Chapter Eleven

Lord Boreas Flagship

Sitting proudly, arrogantly on his pel'tac throne Lord Boreas carefully studied the holographic tactical display that had replaced the trapezoidal view port out on space beyond the golden, hieroglyph encrusted bulkheads of the Shal'kra-class mothership. The hologram displayed all the data the motherships scanners had been able to gather on the Terran outpost whose foolish, insolent commander had refused his generous offer to surrender.

It was not as much information as Boreas would have liked as the Terran station had begun generating somekind of electronic interference pattern, a pattern that combined with the radiation emissions of the gas giant was seriously degrading the resolution of his ships sensors. What he could see however told him that boarding and capturing the Terran facility was not going to be easy and could potentially be even more costly than it had already been for the forces under his command. The Terrans had built their outpost inside and around a nickel-iron asteroid of moderate size. Every surface of the asteroid was covered with projections of various sizes and designs and interspersed with them were a number of weapons turrets. The station was surrounded by a force shield, however they weren't able to get any detailed readings on the fields strength as the Terran jamming made such high resolution sensor scans impossible. They couldn't get detailed scans of the facilities weapons systems for the same reason, though if their ship mounted weapons were anything to go by the stations defensive armaments would be formidable.

"My Lord all reserve Glider squadrons have been launched and are awaiting your orders to attack," Rel'nak reported from the main console.

"Excellent," Boreas answered, "order Gliders to commence strafing runs on the station. All motherships will move forward into fire support formation."

"As my lord commands," Rel'nak responded before relaying the god's instructions to the Death Glider pilots and the commanders of the other three motherships. As the sensor display showed the Gliders beginning to advance on the station in a confident battle formation Rel'nak found himself envying the pilots. They would be the first to begin delivering Poseidon's retribution to the blasphemous Terrans, what he wouldn't give to be amongst them delivering the first blows of Goa'uld wrath.

Sadly he wasn't among them; he would be watching and taking part in the battle from the pel'tac of Boreas' mighty flagship. It was an acceptable compromise…

…as long as he got to watch the station – and the enemies of the gods it contained – burn.


Operations Centre

Sentry Station 29

"Enemy forces closing," Lieutenant Phillip Paricio reported as the sensor readings in front of him changed to show the alien fleet beginning to move again. He was vaguely surprised to find that the aliens weren't using any form of electronic countermeasures – certainly Terran commanders would to try and confuse enemy sensors and reduce the likelihood of defending fire striking their ships shields. The fact that the aliens weren't trying was puzzling and suggested that they were either supremely confident of victory for some reason, or they didn't have any ECM systems worth mentioning.

"Enemy fighters approaching on a strafing vector," he added. "Alien capital ships appear to be hanging back behind the fighter lines but are continuing to advance. First fighter wings entering defence drone engagement range. Alien capital ships approaching beam weapon range, laser range in four seconds they'll reach fusion beam range approximately thirty seconds later."

"Understood," Colonel Gerald McGrath answered studying the holographic tactical display floating in front of him. "Defence drones engage enemy fighters, fusion blasters stand by to engage any fighters that get past the drones. Lasers and fusion beams target the alien capital ships engage as soon as they enter optimum firing range."

"Aye sir," Lieutenant Jeremy White answered from tactical before relaying the orders to the crews in the weapons control rooms and to the defending sentry drones via encrypted subspace databurst transmission. "Defence drones have acknowledged the command and are moving to engage the alien fighters."

"Understood," Gerald acknowledged before turning his full attention back to the tactical hologram which showed the mass of red dots that represented the alien fighters sweeping towards the station like a shroud of blood. A smaller number of small green dots representing the defending drones advanced towards the fighters, fighters that showed no reaction to the approaching drones.

The behaviour of the alien fighters, their apparent obliviousness to the intercepting robot craft puzzled him. He began to wonder if the stations ECM emissions were disrupting the fighter's sensors so much that they couldn't see the drones through the electronic haze. It would explain the total lack of concern the alien pilots displayed, lack that was otherwise inexplicable as the stations sensors confirmed that the fighters had no shields and were only lightly armoured compared to the drones that were both lightly armoured and shielded. New data flashing up on the screen brought a smile to his face; the drones were engaging. Surprise, he thought.


Lead Goa'uld Fighter

That Same Time

Sitting comfortably in his seat Va'tan scowled as he studied the limited target information being supplied by his Gliders sensor suit. As the command fighter of the squadron he had better sensors at his disposal than other Glider pilots but even with the advantage they provided he was not getting much information on the target as the Gliders closed to combat range. In fact he was having difficulty seeing anything on the HUD at all; most of the screen was awash with static or electronic distortions. The immense amount of radiation flooding this systems blue giant star coupled with the electronic interference patterns the Terran space station was putting out conspiring together to make said station almost invisible to his scanners.

What little information he was able to make out however concerned him. The asteroid the station was built in and around was protected by a powerful force shield, breaking through it with Glider staff cannons would not be easy going on the shield power readings he could make out and it no doubt had defensive weapons that he would have to try and dodge. Still he would try his best to defeat the Terrans and take the station – to do otherwise would be disrespectful, bordering on blasphemous, to the gods. Not that he really cared about being blasphemous to the Goa'uld, like his father before him and his grandfather before that he wasn't entirely convinced that the Goa'uld were the all powerful gods they claimed to be. His father had long encouraged Va'tan to think for himself to see through the façade of Goa'uld divinity, to see them for what they really were – a race of evil, parasitic serpentine creatures that took over the bodies of other beings and did what they willed with them. The Goa'uld were truly not worthy of his worship, they weren't true gods but demons to be destroyed.

Not that knowing the true nature of the Goa'uld helped him much. He and like minded Jaffa could never reveal what they knew – they had to hide in the ranks of their misguided brothers who believed the Goa'uld's lies – the consequences of doing so. The Goa'uld always made a point of brutally punishing Jaffa who stood up to them and openly questioned their divinity – executing them again and again in the most brutal and horrific ways possible as punishment for their blasphemy and only granting the mercy of a quick and permanent death when the unfortunate Jaffa repented their accusations and pleaded for forgiveness. Sometimes it wasn't easy keeping quite but he'd managed it – and ascended high into the ranks of Poseidon's fleet based Jaffa as a result, which was useful to the quiet underground movement among the ranks of the Jaffa of all Goa'uld. A movement that dreamed of freedom from the Goa'uld's oppression for all Jaffa but which knew they were unlikely to ever achieve it, even with tacit aid and support from the Tok'ra. Far, far too many Jaffa believed the Goa'uld to be gods for freedom and the idea of a separate and free Jaffa nation to be anything other than a pipe dream, a dream that they would never give up on however unlikely it was to ever come true.

A sudden warning bleep from the Gliders computer brought him out of his thoughts. Glancing at the HUD Va'tan's eyes widened when he saw dozens of small objects moving towards him and his brother Jaffa, objects that were painting them with targeting systems a moment before opening up sending a barrage of yellow-orange bolts and red beams right at them.

"All Gliders evasive action," he shouted into the squadron command frequency even as he jinked his Glider into a hard bank to port, only just evading a pulse that would have crippled or even destroyed him. Other Jaffa mimicked the move, throwing their craft into evasive manoeuvres, despite this several Gliders exploded as bolts of energy struck home and punched through the armoured fuselages as if it were tissue paper as opposed to strong metal. Three more Gliders spun out of control as the fewer number of red energy beams sliced into their craft, taking off parts of wings, damaging engines or destroying control surfaces and in one case breaching the cockpit windows so explosive decompression instantly killed the unfortunate Jaffa pilot.

Va'tan didn't have time to mourn the deaths of ten of his compatriots; he was two busy trying to stay alive dodging a beam that wanted to slice his ship in two. A moment later something cut across his vision and he got a look at what was firing at him – even as the death explosions of another four Gliders lit up the stars.

His attacker was a small object about two thirds the size of a Death Glider. It was roughly cylindrical in design with two small cannons mounted on a pair of small winglets that extended out from the main fuselage. A third cannon of a different design to the other two sat at the tip of the objects tapering nose – a cannon whose muzzle glowed brilliantly with a bright red light. Realising what was about to happen, Va'tan jerked his craft upwards – just in time to avoid the brilliant javelin of energy that erupted from the alien fighter – if it was a fighter as he hadn't seen anything like a cockpit window anywhere on the thing.

Not giving the bizarre fighter a chance to strike again he fired back – sending a pair of yellow bolts back in retaliation. What happened next stunned him as instead of impacting and destroying the fighter the plasma blasts impacted a force field that hugged the hull of the craft almost like a second skin. The shield around the fighter flashed brilliantly with a scintillating blue glow that seemed to make the ship light up as the energy of the plasma blasts were dispersed and refracted harmlessly back out into space. The alien craft seemed to stagger in space from the attack but other than that seemed to be completely unharmed.

Not giving the craft a chance to recover and strike at him again Va'tan fired twice more. As with his first attack the first bolts of plasma impacted the fighters shield though the blue flash of diffusion was notably brighter this time. The second pair of plasma bolts smashed through the shield and cut through the thin hull of the alien craft and detonated whatever its power source was – turning the fighter into a momentary fireball that rapidly cooled in the absolute zero of space leaving behind a plume of so much metallic confetti.

Va'tan didn't chance to celebrate his victory as abruptly his Glider shuddered violently as something smashed into him from behind. Warning lights flashed on his displays reporting heavy damage to his propulsion and weapons systems. Wrestling with suddenly partially unresponsive controls he tried to counteract the horizontal spin that his fighter had picked up from the inertia imparted by the eruption of molten metal from the beam strike. After what seemed like an eternity – but was in reality probably only a few seconds – he managed to bring the Glider back onto an even keel and could turn his attention to the damage report that flashed up on the HUD eyepiece he was wearing.

It was not encouraging.

The beam from the Terran weapon – which the Glider computer identified as somekind of laser – had punched through the fuselage of his craft between the main drive and the power source. Had it struck an inch more in the direction of either system the beam would have blasted his ship apart. As it was he had sustained heavy damage. He was venting coolant which had caused the computer to automatically commence scram procedures for the main drive to prevent it overheating and melting. The upshot of the shutdown however was the fact that he had no way of manoeuvring his craft – he was committed to the slow orbit of the gas giant that his craft had fallen into. Not that manoeuvring capabilities would have gained him anything as according to the damage report his weapons systems had lost power – the laser beam had damaged the power plant causing another automatic shut down to prevent overload. He only had emergency battery power which was just enough for life support.

Mentally cursing at his situation he looked out the windows for a moment – his sensor display was blank from lack of power so he only had his eyes to see what was happening outside. It was enough to see that his fellow Jaffa were being ripped to pieces by the small Terran craft the enemy craft were moving incredibly quickly and pulling manoeuvres that seemed well frankly insane. If he'd tried to pull some of the moves he could see the Terran craft using in his Glider the gee forces would have killed him as they'd be far beyond the ability of the inertial dampeners to cancel out. Watching the somewhat one sided clash he couldn't help but wonder if the craft were manned at all or if they were somekind of drone fighters similar to the defence drones used by Hebridan.

Fresh explosions in space brought his wandering attention back to the battle. The motherships had come into weapons range and had opened up with their rapid firing secondary gun arrays – targeting the Terran drones. Given the massive power behind the plasma bolts it only took a single hit to destroy a drone – its shields being too weak to take the firepower directed against the drone. Just in time, he thought, maybe some of my brothers will survive this battle now.

After a moment he sighed and leaned back in his seat. He had no means of joining the battle, he would just be an observer until the fight was over and one of the motherships could recover his disabled Glider. He didn't like it, sitting here unable to do anything while fellow Jaffa fought and died was a great dishonour. But there was nothing he could do about it, he could only watch and pray for all the lives that had and would be lost in the raging battle. There was nothing else to be done.

Nothing at all.


Pel'tac

Lord Boreas Flagship

A Few Moments Earlier

Sitting on his throne Lord Boreas scowled in displeasure as the tactical display showed his Glider force being sliced to ribbons by the drone fighters launched from the Terran outpost to intercept them. Despite the high ambient radiation flux from the star and the Terran ECM the ships sensors easily determined that the fighters were drones and he couldn't deny that they were very, very effective against Death Gliders. The mechanical nature of the drones gave them advantages that organic beings like Jaffa couldn't counter even with the gifts his kind had given the Jaffa when they'd created them, that combined with the admittedly impressively advanced level of Terran technology made the drones deadly to the Gliders and their Jaffa pilots.

"Rel'nak how long until we enter weapons range?" he asked in the normal booming Goa'uld voice.

"We will be within weapons range of the station in forty-five seconds, my lord," Rel'nak replied promptly. "We have entered weapons range of the battle with the Terran drone fighters. Secondary gun batteries are awaiting orders."

"Excellent. Have all secondary batteries engage the enemy drone craft; I want them burned from the stars. Primary batteries and energy torpedoes lock onto the Terran space station."

"As my lord commands," Rel'nak replied before relaying the orders to the relevant control areas on the ship via the main console. Half a second later a faint thrum of power ran through the deck as the mighty Shal'kra's secondary guns opened fire on the drone fighters – taking the pressure off the few surviving Death Gliders.

Observing the tactical display Boreas permitted himself a small smile as he observed the annoying drone fighters being burned from the sky by plasma fire. So far this battle with the Terrans had given him nothing but setbacks it felt good to be finally be striking back at them. Hopefully the battle would go a lot easier from now on but he wasn't about to expect it to, he was too experienced as a fleet commander to continue underestimating his adversary. While the Terrans were merely Humans he knew that even Humans could be dangerous – especially when they had access to advanced technology the way the Terrans, Tollan and a number of other worlds in this galaxy did. He'd already underestimated the stations defences once and it had cost him all the primary Glider squadrons and everyone of his Alkesh, he wasn't about to make that mistake again.

"My lord we are entering torpedo range of the space station," Rel'nak reported. "Cannon range in five more seconds. Torpedoes are locked on target."

"Then it is time to teach the Terrans the folly of defying the will of their gods," Boreas replied with a small, evil smile "open fire."


For the second time since the battle for Sentry Station 29 had begun crackling masses of unstable charged particles encased in gravitic containment fields blasted forth from the torpedo banks of the Goa'uld motherships. Glowing with hellish silver-white light the salvo of twenty energy torpedoes streaked across space at seventy PSL and smashed into the same section of the shields surrounding the station with white hot force.

The shield around the station flashed brightly with cherenkov radiation as it dispersed the heat and energy of the blasts across its whole surface before radiating it back out into space. Shockwaves from the impact rippled through the station, rattling consoles, quantum processor chips, and power conduits while throwing standing crewmembers around like children's toys. Power throughout the station momentarily fluctuated as the EMP of the blast shot through the power grid momentarily disrupting the flow of energy from the antimatter and fusion cores before automatic systems countered the surge and restored an even flow of power.


Operations Centre

Sentry Station 29

Colonel Gerald McGrath bit back a groan of pain as he picked himself up from where he'd been hurled by the shockwave of the attack. His right arm and leg throbbed from where he'd hit the carbocreate reinforced nickel-iron floor of the operations centre but it didn't feel like anything was broken.

"Damage report," he ordered as he got his feat back under him.

"Shields holding," Lieutenant Jeremy Lions reported from tactical. "There was a minor power fluctuation in the power grid caused by the EMP but engineering has locked it down."

"For now," Lieutenant Philip Paricio added from his place at sensors. "Whatever those energy torpedo weapons are they pack a heck of a punch almost as much per torpedo as a Starwolf missile. The shields won't be able to withstand that kind of firepower for very long."

"I know, Phil," Gerald replied grimacing knowing that the ordinance trained Philip would know that even more than he did. The stations defence shields were designed to withstand fire more from energy weapons than missile and torpedo style weapons as the pirates and terrorists they'd been meant to defend against rarely used projectile weapons on starships. Abruptly another series of shudders ran through the station. "Those weren't torpedo hits," he commented.

"No alien ships are firing plasma bolts at us," Phil replied. "They must be firing from the very extreme of their range as the bolts are quite diffuse by the time they hit us, certainly there not powerful enough to do any major damage to the shields."

"Yes but if there in plasma cannon range they should be well within our own weapons range," Gerald replied grinning.

"Confirmed," Jeremy answered. "Alien capital ships are within optimum laser and fusion beam range. They're just within fusion blaster range as well but the pulses won't be very intense when they reach the alien ships if we start firing them now."

"Save the fusion blasters target beams only. Lock onto the closest alien ship," Gerald ordered as fresh plasma bolt strikes to the shields made their presence felt. Those energy torpedoes of those must take time to build up another charge between salvos, he thought, either that or the aliens prefer to use their plasma weapons to pound enemies apart for some reason.

"Weapons locked on target," Jeremy said bringing Gerald out of his thoughts as fresh salvos of plasma impacted the shields, rattling the station with increased violence as the range continued to close.

"Then its time we showed the aliens our own teeth," he replied "fire."


On the exterior of the station turrets and beam emitters rotated into position and locked onto one of the three Ha'tak-class motherships. Half a second later eight whitish red heavy laser beams and four luminous blue fusion beams erupted from the muzzles of the weapons.

Travelling at the speed of light the laser beams crossed the thousands of kilometres separating the station from her enemies first. The shield around the Ha'tak lit up with a luminous yellow-orange glow as the beams tore into it. Rippling distortion waves ran through the shield revealing the pseudo-crystalline structure of the force field as it worked to repel the intense beams of laser energy. Half a second later the slower moving but considerably more powerful fusion beams smashed into the Goa'uld ship, tearing at the shields with streams of superheated deuterium ions making the force field flare even brighter from the strain.

For four long seconds the beams continued to assault the shields causing generator temperatures on the Goa'uld vessel to spike as the shield fought to withstand the enormous power hammering it. Energy arced between the shields and the hull of the warship triggering small explosions as some of the shield emitters overloaded and blew out. Finally though the beams died away though the shields continued glowing fiercely as they slowly bled off the intense energy influx.

Unfortunately for the Goa'uld ship the assault was not over as less than two seconds later the laser assault resumed further putting strain on the shield, until with a brilliant flash of pyrotechnics the shields facing the sentry station gave way. The lasers instantly struck the hull and sections glowed cherry red as the beams of energy began melting through the thick trinium-naquada alloy of the warships armoured hide before shutting down once more. Fusion beams followed burning through the weakened armour to cut deep into the interior of the Goa'uld vessel eviscerating section after section on multiple decks and triggering a barrage of secondary explosions that spread the damage still further before the beams shut off.

Badly damaged the Ha'tak seemed to stagger in space, debris, radiation and blazing atmospheric gasses shooting out of the gashes sliced deep into the hull. Moments later the lasers and fusion beams resumed their assault slicing into the hull through the molten edged holes blown in the hull by the earlier assault. With little resistance the beams cut completely through the ship shooting out the other side even as fresh explosions erupted throughout the mothership.

The beam assault shut down once again and the Ha'tak slowly disintegrating from within and wracked with fires and explosions spun away. A moment later a second blue-white sun appeared in the system as the Ha'tak's heavily damaged naquada reactors overloaded and detonated with cataclysmic force. As the glow of the explosion faded nothing remained of the once proud vessel but a spreading, cooling plume of plasma and torn metal fragments.


Pel'tac

Lord Boreas Flagship

Sitting on his throne Boreas felt the mouth of his host open slightly as he gazed at the spinning debris plume that had mere moments earlier been one of the proudest Ha'tak's in his – in Poseidon's – fleet. Despite knowing how powerful Terran weapons were the speed with which the Ha'tak had been destroyed was still shocking and more than a little frightening. Especially as while considerably less advanced than Shal'kra-class vessels like his flagship Ha'tak's were still powerful warships that were not to be challenged lightly. To see one destroyed so easily was concerning and pointed to the Terrans being a power to be reckoned with.

He was jolted out of his stunned state by a violent vibration in the deck beneath his throne as three fierce red energy beams smashed into his flagships shields setting them aglow and violently shaking the ship.

"Shields holding my lord," Rel'nak reported as the beams faded away only for the ship to shudder again as one of the blue beams slammed into the shields. "Shields at ninety percent my lord, what are your orders?"

"Resume firing upon the Terran station," Boreas ordered as another laser blast to the shields rattled the ship, prompting the Goa'uld fleet lord to frown as this battle was not going as well as he would have liked. "Instruct all motherships to concentrate firepower on the same section of the stations shields, keep firing until the shields go down. As soon as their down have remaining Gliders strafe the station concentrating on disabling weapons arrays."

"As my lord commands," Rel'nak acknowledged, staggering slighter as the ship rocked again as a pair of beams clawed at the motherships shields again. "Shields at seventy percent my lord," he reported even as he relayed Lord Boreas' orders to the other motherships. "All ships have acknowledged your orders my lord and await your command."

"Open fire. Hit the Terrans with everything we have I want those shields down."


Fresh volleys of whitish-gold heavy plasma bolts and silver-white energy torpedoes erupted from all three remaining Goa'uld warships. Being now well within the weapons ranges of all parties the torpedoes and plasma shots crossed the distance almost instantly and smashed into the same section of the shield surrounding the sentry station.

The shield around the station flared brilliantly with Cherenkov radiation as the barrage of fire from the Goa'uld tore into it. A cauliflower of plasma flame and energy erupted as torpedo after torpedo and plasma blast after plasma blast pounded the same sector of the shields again and again putting that segment of the shield grid under immense strain. Shockwaves from the intense bombardment rippled through the station throwing crewmembers around and rattling components while the strain on the shield caused shield generators and emitters to start heating up from the stress.

Laser beams, fusion beams and fusion blaster bolts slammed out from the stations defensive grid in retaliation pounding heavy firepower into the shields of all three Goa'uld motherships. The shields on all three motherships flared brilliantly and rippled with distortion waves and all three vessels were violently shaken by the retaliatory fire. Yet neither side back off both continued firing turning space between the ships and the station into a maelstrom of light and energy as both parties tried to disable the other before they themselves were disabled.

It was a race that the Goa'uld ships were always destined to win as the sentry station's defensive shields – while powerful – had never been withstand the kind of firepower capital warships could put out for long, being more optimised to withstand fire from pirate vessels which as a rule sacrificed some weapons capacity for additional cargo space. Several small explosions appeared on the rock and trinium surface of the space station as overloading shield emitters blew out and sent a ripple of secondary explosions through the local power grid as power conduits overloaded and ruptured.

The shield around the station flickered once more then a large section of the shield faded away to nothing allowing several heavy plasma bolts and a single energy torpedo to strike the station directly. Large eerily silent explosions of plasma flame, rampaging charged particles and molten trinium and rock erupted from the station tearing apart delicate exterior instrumentation, sensor arrays and weapons turrets, while simultaneously triggering a barrage of internal explosions as shockwaves – undiminished by the partial inertial dampening effects of shields – rippled through the whole of the station damaging multiple systems and giving birth to dozens of electrical and plasma fires.

One such internal explosion damaged both the primary and secondary containment field generators for the antimatter reactor that provided the station with the bulk of its power. Automatic systems in the stations main computer responded immediately – slamming down the cores control systems causing antimatter injection from the fuel rods to cease as well as closing plasma fuel lines from the fusion generators as the reactor went into an emergency scram to prevent a potentially catastrophic loss of antimatter containment. As the core shut down main power throughout the whole of Sentry Station 29 flickered and dropped to barely forty percent capacity as the whole of the stations power demands automatically shifted over to fusion generators.

Fire from the stations weapons emplacements ceased as power to the stations defence grid died – the fusion generators alone being insufficient to provide the network with the power it needed to function. What was left of the stations shield coverage also evaporated as the stations computer automatically diverted what little main power remained to essential functions such as life support and artificial gravity and those systems that insured the asteroid into which the station was built would remain in its orbit of the gas giant.


Pel'tac

Lord Boreas Flagship

"My lord the Terrans shields have failed," Rel'nak reported in a gleeful tone of a Jaffa who believed victory was now inevitable. "The jamming has also ceased, scanners are reporting massive power failure aboard the station. There weapons systems appear to be completely off line – their defenceless."

"Excellent they will soon be ours. Are our boarding parties ready?" Boreas asked keeping his own tone calm and collected he knew that victory was not assured yet. After all while the stations external defences had now been dealt with there were unknown internal defences to consider – along with the fact that the Terran military personal onboard that station were unlikely to give up without a fight.

"They are my lord."

"Very good, tell them to launch. They'll proceed to board and secure the space station and Rel'nak make sure they know that I want prisoners."

Rel'nak turned and bowed to his god. "As you wish my lord," he replied before turning back to the main console to relay Lord Boreas orders to the Jaffa on the boarding craft waiting to launch from the other three motherships towards the station. Acknowledgements of the commands came in immediately and he was about to turn to relay them to Lord Boreas when the sensors screamed an urgent warning. Turning his attention to the sensor readout's Rel'nak's eyes widened and he went pale with horror at what he saw.

"My lord sensors are picking up a hyperspace window opening twenty thousand kilometres off our starboard side," he reported as calmly as he could "multiple warships emerging, from the configuration and power signatures I believe them to be Terran."

"How many ships," Boreas demanded a sense of despair abruptly falling on him like a smothering blanket. He knew his ships shields had been quite badly weakened by the battle – the tactical display confirmed that the shields were only at sixty percent capacity – they'd fought with the Terran space station, the shields on the Ha'tak's were probably even worse off given they couldn't mount the more advanced shielding systems a Shal'kra could. Even though the shields were starting to regenerate he realised that they were in no state to engage fully armed and operational Terran warships in battle.

Rel'nak swallowed nervously. "Twenty seven my lord," he reported as the console chimed at him again. "My lord we're receiving audio transmission from the Terran flagship."

"On speakers," Boreas ordered already suspecting what the Terran commander was going to say, what he would say if he had such an overwhelming advantage in firepower over an adversary.

"Alien vessels," a female human voice ringing with authority and confidence said as the hidden overhead speakers came to life, "I am Rear Admiral Kristen Mabuto commanding officer of the Victorious battle group. Your attack upon this station is an act of war against the Terran Federation, on the authority of the Federal Guard you are hereby ordered to stand down your vessels and prepare to be boarded. You will comply with this order or be destroyed. You have two minutes to make your decision."

"Terran vessels are targeting us my lord," Rel'nak reported grimly. "What is your will, my lord?"

"We cannot allow the knowledge in this ships databanks to fall into Terran hands don't you agree?" Boreas said with the calmness of someone who had accepted the inevitability of his death, though like all Goa'uld he feared what followed the termination of his mortal form. Unfortunately he couldn't say away out of this predicament, he couldn't run as the Terrans had more than enough firepower to turn his ship to plasma before they could jump to hyperspace and surrender was not really an option.

"I do my lord," Rel'nak replied without hesitation, being highly ranked among the Jaffa in service to Lord Poseidon he knew what would happen were this ship to be taken, how much damage the Terrans would be able to cause to his ultimate master should this vessels secrets fall into their hands. A glance at Lord Boreas showed that he knew it to, probably a lot more than Rel'nak himself did as Boreas was the fleet lord after all and a living god.

"Then we have no choice. Send an encrypted subspace burst to the throne world informing Lord Poseidon of what happened here. Then instruct all motherships to target the closest Terran ships."

"As my lord commands," Rel'nak replied as he prepared the message to Lord Poseidon informing him of what had happened here, though as a god Poseidon would likely already know what had taken place. In the message he included the location of the Terran station – it would be a good starting point from which to find the Terrans and finally punish them for their repeated acts of insolence against the gods.

It only took a moment to compose and send the message streaking through subspace towards the throne world. With that task accomplished Rel'nak relayed the orders of Lord Boreas to the other two surviving motherships, whose commanders – to their credit – did not balk at the orders. Like Rel'nak the Jaffa masters commanding those ships would know they were doomed and would be determined to meet their end with all the pride and dignity of a true Jaffa. They would die in the service of their god, which was the best death that any Jaffa warrior could hope for.

"My lord the other motherships report ready," Rel'nak reported as he directed the Jaffa at the flagships gunnery control stations to target one of the enemy cruisers.

"Very well," Boreas responded as he closed his host's eyes and gave the final command of his millennia long life, "fire."


For the final time in the battle for Sentry Station 29 all three surviving Goa'uld motherships burst into violent life. Whitish-gold heavy plasma bolts, smaller and more numerous golden plasma bolts and the silver-white spheres of energy torpedoes erupted from their weapons arrays and streaked towards the overwhelming force of Terran warships that had come to the stations aid. The barrage of fire smashed into the shields of the group of four destroyers and a cruiser that formed the vanguard of the Terran battle formation, setting their shields aglow and shaking the ships – and the crews within them – but being to spread out across the five ships to inflict any real damage.

The response from the twenty seven destroyers, cruisers and carriers that made up the Victorious carrier battle group was as spectacular as it was devastating. Whitish-red heavy laser beams, blue-green particle beams, red standard laser beams, luminous blue fusion beams and yellow-orange fusion blaster erupted from the weapons arrays of every single ship as they unleashed an alpha strike sufficient to tear a small moon apart.

Against the mere three Goa'uld ships the barrage was more than a touch of overkill.

The massive bombardment crashed upon the three ships like a tsunami on an unprotected shore. Shields flashed once as they futilely tried to deflect the maelstrom of destruction that washed over them, before giving way allowing the storm of energy and fusion plasma to smash into and through the armoured hulls as if they were eggshells and not super strong naquada-trinium alloys. An inferno of destruction flashed through the interior of the Goa'uld ships sweeping away bulkheads, Jaffa, slaves and Goa'uld as if they sandcastles before a raging sea.

As the barrage of energy ceased all three Goa'uld motherships erupted into massive fireballs as reactors, munitions and fuel all detonated at once tearing the once mighty ships apart. When the flashes of the motherships death explosions faded all that was left of the vessels and the thousands of sentients onboard them was a plume of cooling plasma, dust and torn metallic fragments that were no bigger than playing cards.

The battle for Sentry Station 29 was over.