skilled as the elite warriors of the Jaffa, their jerky movements and attacks were predictable. He knew that he had to avoid getting directly hit or the concussion would leave him very vulnerable in this corridor. He swerved right and ducked a strike before blocking a charged staff end from frying him up close and personal.

The other came around and nearly struck him, but he knocked the end of the staff away from him and rolled along the length before delivering an abrupt kick to the stomach of the warrior sending him staggering back. He only remembered what position the other guard was in before he narrowly got his suit seared around the shoulder by the other guard.

As the staff passed over, he knocked the length of the weapon upwards before turning in and punching the man in the gut and delivering a swipe across the leg, it didn't knock him down, but it staggered his ability to counter his next hit to the face. An elbow to his jaw sent the man down before he turned to face the guard on his right.

Despite how well he was holding two of these elite guards back, his body was straining to keep up, he knew that he wasn't doing well. The actuators and plating on his suit compensated for his lack of finesse, and it was taking a toll on his body, he wasn't actually all that good, but with faster reflexes he could guess where he could hit back hard and fast.

Ducking another strike he threw his weight against the guardsman and threw his head against the adjacent bulkhead before delivering a kick to the other trying to bring his staff across his waist. He was lucky the guard had disabled the charge this time as he yanked the weapon sideways and delivered another blow to his head.

But he knew that he couldn't hold out much longer, he bought as much time as he could, but it was time to put an end to this little tirade. Grabbing one of his C-9 compression grenades, he primed it behind his back; he took a crouched stance indicating his intention to charge the two men. Timing the distance to run and the cooking time for his grenade, he did the one thing you wouldn't normally do in a narrow corridor.

Throwing the grenade in an under arm motion, one of the elite smacked the grenade with the charged end of his staff; it didn't take a genius how it would end. Jon threw himself onto his back and curled himself into a ball as the grenade detonated. A brilliant eruption of light filled the corridor as the grenade detonated from the charged staff, but as an added affect, the charged staff detonated with it.

An actinic flash followed as the small section of the corridor was blown apart, the two elites were vaporised within that explosion, their bodies being reduced to slag as the sheer energy was unleashed in the narrow confines of the corridor. The explosion travelled down the corridor both ways, covering everyone in fragments of metal and burnt crisps of the men.

Jon's suit's shields flared as they took the brunt of the impact; he knew that dumping power into his suit's shields would be necessary to avoid getting burnt to crisps by the enemy's staff weapons. Still this wasn't a particularly comfortable feeling of the over wash from an explosion almost toasting his backside.

The team immediately continued to spew fire in all directions, keeping the corridors covered in the intersection, but their enemies were determined to kill them, that much was clear. Fire was exchanged between them as bursts of particle fire and bullets ripped through the corridor. The warlord stuck with his elite entourage of men to the rear of the formation, their wrist blaster Azad' firing in unison, sending bolts of high energy electron bursts in their direction.

"Eli, tell me you've got our exit ready!" Jon said amidst the heaving of his lungs from the workout he got from those two elite guards.

"Almost!" He said as he unpacked a series of detonation packs and started placing them against the wall, he was quick to set them in a full circle.

Eli tapped onto this com link as he finished setting the charges.
"Promethean Actual, this is Delta 1, we're going to need an exit."

"Repeat that again Delta 1, did you say you need an exit?" Arianne answered his call with clear confusion in her tone.

"Yes, and I need one fast." He replied as plasma fire slammed into a nearby wall.

"This is Williams, how do you intend to make an exit from inside the structure, didn't we determine that the interior was too deep from transporters to get a proper lock?" The captain enquired; clearly he wasn't certain about Eli's proposition.

"I need a short low impulse burst, about three seconds, aimed directly in this section of the station, on my mark." He said delivering a series of calculations to the ship with a display layout of where he needed them to hit.

"Wait what are you planning?" Jon said as he turned his attention away from the fight.

"I'm making a very hasty escape route."

"There's no guarantee that this will work though." Hailey remarked from the left side as she fired down the corridor.

"It's better than the other choices and we've got more than just a few angry troops after us." Eli called over the com.

"Very well, Promethean Actual will provide you with the support you need." Williams said finally.

"Promethean Actual, understood, on my mark." Eli said as he turned to face away from the point of the impact site.

"Are you sure about this kid?" Jon asked as he ducked back into cover.

"It's either that or shooting our way through an entire army of Lucien troops who want us dead." Eli remarked snappily as he primed the detonator in his hand, flicking the safety cover and switching the detonator on.

"Point taken." Jon replied promptly as more fire travelled down the corridor.

Eli primed the charges along the wall, he hoped his calculations were right or he could get them all killed from the concussion or the sheer amount of thermal shock which was about to occur. He timed his calculations to the exact millisecond. In his head he counted down, as the timer reached zero he yelled. "Mark!"

The corridor suddenly went dark as the power was suddenly short circuited; the Lucien troops who had the patience could only look around in confusion as the corridors went dark. From outside the station, the Promethean fired its secondary aft facing plasma cannon; a low intensity beam of plasma penetrated the now weakened point in the shield around the station.

It seared through the outer structure of the station before melting through and hitting the secondary hull of the installation, this impact superheated the wall of the installation, turning it a brilliant scorching gold actinic light. From within the corridor the bulkhead was superheated by the plasma.

"Now!" Eli yelled as he detonated the charges.

The seven compounded explosive charges detonated in unison around the glowing wound that was the superheated section of hull, the blast went outwards as the compromised section of the wall buckled under the detonation of warheads from within. The entire section of wall was torn clean and everything was pulled out towards the vacuum.

"Go!" Eli yelled as he signalled to the team.

In an instant, everyone demagnetised their boots and jumped to the hole in the wall, Eli taking point as the others followed him out, they had to be careful about the exit as the searing hot plasma was still very visible and their personal shields couldn't handle prolonged exposure to such intense heats.

Their bodies carried forward as they flew through the gap, the open void greeting them, from behind them, the Lucien troops were also sucked into the void, along with the warlord calling himself Toa was pulled along with them, unfortunately for Delta, the warlord was smarter than he looked as he had a full suit meant for vacuum, along with his body guards.

Jonathan was tackled as the warlord used the inertial force of the explosive exit to grapple with him.

"You think you'll escape that easily?" The warlord grunted as he attempted to slash across Jon's chest with his blade, the blade grazed the outer layer of his armour, but didn't tear open anything vital.

Jon using his suit's thrusters made a rapid turn to meet the man face first, he struck with one leg and then made a move to swipe him across the gut, his efforts were rewarded with the man being sent sprawling backwards. But the warlord didn't relent, he used his short propulsion jets to bounce back and strike with his bladed weapons, he lashed out in three directions, across, above and directly.

In the moments that he attacked, Jon instinctively managed to throw his weight away from the warlord, before delivering his fist to the man's chest and then a kick. They were separated for a moment, but it was more than enough for Toa to bring about a hidden weapon from his right arm sleeve.

"Nice trick." Jon remarked before they grappled again.

The others were dealing with their attackers promptly, Satterfield managed to throw one man to Kevin who snapped his neck in a reverse action, breaking the man's neck swiftly before grabbing onto Satterfield's arm, they pulled each other into a tight grip. Meanwhile, Eli slung himself against his attacker before throwing the Lucien elite into open space by ripping his thruster pack apart with a well-placed shot from his sidearm.

Grogan wasn't the best, and he relied more on brutal blows, but he made his point on the Lucien unfortunate enough to grapple with the grimly determined man, Grogan smashed his kneecap into the man's faceplate and nearly broke it, but he then threw his weight against him in a reverse turn and followed up by a sudden twist which overwhelmed the pressure suit and snapped his neck.

Hailey was attempting to reach the colonel as he fought the Lucien warlord in close combat, the two were quite well matched despite the colonel being armed with only his SMC, and his gun couldn't do much in such close quarters. The warlord wouldn't allow him to bring his weapon to bear, and determined that his best course of action was to disregard his primary weapon and go with melee.

He threw the SMC against the warlord who knocked it away, Jon slammed his fist into the man's face and sent him reeling from the impact, he recovered fast though, the warlord countered his next blow before using his thrusters to use momentum and throw them across. However this didn't do enough to stop him from beating the man in his gut.

Jon broke their deadlock as the warlord was about to bring his fists down, using his thrusters and his momentum he knocked the warlord's centre of gravity and made an overhead turn before smashing his elbow into the side of his helmet. Jon felt the soreness of his elbow from the blow, but he knew that the man probably had it worse. They continued to grapple, but drifted further from the group.

Eli who was watching the fight wasn't sure how he could step into the melee, but determined that Jon would hold his own. "Eli to Promethean Knight, we're out, need extraction!" He said as he threw himself over towards the others.

"Understood Delta-5 but we can't discriminate between the Lieutenant Colonel and the enemy commander." Arianne replied the AI was trying to get an accurate lock as the two fought, but it was futile.

"Ah hell." Eli said as he saw them continuing to struggle, they were getting pretty brutal with their blows.

Despite the damage to his faceplate and the warlord's their fight wasn't quite over yet, the two continued to exchange blows, with Jon getting the upper hand by using his momentum to throw the man backwards before following up with a blunt kick to his back, though he missed his intended target of Toa's spine, he caught him in the shoulder blade.

Toa came back despite taking such punishment and lashed out with a series of strikes with his blade and limbs, Jon was capable of ducking away from the sharp implement, but he was almost stabbed a couple of times before grabbing Toa's arm and putting his elbow to his suit's thrusters, he sent Toa spinning off balance.

It was then Jon was able to grab a hold of the man's suit and swing himself using the suit's thrusters, his wrist blade extended from his sleeve and he managed to get the man between his suit's spinal connections and ram it into a weak point. Toa was momentarily stunned as he felt the blade piece his spinal column and breach his suit.

"First blood." Jon said before throwing the man off him and drifting back and out of his reach.

"This isn't over…" He coughed as he activated something on his wrist. "If this is to end, I'll be taking you to the depths of Tartarus with me…" He rasped as blood spewed from his gaping wound.

It was then the team was transported from the hard vacuum and directly into the transporter bay of the Promethean Knight, where they were dropped unceremoniously over a foot from the deck. The group landed at a variety of angles. Eli slammed head first into the deck before his body followed, Hailey and Grogan landed on top of him, and Satterfield dropped down with Kevin.

Colonel O'Neill fell down next to the others, landing in a crouched position as his reflexes kicked out from his spar with the Lucien warlord. He rolled to his side and hit his communicator.
"We're aboard." Jonathan said with a tone of relief and pain as he exhaled.

On the bridge the captain received word; an expression of relief crossed his face for an instant, but this didn't last.
"Captain, there's a massive power spike." Arianne reported as the stationed started to explode from within.

"What's going on?" Williams said as he turned to the AI.

"The auto destruct sequence has been activated and multiple systems aboard the installation have begun to overload, the enemy facility is suffering massive system wide overload, I recommend we give ourselves a bit of distance." Arianne said as they began to make their

"Agreed, get us to our jump point, pour everything you can into engines and shields and get us the hell out of here." Captain Williams ordered.

The ship made a hasty rush to escape from the reach of the station, enemy cruisers in pursuit. But behind them the installation began to crumple. The first explosions came subtly they were small, power relays and conduits rupturing, primary functions overloading with energy, within the installation the massive crystalline resonance system which contained the primary energy core began to send out bursts of energy, some arcing through the chamber and others discharging through the station.

But there was only so much torment the containment systems could handle, and with one last great heave, the barriers which held the immense amount of energy finally buckled, sending a brilliant vibrant pulse of energy which disintegrated the entire chamber. Within span of milliseconds the energy receded into the core again.

This moment of peace was a scant fleeting instant due to the sheer magnitude of energy contained and due to the energy itself imposing a sort of pattern, expanding and receding before finally letting loose. In the heart of the installation the core of light formed a solid ball of amethyst like energy before it erupted.

From the installation the explosion came instantly, a wave of light rippling through the empty expanse, consuming the entire station in a burst of light, flowing outwards in waves of radiant energy, consuming all in its path. This multi-Petatonne scale explosion ripped through the system in a blinding flash of light.

The planet in which it orbited was boiled as its surface was placed under the intensity of the rampant energies which scathed the surface apart, like a glass ball being superheated the surface seemed to melt away in a sea of molten fragments. All reduced to pieces of slags of what was once the world.

As for the UNEF Promethean and its pursuers, the ship was about to its jump point when the energy wave reached the ship. From behind it, the energy consumed all in its path, the Alliance Ha'tak's were reduced to little but atoms as their bodies were consumed by the energy. On the bridge the crew braced for impact, men and women in crash harnesses felt the ship riveting to its core.

As it entered hyperspace the ship was struck by the wave and all hell broke loose. The explosion sent the ship careening through hyperspace, the crew aboard the ship were thrown around as their ship's internal dampeners were struck by the force of the impact, and also their shields had attuned to the bubble which meant that it didn't block the total force of the blast hitting it. The transferral of the massive amount of energy had caused a backlash through the Promethean's numerous systems. Within an instant the ship was tossed around relentlessly as the systems overloaded.

From the bridge lights flashed and circuits and conduits fried as the ship was tossed through an unstable hyperspace window, from outside the ripples in space time came undone and the ship was hurtled through a spatial vortex unlike anything one could imagine. Being sucked through a space time field that compressed the ship and stretched it, where the laws of relatively ceased to exist momentarily.

Those from within were subject to feelings of non-Euclidian forces being applied to their bodies and minds, their perception rippling through space time as it attempted to keep up with what was going on. The only one who wasn't affect by this was Eli. From his spot he closed his eyes and felt the endless rippling of space time as subspace distorted around him.

'Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.' He thought as he reached out with his mind.

Eli's ability to use ascended powers was nothing new, however testing it in the entropic cascade of a dimensional fold was not something he was used to doing, since he had never done it until now. His mind raced as he pushed his mind outwards to find a safe haven for them to exit into, and in the bleak oblivion of it all, he found what he was looking for, a distant feeling.

He reached out to grasp it.

XXXXX

Meanwhile on another Earth….

High above the skies of Venezia a storm was brewing, the midsummer weather had moved in bringing in a warm breeze though the region, of course that didn't stop the near constant form of a Neuroi craft from waging a battle over the skies of Venezia. A fact punctuated by the swarm of enemy craft buzzing high, spewing beams of lasers.

The 501st had been sortied to intercept the Neuroi assault cluster, though this proved a challenge due to the sheer numbers the single Neuroi cluster had, and also since the large bomber type had far superior defences and offenses than previous Neuroi types. It was proving to be a pain to deal with, as it had four smaller support craft providing assistance, deploying mini drones to fend off attacks.

The witches of the 501st were engaged in the midst of this hectic sortie and they were pressed to take the Neuroi down quickly. "Shirley, look out, drones, six o'clock high!" Someone yelled over the radio.

"Don't worry, I got em…" A cocksure red head young woman replied as she pulled into a rapid dive.

The black diamond shape drones followed after the redhead girl, the drones while looking unassuming were extremely dangerous. As they closed distance, their bodies with red patterned markings glowed brightly, a bright scarlet beam soon erupted and lanced after the redhead. Shirley grinned as she suddenly threw momentum upwards and pulled into a climb with her striker, sending a fountain of water trailing upwards.

The drones had little time to react as the beams only further obscured their vision and smothered the area in steam, as the drones scattered, the bunny eared redhead came driving towards the now lost drones. Her custom M1918 Browning automatic rifle kicked to life, sending magically enhanced shots through the air, the bullets shattered the outer layers of the drones and caused them to explode in vibrant fragments of light.

"YAHOO!" Shirley cheered as she pulled back up to re-join the others engaged the laser storm above.

"Good shooting, but you might want to avoid spraying too much." A brown haired girl with dog ears said as she passed about while dodging shots from drones.

"Oh come on, you Karlslanders have no sense of style." Shirley mocked playfully. "I prefer to go in hard and fast."

The brown haired girl shot her a look, unamused and rolled her eyes.
"I'm not even going to justify that with a response." She sighed; she knew Shirley had made a double entendre.

"YAAHHH!" An olive haired girl with feline ears and tail yelped as she was chased by a swarm of drones. "Why are there so many of these things?" She said through gritted teeth. "Stupid Neuroi!"

"I better go help Luchinni." Shirley said promptly before shooting off after her younger charge.

"This is turning out to be one mess of a day." Commander Minna said as she joined her fellow officer in the midst of the battle.

"I admit this wasn't how I imagined spending this week, but the Neuroi seemed determined to launch this new offensive, even if they're outnumbered." The eye patch wearing Fuso woman replied as she rolled her shoulders back.

"What's gotten them riled up like this?" Minna asked as she looked around the battlefield.

"Who knows? At the moment HQ hasn't been able to determine the reason, they suspect that this attack was prompted due to the recent gains we've made in North Africa or the fact that we defeated their last hive in Gallia, it's hard to say." The brunette said before they were interrupted.

"Minna, how many more Neuroi are there? I don't think our ammunition will hold up like this." A dog eared lieutenant with brown hair asked as she came to Minna's side, ejecting a spent drum magazine from the MG34 machine gun.

"Understood Trude, but we've got to do all we can to stop that thing here, despite our recent successes, Allied command has been under increasing pressure, General Eisenhower had been pressing for more advances, but this was foregone after the attacks led by this new Neuroi hive."

"Damn." The flight lieutenant muttered as she turned back to join the other girls engaging in their culling operation.

"It's strange isn't it?"

"How come there aren't enough witches to provide support?"

"What's going on?"

"I'm not sure, I tried getting into contact with HQ, and I met a bunch of roadblocks, currently our assets in the Mediterranean Sea are being pulled for other anti-Neuroi missions. They're not able to spare anyone outside the ground based land witches." Minna stated whilst shaking her head. "Not like they can do much in these situations."

"Is it really getting that bad?" Sakamoto asked seriously.

"I'm not sure, I was waiting for a letter from one of the regional commanders, but they haven't gotten back to me." She answered.

"Incoming!" A call over the radio from their support witch alerted them to a wave of new drones approaching the two.

"Looks like it'll have to wait." Mio said as she turned to engage the Neuroi.

"Hopefully we'll be able to deal with this one on our own." Minna added as they went forward.

It was going to be a long day for the 501st.

XXXXX

Back on the Promethean Knight, the ship was recovering from the emergency transit from hyperspace, having been dumped into reality from the collapsing rift; the vessel was now drifting somewhere. Half an hour had passed since this transition and most of the crew were already getting up, along with one captain.

The first thing which Williams felt was the ringing in his ears, he wasn't sure what had just happened but whatever it was, it was a doozy, the concussive force from the detonation bleeding into their hyperspace window had sent them careening through subspace. But now it seemed as the shockwave had passed and the ship was back in real space.

As the ringing subsided slightly in his ears and he could hear somewhat more clearly, he heard the call from one of his officers, his vision was blurred and he attempted to blink away his obscured vision, but failed as he felt weak in the knees. He almost toppled over onto one side, until someone grabbed him and held him up.

"Captain, you shouldn't be moving around so soon." Lieutenant Cardin stated with genuine concern.

The tactical operations officer gradually let him back into the command chair, his head was still spinning. "Lieutenant, what happened?"

"We've exited hyperspace about an hour ago, most of the ship's systems went down during our exit and Arianne was having difficulties maintaining proper cohesion, she shut herself down and went into a reboot cycle, she's currently attempting to clear up the system wide failure the ship suffered."

"Are we dead in the water?"

"Figuratively speaking yes, the ship's dead in space, as far as we can tell we're drifting." The lieutenant stated.

It was then the bridge doors opened, from the doorway two figures emerged, Colonel O'Neill and Major Hailey. Williams knew Jon before his assignment to the SGC, having met each other at the Adams AFB some thirty years ago, and during the Gulf War, they had a passing friendship not quite strong, but they had gotten to know each other well enough.

"Will." Jon said as the young brown haired man greeted him with a sense of concern. "You look like shit."

"And you look worse for wear." William replied tersely before asking. "How's everyone else?"

"Satterfield and Eli have gone to help repair the damages to the ship, Kevin and Grogan are off to help with the marines aboard to help clear up the sections damaged."

"Is there anything else?" William asked from the two.

"You wanna tell him?" O'Neill said to the Major.

"Captain, I've got something you need to be made aware of."

"What is it?"

"Before total system's shutdown we received a short update on the engineering section, the CPO and crew were reporting that the damage to engineering was too extensive, the feedback from our exit has damaged the FTL drive, and we're unable to make any jump into hyperspace."

"That's quite a problem."

"It's more complicated by throwing in a few other factors."

"Other factors? What else is wrong?"

"The ship is currently sitting in orbit over a moon."

"Is that?"

"Our moon, the lunar surface is similar to our own, so it's likely we're currently in lunar orbit."

"How can this be?"

"I'm not sure, but there's something we can say with certainty, we're not in Kansas anymore."

"The ship's sensors managed to gleam a bit of data on our surroundings; so far we've determined we're currently located in the Sol system."

"Then why hasn't aid arrived from HQ?"

"Well I think this is a possibility, either HQ is under lockdown for some undetermined reason, which is extremely unlikely, or we're no longer in our own reality."

"This makes things more complicated."

"What are our options?" The captain asked clearly he had to grasp the situation better.

"We're not sure, if this Earth is safe to land on then we have a chance to get repairs done without much difficulty, locating a landing site will take time though, and determining the conditions planet side."

"I'll contact Markus, set up a F-305 for deployment, reconnaissance will be tantamount in the coming days, we'll need to find someplace to land the ship and conduct repairs.

XXXXX

Jonathan had gotten himself down to the hangar in a hurry, he went to the lockers to switch out of his BDU and switch to his FOS, the matte grey and black marked suit with thin white stripes running along the sides fit him like a glove. He hadn't a lot of time to wait, so he didn't bother calling for additional flight support, he knew that protocol dictated he'd be attended with another operator when going on a recon mission, but it was his decision to operate on his own.

His suit was secured as he locked the seals on the neck brace and his helmet; he didn't have to carry a lot with him, just the standard equipment. Exiting the changing rooms he headed down to the hangar bay where the technicians and maintainers were going about cleaning up the mess caused from their arrival into this region of space.

He took a moment to look around the partially dilapidated sight of the hangar before locating the person he needed.
"Markus." He called to a grizzled looking dark skinned man with greying hair on his chin.

"Jon, I see you're already suited up." The crew chief said greeting him.

"How's the hangar looking?" Jon asked whilst he looked at his suit's integrated control system.

"Better than it looks none of the fighters suffered electrical damage as far as we can tell, system checks were performed and they're looking pretty peachy. But we've got one hell of a mess to clean up." He thumbed to the crew cleaning up spilled tool cabinets and equipment racks which tipped.

"Did you prep my fighter?" He asked while he

"Yeah, I got it loaded into B-3-1." He gestured to the fighter sitting in the bay adjacent to where they were standing.

The two of them began heading to the fighter while contusing their exchange.
"Did you load the FAST pack?"

"She's loaded and ready, just as you ordered." Markus replied as they walked to the alcove.

"Good I'll probably need it."

"What's the rush for though?"

"Hopefully it's nothing, hopefully. But fingers crossed that we're not up to our asses in the usual shit the universe throws at us." Jon said as he sealed his faceplate.

"I hear that." Markus said cheerfully.

"You better not trash her again, there's only so many times I can fix this old girl before we call it quits, though that day still hasn't come." He said while patting Jon on the back.

"Yeah love that airframe, that and the magic of replication technology." He said as he stepped into the cockpit.

"Alright, release magnetic safeties, and move her into the tray, we're going to do a manual launch."

"Understood…" Jon replied as he began starting the craft up.

"Alright boys get a move on, open the bay doors, and get the magnetic drivers operational, high velocity charge, no more than 770 feet per seconds." He began issuing orders to the work crews as the fighter began to move from the alcove.

Crews set the loading tray properly; two with a guiding tug, the tug secured around the leg and allowed the crew to carefully move it onto the tray without the need of heavy machinery. Once the tug was secured, the teams released the tug and let the tray's actuator clamp hold the fighter into place so it could be deployed.

"Alright pre-flight systems checks are complete." He said over the local com range.

He flicked through the fighter's OS, the system readings were clear, engine propulsion was nominal, the micro-actuator controls for the surface control system was good and he had no indication that the primary plasma manifold had any difficulties starting up.

"Alright, let's see what's around the corner." He muttered as he began to throttle the fighter's engines.

The tray moved into the airlock, the blast doors closing behind him as the chamber was depressurised for the fighter. "Am I cleared for launch?" He asked as the red lights turned orange.

"Transferring controls to you." Markus replied as he directed the crew.

"I have control." Jon said as he received direct control over the catapult.

"Catapult is charged, and pressure in the bay is clear, opening outer doors." Markus answered.

The lights turned green, and Jon cleared his throat before announcing.
"This is Delta 1-1, launching."

He gunned the throttle, and felt the fighter begin accelerating; the forward launching bay zipped around him, the speed of his fighter pulling him faster down the magnetic rail. Around him it felt like the lights and the ramp blurred as a sort of aftereffect of the inertial dampeners kicking in to compensate for the immense force.

As he was thrown clear of the launching bay, he was greeted by the open view of space, having looked out into the vast expanse of the universe you think most people would get tired of seeing it, but space had a strange beauty which keeps most people intrigued. Snapping back to his instruments, he did a double check on the system, so far nothing seemed out of place.

"Delta 1-1 is clear, I'm heading to waypoint Alpha, and I'll be back before dinner."

"Understood and received Delta." The AI chimed as he accelerated from the orbit of the moon.

Within moments he began accelerating to the planet, hitting 6.6c, the inertial dampeners bled most of the force from the acceleration, but he still experienced a hundredth of it, his body would be able to handle the pressure with chemical stimulants and his suit's surface pressure control to bleed off the forces being applied to his body.

"Oh, I missed this." He gritted his teeth as he felt his fighter accelerating.

XXXXX

Back with the 501st, the battle had ground down to a gruelling attrition between the witches and the Neuroi, neither one being able to up end the other, the only difference was that the Neuroi advance was still moving forward despite their efforts to down the large delta winged Neuroi. The difference in firepower and endurance was beginning to take a toll on them all.

Trying to get in close enough wasn't working in their favour, as the Neuroi continued to bombard any advance quickly, usually singling one of the girls out at a time. The only good news was that Lynette's sniper was powerful enough to cause some damage from range, but couldn't destroy the Neuroi fast enough to have lasting impact.

It seemed as though the Neuroi had been recalculating their attacks patterns to counter and predict the girl's advances, which in itself was remarkable and alarming. Their squadron was still dealing with small squadrons of the enemy's drone screen which was pushing them away from attacking the main Neuroi bomber, another problem to overcome apparently.

But it didn't hold them back from downing three of the carriers, an effort pulled off thanks to Shirley and Barkhorn managing to split their defences for Sanya and Lynette to destroy two with the others supporting and Mio destroying the third with her sword when Miyafuji managed to draw the fire away long enough for Mio to get in close and slice the Neuroi open.

Their destruction of the three Neuroi left them with one remaining obstacle, but the trouble was that their remaining bomber type Neuroi and carrier support were joined at the hip and were laying down a wall of suppressive fire while letting the drones attack them from multiple directions. Apparently the normal approach wasn't going to work in this case and the girls were wearing down thanks to the strenuous battle.

Minna finally devised a tactic which she honestly hoped would be enough to settle the deadlock they were at, as the girls led their assault against one of the forward defensive carriers, they came under attack, but they managed to defeat the drones quickly with Shirley and Erica cutting through the majority of them quickly and opening a hole for the others to follow.

A second force being led by Mio would go from beneath and strike hard and fast so they could destroy the core before the bomber could respond to their attack properly. This approach was risky, but it made sense since the Neuroi never actively destroyed one another. And so as they launched their attack, Mio, Miyafuji, Perrine, Sanya, Eila and Lucchini made their run.

But their plans went awry when Minna noticed the Neuori bomber turning its attention away from her team. "Oh damn it, Major!" She yelled.

"Break formation!" Mio yelled as she heard Minna.

The Neuroi bomber suddenly fired a concentrated blast through the smaller craft, practically vaporising the entire thing, but its attack struck exactly where the girls were approaching from, thankfully most got clear of the attack, all but Sanya. Her striker wasn't nearly as fast as the others, and her response was slow to dodge the attack.

The white haired Orussian girl's strikers caught the brunt of the impact, the propellers buckling under the impact before she was sent flying in the shards of the broken Neuroi. She fell tumbling over, her guided rocket launcher scattered in the fall,

Eila attempted to break through and reach her, but the Neuroi bomber wouldn't allow it, laying down a wall of fire. She dodged and weaved, but doing so consumed time and concentration to reach the falling Orussian girl. Eila bitterly continued despite that, pursuing the risk even if it meant potentially getting killed.

"Eila pull back it's attempting to single you out!" Mio yelled as the Suomus girl attempted to pursue her friend.

Eila was risking everything, but her magic immediately predicted a hit, she pulled up as a wall of fire suddenly cut her off from Sanya.
"No!" She yelled as she tried pulling around the attack.

As she saw her friend going down, a strange shape suddenly appeared, a black wing, moving in quickly. Before she knew it, she saw it grab Sanya.

XXXXX

Jon was fairly certain that what he was seeing was beyond the 'normal' in any case or situation, granted her had seen some very strange things over his life and gotten involved in more than one situation which was weird. For the most part he had learnt to flow with the weird shit which happened on a regular basis.

His time in the SGC and the weird shit which happened to be associated with the SGC seemed to constantly throw him curve ball after curve ball of weird shit which he had to deal with as much as he didn't want to. Looking at the Earth he observed the difference in overall geographical landmasses and positions.

But his sensors weren't properly scanning the surface due to interference focused near the large black storm clouds swirling into the stratosphere, he wasn't sure what was causing the disturbances, but it wasn't normal. He reported in what he had found and requested that he be able to get below the stratosphere to see for himself what was going on.

William was hesitant in allowing this but he approved for him to go down and see for himself and report back, but he'd have to exercise caution and avoid getting involved as per their standard operation protocols in regards to non-contact worlds. It was the whole cultural impact regulation to avoid interfering in developing societies which haven't developed FTL flight or spaceflight.

Still it didn't prepare him for what he'd find when he got close to one storm in particular, the largest swirling mass of EM interference in the field. His F-305 was cruising at 50,000ft when he spotted something going on, a high amount of EM spikes and radio chatter near a region which resembled Italy. He decided to get in closer for a visual observation of the source. But what he found wasn't what he expected.

'Alright, that's certainly weirder than what I expected.' He thought as he took a closer look at what was going on.

He thought he was seeing things, and now that he was well within visual range, he was clearly wrong, no, he wasn't seeing things. Right now; he was seeing people, or more specifically, girls. There were girls wearing strange propeller powered engines on their legs, and they were half naked, well sort of, they were wearing clothes, but they were bottomless.

There were times when he had encountered weird or strange races in his lifetime, but none of them ever got to the point of this, besides the world where he encountered those tribal children, but that was a different story. And this wasn't like having to deal with tribal people, these were girls in clothing that were wielding guns, and had tails and ears which weren't human to boot.

"I swear to god, either the team's a magnet for the weirdest shit, or almighty himself is currently laughing his ass off at us." Jonathan muttered as he looked into the battle.

This was one situation he wasn't sure what to do, well besides sitting on his ass watching, he spotted a total of 11 girls currently flying around in the air, engaging multiple targets. He wasn't sure what the hell the black flying objects were, but the fact that they were firing red beams of light, he assumed they were particle weapons.

"Alright, black flying blocks which fire beams of red death, that's definitely not what I had honestly to god expected." He said to himself as he examined the battle.

The girls destroyed most of the flying wings besides one smaller craft and the big single delta winged craft which was still blitzing the area with laser beams, so far he had to admit these girls knew how to hold their own. Even as weird as this entire scenario was, he admired the dedication of these girls and their combat prowess.
'Okay, I think I've gotten more than enough data…" He then noted that an explosion occurred.

A young girl with silver hair was thrown clear of the blast and was beginning to drop from the sky at an alarming speed; the other seemed unable to punch through the strange black alien craft's red lasers. Almost instinctively he pulled his F-305 down into a dive, turning his fighter down in a corkscrew, he pushed his engines as fast as they could go, but making sure not to generate a sonic wave front, he didn't want to accidently fling the girl even faster towards the ocean.

'Protocols, be fucking damned, the day I let a kid die like this will be a cold day in hell…' He thought darkly as he recalled the painful memories of past failures of protecting children he had known. Gunning the engines, he pushed his F-305 downwards, weaving through the air at remarkable speeds and with a level of grace he reserved for really complex manoeuvres.

He dodged laser fire and the girl wearing blue clothing that was desperately trying to breakthrough and go after her comrade. He got to the girl first, speeding in at several hundred feet; he didn't have a hell of a lot of space to slow her fall down. He detached the inertial bracer harness and pulled the F-305 into free fall next to the girl.

As he lined up close to the girl, he popped the canopy and was greeted by a sudden rush of air, he had been through this little gambit a few times, well they weren't rescues but more akin to a crazy ass rescue pulled off by him and others to grab those tossed clear of their fighters during operations or battles.

Normally you'd have to have some kind of fucking death wish to try this, but that's never stopped him, at least not yet. As the rushing winds whipped about him, he stepped out of his fighter, magnetic boots holding him on the outer airframe of the fighter. He took a few steps forwards, making sure not to let one boot off of the fighter's hull.

He used interlinked controls to interface with his fighter, they weren't fine turned to operate like this, but he had enough experience to risk it. Surface controls allowed him to fine tune the approach, granting him a space of about five meters or so to reach after the falling girl. Once he was close enough, he kicked off.

His hands outstretched, he grabbed the girl in his arms, he didn't have time to really do a proper check on the girl as he was getting close to the surface of the ocean. He activated the traction cable and pulled himself back inside the cockpit, he had a slightly awkward retrieval as he landed sideways with the girl in his arms, his balance was thrown, but he didn't bother.

Haptic connection with the fighter allowed him a greater reaction time than normal pilots, the fighter immediately pulled out of the dive and accelerated again, which was fairly timely considering there was only a hundred feet of space between the fighter and the water at that point. The F-305 rocketed back up into the air, leaving a wake of sea water spraying all around the craft.

"Damn that's close…" He thought as they got back into the air.

He reoriented himself in his seat, he could finally get a proper examination of the girl in his arms, and much to his surprise she looked quite young, no more than 14 from appearance. He reached around and grabbed his first aid kit, the black kit with the medical seal opened up on touch, revealing immediate trauma response tools and a medical scanner.

Silently he thanked those boys at Samsung for mass producing the scanners for general use, as he scanned; the data provided indicated that the young girl was alright, besides having second degree burns and a concussion. He set the tool aside and grabbed medi-gel dispenser, medi-gel is used for all kinds of injuries, usually burns, trauma and cuts.

He knew that the gel couldn't be used for everything, but it helped with those who had taken serious injuries, mostly in the form of blast wounds or projectiles. He altered the nozzle of the medi-gel injector to apply a wide spray, squeezing the nozzle; the gel-pack sprayed a clear film over the burn.

In a matter of seconds the burns on the girl's leg began to fade from the reddish black to a lighter shade, dead skin cells formed in thin layers. 'The miracle of modern medicine.' Jonathan thought promptly as he set his spray aside and grabbed gauze tape.

He stretched the gauze over the leg wound and wrapped it in a tight bind, it wasn't exactly what he'd call professional, but it would have to do until she got proper treatment. He wrapped the gauze with a sealant bandage and locked it tight with a clip, ensuring that the wrapping didn't come undone.

Injecting the girl with a mild stimulant he waited for the young girl to respond, which didn't take all that much time, granted stimulants like these were rather effective when needed. Her first impulse seemed to be babbling and waving her arms around.
Her voice was small, but she was clearly in shock, she was speaking in a foreign language which his translator took a moment to process, Russian.

"What are you, where am I?" The girl asked confused as she looked around.

"Hey look, don't panic, I'm here to help you, not hurt you." He said attempting to calm the girl down.

"You can speak, are you Neuroi?" She said perplexed.

"No, I'm not whatever that thing you just said was, I'm human." He said though he didn't want to inquire about her strange cat ears.

"You are human?" The girl repeated.

He realised that she was confused because of his dark protective faceplate/visor. He had to reach around and release a tab on the back of his helmet, a small hiss followed, allowing him to pull his helmet off. The girl looked upon him with surprise as she saw his face in the flesh; she looked at him with wide eyes.

"Are you okay there?" He asked questioningly as he noticed her staring.

"Oh, I'm sorry, for a moment you reminded me of my father." The girl said a little embarrassed.

"That's not the weirdest thing I've heard." He said, painfully honest, having been through multiple encounters with all kinds of people.

"Where are we?" She asked as she looked around the dark cockpit.

"We're aboard my fighter craft, in high altitude, and we're slowly moving away from your friends." He said as he remembered to turn of the opacity around the canopy.

"What?" The silver haired girl exclaimed.

"Right, I've been trying to path you up whilst piloting, and truth be told this system isn't really the best when it comes to auto-pilot. In any case, I'm going to assume that you want to re-join them?"

"Yes please…" The girl said almost pleading. "I have to go back, for my friends."

"Alright, calm down, it wasn't as if I was just going to randomly kid nap you." He said as he tried moving.

"Umm, can you pleased reorient yourself? Face forwards and lean back, careful not to block my legs from the forward control pedals." He said as he adjusted himself.

As the young girl did so, he asked.
"What's your name?"

"Sanya Litvyak." The girl replied.

"Mine's Jonathan O'Neill, or you can call me Jon." He told the girl as he pulled the fighter into a combat dive. "Most people refer to me as Jon, unless I'm in full dress uniform, but that's only on occasion." He explained as they swung about.

"Umm, Mr Jon?" The girl asked while looked about curiously.

"Just Jon is fine, and yeah?" He responded while he shifted the fighter around.

"Oh, umm, how are we moving?" Sanya inquired as they soared through the air.

"Ah, that's a little complicated, I'm not a specialist in the field of this technology, but to put it simply we're moving through the air by jets, and also maybe a gravity bending device or something, I can't recall what it's exactly called through." He said as he rubbed the top of his head, he wasn't the best at trying to explain this aspect of technology in the UNEF.

Winds whipped around the F-305 and the speeds at which they moved at brought them within visual range of the battle in a matter of seconds, the girl seemed oddly baffled about why they weren't experiencing any gee forces or as much wind resistance, but she kept quiet. The girl pointed to the large number of beams piercing the sky.

"Neuroi, large heavy bomber type, it's still fighting." She said whilst looking at it.

"Is that what these things are called? Neuroi?" He asked the girl.

"Yes, they're moving inland to attack the cities down further, we were given the task to intercept them, can you help us?" The girl asked him.

"Is this thing really that much of a threat?" He asked as they circled about.

"Yes, please there are many lives in danger." The girl said with her pleading tone.

'This girl would give most people fucking diabetes with those puppy dog eyes.' He thought as he sighed. "Alright, I'll do what I can, but I'd suggest you not start panicking, and don't block my view or this will be a lot harder for me to pilot the fighter, please."

"Alright." The girl said promptly.

"Well here goes nothing." He said as the fighter plunged in from above.

He calculated that he couldn't dodge the laser fire as efficiently, the airframe is too wide, and the surface control systems aren't that good compared to some next generation fighters. The shields would give him plenty of protection, at least until the shields begin to buckle from continuous impacts.

'But where's the fun in all of that?' He figured as he made a sharp turn towards the black winged craft.

XXXXX

The girls were panicking when the strange black object moved in and scooped up Sanya and took off while they continued to battle the Neuroi, but they managed to regroup and engage the Neuroi bomber. Though they still hadn't been able to get to the heavy bomber class which was still making its approach, they had to regroup and rethink their attack strategy given how the thing predicted their attack plan so readily.

Minna was trying to get them through the formation of drones to attack the heavy bomber as quickly as possible, but this was proving to be a serious problem, mostly thanks to Eila worried sick for Sanya. The Suomus girl was having difficulty focusing on the battle than worrying about her lover and friend.

The Wing Commander could sympathise for the girl, but they were in a difficult situation, the mission had to come first, and Elila knew this. Alarmingly the girl seemed intent on breaking the Neuroi down as quickly as possible.

It was then her attention was drawn to the local chatter from Miyafuji. "Commander Look that winged craft came back!"

"What?" Minna turned her attention to the direction in which Miyafuji pointed in.

True enough, the lighter framed winged craft had returned, ripping through the air at speeds unheard of, its unnatural speed and agility made it hard to keep up, but it zeroed in on the Neuroi with the same speed it had used to snatch up Sanya. The Neuroi noticed the approach and soon let loose with its lasers, sending out massive blasts focused in on the black craft as it came down upon the Neuroi.

The black craft moved with unnatural level of speed and manoeuvrability, being able to dodge incoming lasers which was amazing and at the same time a rather peculiar ability, seeing how big it was. But the girls knew that it couldn't dodge every single possible attack, with a wide frame and noticeable profile, it was going to get hit regardless.

"Is that thing crazy? How does it plan to survive running at it like that?"

"Sanya's there, we need to go help." Eila insisted as she was about to take off after them.

"Elia, stop, going in now is pointless we're too far away and there are far too many Neuroi for us to deal with at once, I know you want to save Sanya, but please think about your approach, we're far too away to try and break through and our ammunition is seriously depleted, if we were to try an risk an attempt to rescue her, we could get pinned down from the Neuroi's concentrated fire."

The Suomus girl gritted her teeth in anger, but she knew that the Commander was right, she could feel it too, her foresight was good, but in this situation, going after it would yield little to no result, with the large black wing and its escorts still here, she'd more than likely get forced back. This also meant abandoning the others when they needed her to stay with their force.

Eila gritted her teeth, she turned and followed the others as they regrouped, as they did, they didn't see the fighter coming back around heading in for the large Neuroi bomber.

XXXXX

Lasers lanced the air around the F-305, a few scoring direct hits. Jon cussed as he threw the fighter into a series of fast high gee manoeuvres, rolling around as lasers rained all around him. His manoeuvres paid off in some sense as they couldn't predict his sporadic jaunts, allowing him to throw the aim off to some degree.

The girl in his lap seemed to be a little alarmed, but she kept herself under control, something Jon was genuinely glad about as he pulled upwards and turned about across the back of the massive black winged monstrosity. His targeting systems adjusted for displacement and wind to allow him optimal firing conditions, maximising the damage he could inflict.

As firing solutions trailed in sight, he didn't waste time as he began spraying the hull of the massive delta winged alien construct, the rattle of rail rounds vibrated the fighter gently as they exited from the guns. Each shot punctured sections in an explosive shower as shards of light exploded all around, as gouges were dug through the skin of the craft. His attack seemed to have done some damage, but he figured it would take more to bring it all down.

However he noticed something from the corner of his eye as he flew away and came in for another attack, the outer layer of the Neuroi seemed to regenerate, light reassembled sections which he had just riddled with tremendous holes.
"What the hell?" He exclaimed in annoyance.

"The Neuroi are persistent, they cannot be destroyed without locating the core." The white haired girl told him promptly.

"Okay, so what's this core and what does it look like?" He asked as the fighter came under fire again.

His shields were holding, but they were starting to take a bit of a beating, in most situations, he would have preferred to have brought along an additional assault pack attachment for the fighter if he knew he'd be getting into this kind of shit. The fighter pulled away, allowing him more time to formulate a plan.

"The core is a bright reddish coloured crystal; they're located in all forms of Neuroi, I think this one is in its centre." The girl pointed out to the mid-section of the giant wing.

"Okay, so shoot big glowing crystal ball and the flying laser wing goes down, got it." He surmised as he turned his fighter about.

'I swear, I'm going to have to switch the loadouts for this thing when I get back, I can't be fighting these things with just rail-guns.' He thought over as he checked the guns ammo counters, still good, but he was gradually chewing through his ammo.

The F-305's engines let out a burst of speed as it propelled itself through the air, leaving a displacement of air as it accelerated, allowing it to move to supersonic speeds without causing a shockwave. Altering the attack angle, he twisted the fight into an arc whilst allowing him to reorient the direction of fire.

Normally he'd just use plasma tipped missiles to do the work, but in this case, he was out of luck, WASP loadouts only required guns and long ranged plasma cannons, missiles had been kind of expensive to replace in comparison to just using bullets and plasma cannons as it turned out. He would have used micro-missiles, but for an older fighter like his one, adapting it wasn't happening.

The Neuroi responded to his return by searing the air with lasers, beams of crimson speared around, either slamming into the shields or glancing them. Jon's sporadic attack manoeuvre allowed him to avoid some of the impacts as he spun in and let loose with his guns. The shots tore into the rearward section of the Neuroi bomber and blew through massive chunks.

Fragments fell apart as hypersonic shots cut through the thick metallic like skin, he managed to shred a good enough section of the bomber type to leave a human sized hole in the left side of the body. He moved his shots to the right while dodging more fire, he grunted as he struggled to dodge the amount of laser fire that the Neuroi continued to blast away.

'I'm amazed these things don't cause seizures every time they fire.' He thought as he blinked his eyes from the number of flashing laser beams piercing the air around him.

He got in and finally landed a direct hit to the central body, this time, aiming to the rear, he scored a group of direct hits and punctured the thick armour of the flying wing alien. The blasts were large enough to rip a hole through and allow him to spot the core of the Neuroi; it was a glowing crystal as described by Sanya.

He didn't waste with observing the shining crystal; he fired a burst from his auto-cannons and tore into the Neuroi's core, he was surprised to see the Neuroi explode in a shower of light. The more surprising thing was the fact that the Neuroi shards were actually solid and not made just from light.

"Oh hell." He muttered as he pulled up in as he had to dodge a flying fragment the size of a car.

His fighter could pull the manoeuvre off easily enough as soon as he got clear; he circled above to see the Neuroi's fragments disappearing into the water below. The girl seemed visibly relieved and commented.
"Thank goodness, it's gone."

"Yeah, now we can go and see your friends." He said while keeping an edge in his tone.

He wasn't sure about the whole prospect of facing down a squadron of unknown girls armed with guns and using propellers as a means of transportation, but he went with the flow. And besides, at this point, he couldn't avoid them, so he figured that opening up a dialogue would be preferable, getting to know the locals would allow him to understand the situation more.

Making a careful turn around, he was able to reach the girls with relative ease, maintaining low altitude speed before switching to hover, using the thrust vector nozzles to reorientate the fighter.

XXXXX

The large black winged craft circled above and came to a surprising halt in mid-air, hovering in place less than a hundred meters away from the girls, they were prepared for the worst, though they were concerned about Sanya having been scooped up by the craft. Eila was the most notable of the group, almost rushing over to the aircraft to begin banging on the cockpit, though she was stopped by Minna who gestured for her to restrain herself.

Of course they didn't need to wait long, the strange black craft hissed as the glossy black hatch opened up, revealing two occupants of the craft, a large man from their appearance, and they had a suit which was mostly black and grey, with strange markings on the sides of their shoulder and the helmet looking awfully intimidating to them.

Sanya was on the man's lap, she waved to everyone.
"Everyone, I'm sorry about worrying you all."

"Sanya!" Eila almost cried as she flew over to her friend.

The two met at the front of the craft, Eila lifting the girl straight out of the cockpit and carrying her in her arms, almost lovingly hugging her companion. The girls let Eila rejoice, though Minna was a little more caught up with the armoured figure sitting in the front of the craft.

"I'm grateful for what you've done, but I'd like to know who you are."

"Umm, how about you first?"

"I'm Wing Commander Minna Dietlinde Wilcke of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, who are you?"

"I am Colonel Jonathan O'Neill. Pleased to make your acquaintance." The man replied with a curt salute. "Are you the one in charge of your girls?" He asked promptly.

"That I am…"

"Alright, then I guess you're the one I need to speak with."

XXXXX

AN: Alright I think I fixed this up, hopefully I won't need to do this again.

I've been doing a rewrite for this story for a while now, don't worry there are more chapters this time and I've actually got a plot to work with. But I'm tied down with work, real life problems, and medical issues. I'll try updating as often as possible, but no guarantees on fast delivery.