The Battle of Tollana, Part 7

By Nopporn Wongrassamee the Evil Author

3 June 2015

U.S.S. Arcadia

Ship's Log: P21-6X6 is listed in the "O'Neill Cartouche" as one of those Stargate addresses that no can dial. When we arrived, we determined immediately that there was no Stargate here. For that matter, there was no planet… or star system for that matter. If there was a station here, it's long since disappeared.

What is here is a naturally occurring wormhole. There's a great deal of interference coming from it, making scanning difficult. The science staff, especially my brother, wants to get closer to examine the thing in detail. I think I've seen enough old Star Trek episodes on this trip to know how bad an idea it is to bring my ship any closer than I must to weird space anomalies.

To that end, my CAG, Captain Rogers, has volunteered to take a F-314 equipped with a science package for a close up look.

5 June 2015

Ship's Log: I must regretfully report the loss of Captain William "Buck" Rogers. And the damn thing is that I can't even be sure he's dead.

As it turns out, the P21-6X6 wormhole is NOT a natural phenomenon. According to my brother, it's some kind of time machine, probably built by the Ancients. Analysis of Roger's telemetry indicated some kind of battle was being fought at the other end, and that all the interference we've been getting was actually ECM. A stray shot from that battle clipped Roger's fighter, disabling it. I could only watch helplessly as he vanished into the wormhole's event horizon.

I would have gone in after him, but Roger's passage destabilized the wormhole. Assuming he survived the collapse, he's probably at the other end. God only knows what era he ended up in. Whether it's the past or the future, Rogers is going to need to find an alternate means to get back to the here and now. According to my brother, the wormhole won't become passable again until sometime in the middle of the 25th century…

7 July 2015

Bridge

Dolza's Ha'tak

"Dolza."

"Command me, milord!"

"The Tau'ri have a weapon that can temporarily blind your Ha'tak's sensors," Zor began.

"No Tau'ri tricks shall prevent me from destroying them, milord!" Dolza said proudly.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure they won't," Zor said impatiently. "Now shut up and let me finish giving you instructions."

"Yes, milord."

"Good. To prevent your sensors from being blinded, adjust your shields like this. First…"

Hangar Deck, Module B

U.S.S. Arcadia

Tollan Space

Seeing the line of Earth weapons pointed at him, Narim felt betrayed. He had thought the Earth ship would be a place of refuge, a safe location where he and his people wouldn't have to worry about enemies around every corner. And the betrayal was made all the more bitter because no one had actually said that sanctuary was being given. No, Narim had merely assumed it was based on memories ten years gone.

Narim's dark thoughts broke off when he was approached by one of the Earthers. Unlike the other Earth people Narim had seen past and present, this woman appeared to be unarmed and was just… untidy. Her hair was unkempt, her clothes hung loosely, and she moved with an air of careless abandon. Given his circumstances, Narim thought it ridiculous that he should be concerned about the way a woman, a complete stranger in fact, presented herself.

But when the woman looked him in the eye, Narim's suddenly got a different impression. Every instinct he had, finely honed over ten years of hit and run attacks against the Goa'uld forces occupying his home, just screamed that this woman was dangerous.

Narim tensed to defend himself, but the woman closed her eyes and turned her head as if listening for something only she could hear. Even with eyes closed, Narim got the impression that she was evaluating and measuring his people. Then she opened her eyes and spoke to the ones pointing weapons at him.

"They're cool, guys," she told the Earth soldiers. "No snakes in this party."

Narim relaxed slightly as they lowered their weapons. It suddenly occurred to him that the Earthers had reason to be paranoid too...

And then the deck leapt up at him.

Impact Site

Zor's Flagship

Tollan Space

Four hundred and sixteen Death Gliders arrived from above and below in four separate flights. As it happened, while Zor's Jaffa had a vague unit structure, it didn't extend to organizing Glider attacks of this magnitude. The last time any System Lord had deployed anywhere near this many small craft at a single target had been Anubis during his last attempted invasion of Earth, and that had been only a little over a hundred Gliders escorting a few Al'kesh bombers to capture the Antarctic facility. As a general, most Goa'uld preferred to use Ha'tak for anything requiring the firepower of more than a few Death Gliders.

In this case, Zor didn't have much choice. Dolza's Ha'tak was on its way, but not here yet. His own flagship couldn't bring its weapons to bear. That left his Gliders. Hundreds of Death Gliders was an unwieldy number and no one even tried to organize them. That they had clumped into separate groups was more an artifact of Jaffa pilots playing follow the leader from their separate hangar bays. That they all attacked at the same time was due to Breetai's battle skill.

Breetai, Zor's First Prime, was well aware of the advantages of massed fire. So he had instructed his pilots to await his word before attacking. It was by pure luck that all the Gliders were launched by the time Alpha flight chased the stolen Tel'tak straight into the Tau'ri guns. When the Tau'ri started firing, Breetai knew it was the moment to attack. He was shocked at how fast Alpha had been destroyed, but their sacrifice had distracted the Tau'ri fire from their brothers.

The Death Gliders hammered the Arcadia, and they took their licks doing it. The Arcadia's gun turrets returned fire as best they could, but these Gliders weren't coming in as perfectly lined up targets. The return fire was spread out now instead of concentrated, killing singletons instead of tens at a time. Some died making their attack run. Some died after their attack runs as they peeled off. Still others were accidentally killed as they drifted into each other's line of fire during attack runs. Two actually collided as they crossed the Tau'ri ship in opposite directions.

But the Arcadia didn't get away undamaged. They were a immobilized, with no shields, and with four point defense turrets buried inside Zor's flagship. Almost every shot fired at the Arcadia scored a hit. Several Gliders "killed" by Tau'ri guns or friendly fire rammed the ship due to pure inertia. The SI fields did their best, but they could only reduced damage taken, not eliminate damage entirely.

Bridge

U.S.S. Arcadia

Finally, the seemingly endless barrage ended. Devereaux looked at her plot. The Death Gliders streamed away from the Arcadia and were forming up at a distance where the turrets couldn't reliably hit them.

"Status report!" Colonel Rove demanded.

"Gliders are forming up for another strafing run," Commander Ford reported. "Glider count is now at three three two." One of the dots representing the Death Gliders disappeared, victim of a lucky shot. "Make that three three one."

"Damage is mostly superficial. No critical systems have been damaged," Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock added. "However, there are numerous small hull breaches. Sections breached have been sealed off. Turrets Six, Eight, and Twelve are damaged but functional. Seven, Nine, and Thirteen can fire but are no longer able to track; they're welded to the hull. Ten and Fourteen have damaged sensors and have to rely on the main arrays for targeting data."

"Rove, we need to distract those Gliders," Ford said. "If they all hit us again, we're going to be looking at critical system damage. I recommend we launch the fighters and dropships."

"Negative!" Rove replied. "Not while those Ion Cannons are still up and running. They'll blow are people out of the sky before they can do any good."

Dammit! Devereaux felt so useless. She was a pilot, but the ship she piloted wasn't flying anywhere yet. More than that, there were enough pilots on board to man all the fighters and dropships they had. All she could do was just sit and watch here.

"Marines report that they are pinned down by Ion Cannon fire," Lieutenant O'Neill relayed. "They're requesting any available fire support we could give them."

"Forty two Gliders have broken off from the main group," Ford added. "It looks like they're going after the Marines."

Under normal circumstances, it would have been the Arcadia providing fire support for the Marines. But the only guided missile weapons the Arcadia carried were Mark Nineteens which were far too powerful for Marine fire support, and all the direct fire weapons lacked line of sight even if they hadn't been preoccupied with the Death Gliders. In case the Arcadia was unavailable, fire support would have been provided by the dropships which did carry guided missiles, but…

Wait a minute.

"Ma'am," Devereaux spoke up, catching the Colonel's attention. "I have an idea."

Marine Boarding Party

Zor's Flagship

Low crawling across the top of the Goa'uld dreadnaught, Private Vasquez felt incredibly exposed. Of course, she and her people were exposed. The dreadnaught's entire upper hull was made up of kilometer wide triangular facets that were completely flat with a bulbous Ion Cannon mounted at each corner. When the Cannons had opened up, the Marines had been caught smack in the center of one of the facets. The Ion Cannons could fire extremely close to the hull, but not low enough to hit prone infantry. But the Ion Cannons had proved they could hit standing infantry. All movement had slowed to a literal crawl. Since they were half way to their objective anyway, Gunny had elected to continue the assault.

While Vasquez was no scholar, she was up on her general Marine history. She couldn't believe that they were carrying out a classic World War II style beach assault. In space no less.

A pair of bright flashes flanked Vasquez. Vasquez looked behind her. A damned Death Glider was making strafing run at her. Death Glider strafing runs were notoriously inaccurate because their two plasma guns were usually set too widely apart to hit what they were aimed at. And their accuracy was even worse here because the plasma blasts had smaller footprints here because there was no air to carry any shockwaves.

Flipping onto her back, Vasquez was going to show these Jaffa why most Jaffa in the galaxy had long since learned to NOT make strafing runs at Tau'ri soldiers. She chambered an M309 self propelled grenade, raised her M4A6, and fired. The Death Glider's cockpit promptly exploded.

"Yeah!" Vasquez shouted. "Take that, you mother…"

Then she noticed that Newton's laws of motion were making a nuisance of themselves. Without any planetary gravity to pull it aside, the now unpiloted Glider continued to head straight for her. There was no time left to dodge.

"Oh, sonuvabitch…"

Luck was with her. One of the Glider's wingtips struck the "ground" first, causing it to bounce and flip over Vasquez prone form. Vasquez caught an up close glimpse of the mess she had made of the cockpit before the Glider spun off into the void.

"Yeah!" Vasquez shouted in exhilaration, raising her weapon skyward. "Man, I am untouchable!"

As if to contest the point, an ion bolt flashed past, shearing her weapon's business end off just forward of the trigger guard. At the same time, another Death Glider started a strafing run on her.

Hangar Deck, Module B

U.S.S. Arcadia

Fokker watched as the Earth people scrambled around. They seemed to be getting two large boxy spacecraft ready for something. They were obviously some kind of transports, and they were obviously being armed. The two boxy craft were placed facing the doors at both ends of the hangar, each on opposite sides of the Earth ship. The Tel'tak had been moved off to one side to make room.

A pair of smaller fighters flanked one of the large transports, their pilots obviously impatient.

"What do you mean we can't use the transport rings in here?" Gloval demanded, drawing Fokker's attention. Narim had gone off to consult with the ship's commander, leaving Gloval in charge.

"Look," said the Earth man, a civilian apparently. "The structural integrity fields are the only thing holding this ship together. We can't drop them and with them up, nothing can get through them without actually punching a hole in a wall first. Not you guys ghosting." Fokker winced at the memory of trying to use his phasing device to walk through one of the ship's walls and almost breaking his nose trying. "Not any kind of communication signal. And certainly not transporters of any kind."

"Y'know, it's not a bad plan, Doctor Girardi," mused Vansen, the leader of the Earth soldiers. "We just have to get the Tel'tak outside the Arcadia." She looked around at all the activity. "I think we're going to have to take a number though."

Everyone looked around. The Arcadia's small craft were obviously just about ready to launch. And those hangar bay doors were obviously wide enough to fit maybe just one more ship…

"I've got an idea," everyone in their little circle said suddenly.

Bridge

U.S.S. Arcadia

The anonymous deckhand escorted Narim into the Arcadia's control center. He was feeling a bit disoriented by the impromptu tour to get here. From what he had seen, the ship was a random mix of the advanced and the primitive. A few careful questions put to his escort revealed that this ship was entirely Earth built. How had Earth come so far in just fourteen short years?

The bridge was more of the same. Again, there was that mix of advanced and primitive. In addition, the bridge was a hive of activity as reports flew back and forth.

"Hangar reports fighters and dropships are ready for launch."

"Understood. Standby for launch on my command. Enemy status?"

"Gliders are maintaining distance. Ha'tak is holding position on the opposite side of the dreadnaught."

"Tell me immediately when it looks like the Gliders are starting the next attack run."

"Colonel Rove?" Narim's guide called. The woman who seemed to be in charge turned to them. She looked startled at the appearance of Narim's guide and gave him a look that Narim couldn't quite interpret. "This is Narim," the guide continued, unperturbed, "the leader of the Tollan resistance."

"Narim?" Rove said, surprised. She turned to Narim. "SG-1's Narim?"

"Er, yes," Narim said. He was slightly annoyed that he was being described as belonging to SG-1. He was even more annoyed that he was being so petty. "I'm surprised to see that Earth has a working starship."

"Wow," Rove said, impressed. Then what he said seemed to register. "I'm sorry, Narim. But everyone back home assumed that you were all…"

"Ha'tak moving to attack position!" a dark skinned man interrupted. "Gliders incoming!"

Colonel Rove's head whipped around. "Flush port missile pod at the Ha'tak," she ordered, "and launch dropships and fighters!"

Marine Boarding Party

Zor's Flagship

1.2 billion dollars to build the starship that brought Corporal Dwayne Hicks here.

2 million dollars spent to equip Hicks with the latest in Marine battle gear.

Five hundred thousand dollars gone to train Hicks to be the best Marine he could be.

Fifty six bucks per armor- and shield-piercing bullet fired from his M4A6 carbine. Yes, inflation is a bitch.

The look on the Jaffa gunner's face when Hicks shot him over the barrels of his own plasma gun turret? Priceless.

By pure accident, Hicks had come across the Goa'uld turret. From his perspective, the turret was set in a pit in the dreadnaught's hull. Its placement meant that it couldn't fire on the Marines. By the same token, it also couldn't block the fire from the damned Ion Cannons.

It was a pity he couldn't actually enter the ship here. A forcefield covered the gunner's position. While Hicks' bullets could penetrate the forcefield, his suit and therefore Hicks himself couldn't. It was a pity that he couldn't spot the forcefield emitters. Still, it was a relief to be able to stand up without being shot.

Hicks poked his head slightly out of the "pit". It nearly got shot off.

Ducking back down, he switched his comm to unit wide broadcast. "Heads up, everyone! We've got enemy infantry in full Kull armor out here with us!"