Secret Constructive Destruction

February 2013

Part 4

"That was all?" McKay asked an engineer as he was informed of the problem with the hyper-drive. "It wasn't cleaned properly?"

"Well, there was a rock stuck in the main power conduit." The engineer replied. "So, yes."

McKay rolled his eyes and transported to the bridge. "'Repairs' are done." He told Ford while sitting in an empty chair at the back of the control room.

"Good." Ford said as he sat in his captain's chair. "Let's head off."

"Seven seconds out," The co-pilot of eye-one said as they exited hyperspace. "Scanning the system for wraith presence." His eyes turned into pebbles. "Thirty ships sir, identifying as twenty cruisers and ten hives."

"Send all sensor logs back to the Aria." The pilot said. "We'll stay and wait for the attack."

"Yes sir."

"Thirty seconds sir." Ford's engineer officer informed.

"Good, make sure the Vanquish and the Deadalus are on their sides while we drive through the middle."

"I'm not sure about the plan." McKay said. "We have three ships, they have thirty, they outnumber us ten to one."

"We'll cut that number in half with the first full salvo launch when we exit hyperspace. The stealth ship already have the targets for us."

"I'm still not sure." McKay muttered as he grudgingly sat at the back and saw the fleet of ships ahead.

As missiles and fighters alike were launched, O'Neil waited for the hangar bay doors to drop them into the combat. The doors suddenly opened and he was dropped into an inferno of battle. He blasted his engines to full power then slowed down slightly to let his squadron catch up.

"Let's cull 'em." Jack said over the mic.

"Yes sir." A reply came as the first sight of enemy fighters approached. The sight quickly became a spectacle as the clouds of fighters hummed closer.

Soon they were in firing range and missiles were loosed by the sixty 302s whipping into the cloud. Machine guns blazing and ships rocketing, jack's squadron split up when they entered the looming cloud of maelstrom like conditions. The blue energy of darts whizzed past them, only very rarely hitting the newly installed shields, designed to survive a maximum of five dart shots.

"We've lost seven and two sir!" Jack's second informed.

"Clear area One squadron." The weapon's station on board the Aria ordered. "Concentrating starboard railgun battery on the darts in thirty seconds."

Jack swerved a blue bolt and flipped around. He could see the beams from the three massive ships lancing into the enemy hives with unnatural force.

"Clear area now!" Jack ordered as a blue jolt struck his shield.

Most returned with an affirmative, but three responded with, "I'm blocked out!"

It was too late.

The storm began as the railguns blasted through the side of the Aria. Waves of green rounds flew through the coldness of space and decimated the cloud. Four seconds later and there was nothing but a debris field. The bodies that littered the cloud of dark objects were wraith, but the metallic remains of a 302 sat in the centre.

"Group up One squadron." Jack said while a hive's left portion broke off and, strangely, continued to fire. "More darts from the surface."

"What the fu-" The last of Two squadron's leader's words were cut off with static.

"Hives have been cleared." The Aria informed him. "Cruisers are being cleaned up by the Vanquish and Deadalus. Keep the stray darts at bay while we land troops." There was a pause. "This is a vital part of the mission. They will keep launching darts until we remove the ZPMs. McKay thinks this is a dart growing facility."

"So, we need to take out the darts while the troops are dropped?" Jack asked.

"Yes, make sure the tanks get down, they are vital to breaking the shield around the complex. We can't risk over doing this mission."

"Affirmative." Jack replied.

"Baby sitting duty?" One of his pilots said with a tad of disgust. "We have the Jack O'Neil as our commander! We should be down there taking out the first line of defence!"

"Clean up the chatter, we have orders." Another of the pilots said before Jack could respond.

"Let's move then."

With the slight tingle of happiness that seemed to follow his every footstep around the base, John turned into his office with a smug grin on his face. The mission was underway, all space forces had been taken out with two full salvo releases from their task force, and troops were landing; most of the new recruits were on the short list for the Shadows, but they had chosen one hundred that they knew would stay allied; the missions were back on track; and he was finally truly happy in his life of grief, shielded by a humour block. There was also Woolsey being somewhat more happy around base.

He sat down in his comfy office chair and spun around once. Joyful to the core, he could get struck by lightning seven times and still be happy. He looked up, just in case his thought would come true and then shook it off as Woolsey walked through the door.

"General Sheppard." He said in his now friendly voice.

"Woolsey." Sheppard watched him walk into the room. He sat in the chair opposite John's desk. "What is it then?"

"I Believe I have become," He swallowed. "I have become useless to the base's operations."

I don't need to be told that! "Why?" John asked as if he didn't know.

"I have not been sending my usual reports to the IOA and my paper work has grown into a rather large mountain." He stood up. "I have requested another IOA representative to oversee this base." He walked out of the room, pausing at the door to give a slight nod of his head.

John felt like he'd been struck by eight lightning bolts.

Fires raged in the vacuum above the wraith planet. Darts humming in the coldness of their grim workings, Jack pulled his fighters back to regroup.

"We've lost six more fighters sir." Two squadron informed. "requesting to join three squadron with my remaining 302s sir."

"Granted." Down to fifty one. He thought to himself. "Loosen up and cover each other. Squadron Two follow my lead."

The constant line of darts paused every now and again to gain numbers. The 302s pulsed towards the growing cloud and the last of the missiles trundled through space. white explosions followed and the titter tatter of bullets lit the scene.

Blue flashes started to rain towards the vast 302 fleet. Blazing his machineguns, jack entered the cloud for the sixth or seventh time. It was rather scary flying through a sea of swirling glows, flashes, and fleshy hulls. He sharply turned up, which then became his left then turned right as it became his down. After a few more confusing manoeuvres, Jack's machineguns clicked.

"I'm out, reequipping on Aria and calling 302s back." He informed his Squadrons and the Aria. "Vanquish, requesting you cover our arses."

As the jet streams of fifty fighters zoomed towards the massive ship, fountains of railgun fire lashed out towards the clouds of fighters. The Vanquish was a more anti-fighter role 304 than the refitted heavy duty Deadalus. The Aria was hovering above the planet like a glistening star of activity. Drop-ships holding men, tanks, and other equipment gathered in small groups. Nearly all had been stored in the belly hangar bay. The starboard hangar bay's 304 sized bulkhead hissed gas as it slowly pulled to either side. The hangars were about twice as long as 304 hangars, and could hold ten fighters each.

Entering the hangar was easy enough. Landing was too, with help from a gravity manipulator device they had built with help from the Asgard core, the 'tractor beam' as pilots had come to call it. He landed uncontrollably in his set 'parking place' and clamps grinded to the wings of his fighter.

"What the frack?" He muttered to himself as his fighter was raised into the 'storage' position.

"Squadron One lead, all fighters are to stay in bay until we start landing troops. We need to preserve fighters for the invasion force's cover." This was the Aria's Hangar controller in his ear piece.

"That's all well and good." He agreed. "But, could you get me the hell out of this thing?"

"Negative." The hangar controller replied. "We are invading in five minutes."

"I guess I'll sit tight then." He muttered sarcastically.

"What was that lead?" The hangar controller asked.

"Nothing, just static over the comm." Jack rested a hand on the treated glass that covered the fighter's cock-pit. "I prefer Death Gliders to wraith Dart swarms." Didn't everyone?

As the rookies lined up, John swivelled on his office chair to look out over the courtyard. He was in the briefing room at the moment, after a rather fun game of 'scare the new recruits'. Larrin was lying on a roof on the other side of the courtyard with her face staring blankly into the skies. John swivelled around on his chair to once again look at the new shadow recruits. Alex's disembodied voice piped up.

"Attention!" Emphasising the end of an order normally got it in the recruits' heads to stand to attention. Sadly, half of them were out of time and the others were a horrid sound to John's ears. Alex uncloaked and took his helmet off. "You lot of maggots better get yourselves pulled together or else you'll fall apart in training tomorrow."

"He's telling to truth, twenty miles." John said, obviously not humorously, to assure them that they would fall apart.

Alex looked at John, smiled in a way that the recruits couldn't see him and put his helmet on. "Tomorrow at four, we let you have two hours more than the rest of us so don't be late. If you don't want to do it, don't show."

Alex cloaked then the door to the balcony closed with a hiss of the hydraulic door mechanism.

"Dismissed." John ordered as he stood up and went to the balcony.

He walked out to the fresh air of wonderfully cooked 'sludge' from the vent system of the kitchen. Alex was obviously here, his head of hovering at his height looking at the constant stream of activity on the ground below.

"I bet twenty will show up." He finally said. "Ten more will show up the next day and that'll be it."

"It's a dangerous position." John said. "I bet ten." He was silent for a few moments. "Fifteen at most."

"It was pure luck that no one got hurt on our missions." He muttered. "We had the element of surprise and it was our base. We knew the different areas like the backs of our hands and we knew where they'd be. Next time it'll be different and people will start dying."

"Look down there and guess how many are whishing they hadn't chosen this position." John said as he leaned against the metal railing on the edge.

"If I had to choose again I'd still say yes." He admitted, "The spaceships and all."

"But what if it was yesterday?" John saw Larrin stand up and look into the sky. He looked up and saw nothing.

"Probably yes."

"What I'm trying to say is, most of the soldiers down there wish they hadn't have taken this command now." Larrin was still staring into the sky.

"Because they didn't know how hard it was on us." He finished. "The Wraith's forces seem endless."

"It's a good thing that the Trust wants their soldiers to take out the wraith first then." The short term General started to get slightly worried about Larrin. "Still, the Gra'taks seem a bit more powerful than we first thought."

"I know. Five APBWs and they can fire in all directions. Still, those improved gou'ld cannons have taken down Asgard ships before, think they could bring a 304 to its knees?"

"Probably, the Odyssey was powered by a ZPM. We've found out half the APBW emitters have been badly damaged by some fault with the reactors. They were only meant to be used on our ships powered by ZPMs or a few NIGs. We've toned the APBWs down so that they don't blow up the reactors on our new 304s."

"Sounds good, will a Gra'tak be able to kill a team of ten shadows equal to SG-1?"

"I doubt it. O'Neil said it was dumb luck half the time. I'm wishing I'm a moron now."

"Why wish?" Alex said with a humorous grin. He put his helmet on and disappeared. He probably saluted while saying, "General." The hydraulic door mechanism hissed as it open and closed.

John, appearing through the door leading to the rood Larrin was on, walked over and gave her a gentle kiss on cheek. She smiled and kissed him back. Her smiled disappeared as she looked up to the sky again.

"Why not use the long range sensors?" John asked.

She looked at him in the eyes. "Because I'm not sure if they are coming."

"Why wouldn't they?"

"I don't know."

Two more of the unfriendly ships appeared from their green hyperspace windows. Roughly star shaped with smoothened corners and a large superstructure that looked like a city, the ships thundered through space, beams spitting from the ends of the star tips. They stopped and started to spin, about one rotation per minute.

Captain Travis moved hurriedly towards his weapon's control officer.

"Report!" He ordered with his thunderous voice.

"Large energy readings from the tips of the enemy ships." His eyes obviously blazing with fear he added, "They're going to pummel us sir!"

"Tell Glory to retreat!" He ordered his comm. officer. "Pull Gracious and Holy away from the big one."

"Yes sir." The comm. officer replied.

Two beams streaked from the tips of the two new arrivals and sheared passed the Victorious' shields. Another two were sent flying towards them.

"Fire main pulse cannon." Travis ordered as the large ten pronged ship started to curl its tips inward.

A blue ripple, about as long as the beams the enemy were firing, rammed the larger ship's shields like a fly against a brick wall. The tips stopped suddenly and orange energy started to build up in centre of the ship.

Yellow bolts started to rain towards the Glory. Its shields rupturing, a message pinned with static and confusion entered their ears.

"Shields are failing, sub-light is offline, hyper-drive is nearly repaired. Two minutes is all we need!"

"Move us and Holy to cover Glory while she gets repaired. Divert their fire on us. Fire subpulsers when we are in range." Travis sat in his chair. "Pilots prep for launch."

As they moved closer the larger ship fired a single small blue projectile from the tip of the prongs. It spilt into ten, then those into ten more. They twisted and turned in their flight. He'd seen this before, but they were yellow.

"Brace for impact!" He ordered as two of the blue orbs approached.

The subpulsers opened fire on the blue projectiles, one of them exploded with tremendous force, the other hit the shield.

"Shields down to seventy percent!" His technician informed.

"Status on Glory!"

"She's jumping in thirty seconds sir."

"Good." Travis studied the battle in his mind for a few vital seconds. His old girl, The Victorious, couldn't win without at least two more ships to lend a hand. And without their proper captain, it was even worse.

He spotted at least ten enemy ships, one being the large ship capable of firing, what the tau'ri had called, drones. But these weapons were also at that battle. The Tau'ri had used them against the replicators, but why would they be using these strange ships? And why attack the Travellers? He had five ships, one of which was about to leave the fight. Vastly out numbered, he could only wish their ships were lacking fighters and anti-fighter weaponry.

Ten quick paced shots from the subpulsers streaked at one of the enemy ships. Moving passed the Glory, he saw her rear engines start to glow and she shot out of sight into a shimmering pool of light.

He pressed a button to the fighter control station. "Release the fighters."

The four squadrons of twelve fighters shot out of the front, aft, and side hangars towards the larger enemy ship. Little green pulses from them confirmed that they were encountering enemy fighters.

He turned his attention towards the two smaller ships. One had ceased firing and sat dormant.

"Bring us together in block formation, concentrate on the target." He placed the dormant enemy ship as highest priority on his tactical display. The two other ships joined Victorious and Holy in their formation. "Main pulse cannon in three, two, one."

The four ripples ran towards their targets and slid passed the shields. Hull fragments shattered in the blazing inferno of the superstructure's demise. The star prongs floated lethally towards the other enemy ship and collided with one of its sides.

Shields down, the enemy ship started to run.

"Subpulsers concentrate fire on that ship!" He ordered as forty little ripples streamed into the ship. One sub pulse cannon finished it off. "How are our fighters doing out there?"

"They are superior to the enemy's fighters and have received minimal losses."

Four against eight, he didn't like those odds.

"Pull the fighters back and retreat before the big one fires more drones." He ordered the comm. officer to tell the other captains with a slight nod of his head.

The fighters returned within a minute of his order, speeding with all might. Yellow bolts fried behind them as the enemy ships started to centre in on them. A beam struck past the shield of Holy.

"Fighters are in hangars and all ships report they are ready to leave." His comm. officer rushed.

"Tell them to return to the station." Travis said as he watched hyperspace engulf the ship.

The memories of Larrin filled his head. She'd be arguing that he should have done this then and that later. Then the sadness struck him, his cousin was dead. He could do nothing about that. She was gone forever and they had no idea of locating her remains for, at least, a proper generation ship's captain's funeral.

At four in the morning, the rustling of cold recruits was almost music to his ears. Alex could see about fifty here, and there were about three others approaching. Seems Mellor was closest with the bet. It was exactly four now, and Alex, as much as he wanted too, didn't want to keep his recruits waiting in the cold.

He uncloaked and shot a flare into the air, the cloaking field around them would stop the rest of base seeing it now. Everyone in the field looked form where the flare had come and gathered around Alex.

"Into line!" He ordered. The men and women formed up in rows of ten. There seemed to be exactly sixty now. "Attention!" It seemed the nights sleep had not improved their reactions. A messy stamping of feet followed his order. "Lets try that again! At ease!" This was slightly better. "Attention!" Now they were in sync. A nice single loud stomp followed his last order. "At ease, stand easy." Nearly all of them started to rub their chests in the cold morning air.

Mellor uncloaked and tapped Alex on the shoulder. "My sister is second row two in from the right. Who let her join us? She's a bloody medic!"

"And the best shot of her training group." Alex added for him. "Or are you just annoyed she's here?"

Mellor shut up and turned to the squad of troops. "All right," He said in a semi-friendly voice. "We're doing twenty miles, that's around the base once."

"Don't pressure yourselves at first, when you warm up and get into the pace of things it gets easier on you."

"Says you, you probably do ten laps a day." Mellor joked.

"Actually fifteen." He admitted. "But normally about three, haven't had much time for it."

"Where's Edd and Lauren?" Mellor asked while looking around.

"Morning quickie?" Alex joked with a chuckle. "Edd's already half way round and Lauren's on her second lap already."

"Second lap?" Mellor looked at the wall of the base that incoming runners would approach. "I think I see Edd over there."

"He and Lauren woke up at three so I'm making them do double they normally do."

"Oh, uh..." He let the sentence drift slightly.

"Yep, go on slacker." Alex said as he pointed in the direction he would be running. "get moving before I start shooting."

"Yes sir." Mellor headed off at a slow pace.

"Follow my lead." He told the group of recruits. A chorus of groaning followed as their creaky joints started to move into action. "I love my job." He muttered to himself as he overtook Mellor.