Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders, only Night Wolf and a few other things are of my own creation (but inspired from many things under copyright, which aren't mine).
Chapter 02
"What's the status on other ships?" Colonel Rogers directed the question to Katrina Foster who manned communications.
"Resolute is down for work, reactors are cold 20 minutes till she's in the air, Willandra, and Indefatigable are in various stages of unloading, they'll be with us in 10 minutes, according to reports Djukbinj is due back within the next half hour or so."
Colonel Rogers stared at the battlespace layout, the ships were spilling out of the large pyramid shaped ships, they were moving out filling the gaps between the ships preparing to move out, but they weren't they were sitting there, making an imposing specter.
"Harry where's that translation?"
Harry nodded, managing the streams of data coming into the bridge requiring attention, battle analysis were already coming up with a variety of scenarios and plans, none of them good, they had 12 Thylacines and their one ship until the ASCS Willandra, and RSCS Indefatigable and Resolute got to their position, so for nigh on 10 minutes it would be 3 against one and that was just the main crafts. Their squadron of Thylacines was good but even so they would be pushing it beyond anything and this was just based on guesses about the ships power sources, much of which was still blotting out their scans, the power source systems must have been huge throughout the ships.
"Linguistics is having trouble with the syntax, it shares base phonology with some Arabic, they're putting it together with our Osirian translation system, but it's a very rough translation."
"Harry I'll take rough rather then that. Put it up."
--//
"Here we go Danny, translation, by the UN."
"Of a language they've never heard, a paragraph Jack, it took me longer than that to piece together workable Goa'uld, remember?"
--//
The transmission from the other ship appeared on the screen, the confident looking man, again on the screen.
Subtitles appeared below it, indicating the translation.
"They're still working to get precise meanings out of it sir." Harry said as he started the translation playback.
Tauri (???, region specific title, ideographic designation, person specific indication, opening gambit, insult???), vessel/ship/boat/craftI/we/you (specific designation), verb (??? Possible am ???), possessive pronounBaal (name corresponds to Hadad, god of rain, thunder and fertility. May also refer to Judo-Christian Baal. Unknown Egyptian/Osirain connections). possessive pronoun instruct/decree/order/demand you body language suggests definite implication towards us) prostrate/lie down/bowtowards/to/forwards myself/me/possession. Myself/I/we power/omniscience/knowledge, I/myself/wepassage/travel/journey, (implication of great distance and travel throughout ???unknown??? bow down, possible congregation/court ???) I/we powerful/all seeing/knowing omniscience/deity/goddess/god/demon.
--//
"That's not that bad." Daniel muttered to himself.
"What? Daniel that was…"
"Remember when we first went to Abydos or Chulak?"
Jack went silent for a moment "Fine, still it's no universal translator."
"He is using an obscure Goa'uld dialect."
"Probably for intimidation purposes." Daniel mused on Teal'c comment.
--//
"Right." Colonel Rogers said after a moment. "Send back that they are in Earth controlled space, send it through everything we've got, every translation system along with standard number and letters something will have to get through."
--//
"Colonel Rogers." Daniel looked as Jack leaned forward on his seat and wondered what he was doing. "Oh…right you're not going to suggest."
"I believe he is Daniel Jackson."
"We might know him. Maybe we can have a chat, ask him what he's doing in this neck of the woods."
--//
"…in this neck of the woods." General O'Neill offered.
"I'll take that under advisement, Harry status of ships?"
"Holding steady, transmission has been received, nothing yet."
"Status of ships on Earth?"
"Still 8 minutes out." Harry said, a lot could happen in 8 minutes and the way the small craft were twitching about was really starting to worry him and if it was him, it must really worry the Thylacine pilots who were staring them down outside the ship.
"Linguistics, estimated time for opposing ship to have formulated a message?"
"They would have been able to send a simple message by now captain. Given the complexities of their opening message sir." Harry said, compressing what linguistics actually said on that subject.
"Very well, frame them into comms and open up for two way communications." Rogers said turning to the group of extra-universal people. If they were working in concert with the man in the pyramid ship he'd be…annoyed.
Harry nodded over to Daniel Jackson.
--//
"Jack, we're on."
"Hey Baal…buddy…so…you're here in another universe, looking for the good version of you with an eye patch and flower garden?"
--//
Had Harry known all you needed to do to contact the guy with god delusions (or possible actual god-ness) was to ask him about gardening things would have gone along much quicker.
"Receiving comms traffic back, opposing ship is opening communications."
--//
"And if it isn't my good friends SG1 of the Taur'ri, already making acquaintances with the local human population, so where is your quaint little ship." Said the main, he had a smooth slightly South African accent and was lounging in his throne, an amused smile on his face.
"Ah Teal'c, Colonel Carter, Doctor Jackson, what is that human term, the 'whole gang' is here."
"What brought you here Baal or just trying to find a universe where you're not smug, self righteous, obtuse excuse for…"
"A god?" Baal cut Jack off.
"So what are you doing here? We only came by accident?" Carter asked, not really helping herself.
"Imagine my surprise a Tau'ri ship on the edge of the Stargate network…"
--//
Colonel Rogers leaned back, allowing the General to continue his 'conversation' with Baal, any stalling time they could gain while their other ships arrived was fine.
--//
"…a simple, for a god, matter of locking my Hat'aks onto the same energy frequency as your craft and I followed you, a minor change to my ships hyper drive systems and…" He waved his hands.
"You came out of hyperspace earlier a system a dozen or so light years from Earth, you disrupted your engines output just enough to drop out, but not enough to be damaged by the disruption of the hyperspace window…that's amazing…"
"Thank you Colonel Carter, I appreciate your candour in my brilliance."
"Carter, not helping."
--//
Harry raised an eyebrow at General O'Neill's opening statement of
"Hey Baal…buddy…so…you're here in another universe, looking for the good version of you with an eye patch and flower garden?"
But tuned most of the conversation out, there would be a report coming from linguistics analysing the language construction, facial movements, body language, and everything in the background of the image.
Harry nodded to himself as a preliminary analysis appeared, the guy, definitively wasn't human, and it wasn't just the flashing of the eyes ostentatious dress sense, and overly confident demeanour and super ego, the latter three could be put down to standard megalomania, the eyes how they moved and how he lounged with his body, the emphasis on words everything set him off as not quite…something.
There was also the note on the hieroglyphs set into the wall behind him, those would require some work to translate, but that didn't tally with Baal's name, if that was his name, not just an assumed identity. But then why build your spaceship to look like a pyramid and fill it with Hieroglyphs.
Though they were placing their values and assumptions on an extra-universal ship, so there were caveats in the assumptions they were making.
Battle analysis was continuing to strategise, they too were listening to Baal's conversation and feeding that into their strategic plans for them.
Baal's first actions would be to take out their craft and possibly the Prometheus. Which was still hidden from sensors my Phobos.
There was a big warning on his screens that stated they'd been getting irregular enemy energy spikes from the craft, it wasn't a general scan there was a 45 percent chance it was an attempt to matter transmit aboard, or locate a suitable transmat point.
Harry forwarded that to the Colonel Roger's 'periscope' that had been beside him since the battle alert was called, it provided him with all relevant information, the Colonel, while not central in the communication with Baal was present in the image, listening and waiting so Harry didn't want to ask him out loud, though he could frame or mute out the Colonel, according to linguistics it was better to stay in view for when the Rogers wanted to address Baal directly.
Harry received a confirmation a moment later and began a power-up up the transmat jammers, there was a slight possibility that the enemy would see this as an aggressive act, but at this point they were building toward said aggressive act and he'd rather not have enemy combatants on board.
The analysis of the enemy ships was bringing mixed results.
They were tetrahedral, with energy shielding, currently in operation, this seemed to take a lot of their power, but it also caused massive energy washout that limited the Hattah's ability to scan conclusively, the main ship from which the communication was coming had stronger shielding than the other two.
Which made sense.
They had discerned that there were multiple weapons platforms, they couldn't see any delvery systems for phyical weapons such as missiles, so they could postulate that any attack would come on a direct line from the ships.
The platforms were harder to discern, again from the energy washout.
There was definitely a main weapon moving and targeting them.
There were also several smaller platforms, targeting (probably) them and the Thylacines spread out around them.
Manoeuvrability, was highlighted as one of the positives that they could claim, battle strategy announced in a red highlighted note to him.
The…whatever craft didn't appear to be able to move on a tight turn or on their axis.
From their design and positioning appeared to have arisen from a culture used to attacking or flying within the gravity of a planet.
The layout of the battlespace was also interesting and was informing battle strategy's choices for manoeuvres.
Harry directed his attention to "ship on the edge of the Stargate network" they still seemed mighty engrossed in stroking his ego.
The battlespace was laid out in a classic 2 dimensional arrangement, any regular navy strategist would see it, they were out flanked by the three larger ships with superior number of supporting attack fighters.
Willandra, Indefatigable and Resolute were still at least 6 minutes away, they would hopefully not be detected, travelling under Fidelius. Too bad they couldn't fire weapons under the Fidelius; it mucked around with the sensors and targeting, plus when any ship did it stuff they whole already complex (adhering it to the ship, moving as it was) and required completely redrawing of the runes and charms.
Fortunately they had three dimensions to use, but it suggested that the enemy probably wouldn't use the extra dimension to move around in.
They would need to do something daring and unexpected in order to surprise Baal's forces.
There in lay the problem, while they had plenty of unexpected things to do, most of them would leave them with damage (to the Hattah) and very little to the enemy craft.
Especially as it was looking like they were running out of conversation topics, or whatever it was that General O'Neill was baiting Baal with.
Harry stared at the re-recommended manoeuvre, it was 'interesting' but would probably give them their best chance of success.
He gave the initial go ahead, for initial measures to begin, the stretching back of the gravity field around the ship allowing more power to go to various systems and giving the ship a slightly better manoeuvring footprint.
The manoeuvre would have them use their forward weapons, the magical energy weapons, set to blasters, rather than the cutters and others that they could be altered to do.
By using a specially designed prism, which was generally used and then chucked in a bin for recycling, would deflect the energy from forward out on a hard angle, hopefully destroying some of the enemy's craft and striking the two other main ships.
All the while this would be happening they would be almost sliding in a zig-zag movement through the extreme range of the enemy's predicted weapons range at full speed toward Baal's ship, using the energy cannons along the port and starboard side of the ship to attack Baal's craft, the movement
The Thylacines would attempt to take out the enemy's craft, going over and around the craft, utilising their (theoretical) inability to manoeuvre.
Interceptors would take out any enemy fire.
When they reached a certain point the Hattah would pivot 90 degrees 'up' on its axis and move over Baal's ship at power using their the smaller manoeuvring engines on the side of the ship that had a time ago originally intended to be for docking, though had since been redesigned for 'extreme manoeuvring situations'. Then they'd continue around with the intention of taking out where they guessed the force field control was. According to best guesses, where a lot of energy was flowing around was below the craft in the centre.
It all looked very good in the wire frame and battlespace strategically layout.
--//
Sam looked around and wondered if anyone else could feel it, the gravity in the ship was slowly…decreasing.
She looked across at the station that Captain Potter was manning, there were several screens that she could see one that displayed some sort of battle plan.
--//
Harry grappled at the seat belt and pulled them that little bit extra hard and hit a note to the Captain informing him of what would happen.
He hit back a final ok and Harry put out a general alert to all crew members to 'strap down' and get ready.
Harry caught Colonel Carter looking in his direction he nodded toward the screen nearest to her which was flashing the warning, she nodded imperceptibly to him.
--//
"What is it that you want?" Rogers asked firmly, if he let the conversation go any further Baal might just thrash out unexpectedly, megalomaniacs generally couldn't resist a 'what do you want' question…though the answer usually was followed with a begin of hostilities it gave them a good marker.
"Good question." General O'Neill said to himself.
"I will wipe this pitiful, Tau'ri craft, as one would swat an insect. This shall be the beginning of a new Empire" Rogers could heard the capital E on empire and even if Baal's eyes hadn't just glowed, the megalomania was shinning right through.
--//
"the beginning of a new Empire." That to Harry sounded close to the end of Baal's rant, he signalled to all stations to begin the manoeuvre, the engines began power up, interceptors and weapons systems began to final acquisition of targets.
--//
"You Tau'ri will bow down, and worship me as your God! Jaffa Kree!"
The transmission cut out.
"Harry hope we're ready."
"Of course captain, already moving, enemy is targeting us."
"Good."
--//
"How can that be good? Carter?"
"I think sir…" Carter was cut off as the acceleration cut in with some force. "I think you should pull the seat belts tighter."
"Baal was rather angry wasn't he." Daniel said casually.
"Daniel there's…" Jack was cut off as everything swung to one side.
--//
Harry looked switched his gaze from several different reports as they swerved and weaved along through the enemy fire, Baal's craft was backing away, slowly, as it was firing.
"Harry interceptor effectiveness?"
"90 percent so far, forcefield are keeping out anything that gets through, Thylacines are taking enemy craft on a run."
Colonel Rogers looked at the battlespace, which was surprisingly clear considering three ships were attacking them.
One of the three ships had broken off its attack on them to chase the Thylacines, which were leading them toward Mars.
Hopefully it would drag the ship down in the gravity of the planet allowing the Thylacine squad to take further shots while the craft re-orientated its self.
"Brace for final attack run." Harry called out, at the speed they were going this was going to be something.
"Where are the other ships Harry?"
"2 minutes maybe less."
"Foster get the Resolute to breakaway and assist in fighting above Mars."
"5 seconds."
--//
"It's a pretty gentle ride so far." Daniel said as something sounded like it exploded against the hull of the ship.
"You had to say it Danny." Jack said as he felt the gravity, or lack of it pivot him into the belts holding him into the chair.
"Feel those G's Carter, Danny."
"It's amazing, the stresses and manoeuvring of this ship, look sir, we're…" Carter said staring at the screen which showed a view of Baal's ship as weapons fire exploded against it and the smaller version of the large 'battlespace' on the main screens.
--//
"Main enemy caft launching another squadron of fighters towards us." Harry stared at the sensor analysis, ignoring the constriction he felt as the ship rotated around the enemy craft. Sensor analysis were working at double speed to find the ship's forcefield systems, as they'd ascertained that all three ships were the same, if they could find the forcefield generator, or even where a lot of the ship's power was poured into they'd be on a more even footing.
--//
"Why isn't Pendergast and Prometheus here Carter?" O'Neill said as the ship manoeuvred once more.
"Prometheus' systems were damaged sir, plus" She paused. "The Colonel did order them into near orbit of Phobos."
"And why did he do that?"
"Well Jack we did just arrive in this universe, we might not be trustworthy, especially considering these people have got three Goa'uld motherships to fend off."
"All the more reason Daniel to have Prometheus here."
"I believe we should brace."
"Why's that T…" Jack didn't have time to finish his sentence as the Hattah's manoeuvring engines hit their peak pivoting the ship around the vertical axis of Baal's craft.
--//
Sensor images flashed through the sensor and battle analysis sections as the ship swept around on a fast and tightly controlled move, scanning, comparing and matching energy output to the impact of their weapons on the craft energy shielding in an attempt to locate the where most the energy was pooled into the craft and therefore making it the best place to focus their weapons.
They would run out of prime scanning time in 4.2 seconds as the ship needed to pull off a corkscrew spin removing it from close in fire from the ship's main weapon, which would be necessary because in 5 seconds the interceptors would no longer be able to even pretend to cope with the incoming fire.
By this point they had intended to have found the best place to attack and should have begun their attack.
But the energy washout from whatever it was that powered the massive ship was extreme.
Whatever it was they used to power the ship must have had a huge energy potential or was so boarder line unstable that it would need constant maintenance to be kept in balance or was pretty much lethal to all sentient life.
Or quite possible a bit of all three.
A note was forwarded to the SSC officer to keep their and the Thylacine's distance when the destroyed the craft.
At 2.35 seconds their scanners aligned and they had a 80 percent match on what were probably shield generators…or a power plant…or a weapons systems reactor.
Most of the energy that flowed around the ship and outward was directed in this area at the base of the ship.
--//
"We've got the location of concentrated energy." Harry said as the data flashed up on his screen and was distributed to the pilot controlling much of the ship and to Varner a short way next to him who manned a majority of the ship's weapons.
"Break off and reform with the Willandra andIndefatigable."
--//
"You alright Daniel?" Sam looked at Daniel who was gripping the sides of the seat he was pressed into with steely resolve.
"Fine, fine. Actually Jack, why is it that whenever I go anywhere with you I get shot at?"
"Daniel, I'm hurt. And if I might say you're sounding a little self absorbed. We're getting shot at."
"Actually we seem to be moving away from the close in fighting." Carter observed, just after she observed that the whole ship shuddered and things sparked behind her.
Jack looked over at Carter who shrugged, eyes wide.
"Ya had to jinx it."
--//
"What the hell was that?" Colonel Rogers exclaimed and warning signals flashed across the screens, they'd just taken a huge hit to the top deck force fields right above the top interceptors.
"This." Harry said as the left had side screen showed a real world and scanner image of a mid sized pyramid shaped craft, it was bigger than the fighter craft, most of which they'd left behind in pieces.
"It fired some sort of kinetic energy charge at us, mostly kinetic, the energy yield depleted by the forcfields, the hull's absorbed and deflected most of the hit."
"Any breaches?"
"Slight fracturing along the outer bay."
"Seal it, sealant foam on standby. Swing us around and send information to Willandra andIndefatigable." Rogers turned his attention toward the battlespace. Above Mars it appeared their Thylacines with the Resolute were driving the other craft back towards them, Baal's craft was still hanging back, but was still firing towards the Hattah, Willandra andIndefatigable.
"Prep for combined attack on the other enemy craft it should drive Baal to retreat toward Jupiter."
--//
In the battle strategy section they had already begun thinking about that particular eventuality, and with their close proximity to the ASCS Willandra and RSCSIndefatigable were bouncing ideas between them on secure, encoded channels.
At current predicted rate it needed one ship to attack the ship, a second to occupy the ship's sensors and whatever else and a third to use all of its weapon's fire to punch a hole through and take down its shields.
--//
Barely after they'd got confirmation the Hattah was powering forward toward the foremost craft that had been slinging energy blasts at them and the other two craft.
"Switch forward weapons, blaster and cutter, re-align, I want to see if we can punch a hole through the shielding." Rogers said leaning into his chair.
"Done sir."
"Fire. Continuous fire till we hit the red, sensors refocus on target. Ready weapons for secondary assault when shields go down."
--//
The captains of the three ships had promptly ignored part of the advice from their respective battle analysis sections that suggested one of them play the target for the ship they were attacking.
The remaining Thylacines had been ordered to continue attack runs on Baal's ship, just so he didn't forget they were still around.
There was also the concern of the ship approaching behind them from Martian orbit, damaged though still quite able to fight behind trailed by the RSCS Resolute.
--//
Jack turned and looked at the screen that Carter was so fascinated with, it showed a Goa'uld mothership.
"Fire." He heard the Colonel say, quite calmly considering he was facing off one of the snakehead's ships.
Purple and red energy was thrust into view and toward the ship, impacting with a splat on the shields.
"No surprise there." He commented.
--//
"Affects?"
"Cutter may be having some affect, but it's requiring full output of blasters to knock a small hole in it their shielding."
"Getting comms from Willandra suggesting concerted effort as Indefatigable begins spiral attack run on shield generators." Foster said as they received communications.
--//
"Here we go again." Daniel said as he looked at the screen as the two ships lined up for a focused blast at the ships.
"They're doing pretty good, if we hadn't had the Ancient Outpost…." Carter began.
"Don't remind me."
"Then Prometheus wouldn't have stood a chance at destroying Anubis' ship, short of ramming it."
"Which is what Hammond was going to do, and they call me reckless!"
Sam was going to challenge his statement, but just sighed, it wouldn't be worth it in the short run. Or for that matter the length until the universe ran cold.
The ship shuddered as something, probably weapons fire impacted against the hull.
--//
Harry stared at the wider battlespace and the implications there in, if they didn't destroy the ship infront of them, they'd be in trouble.
If however they did manage to destroy the ship, they still had problems, there was the pursuing ship behind them, the Resolute was taking some damage from it, and the enemy craft appeared to be increasing speed with the medium sized craft flying on four axis points cutting off manoeuvring for them.
There was a second smaller craft behind the RSCS Resolute which he guess may have been the Prometheus but their sensor assets were currently directed toward more pressing matters than the other universe's craft.
"Indefatigable is beginning attack run Colonel."
"Good Harry, status on shielding?"
"With the Willandra's combined power we're knocking a small hole, but it's not enough to even breach their atmosphere, battle analysis suggest we hold back and channel everything if…when the shields go down." Harry paused.
There was relative quiet, aside from the impacts against the hull from weapons, detritus and the constant thrum of the interceptors in close proximity to weapons.
"Harry is the battlespace accurate?" Colonel Rogers asked in a calm voice in the relative non-silence of battle.
"Yes sir, if we destroy the craft off our forward bow we'll be too close to the explosion to escape massive damage. If we try to begin manoeuvres the ship to stern will take us out and probably ram us, Willandra and Indefatigable as it comes around out of the spiral attack." Harry said in a calm, slightly amused voice that only comes from impossible situations and the knowledge that yes you are in them.
"That's good then."
--//
"That's good, we're in an impossible situation and we're about to die and that's good." Daniel shook his head, about the only thing he could do comfortably.
"It's turning into one of those days, Carter, any ideas?"
"Sir, we're on someone else's ship, strapped down and…I wouldn't even know where to start with these systems."
"Come on Carter, it's a ship, goes through space, if you can build a space ship, travel through time and meet guys like the Asgard, ya gotta have a plan for days like this."
--//
"Battle strategy?"
"They're working on it sir. It's going to take a fair amount of sustained fire power to take out this ship, all weapons are predicted to be at 120 percent."
"How long till shields down?"
"Indefatigable is taking hits, estimate 3 minutes to optimum firing efficiency."
"Can we assist?"
"We and the Willandra are taking majority of fire, any close and we won't be able to range weapons and will get in the way of the Indefatigable escape vectors." Harry said as he tapped a keyboard and the computer screens, accessing the data as it came through it him from the various areas of the ship. The Resolute had sent them a info update, the Prometheus was indeed fighting along side using some form of adapted rail gun technology, only UNIT sea vessels carried such technology, the relatively short range and need to keep huge supplies on board ships for space based combat made them unviable.
"Harry status of all engines on us and the Willandra?" The captain said momentarily breaking Harry out of his thoughts concerning weapons technology.
"We've got full engines, Willandra's taken some hits to starboard side manoeuvring engines."
"How long till we can fire?"
"Enemy caft's shields are faltering, estimate at 1 minute, the enemy behind us will be with us in 5 minutes."
"The Resolute and Prometheus I see keeping it busy…has it increased speed?"
"Probably." Was Harry's response and he could practically see the captain staring at him, except he wasn't, but Harry knew the look even as the ship shuddered again, this time from the rear of the ship. "Yes, confirmed the ship behind us has increased speed. Seems we're the primary target."
Colonel Rogers was silent for 20 seconds as he watched the fluctuating sensor readings of the ship in front of them.
"Standby to channel all power including engines into weapons systems, except vital sensors." He said pausing and typing something into his 'periscope' beside him. "Slow us down and allow ship to stern to close the gap, get sensor analysis to keep a very close eye on the ship, when it starts to run to explosion rapid transfer all power to engines, get strategy to calculate the vectors, and forward the plan to the Willandra. Tell them they've got 10 seconds to object."
--//
"Carter did you understand that, because I'm starting to think that I did, and it sounds bad."
Lt Col Samantha Carter wasn't listening…well she was, she wouldn't deliberately ignore a senior officer…except that time they disobeyed orders and saved Earth…and that other time they disobeyed orders and…saved Earth…
But for now she was selectively listening to Captain Potter's report to the Colonel and his idea and what was represented on the battlespace, she'd realised at some point that the screen was touchable and could make one part of it larger by selecting it and such forth.
She could see the predicament that they were in, no where to manoeuvre, if they managed to destabilise the naquadah energy flow in the Ha'tak it might create enough of an imbalance, together with this and the other ship's weapons fire to send it into cascade failure.
Then the lights flickered and dimmed further and the noise around the ship increased as the interceptors ceased firing and the engines powered down and all power barring the necessities for keeping its crew alive were diverted to the two forward weapons and the multiple energy cannons along both the starboard and port sides of the ship.
--//
Harry tried to ignore the various waring lights about things over heating, weapons fire that was going 'splat' against the hull and various other things that were occurring as the ship poured all of its energy into destroying the ship in front of them. There was also the ship behind them which, if he had felt like looking at a real time view of it was becoming very big and looming quite fast.
If they didn't get out of the way soon they would impact against it like a bug against a windscreen, just with a slightly bigger bang.
Harry hovered his hand over the button to execute the change over from weapons to engines which would blast them 'upwards' and out of the way, and raise the stern forcefields hopefully making sure the forcefields slammed into the mid sized attack crafts instead of the hull.
"Forward weapons reach 140 percent…" He called out above noise of the ship. "Any more and we'll have a cascade on our hands." He said in a slightly lower tone.
"Just a little more Harry." The captain was staring intently at the sensor read out of the ship of their monitioring of the energy flow from their and the other two ship's vantage points.
All three ships would need to fight inertia to move away from the explosion from where they sat at a relative stand still.
Several things, including the ship in front of them reached red peak levels.
"Now!"
Harry
hit the button probably a little too hard and braced himself as the
engines slammed on and he was forced into his seat as ship blasted at
so last minute a half a second longer they probably would have his
the ship behind them.
They were still making manoeuvres and moving away when both ships detonated, catching the Indefatigable's rear top deck, making much of the hull fizz and causing several breaches.
On board the Hattah it felt like Harry felt like he was in a washing machine, being eaten by a dragon, who'd just had a couple of shipping containers of beans.
Harry didn't have time to even breath a sigh of relief when the communication came through from the several squads of Thylacines playing cat and mouse with Baal's main ship, it appeared that he was making a run for it.
Which was both good and bad, good that he wasn't going to attack, bad that if he did get away, space was vast and they didn't need another meglomaniac with ideas of god hood out there. What they had already was enough.
"Full power to intercept Baal's craft." The Colonel was already shouting waving aside the smoke that had permeated the bridge.
Harry felt the ship pulse with more balanced power.
"Status of ships?"
"Both craft more or less destroyed, Indefatigable suffered damaged to hull, they're continuing scan with Willandra. Resolute is following, battle analysis suggest Baal is making for Jupiter to perform a sling shot around to make an assault on Earth, past us….or alternatively he's just running…But general consensus from Linguistics is that Baal's language response means that there is a 60 percent chance that he would be likely to attempt some sort of final attempt."
"And the other part of the percent Harry?"
"20 percent chance he could attempt to gain control of our craft the rest is…open to speculation." Harry said vaguely.
"Has Baal noticed the jumpgate yet?"
"He's on the wrong side of Jupiter to see it sir."
"Battle strategy, what have we got?"
Harry was silent as the information pooled in, Baal's ship had peeled away from the Thylacines and was beginning to readjust its course, Hattah and Resolute still had weapons…more or less. But they wouldn't be able to take down Baal's ship, not in their condition.
"At current rate of manoeuvring if we punch up our engines to 130 percent we can intercept his ship." Harry said after a moment.
"Good enough." The captain turned around to look face him in the again relative silence considering they weren't being shot at.
"And now Harry? Battle strategy have said something more?"
Harry frowned slightly.
"Uhh…no, Actually no. They're coming up with lots of what we don't have and lots of guesses, but they're a bit wacky."
"Wacky is good, lets see it before we run out of sky."
Harry nodded mainly to himself, the 'wacky' idea was sound…sort of, and it was an adaptation of one of the stratagems they had on file, when they weren't being fired at the battel strategy people dreamt up various strategies for use around the Earth's solar system.
So it wasn't a wacky idea in that they'd just pulled it out of thin air.
It was just wacky in that they'd never thought about doing it before.
--//
"I wonder what a 'jumpgate' is." Daniel mused taking the opportunity that the ship had stopped its carnival sensation of movement and relaxed as much as he could.
"Could be some sort of space jump gate." Carter offered though not looking away from the screen she was focusing on.
"What'd ya think this idea of their 'battle strategists' is Carter, beating Baal with their big space guns like the last two?"
"I do not believe so O'Neill, the last battle required three ships, there are only two."
"And a huge honking amount of those nifty 'Thylancine' craft….what is a Thylacine?" Jack turned to Daniel.
"An extinct Austrailan carnivorous marsupial."
"More Australian stuff."
"Yeah."
"O'Neill." Teal'c nodded toward forward screens.
--//
"Harry this is the Jupiter plan."
"Yes sir…Baal's and the other ships have good enough manoeuvrability though their ability to rise out of a 'glide' seems proportional to their size if they were in an atmosphere, even though they're in space. If we can force Baal's ship into Jupiter's gravity well…and then fire into the hydrogen we should be able to destroy it. Or at least damage it enough that it is crushed by the gravity."
--//
Samantha Carter blinked at the explanation.
It simple and dangerous and probably something she woulod have come up with given half a chance, not that she'd ever do it, But it was a good idea. Albeit she didn't know how she would force Baal's ship into Jupiter in the first place.
--//
Colonel Rogers listened as Harry outlined the plan, they had a little under a minute and a half to work out the kinks in it.
The 'how' was a big one, in fact it was a gigantic one, which was what had stopped this particular plan from moving beyond the 'isn't this a good idea' stage.
But at the moment their forward weapons were still cooling down, their energy cannons were still working but he didn't want to have to put a strain on them as he'd just done so and as they had two ships, though several Thylacines squadrons they didn't have the firepower to take the ship down.
"How Harry?"
"Hmmm?" His SSC officer said, in a distracted voice which was more an inclined noise.
"How are we going to grab a hold of Baal's craft?" He repeated again. "One minute until we arrive."
"Supposedly his shields are quite weak, if the Resolute and us fly over and continue momentum and um…the engineers should be able to adjust out forcefields to…" He made a meshing movement with his hands. "Mesh our forcefields to their shields and then together with the Resolute tow his craft into Jupiter's upper atmosphere. Until we detach and make a hasty getaway before igniting as much hydrogen as we can, just in case."
"Just in case." Colonel Rogers repeated. "Have I got time to say no?"
"About five seconds, Resolute's captain is waiting on your go ahead."
Rogers looked back up at the battlspace, both ships were lining up with an already fast moving object, if they got it wrong they'd be in all sorts of shit.
If they let Baal go he could escape, which would probably end up in more shit for them in the future.
He might try to damage the jumpgate, that was something that they really didn't want, it was also expensive and tricky to fix and functioned as a beacon for travel between Earth and UNIT's research outposts and base.
Or Baal could turn around and fight them
"Go ahead with it, Felix go easy with it, we don't want long streaks of their paint work along the sides of the ship." He said to their pilot who was gently manoeuvring their vast ship just as it started to shake.
"Enemy firing weapons…"
"Interceptors?"
"We can fire…but they're at 55 percent effectiveness, dropping downwards as we approach into the final interlocking of the shields."
--//
"Carter is this going to work?"
"It is a surprising plan, it is not something the Goa'uld would expect or try." Teal'c observed.
"That's because it sounds like we're going to be ass kissing their shields." Jack exclaimed. "Even we haven't tried that." Jack gave Carter a look that said that they were never going to do that, not with Prometheus or any other ships.
--//
As the Hattah drew up beside the moving pyramid shaped ship Harry briefly had to wonder if this was going to work.
It sounded good and looked nice in theory.
But they were mucking around with two types of energy shielding, one they knew a fair bit about, the other they'd known for all up under an hour.
Now they were about to attempt something the equivalent of a semi-trailer speeding down a curvy mountain road at 300 kilometres in the rain and attempt to do a puzzle that was made of lightning and could smash you to pieces in one wrong move.
What made it worse was it wasn't just them, Resolute was performing the same manouvere at the same time as them and they were both adjusting course, being fired upon and being bombarded by energy strike probably trying to get a matter transmission lock as they attempted the manoeuvre.
Correction as they went through with the manoeuvre.
Harry didn't need the sensor image provided in front of him, nor did anyone on the bridge really need the image indicating how close they were to the twisting and undulating craft they were attempting to ensnare.
When their forcefields and Baal's shields intersected it felt like they'd just hit a brick wall and then everything was shaking, and a few things exploding.
Harry ducked as something sparked above him, he didn't get any more warnings his way, so it was probably something superficial, as anything major was already alerting him that their situation was not good.
They'd lost gravity on throughout the whole ship as every bit of power went to manoeuvring the ship they'd latched onto, or hanging on to said ship with the forcefields.
Which incidentally would over load within X amount of time, no one would give him a definite on what the X meant, it was just in the equations.
That meant he probably didn't want to know.
"Harry! How long?" Colonel Rogers practically shouted above the noise, a combination of weapons fire against the intercepts and the hull, engine noise and the constant thrashing crackle of energy shield against energy shield.
Harry was tempted to ask 'until we become a ball of flame?' but decided against sarcastic comments until after the possibility of death passed.
--//
"The last time I saw Jupiter this close up, things ended with me a Teal'c taking a swim in space, I don't want that to happen."
"Don't worry Jack, if anything goes wrong I don't think we'll have time to think about it." Daniel shouted over the various droning on the bridge.
"Great help Danny, thanks for that uplifting information."
--//
They were heading down into Jupiter's atmosphere.
That was good.
They'd need another 'few' minutes until they reached the 'right' spot.
What 'few' and 'right' actually meant was in the hands of the battle and sensor analysis sections, who were as far as Harry could tell playing it by ear, because they wouldn't give a totally firm answer and it wasn't as though there was a precedent.
Pressure of the hull was increasing, but the enemy had stopped firing.
Both things were worrying, at least when the enemy was firing they knew it was predictable.
A tone alerted him to the enemy's move.
"Security squad to starboard forward side, matter transmission spike." Harry all but yelled into his mic. "Suit up in case of biohazard and loss of atmosphere." He added, the section that had been breached was able to from a damaged matter transmission jammer, that had also weakened the out hull, sealant was stopping it all from going to vacuum, but as pressure increased they might loose all atmosphere.
Another icon flashed, they seemed to be approaching the predicted point of release.
Harry would have tightened the belts on his seat, but he'd already tried too many times to count so far and this would be the worse.
He activated the ship wide comms.
"All hands brace for extreme manoeuvre."
The shaking abated and something exploded to the side of him out of the corner of his eye he could see it still sparking Harry reached down with one hand and grabbed an extinguisher and looked over to Teal'c.
--//
Jack looked over as Teal'c caught a fire extinguisher…or something chucked from Captain Potter.
Teal'c started squirting at the sparking panel, a green foam like substance sprayed out silencing the sparking.
"Nice going T."
--//
The pyramid shaped craft struggled to manoeuvre as the Hattah and Resolute turned in the atmosphere of Jupiter and pushed their engines past maximum.
"Begin firing!" Rogers shouted.
"We're barely to the 'safety zone'"
"I want that ship out of the here."
Varner nodded and stared at the readings trying to find the biggest pocket of hydrogen, there was a rumble below them, it seemed that the Resolute's captain couldn't wait either.
As the two ships powered toward the outskirts of Jupiter's atmosphere, below them their weapons reigned down on the 'god Ba'al', explosion upon explosion building as it ignited the pockets of hydrogen until a small fireball encompassed the ship and it fell further down, down until it was crushed, dead and destroyed.
Harry only breathed a sigh of relief when the sensors registered Jupiter's moons, instead of atmosphere, and constantly warning him of the hull and immanent force field failure.
The fact that if they did turn the force fields on now they'd probably melt or explode was something he chose to ignore at this point.
They'd survived a journey into Jupiter's atmosphere without any huge problems.
"Harry status of boarding party."
Harry quickly looked over his screens and then opened a comm. link to the security squad in charge.
"Status?"
"All neutralised sir."
"Survivors?"
"Negative"
"Good. Scan for biohazard…you know the drill." Harry said calmly, he didn't need to order them to lock it all down, or to keep their distance for squiggly weird things.
"Sir."
"All hostiles neutralised sir."
"Good. No remaining hostiles?" Colonel Rogers asked.
Harry looked at everything from their sensors and the data from the other ships in the area.
"No sir, we've got them all, there's a lot of damage and wrecks out here sir but…" He trailed off. "Jumpgate activating…it's the Djukbinj."
--//
Katrina Foster, communications officer nodded to herself as the communication from Earth came through.
"Colonel, direct message from Night Wolf Command."
"Send it over Katrina." Rogers said touching his mic on his ear and turned to face the screen on the periscope which changed to show an image of a General.
--//
"Well, now we can head on down to Earth and breath some of that air…" Jack pointed toward the front of the ship.
"I think Earth's that way sir." Carter jabbed a thumb toward the wall.
"Whatever we've survived another dalliance with Baal."
"I wonder if that's the last one of him."
"Daniel, you're not counting the positives, we survived, now we can land the Prometheus. Carter can do her fixity thing and we'll be home before you can say…" Jack made a motion with his hand trying to think of a word.
--//
Harry watched the Colonel converse with most likely General Lethbridge Stewart and listened to General O'Neill and the others talk about Earth among other things and where Earth was. He could point exactly where Earth was and it wasn't where Lt Col Carter pointed either, it was more or less behind them and to the left a bit.
The Colonel finished his conversation with the General and turned away to Katrina.
"Contact the Prometheus tell them to meet near the jump gate."
"What's going on?" Jack O'Neill asked leaning forward in his seat, there still wasn't much gravity on the bridge.
"We're taking you to a base away from Earth, given the recent events my superiors don't want you in Earth's solar system."
--//
I should have learnt, from Night Wolf – Beginnings and The Doctor Encounter. Space ship battles are hard to write, and in this case took three times as long as the other portions of the story.
The lead up to the battle and all the setting in motion stuff was the easy part, it was the battle that I had to keep re-thinking and writing in sections, but hopefully it all makes sense.
What I would have liked at several points during this is to have been able to put this in a column view as several things happen are happening at the same time.
Thanks to everyone who reviews, I try to respond to any questions etc raised in reviews.
Below is what Ba'al actually said prior to the Hattah's translation (or what I wrote first, before redoing it in its translated form)
Tau'ri vessel, I am your lord god Ba'al. I order you to bow down before me, I am all powerful, all knowing I have come across the stars and you shall prostrate before me, for I am your all powerful God.