The Alliance Wars

by vliegenvanger

this is a general continuation of BSG 16, Under Siege and TFS Ticonderoga. I have changed several other things. although this story is categorized as crossover, it will mainly deal with the SG side and a bit of BSG. now includes the Ori

20. Chapter 19

AN: Here it is. Took a while but now it's something.

Many thanks to Rudy Pena and Just-a-crazy-man for checking this chapter!

Halo station

2235 hours, July 2, 2025

Several hundred kilometers out from the Halo station a hyperspace window opened. The first ship to appear from the blue swirling vortex was the Enterprise. As the carrier decelerated its escorts dropped out of hyperspace as well. In no time the first Carrier Battle Group had exited the hyperspace window which closed immediately after. Seconds later a new hyperspace window opened about twenty kilometers away and the second Carrier Battle Group exited. One by one the remaining four CBG's exited hyperspace. Once the carriers had arrived, the battle squadrons started exiting hyperspace, all eight of them, with their escorts. Last but very much not the least, the Aurora Fleet, officially called the 'Advanced Battle group', exited hyperspace.

The crew of the Halo station had already been warned about the impending arrival of the fleet and many had taken the opportunity to get some pictures or film of the fleet as it exited hyperspace and formed up. In fact, a team from the fleet's PR department was out shooting for a possible future documentary. They themselves did not know what was going to happen, but from the amount of camera's and the secrecy, it was going to be big.

The fleet assembled was the largest ever assembled. Over a hundred thousand humans manned the ships. The fleet included a massive 214 capital ships and over 8750 fighters organized in more than 400 squadrons, the bulk of the Tau'ri Fleet. Aside from the six carriers, there were 12 drone carriers, 14 Aurora's of various subcategories, 40 battleships, 42 306-class ships and a hundred battle cruisers.

Aboard the Enterprise, General Emerson was awaiting a final call from earth.

"Sir, message from General O'Neill." A comms lieutenant reported.

"What does it say?"

"Operation Valkyrie is a go. Bon voyage." The lieutenant read. "It also includes a reference to a container in our hold, with a password."

"I'll have that looked at later." Emerson said. "I need an encrypted priority line to all group commanders."

It took a minute for the connections to be established but eventually the lieutenant gave a 'go'.

"Commanders, you've not yet been informed about the upcoming mission. Now I need you to gather up your XO and open the letter in your ship's safe with the code word Valkyrie on it. Read it and prepare for it, instruct your subordinate commanders to do the same. Transport starts at 2250 hours and we will form up on the other side and wait until everyone is present before proceeding."

Emerson received confirmations from all captains and leaned back in his seat. He knew how he had reacted when he got the news and now his subordinates were reading up on the first part of the mission. there was another envelope in the safes of the ships which detailed the exact plan ad target, but that one was only to be opened once everyone was on the other side.

Once the clock on the wall changed to 22:50 he sat up straight. "Signal to the fleet, commence cueing for jump and jump once possible." The fleet would now split up and get into position in front of the eight jumpgates that were part of the Halo station. One by one the ships started jumping away once it was their turn. It took over twenty minutes to jump the entire fleet deep into unknown space.

Unbeknownst to the Tau'ri, a Dominion recon vessel had observed the entire process of the fleet arriving and departing. It had sent an urgent message to its masters when the fleet started arriving, spurring them into activity.

Waypoint Alpha

2315 hours

"Sir the entire fleet is present and accounted for."

"Good. Any sign of the Drone ship?"

"There's a hyperspace track inbound, ETA two minutes. It matches that of a drone ship."

"Must be running late I guess. Not what I expected from machines." Emerson said more to himself.

"Contact the other ships, I want to address all crews simultaneously in a few minutes."

"Yes sir."

Not much later the drone ship arrived.

"Report coming in from the drone ship. No suspicious activities observed at or around point Bravo, nor anywhere else within the AO." A captain reported.

"Very well. Any information about why it wasn't here when we arrived?"

"It was late departing, it investigated an anomaly. It was nothing of importance to our mission, though some scientists might be interested in the data it collected."

"Let's file that under not so important right now." Emerson said. "I want to commence the hyperspace jump in five minutes. I want a joint hyperspace window with every ship in it, including that drone ship."

"Yes sir."

"Is my connection to all ships ready?"

"It is sir."

"Put me on." Emerson said as he tapped his earpiece.

"Crew of the Enterprise, crews of all ships gathered here today. This is General Emerson. Now that we've jumped so far away from our homes it is time for me to disclose the objective of the mission we're on. Early May, we discovered the travel itinerary for the Dominion emperor. It was decided that he should be taken out. At this moment, three special forces 306 class ships, are docked with an equal amount of Dominion mother ships believed to carry the Dominion emperor and his senior leadership. At a predetermined date and time, the forces aboard those 306's will strike and disable the hyperdrive engines simultaneously, dropping them out of hyperspace, in front of our guns. While those strike forces work to capture or kill the Dominion leaders, we will start destroying their ships. Once our soldiers have completed their task we will ex-filtrate them, and destroy any remaining ships before heading home again. The only downside is that, because of the distance, this mission will take nearly a month, and in the meantime, Earth is under attack. Ever since the vote on the continuation of war was held, most of you have been kept in the dark about the events unfolding on Earth. Through treachery, the Dominion managed to temporarily lower the planetary shields protecting our home world from threats. Coinciding with this treachery, they launched a massive invasion of Earth. The invasion managed to land nearly ten million troops on our home soil. At this moment, our ground forces are still combatting this invasion, and we are sure they will be victorious in defeating the Dominion. Right now, I want each and every one of you to stand to your duty. We will be going into one of the biggest battles of this war, and it may be the deciding one. Thank you all."

Fleet Command, Atlantis

1125, July 3rd

Ever since the fleet had departed, Fleet Command had been a fury of activity. Within minutes of the Tau'ri Fleet departing, Dominion units started deploying all across the galaxy. In most cases they moved into defensive positions near important places. In other cases they joined up with battle fleets. Everyone had been in constant confusion as to why all the sudden activity. Only General Allison had a bad feeling. She had been up all night trying to figure out what was going on. O'Neill had been by a couple of times already but was called away on each occasion. Now he was back again.

"Have you got anything?"

"No. The only thing I can think off, considering the timing, is that the Dominion know about Valkyrie."

"That's impossible. Few people know about it to begin with and we've barely left a paper trail, nothing mentions the goal or location of the operation." O'Neill whispered. No one beside the two of them knew anything about operation Valkyrie, the rest present wasn't even informed that the fleet had jumped away.

"I know, but that's all I can think off, that or just terribly bad coincidence."

"I know everyone who knows about Valkyrie personally, I trust every single one of them, it couldn't have been them." O'Neill said, not believing anyone he knew could betray Earth like that.

"I agree with you. I truly do." Allison assured him.

O'Neill sighed deeply. "Alright. What's been going on so far, any indication as to where they are going?"

"No, no movement in our direction. All they do is assemble and fly around a bit between their own bases."

"Any transports with those formations?"

"Plenty, but most are small, not enough to mount a second invasion of Earth."

"No big ones?"

"Not that we can see." Allison said. She wanted to say something but thought the better of it. As O'Neill looked at her questioning she spilled it. "I'm worried."

"Join the club."

"Not like that, well, that too. What I mean is, that, those formations are so large, we cannot get an accurate picture of the center and rear of those formations. That's probably because the mass of all other ships just block our sensors, but they might have found a way to jam or distort our sensors. I think we should send some of our LCS' to check the rear of those formations, they might be hiding transports there."

O'Neill stood still at the suggestion.

"Anything wrong?"

O'Neill turned to the senior officer in charge of intelligence. "Colonel, when's the last time we've performed a detailed sensor scan of the Halo station and its surroundings?"

"The Halo Station? I'm not sure, a month ago, maybe two. Why?"

Allison quickly caught up with the train of thought going through O'Neill's mind and could only manage an 'oh fuck'.

"Perform a detailed sensor scan of the Halo station and its surrounding area, immediately." O'Neill ordered.

"Yes sir." The Colonel said. He went to work and seconds later the scan started. Immediately results started coming in.

"On here." Allison told the Colonel as she walked to a holographic table.

The holographic table changed from a general overview of the Milky way galaxy to that of the surrounding area of the Halo station. One of the first things to start appearing were the numerous black holes in the region, exactly the reason for hosting the Halo station.

Allison zoomed the table in to the location of the Halo station even more. An icon indication an unidentified object appeared in yellow. She tapped the icon and streams of information started appearing.

"The Halo station?" O'Neill asked.

"No, it's right over there." She said pointing to another yellow icon which started blinking green as it was positively identified as the halo station.

"Then what's that?" O'Neill asked.

Before Allison could answer, the icon turned red, and it changed size and shape. "That's a Dominion scout. Hiding at the edge of an accretion disc swallowing up a gas cloud. The gas cloud obscures our regular sensor which is why we never detected it before. Only Atlantis' sensors are powerful enough to see through it." The Colonel explained.

"So that's why the Dominion are so active. They expect an attack from us." O'Neill said.

Hypathia, Tauron

0530, July 4th

Charlie Company, 12th MEU

Yesterday had been the first time the Dominion had tried to cross the river running through Hypathia. Now, the ground before them was covered in the stinking bodies of dead Dominion. They hadn't been able to clear it out since every once in a while the Dominion would start throwing rounds across the river. They had also started adjusting their defenses. Behind their main defense line they had dug several foxholes which would be manned by a few soldiers with SMG's, to take down any Dominion soldiers that managed to break through the main line. Yesterday nearly a hundred Dominion managed to get through the main line of the 12th MEU and had to be taken out one by one in the blocks directly behind them. This had been costly and while the frontal attack had killed or severely injured 30 soldiers, clearing the soldiers out of buildings had taken nearly double the amount in casualties, including a large part of the officers. Lieutenant Ryan, while only having been with the MEU for four months, and an officer for just five, had already taken the position of company XO after the captain and several other officers had been killed the day before.

The day had started early with an artillery barrage at 3, and a probing attack at 4.30. Just five minutes earlier the guards had reported noises that resembled engines and expecting an attack, Ryan had increased the watch to 50 percent strength. At the same time he felt the ground tremble, someone called out a warning for an artillery attack. Ryan and several other soldiers duck into a shelter while waiting out the bombardment, which turned out to be brief, and targeted their direct rear area.

The radio Ryan carried crackled to life. "Sir, you better get up here, you're gonna want to see this, we've got enemies inbound."

Ryan clicked the radio to respond as he climbed out of the shelter and headed for an observation post. The nearest observation post he found reminded him of one he read about in a book detailing the trench warfare of the first world war. The soldiers who manned the post had been innovative and used mirrors to be able to peak over the edge of the trench towards hostile territory without risking themselves. Ryan took the device and peeked over the edge. At the direction of one of the soldiers he turned the device and got a good look at what was heading their way. He changed the comms network to that of the MEU's command.

"Command, this is Charlie Six, I've got some sort of, eh, six legged vehicle inbound from across the river. It appears to be heavy armored. Interrogative, do we have any ATGM's?"

"Charlie Six, this is Actual, we've got Colonial armor inbound to take care of those. Be aware, they can, and most likely, will jump over your position. Maintain your line at all cost, Colonial units will clear your rear. Do you have a count?"

Ryan cursed inwardly. Cooperation between Tau'ri and Colonial units had been problematic in the past. Both used different ways of communication and different tactics, not to mention their level of training. He took the device again and scanned the part of the front he was responsible for.

"Actual, this is Charlie Six, I count twelve, repeat twelve, one-two hostile vehicles inbound, as well as a large number, at least battalion level, of infantry with amphib's heading for my sector." With 'amphibs' Ryan referred to amphibious vehicles.

"Understood. Hold your ground. I've got a single battery of 155's for you, channel 8."

Another call came out warning for another artillery strike. All soldiers immediately got into nearby shelters. So far, no artillery strike had actually claimed a life, but they were damned good at keeping heads down. Midway through the bombardment, Ryan heard a mechanical sound which could only be coming from those strange vehicles. As the last round struck ground, Ryan got out of cover, just in time to see one of the things jump right over his head, landing about four hundred meters behind his position, out of sight.

"Command, this is Charlie six, be aware, they jumped, approximately four hundred meters behind my position." Ryan reported to his CO.

"Understood, we'll be dealing with them shortly." Came the reply. "Good luck."

Ryan turned his attention to the river in front of him which was now filled with Dominion amphibs. The amphibs in question were light armored, partially open transports with a few light weapons mounted on top. Each carried about a dozen Dominion soldiers, and there were about 80 to 90 coming his way alone. Further up and down the river he could see even more amphibs crossing the river, but they were not his concern.

Ryan switched his comms network to that of the company. "All Charlie units, hostiles inbound, open fire at will." Mere seconds later the first heavy MG opened fire. Its rounds were strong enough to penetrate the lightly armored amphibs. Had every soldier in his company been equipped with a heavy MG, the battle would have been over in a minute. Unfortunately, there were only four heavy MG's available. The rest of the soldiers could only hope to hit something through the open top of the amphibs. Before the first amphib reached their side of the river, eight had already been taken out, each one on fire or sinking, or both. As the first amphib reached the shore it ground to an immediate halt and opened up its rear to unload the soldiers. As this happened the first rounds of precise artillery struck the area. Because of the close quarters fighting, each and every location had been extensively mapped beforehand and could easily and quickly be called as target. The corporal responsible for this fire was not near Ryan, he had been placed a hundred meters behind the main line in an abandoned building from where he could see the entire river bank, Charlie Company was responsible for.

As the Dominion soldiers were dismounted, the amphibs retreated back to the other side of the river to pick up more troops. The soldiers were now left in the open, very susceptible to Tau'ri artillery, LMG and rifle fire. The combination of artillery, heavy MG's, mines and a deadly crossfire on the shore meant that over half the assault force was decimated before it reached the first line of barbed wire. Admittedly, this line of barbed wire was only twenty meters in front of the main line of Charlie Company. The other half was wounded, dispersed and shell-shocked by the firestorm they had just gone through. Nevertheless, some remained capable enough to create holes in the barbed wire and lead the rest through. On their run to the relative safety of the Tau'ri trenches, the Dominion soldiers were subjected to more mines and even more effective rifle fire. Some Tau'ri threw grenades at masses of Dominion, but this also drew the same response from the Dominion soldiers. As Dominion soldiers reached the trenches, some jumped over, remembering their orders to overrun the defenses, instead of taking them out that was the second wave's task. Those that did defy their orders and jumped into the temptingly safe trenches were surprised by even more mines. The mines were placed at the very bottom of the trench and were activated remotely when the Dominion had started to infiltrate the barbed wire. The Tau'ri soldiers, if they wanted to move to another section of the line, used the firing step, which was about ten centimeters higher than the bottom of the trench, these were not mined.

The soldiers that jumped across the first trench found themselves under fire by the dozen soldiers that had dug in behind the main line. Though relatively few in number, their Colonial, high capacity, fast firing, armor piercing SMG's, which resembled Tau'ri UMP-45's with double drum magazines, made short work of any Dominion jumping across the trench. Some were mowed down mid-jump and most others were killed not much later. While those who jumped across the trenches were dealt with swiftly, those that jump in the trenches and managed to survive the mines were quickly becoming a threat.

"Charlie six, this is recon one. All above ground Dominion forces in your sector have been destroyed. Second wave destroyed by MLRS strikes. Only forces left are those in het trenches and dropped by the jump vehicles." The artillery spotter reported.

"Copy that recon one." Ryan replied. "All Charlie units, clear the trenches, mines are deactivated." Ryan ordered his troops. He had manually deactivated all the mines within his sector of the line. Ryan had been with a squad of first platoon during the battle. They were located at one of the strongpoints with a heavy machine gun. "Sergeant, your team's with me, we'll make our way to second squad. Corporal, you and your team make your way to first squad. Corporal you clear our evac route of any Dominion." He said to the three team leaders assembles in the strongpoint.

Ryan readied his weapon and replaced the magazine with a fresh one. The M701 Ryan and most other marines carried, held two magazines, one was a miniature naquadah generator to power the weapon, and the other carried nearly a hundred titanium rounds. These rounds were packed in such a way that they expanded as they hit a target, doing massive internal damage, while only having the size of a small bullet. The naquadah generator added the speed, and plasma, to make the round very deadly to any unarmored target, and quite deadly to most Dominion personal armor. The M-701 was a replacement for the purely energy based M-700, which proved not quite up to the task of stopping Dominion soldiers. The M-700 was excellent for Wraith or Jaffa soldiers, but not the somewhat better armored Dominion. As his rifle showed a green light indicating readiness to fire, Ryan stepped over to two marines who had already taken up position at the entrance to the trench leading to second squad's strongpoint. Ryan peeked around the entrance and found the trench empty. He couldn't see far, the trench wasn't just one straight line, but it held numerous 90 degrees corners to minimize the damage of fragments from explosions. The line basically zigzagged.

The sergeant leading the fire team joined up with him and also peaked around the corner. He reported his team ready and Ryan was the first into the trench. A few dead Dominion lay at the bottom of the trench, all having been killed by the mines. The remaining mines had a small green light blinking. Some genius had added red and green lights to the mines to indicate their status. Red meant an active mine, while green meant a deactivated mine. The first thing done when installing the mines, was removing the red lights, there was no need informing the enemy where not to step. With the rifle against his shoulders he walked up to the first 90 degrees corner, this one lead to their rear. As the rest of the team joined up and stacked up behind him he got a tap on his shoulder. He peaked around the corner and saw an empty trench. He once again made his way to the next corner. Before he got there, a Dominion came around the corner and Ryan, on reflex, pulled the trigger and sent a half dozen bullets into the Dominion. It fell down like a sack of potatoes. At all times he kept moving towards the next corner.

As Ryan reached the next corner he was again confronted by a Dominion soldier. As he tried to aim his rifle he collided with the Dominion who tried to do the same thing. Realizing he would not get his weapon up in time he did the next best thing. He let go of his weapon and grabbed the Dominion's weapon to aim it away from himself. He succeeded in grabbing the weapon but the Dominion pushed forward, throwing both of them on the ground. Ryan rolled the both of them over so he was on top and used his free hand to start punching the Dominion in the face. Meanwhile the marine that was right behind him covered the corner and dropped several Dominion in the next trench. With Ryan on top of the Dominion soldier, locked in hand to hand combat, there was no way for the other marines to shoot the Dominion without risking hitting Ryan. Eventually Ryan managed to pull away the weapon from the Dominion freeing up his left hand. While his left hand recovered from grabbing onto the hot barrel of the Dominion weapon, Ryan managed to get a hold of his combat knife. He managed to get two stabs into the Dominion's chest before he received a devastating punch in the face by the Dominion soldier. In response he jammed the knife into the Dominion's left eye, finally killing him. He removed the combat knife and cleared it of blood by wiping it off at his pants.

Meanwhile marines from second squad linked up and reported the rest of the trench cleared. Ryan had his face looked at by the sergeant from first squad. "Get your men back to their shelters and get something to eat, rest up and rearm. I got a feeling we're gonna be busy today." Ryan said to the corporal from second platoon.

"LT, you've got to get this looked at sir, it looks pretty bad." The sergeant said.

"I'm not going to the rear, I'll have the medic look at it once he's done with the wounded." Ryan said. "You got your zat with ya?" Ryan asked, referring to the Zat'ni'katel each squad was equipped with to get rid of Dominion bodies within their trenches.

The sergeant produced the weapon and opened it.

"Start clearing the trench, take your team for backup, I'll be back at the CP." Ryan said. He got up and started off in the direction of the strongpoint from where he could easily reach his CP.

White house, Situation Room

July 6th, 1630 hours

War Cabinet meeting

The meeting had already run later than it was supposed to on account of a recent breakthrough by the Dominion in Germany.

"So general, get that Indian division deployed to Dresden and defend that road leading to Prague, we cannot allow that city's weapons industry to be lost." The Secretary of Defense said to the Army Chief of Staff.

"Yes sir."

"Alright, moving on." Ryan said.

"Sir, the situation on Tauron isn't improving as we'd hoped." O'Neill said as he stood up. A holographic map of Tauron appeared and quickly zoomed in on the city of Hypathia and its surrounding areas. Numerous icons indicated friendly units and hostile units.

"The Colonial 118th Armored Division was unable to break the Dominion siege of the city. Meanwhile we've lost most contact with our forces in the city. The Dominion have reinforced their troops on the west side of the river. As it is, we have no way to get our troops out, and no way to get supplies in. They are cut off."

"How many troops are in the city?" Ryan asked.

"We've got the 12th MEU with about 1200 men, we managed to get a brigade from the 6th airborne in, that's about 4000 men, and some smaller units, some just by coincidence. A total of about 8000 Tau'ri troops, and about 30.000 Colonial soldiers, not counting the militia's and the civilians that refused to leave. Also, these are the numbers for July 4th, since then those troops have been in near constant combat and we expect there to be losses." O'Neill said.

"How the hell did all this happen General? Look at it, we've got the tenth mountain division retreating, not exactly a bad unit. Three National guard divisions being pushed back hard and numerous Colonial units have been shattered. We nearly lost the first airborne division yesterday!" Ryan said. "We had expected an attack didn't we?"

"We did. As did the Colonials. Unfortunately, those jump vehicles of theirs were available in much larger numbers than expected. Not only did they land a brigade of Dominion in Hypathia, but also a division worth of troops, both to the north, and south of the city. They picked their crossings well, both attacks targeted draftee units from the Colonial Army. Those units were green, and did not coordinate their actions well. Things went a bit better in the city itself. There was a Colonial mechanized Division assigned to deal with the infiltrations by the jump vehicles. Unfortunately, they were positioned to far forwards, those vehicles jumped several kilometers, right into the center of Colonial command and control for the entire sector. We warned them about it being too close to the front, but they wouldn't listen. When that command hierarchy got wiped out those forces were left in the dark and it took them a while to get organized again. The chaos in the city combined with the break-through on the flanks made it a complete mess. Yesterday, the Dominion started jamming most of our radio frequencies and we've only been in sporadic contact with our forces. From what we can ascertain, the 12th MEU has abandoned its fortifications along the river and has established a new front line somewhere in the city. Other units have also fallen back and have since then been redeployed. All signs indicate that the Dominion are now clearing the city, house by house."

"Like Stalingrad?"

"If we don't do anything about it, it will turn into Stalingrad, yes sir."

"Options?"

"With the current force levels we cannot launch a successful counterattack. We need to reinforce the troops asap." The secretary of defense said.

"And from where would you draw those reinforcements? The Colonials don't have anything to spare and we have deployed all our assets on Earth. If the situation on Earth remains as it is, we might, and I must stress the might, we might be able to spare two or three divisions." The Army Chief of Staff said. "We've got an entire army group at the Colonies fighting, two thirds of it is requesting additional units. The situation around Nox is also getting quite precarious, our marines have abandoned the outer defenses and are now only twelve kilometers away from the city. If the Dominion take that city, we've got nearly an entire army cut off."

"What are you saying general?" Ryan asked.

"Currently, we've got to much fronts to be fighting on. We either need to make do with what we've got, or we've got to cut a front." The Army Chief of Staff replied.

"Any suggestions?" O'Neill asked.

"Well, a couple of days ago I got a mail forwarded from the CO of the first cavalry division. It details a plan to break out of the Nox perimeter and fight to the Caprica-Delphi perimeter." The Army Chief of Staff started.

"Aren't those two areas opposite one another on Caprica's main continent?" Allison asked.

"Yes. The distance is about 4000 kilometers." The Army Chief of Staff said. His secretary had found the email and attached op-plan and gave it to the general. "From what I can see it entails a fighting column covered by portable shield generators, a length of six hundred kilometers and a width of nearly eighty kilometers. Within the column would be every vehicle and unit that's currently at Nos. Anyone who cannot be evacuated by gate in time will get out by vehicle. We'd have to leave quite some stuff behind but the most important things could be packed up in a couple of days."

"I'm not convinced of its feasibility." O'Neill blurted out. "Any type of delay could damn that column. If they get stuck somewhere, or the Dominion put up a fight, they are dead."

"I'm not sure the Colonials would agree either." Ryan said.

"The Colonials have very little troops there. A lot of their force is committed at Caprica and Delphi." O'Neill said. "If they want to stay, let them. They'll be dead within a week."

"Okay. Get a plan worked out based on this proposal. In the meantime I'll talk to Roslin about it, try and see if she's willing to agree." Ryan ordered.

"Yes sir." The Army Chief of Staff said.

Ryan checked his watch. "Okay, I guess we're all getting tired of this. Let's adjourn for the day and we'll see each other again at the next meeting." Ryan stood up and all present stood up as well. He walked out without delay and the rest got their stuff and went on their way.

Ryan went up to the residence immediately. His children weren't there, they were in Boston, with his in-laws. His wife had just returned from her job as eye surgeon at John Hopkins.

"How was your day?" He asked her.

"Tiring. Despite all the advanced equipment, some surgeries still require a steady human hand."

"How long?" he asked.

"Six hours." She said. "How was your day?"

"Bad. I've got some bad news." He said as they both sat down. "It appears that the 12th MEU's been surrounded at Hypathia along with about forty thousand Tau'ri and Colonial soldiers. We haven't had any contact with them for nearly a day." Ryan said.

Before Cathy could respond, General O'Neill walked in. "Sir, Ma'am, I hope I'm not interrupting."

"What is it Jack?" Ryan asked.

"Sir, A colonial spy satellite intercepted a transmission between the Dominion command ship at the Colonies and Dominion forces on the ground at Hypathia. The transmission appears to be a video. Sir, it is a message from your son to you, it appears it has not been sent yet. I've got it here if you want to have a look."

"Please." Ryan said as he took the tablet from O'Neill. He sat beside his wife and pressed the play button.

The media player took a few seconds to load the video. Once it was loaded it started with a shot of the ground but was quickly turned to the face of Lieutenant Ryan. Blood and dirt was visible on his face as well as some bruising starting to show. It didn't diminish the smile though. "Hi mom, hi dad. I'm fine." He said as he pointed at his face. "Trust me, the other guy looks much worse." He grinned. "I walked into a Dominion and got into a fistfight. I won, obviously. I called to eh, to let you know I'm still alive. We're pretty secure here and we've got Colonials covering our rear now so we ought to be safe. I hope you guys are alright as well, with the war that close to you. I got a mail from Kyle the other day, he enjoys being with grandpa in Boston." There was a pause. From off screen someone started talking. "Sir, we've got a shitload preparing to cross." The man said. Junior didn't pay any attention to the camera he was still holding and it lost sight of him. "Jenkins, get an arty barrage on the other side of the river. Increase our readiness to fifty percent." From the shaking of the picture it seemed as if he was now walking in a hurry. Jack and Cathy could both hear the same sound the moment their son, and someone else called out for it. "Incoming! Take cover!" more hurried walking an eventually the screen went black and the feed cut out.

"That's it sir." O'Neill said. Our techs went over it, and it seems legit."

"What does it mean General?" Cathy asked, terrified.

"We don't know." O'Neill said. He produced a recorder from his pocket. "This is the same type of recorder your son, and any other officers are equipped with. Its primary use is for allowing others to watch events unfold, but it can be used to send messages home as well." O'Neill explained. "It's quite easy for the data recorder to be severed from the camera itself, like this." O'Neill said as he yanked at the cord connecting the two, it broke with ease, "It's a factory issue, they're working on it." O'Neill apologized to Ryan. "That's an option we should hope to have happened. The other is that your son was killed or severely wounded in battle, enough to be left behind in a hurry, after which the Dominion recovered this from his person."

"What do you think General?" Ryan asked.

"If they had your son's body we would have known about it, or will soon. They wouldn't pass up on showcasing it, especially after the speech you've made about your son and daughter with the military."

"So nothing has changed?" Cathy asked.

"Correct, we assume he's with his troops, defending Hypathia."

"So we're back to nothing." Ryan said.

"Yes sir. My apologies for the extra worries."

"Mister President, my apologies for interrupting." Secret Service agent Price said as she walked in, several other agents in tow. "Atlantis detected a large Dominion fleet inbound for Earth, ETA twelve minutes, we need you and the general in the situation room, the war cabinet is being assembled there as we speak." She said as she walked over to him and grabbed a hold of his arm to lead him to the nearest elevator, the other agents standing around him protectively.

"Let's go." Ryan said as he started walking. Before he left, he gave his wife a kiss.

Situation room

Ryan and O'Neill were the last to enter the room, despite the shortest distance to travel. Both went to their seats.

"General Allison, what's going on?" Ryan asked immediately.

"About six minutes ago Atlantis was able to break through Dominion jamming and detected a large fleet incoming straight for Earth. They were somehow able to hide their approach and we do not yet know how exactly. We do know that the fleet has about four hundred ships in it, of which half are transports. Given the amount and types of transports we're looking at a conservative twelve million troops inbound." Allison said rapidly. "ETA ten minutes."

"Have all defenses been placed on high alert?" Ryan asked.

"Yes sir. General Lorne is in the replacement chair at Atlantis while Colonel Glaber is manning the Antarctica chair. Both are launching a first wave of drones to intercept the Dominion fleet once it exits hyperspace." Allison said. "Atlantis' weapons systems are fully powered up, if they get close, Lorne will whack 'em."

"Where can they land those transports?" O'Neill asked.

"Deployment of mobile shield emitters went faster than we expected and the entire planet is covered by our shields one way or another, even Washington DC. Only the moon is not completely covered by a shield."

"So that's their target. The moon?" Ryan asked.

"After what they did last time it's anyone's guess sir." Allison said what everyone was thinking.

"Dominion ships exiting hyperspace in ten seconds, multiple locations." The voice of Walter Harriman said over some feed from Atlantis.

"Can we get some visuals or sensor readings?" Ryan asked.

A lieutenant got the cue and several screens activated showing the sites where hyperspace windows were opening. The screens activated just in time to see the first Dominion ships exit hyperspace and get torn apart by nearby drones.

"Six distinct exit locations detected. Five near earth, all northern hemisphere, one near the moon." "Moon force is moving in for landing, Atlantis' weaponry will be able to fire. Earth forces are remaining in position. Calculating possible landing area's using historical data." Harriman reported. Harriman didn't know the president was listening in. His feed went to all major commands as well as Atlantis and the Antarctica base. "Earth forces general landing areas are: Washington DC, Cheyenne Mountain, Rammstein, Berlin and Hannover."

Atlantis, Gate room Terrace

General Carter stood on the terrace overlooking part of Atlantis and its shipyards. Mere minutes ago the base had gone on alert. Using her rank she managed to get to the central tower. After having learned what was happening she had retreated to the terrace knowing there was nothing she could do about what was to come. General Lorne was in charge and all she could do was watch the show. She was in awe as she saw a stream of drones rise up from the drone launchers on the piers. Never had she seen so many launched simultaneously, not even by general O'Neill while fending off Anubis' attack. High up over Atlantis she could see the first wave of drones impact several Dominion ships as they exited hyperspace. Brief but intense flashes signaled the deaths of several Dominion warships. As more and more ships exited hyperspace, the weapons of Atlantis powered up. Spread throughout the city, atop the highest towers, were thirty six Asgard Plasma Beam Weapon turrets, similar to those on a 305 class battleship. They started firing at will, lighting up the city with their intense white-blue-ish color. Though not yet in range, the other defenses of the city powered up as well. 120 CILS units were powered and ready just as 60 CIWS units. Down on the piers, Carter could see numerous people walking outside to take a look at the spectacle. It was the first time that Atlantis' full defenses were activated and fired. Those marines who were not at the outer perimeter were given a great show.

Behind her, the crew of the control room overlooking the gateroom worked diligently to keep operations going smoothly. It didn't mean much, nowadays, there was an operations center with a help desk to take care of the low level day to day business, and Lorne was doing all the hard stuff from the chair himself. Most they did was check readings from the most critical systems.

"I've got a non-responsive console. Must be the power drain screwing with the OS." The Technician at the dialing console said calmly.

"Checking." Another technician who was responsible for the city's software said. "Negative, power readings are well within norm for normal operations, no cut offs detected."

The first technician started talking but was cut off by something she hadn't expected.

"Gate is dialing!"

"Are we dialing?"

"No, it's an incoming wormhole!"

"How's that happening, Stargate Control Center isn't allowed to direct any incoming wormholes to us!" The Stargate Control Center is in charge of all gate travel within the Tau'ri Federation.

"I don't know, it doesn't matter. Activate the gate shield, now!"

The technician pushed the correct button and nothing happened. The technician pushed again, and again.

"It isn't working!" the other technician walked over and pushed the same button several time with no result.

Carter had caught the last of the panic as she walked into the control room. "What's going on here?" She demanded.

"Ma'am, the gate is dialing and we have no control over it, nor over the gate shield." The second technician said.

Carter activated her radio which put her on with the command personnel on Atlantis. "This is General Carter, I'm at the control room and we have an unauthorized off-world activation and our gate shield isn't working. I want defense teams to the gate room stat."

She was contacted by Lorne immediately. "Sam, I need you to take care of this new situation, I can't focus on two things at the same time."

"Don't worry Evan, I'll take care of it." She replied.

The first soldiers assigned to the defense teams ran into the gate room and took up position at both sides of the gate, ready to cut down anyone who would try to get through.

"Chevron five locked." A technician announced.

"Right." Sam said. "Everyone here, either arm yourself or get out. We might be in for a tough fight." She changed her radio to the channel of Atlantis' marine defense battalions. "Colonel Walker, I want one marine defense company at the bottom of the central tower and I want another one to make its way up to the gate room and aid in the defense of the city." She quickly received a positive reply. Some people rushed out of the control room for a safer area. Others got weapons from a nearby locker. One of the technicians handed an assault rifle and tac vest to Carter. She put the vest on and readied the weapon just as the seventh chevron engaged. The wormhole connected and the gate opened.

For a few precious seconds nothing came through the gate. Meanwhile more and more soldiers and personnel got in position around the stargate. Most of the people not with the defense teams were upstairs, waiting to fire from the balconies. The defense teams stood or kneeled around the gate.

Four plasma grenades flew through the gate. All landed on the slightly raised platform in front of the stargate. Everyone who understood what was happening dived for the floor immediately. The four grenades went off nearly simultaneously. Hundreds of little blobs made out of plasma were spread throughout the gateroom and even up onto the control room. Several people were killed outright and many more were hit by blobs of burning plasma. Just a few feet from where Carter had taken cover a technician fell down grabbing his face as it was being burned by plasma. From below, in the gateroom, she heard a single shot ring out, soon followed by several short bursts. She got up and got over to the railing from where she could oversee the situation down near the gate. Four of the soldiers were already dead and four more were too wounded to fight. In front of the gate several Dominion lay already dead. As she noticed several more soldiers arriving and taking up position she raised her rifle just as four more Dominion soldiers rushed through the gate. All four were immediately peppered with bullets and none made it more than ten feet. As the last Dominion fell, a new group of four soldiers exited the gate. As these were dealt with, another four exited the gate and immediately sidestepped and started firing at the defense teams. Carter took quick aim and took out the two Dominion to the left of the gate. By the time she was done another group of Dominion passed through, and as she pulled the trigger she found out she had already expanded the first magazine. She stepped back and released the empty magazine and grabbed a new one from the vest. As she readied her weapon she looked around to see that three more men had fallen to Dominion weapons fire. Just as she turned to the gate to open fire again she noticed four marines rushing up the back stairs into the control room. Without a word, the four marines took up position looking over the gateroom and started firing.

Carter stood up again and took aim at the first Dominion she saw and she let loose a burst. The soldier dropped but immediately two more Dominion soldiers took his place and were quickly cut down by someone else. She realized it was a losing battle, the amount of Dominion exiting the gate was larger than the amount of soldiers the defenders could kill, not to mention the losses on the defender's side. By now the entire defense force in the gateroom had been annihilated and only the fresh marines were still fighting there. As she again stepped back to reload her rifle, her spot was filled by a marine sergeant. A marine captain approached her and gave a small salute.

"General, what are your orders?"

"Deploy your machine guns in such a way as to create a killing zone right in front of that gate, the rest of your men should take up positions all around the gate and just kill anything that gets through the killing zone."

"We'll do our damned best to kick these suckers out ma'am."

"You better, if we don't, we might lose the base."

"About that," he produced a small black box, "I took the liberty to have some friends rig the support columns a few floors down, just in case. Should bring the top section down."

She took the detonator and put it in a pocket. "Let's hope that won't be necessary"

"Now general, I'd suggest you get somewhere away from the fight and to a place from where you can actually command this fight."

"You've got this?" She asked him.

He responded with just a nod as he gave orders to four marines carrying heavy machine guns. In no-time, they had deployed their weapons and the first shots rang out.

"Okay, I'll be at the secondary control room."

Situation Room

"Sir, Atlantis is under attack through the gate. The gate shield is disabled and Dominion forces are entering the gate room, so far we're holding it." A lieutenant suddenly reported.

All heads turned to the lieutenant in shock, O'Neill was first to react. "Get Lorne on the line!"

Seconds later Lorne was ready.

"Lorne what've you gotten yourselves into?"

"I have no idea what's happened. The gate suddenly started dialing and the gate shield didn't respond. It still isn't, I'm trying to find out what happened to it but my focus is currently in orbit." Lorne said. "I've put General Carter in command of the defense of the gate room." That raised some eyebrows and caused some stares, mostly at O'Neill, it was his wife after all.

The stares remained for a few seconds longer than O'Neill had wanted, "What are you looking at me for, she can take care of herself. Hell, she blew up a star once, this is a piece of cake to her."

Behind O'Neill a screen started flashing red and an alert sounded. "Now what." O'Neill said as he turned around as he saw the National security advisor seated across of him blink as he stared. The moment he read the alert his jaw dropped. SHIELD EMMITERS INOPERABLE. LOSS OF COVERAGE IMMINENT. "What. The. Fuck." Was all Jack could manage.

A lieutenant, who hadn't been paying attention to what happened in the room, turned around and made an announcement: "Dominion task forces are moving in, early movements suggest an invasion and orbital bombardment of previously identified locations." He was sort of surprised that there wasn't a strong reaction until he saw the screen behind General O'Neill. All he could manage was 'oh'.

Another, scared lieutenant spoke up, "Sir, it appears that there were attacks and explosions at numerous shield generator sites. Most of the sites that were attacked were located in the northern hemisphere. So far, at least nine sites are confirmed to be a total loss with four initially estimated to require several days of repairs."

"What does it mean for our shield cover?" General Allison asked.

"General failures over North America and Europe, and localized failures over Australia and Asia." The lieutenant replied.

"General Lorne is requesting targeting orders. He wishes to know whether he should target the invasion ships, or the warships executing an bombardment of our civilian and military infrastructure."

"The warships." Allison blurted out. The Chief of Staff for the Army wasn't too happy about it. Allison continued, "We're lucky they don't have a mother ship in orbit, otherwise we'd be dead already." In fact, some hits had come close enough to make the bunker shake slightly.

"Agreed, but tell him to launch additional supplies of drones and issue orders to all squadrons to engage those invasion ships, we need to lighten the load on the ground forces as much as possible." Ryan said.

O'Neill didn't pitch in to the conversation because his attention was drawn to a revised landing area for the DC group. He discreetly asked a lieutenant to get special agent Price.

Seconds after the lieutenant left the room, secret service Special Agent Price walked in and directly headed for O'Neill. The special agent was the lead agent on the president's protection detail. "Andrea, these are the revised landing patterns for the Dominion landing ships." O'Neill said softly. Price took the tablet from O'Neill to study it better. "They're coming down on this side of the Potomac."

Price studied it another time. "How many?"

"Tens, if not hundreds of thousands."

Price stood up straight and brought her arm to her face, her sleeve held a transmitter, "This is Price to all units, Hometown is about to be compromised, evacuate Swordsman, Surgeon and all other primary and secondary objectives with haste. Data security is to commence immediate wipe of all security materials, we're leaving hometown." Hometown was a codename for Washington DC and swordsman and surgeon were codenames for the president and first lady.

By the time she was done ordering the evacuation of the city, the first secret service agents walked in as well as a number of marines with rifles.

Ryan looked up at the personnel suddenly walking into the situation room. Andrea explained, "Mister President, Dominion forces are landing on this side of the Potomac, we're evacuating you, your wife, the cabinet here, and all other essential persons in the city and I've initiated a wipe of all secured data materials." At that exact moment all the screens in the situation room went black as links were severed and data was erased.

"Where to?"

"Naval station Ferguson, near Halifax sir." An agent said. "The surrounding area hasn't been hit yet."

"Transport is three minutes out, we should get topside soon." Another agent said.

The president and a number of chiefs were all crammed into the elevator along with a few agents. Once they got topside they were guided to a hallway opening out to the north lawn. In the distance, a few puddle jumpers were already approaching. Meanwhile, Ryan was reunited with his wife and busy making sure that the staff of the white house would also be evacuated.

As the jumpers closed in and slowed down, several launched drones which flew over the white house. More and more sounds of the raging aerial battle reached them as the Dominion landing ships got closer and closer to their destination. A burning F-302 flew overhead followed by a Dominion landing craft which was in the process of falling apart. Several railguns placed at the far end of Lafayette square opened fire, their tracers sped closely over the jumpers and the white house.

Finally, after what seemed to be an hour, three jumpers touched down with another four flying overhead, watching, waiting, ready to react. Ryan was the first to be pushed in. O'Neill and the army chief of staff were also placed in the president's jumper, the other chiefs and war cabinet members would be spread out over the other jumpers to minimize the risk of losing to many decision makers in one blow. O'Neill took the co-pilot's chair since he had one of the highest ATA gene scores.

The pilot took off once the ramp was closed. "This is Jumper One, taking off. Evac route Deacon." He said.

At less than twenty meter, the jumper banked right and turned north as it took its precious cargo away from the new battlefield. Three of the overflying jumpers turned to get in formation with the jumper as the other two jumpers with evacuees took off as well. More jumpers were inbound as well as a number of other craft to evacuate other personnel, both from the white house, and other government establishments throughout the city. Just as their escorts completed their turns and were reached by the presidents jumper, two blew up as Dominion fighters sped past. Immediately, drones sped out from all remaining jumpers to chase down the hostiles.

"Christ." O'Neill cursed. "Shields to full, get us down to the pavement, between the buildings." He ordered the pilot as he activated a sensor screen which showed the sky roaming with Dominion fighters. The jumper dropped down to a height at which it was knocking down traffic lights and cables that hung across the streets. It sped up even more and O'Neill would have lost his bearings had it not been for his connection to the jumper. The jumper jumped up as a building stood in its path, what lay behind shocked O'Neill. It had just been a few seconds as they passed over McMillan reservoir and past the burning hospital complex that lay beside the reservoir.

Just as O'Neill noticed a squadron of Dominion fighters break off from the main fight over the city to pursue them, he also noticed a new squadron of mk.9 vipers approaching from the north. Within seconds, both groups had clashed into a violent fury of dead and destruction. The jumpers were able to pass underneath the fury of combat unscathed.

Just a minute later they reached the outskirts of the city and were clear of any Dominion fighters. O'Neill used his connection to the jumper to get a picture of the skies over the city.

The front screen of the jumper popped up and it showed pure chaos. Hundreds of red and blue dots moved alongside one another, sometimes just a few meters over the rooftops. More jumpers and spacehawks entered the city in order to evacuate as much people as possible. Several Dominion transports had already touched down between the Capitol and the Lincoln memorial. Already, the bridges leading to the Pentagon had been blown and numerous buildings showed signs of damage, the Washington monument had lost its tip and the white house was partially on fire. Throughout the city, fires caused by crashed fighters and transports, lit up the skies. Already, units from outside the city advanced towards the center of the city. Other units, which were already inside the city, such as the rear echelon, supply companies and artillery batteries, did their best to fend for themselves while attempting to retreat, with mixed results.

On Atlantis, things weren't going so well. The gateroom had been lost, most of the marines had been killed or pushed back. Carter had installed herself in the auxiliary control room down on one of the piers.

"General Carter, This is Captain Ramirez, we've lost the gateroom and the six floors below the gateroom. I've just passed the detonation charges and no friendlies are behind us. I suggest you give me a ten count and then blow it."

Cursing, Carter responded, "Captain, is there no other way to hold on to the area and retake the gateroom with reinforcements?"

"Not in a short period. These Dominion are really good and the landscape's against us now so to speak ma'am. Right now, there's nothing to stop them from sending one of their plasma bombs through and destroy the city."

"I understand captain, get down here and I'll blow it."

"Yes ma'am."

Carter walked over to a station which showed a security feed from the gateroom. It showed dozens of Dominion rushing through the stargate. By now some of the dead had been dragged aside to allow the soldiers to pass quicker. The stream of soldiers suddenly stopped and moments later a large round device started exiting the stargate. Not knowing what it was, Carter got the detonator, readied it, and after a soft 'screw it', pushed the button. Several explosions rocked the city and power flickered slightly as the top part of the control tower was severed from the rest of the city. Slowly, the top started falling over to the side. As the angle increased the top picked up speed and soon it fell clear of the rest of the tower. Mere seconds later, which seemed like an eternity to those watching, the top crashed down near the base of the tower, over seven hundred meters below its usual place. Everything was crushed, except for the stargate, it did lose power and the connection ceased. Rubble prevented the gate from being dialed, thereby securing it for the time being.

Watching a security feed, Carter couldn't help but sigh in relieve. She had destroyed part of the most powerful ship in existence, a place where at a time, she had had her office.

"Lorne, the tower's down, readings suggest that the gate is powered down. We have been unable to establish an outgoing wormhole so it's probably blocked by debris. I've got security units converging on it, as well as engineers to secure the gate and keep it closed for the time being." Carter said. "Sorry for the damage."

"You did the best you could. We can rebuild the tower over time, but not Atlantis as a whole. You did good."

"Thanks, What's the situation up there?"

"Our skies are clear. Warships bombarded the surface for a short while before they were taken down, there is quite some damage though. Over half the transports managed to land unharmed in Germany, Washington DC, Cheyenne and here on the moon. The president and chiefs have been evacuated, DC has fallen and the Pentagon is now cut off. The Dominion on the moon are already assembling for an attack which should happen in the next twelve hours. The Cheyenne landing got caught in a large counter attack of ours, it stopped the counter attack, but Dominion casualties were massive. The German landings are just increasing the problems we're already having in Europe."

"And the planetary shields? Did they bypass it like last time? What happened exactly?"

"To early to tell from up here. What I did get was that several generators were attacked by infiltrators and that we've lost coverage. It would take at least a month to replace the generators."

"A month!"

"If we can find the spare generators to replace those we lost."

Atlantis Security Command Post

It had been about twelve hours since the Dominion had attacked earth again. Their forces had landed on the planet, and on the moon. Long ago, planners had seen the weakness of Atlantis being attacked over the surface of the moon, and had planned accordingly. With the realization of this new threat, the defense force of Atlantis had been increased to two full marine battalions. With the arrival of the Dominion, the defenses had been greatly increased, including the option to support nearly two hundred thousand marines, ready to defend the city using several rings of defensive fortifications outside the city, all covered by the massive shields of the mighty city. It all seemed a bit overkill, a lot of the defenses could be run automatically, by the city's computers. Yet it was deemed necessary to defend the city with all possible means, and Atlantis' systems could be compromised in order to facilitate an attack, thereby rendering any automated defenses useless.

Atlantis' defenses counted many layers. Starting with the city itself, the drones are a formidable weapon in their own right, if not a bit overkill for taking out single soldiers. Drones were designated for taking out ships and fighters, not soldiers and vehicles. The CILS and CIWS systems were all capable of reaching ground targets as well. They could provide relatively long range support fire, replacing the role of the artillery. Inside the city, its many corridors were guarded by checkpoints, fortified locations using both internal shielding, and sandbags. On the piers, concrete bunkers guarded every possible avenue into Atlantis, providing a last barrier between any assaulting force, and an urbanized fight, within the confines of Atlantis. Between the piers, lay the shipyards and other facilities, their corridors were also fortified, and an unofficial line of fortifications was created between the piers, to cover the most inwardly located facilities.

Between the city and the next ring of defenses lay about a kilometer of space, covered with shipyards, production facilities and other types of buildings. The most important buildings were fortified with hard points and could be turned into hedgehog for defense in depth. Again, all corridors leading to the city, but also between the facilities were fortified and bunkers and firing positions were added. The next five kilometers were cleared from any obstructing objects. Spread out, throughout this wasteland were several bunkers which could be used for harassing fire. Also located in the wasteland were firing positions for armored vehicles. Atlantis had received armored vehicles, tanks, Schwarzkopf's, Bradley's, the works. All modified to operate in low/zero gravity environments, belonging to the first six experimental low gravity warfare regiments.

After those five kilometers, three rings of defenses made up the main defensive effort of the City of the Ancients. From the center of the city, to the most forward bunker, lay about nine kilometers of fortifications and city. All covered by the nearly impenetrable shields of the city, and the CIWS and CILS weaponry. All corridors and fighting stations were equipped with gravity plating to allow soldiers to have more control about their movements. The shields of Atlantis extended to just three hundred meters beyond the first defensive line, preventing the Dominion from setting up any weaponry to besiege Atlantis from within her own shields.

It was today, that these defenses would be tested. Dominion forces had landed on the moon. It would be the first time that the Tau'ri forces fought a battle in low gravity. There had been some chaos when news spread of Dominion forces attacking through the gate, and even more when the tower came crashing down, for everyone to see. The continuous streams of plasma and drones rising from Atlantis into outer space however, reassured most that Atlantis was still fine. The short and useless bombardment of Atlantis, only showed everyone the sheer strength of the city, and the reach of her shields.

For the last twelve hours, the Dominion had the ability to deploy their force to the surface of the moon. For twelve hours, the Tau'ri had monitored every aspect of the deployment and had waited for the perfect moment to strike. Unfortunately, no ships were available to strike, so they were left to wait for the Dominion to come to them. For twelve hours the Dominion had studied Atlantis and its facilities, and had concluded that it sported few defenses against surface attacks. How wrong they were.

Their first wave came in on fast hovercraft, unshielded, and unarmored, they were easy pickings for the CILS turrets that targeted them. All were shot down before they even got close to the shield.

The second wave came in one the same craft, about five minutes after the first wave. They constantly changed course in an attempt to evade the CILS fire, they quickly found out that the CILS turrets were equally fast against ground targets, as they were against airborne targets. The second wave, made little more progress than the first wave.

The third wave, which was meant as a follow on force, found themselves in a bad spot. They had expected to be able to land and unload while the first and second wave had created a beachhead within the perimeter of Atlantis. This beachhead did not exist, and their transports, though shielded, would not last long against intense Tau'ri fire. They were forced to set down at the outskirts of the shields. The infantry unloaded relatively quickly under the cover of their own shields. Once half the force, about twenty thousand strong, had debarked from the transports they decided to advance through the shields. Struggling with the low gravity on the moon, the soldiers walked, or leapt, forward. The first soldier to reach Atlantis' shields, touched the shield, and forced his fingers through, he didn't get far, a Tau'ri sniper took his head off. Seconds later, dozens of Dominion soldiers were mowed down as Tau'ri defenders opened up. Not much later, Tau'ri armor opened up on the transports, combined with the weapons fire coming from the city, numerous transports crumbled and became deathtraps for those still aboard. Once their transports, and protection was gone, the remaining soldiers had no other option than to charge.

None made is anywhere near the first line of defense. All were cut down, securing the first victory on the moon.

The total destruction of the first three waves sent the Dominion back to their starting positions, where they would reevaluate their strategy for taking the city, it had clearly been more fortified than was visible, and now they needed a new plan.

July 14th

Presidential Command Bunker

"Sir, Atlantis has successfully defeated all attempts to storm the city in recent days. This morning, another forty thousand were killed, for a loss of just twelve of our own." General Allison reported.

"Good to hear, any chance we can bring back some of those marines to Earth, or deploy them to Tauron?" Ryan asked.

"It's too early to tell. Right now the Dominion are adapting to our defenses, if they find a way through, we need every soldier we can get, fighting up there." Allison said. She was backed up by O'Neill.

The Army Chief of Staff stepped in, "Sir, even if we were to get a division of marines to Tauron, they'd have no vehicles, little heavy weapons, no armor. Everything we have in those regards is tied down on Earth, Caprica and Tauron."

"I understand. Let's move on. What about the SGC?"

"The Dominion have been driven back to the original landing site. The armored strike from Fort Hood has broken through the Dominion southern defensive line near Pueblo airport, they drove all the way to Schriever AFB, where they lifted the siege of an airborne battalion that had taken the base on day 2. From there they drove north to completely cut the Dominion force in two. The eastern group is now cut off from supplies and reinforcements, and will be rounded up in the coming days. Unfortunately, the second landing made things much harder now that there is a strong and well supplied force in the west. Our hopes are that once the eastern group is defeated, the forces tasked with that job will be available to take out the western group. At best, both groups will be defeated in ten days, though more likely two weeks at minimum. After that, they can be redeployed to Washington DC, or can be reinforced and reequipped for deployment off-world." The Army Chief said.

"We'll cross that bridge once we get there." Ryan said. "What about the crashsites? Any movement since the fleet bombarded them?"

"None at all. The few teams that we sent in reported complete and utter devastation with no hostiles left alive." O'Neill said. "Also no movement on Jamaica, from our observations it appears that the civilians are treated somewhat properly."

"The landing in Brasilia has been driven off into the nearby forests, several units are currently trying to root them out, but it is slow going, and casualties are relatively heavy. They could benefit from a battleship above to thoroughly scan the region, and provide fire support." The Army Chief continued after O'Neill finished.

The Army Chief went on as no comments came forward. "Thanks to General Ellison's idea the forces around Antseranana were able to hold on long enough to be resupplied by several decommissioned diesel submarines transporting a large enough supply of stored materials. We are also using the submarines to bring in more forces, and evacuate the wounded and dead. This can only be done at night since the subs would otherwise be to vulnerable."

"The Mauritania landing is pretty quiet, they have spread out a bit to secure their perimeter. Local forces are challenging their forward forces and are wining every battle, but as agreed, they are not pushing very hard at the moment. We could redeploy a number of the forces freed up since we closed the New Delhi and Chongming landings, and go after this landing and the landing at Alice Springs."

"How is that landing doing?" the secretary of State asked. He had recently gotten some comments about the 'reliability' of Tau'ri Internet, which was down for most of the galaxy since both Pine Gap, and Rammstein were lost to the Dominion.

"Bogged down in the terrain. The Dominion made a large push there, they now control Australia's northern Territory up to Tennant Creek. Containing the enemy is proving harder than we expected, Dominion forces prove to be highly mobile. We're preparing several airmobile units, including a Japanese airmobile division, they will attempt to bypass the Dominion defenses, and get close to the center of the landings. They will be supported by gunships and air superiority fighters to prevent what happened to that Israeli battalion on day 1." In less than a minute, the entire battalion had been wiped out tot the last man.

"In the Caucasus, we are approaching the southern outskirts of Baku, while we're finally making progress in the North as well. The city itself does appear to have been razed by the Dominion, and we'll be liberating a ghost town."

"Yesterday, for reasons unknown, a nuclear weapon was detonated in Moscow's city center. Most of the historical city has been destroyed or seriously damaged. Our current theory is that one of the militia's brought in an old cold war era nuke and either on purpose, or by accident detonated it. Most of the civilians had been evacuated from the city since the landing, so civilian casualties are light, but a number of politicians stayed in the kremlin to 'not abandon the city', they are presumed dead. The rest of Moscow will probably fall within the week. Stronger formations are already en-route from the south to reestablish a defensive line somewhere south of Moscow, before initiating a counter offensive, which is slated for late July, or early August."

"Since the landings at Athens, the situation has gone from bad to worse, to somewhat better, to worse and finally to pretty good. Right now our forces are once again back at the outskirts of the city, and the docks are still under our control. The city however, has sustained massive damage, and satellite reconnaissance suggests that most of the ancient places have been destroyed by heavy fighting."

"The rest of Europe is a bit of a mess to be honest. Especially since the second wave came down. Initially, seven German brigades held out around Berlin to both slow down the Dominion advance west, and give the city time to evacuate. A day before the second invasion, the local commander had decided to pull back. While the ninth and twelfth armored brigades held open a corridor to the Elbe, they were cut off from the city itself by the new landing, and now three brigades, including the elite sixteenth para brigade, are trapped inside the city. By now, the ninth and twelfth have been pushed back to the Elbe as well and Berlin is cut off."

"The initial plan was to rebuild a defensive line on the Elbe with the help of reinforcements, but with a landing at Hannover, all forces between Hannover and Berlin will be pulled out North towards Hamburg where a Danish brigade is forming a defensive line. From there on, the intent is to form a continuous line with forces coming from the Dutch border moving east. The feasibility of this plan is in doubt by many, including myself, and we might need to pull all forces back north into the Danish peninsula, and to the east of the Rhine. Doing this would also jeopardize Anglo-Dutch-Belgian forces fighting on a line stretching from Bonn in the north, all the way south to Luxembourg city. This line is already stretched, and those forces do not have the ability to fight off a major enemy in their flank. However, this line is vital in reducing the Rammstein landings, the French, Spanish and Italian forces fighting the Dominion is Switzerland and France are also stretched to the max and can barely hold a defensive line, let alone go on the offensive. The two Langaran divisions will be pulled back south from their blocking positions at Fulda and Leipzig respectively, they would not be able to withstand major assaults from three directions. Then they will regroup with other forces coming from central Europe."

"This landing in Europe, as well as the landing at Washington DC are the most worrisome to us at the moment. In Europe, we've got a lot of national guard and reserve forces fighting against some very well equipped hostiles, our forces are still disorganized to a certain degree, and reinforcements cannot yet be deployed effectively due to a lack of cohesion and a front line. In Washington, we've got a pocket, inside a pocket. Since the Dominion landed on the front lawn, the Pentagon's been cut off from reinforcements. Fortunately, the pressure on 'em has also subsided somewhat, now that the Dominion have several improvised bridges across the Potomac. As it stands, we expect that the Dominion are going to push northwards hard, probably going for Baltimore first, and ultimately New York. So far, the Dominion haven't pushed past Quantico in the south, the marines there have defended the base well, and are now reinforced by reserves. From Quantico, the line goes south-west towards Culpepper, it's a risk with Quantico located so far forwards, but the marines won't budge. From Culpepper, the line goes north-west towards Winchester. We had a line running from Winchester to Fredrick, but the center was pushed back all the way to Hagerstown, now the Dominion are pushing on the outskirts of Fredrick itself. From Fredrick, we are barely holding on to a line anchored on I-70 until it reaches West-Friendship. From West-Friendship until Columbia we're spread thin, but are not being pushed at the moment, if need be we can bring in a brigade from the strategic reserves to plug any holes. From Columbia, through Fort Meade, until Millersville, we have concentrated two whole divisions from the national guard, each supported by a regular army mechanized brigade, defending against the main thrust of the Dominion forces. Losses are heavy and they are losing ground every day. Right now we're holding out until the civilians have been evacuated, before vacating an area. Fortunately Washington DC itself was mostly cleared of civilians following the first landing. From Millersville, our main line of resistance follows the 3, and later 301 roads south until upper Marlboro. From there it's a sharp west on the 4, until the line reaches Andrews, still our supreme close air support field in the region, although Quantico and Baltimore international are now able to provide some support as well. From Andrews it's once again south towards Brandywine. From Brandywine the line moves west to Fort Washington. Main supply and reinforcement to Andrews comes from the south, over the Dahlgren bridge, the line between Millersville and Upper Marlboro is too thin to properly defend the rear areas. As it is, Annapolis and the surrounding areas are being evacuated as a precaution."

"The main goal for the moment is to halt and contain the Dominion advance. Once substantial forces, such as those from the Cheyenne landing are available, they will be deployed in an effort to reduce the Washington landing to the city of Washington itself, and to relieve the Pentagon pocket."

"Thank you General." Ryan said to the Chief of the Army. Ryan turned to General Allison, "General, what is the status of the planetary shield?"

"Sir, we've had some setbacks in trying to regain planetary coverage. The short bombardment by the Dominion also targeted an assembly plant in Quebec, that plant produced a vital part for the shield generator. It's a one of a kind part, and this was the only plant geared to produce it. We're retooling an assembly plant on the midway station to produce this part from now on, but it will be a month at the least, before production can begin again, and another three months before we could have enough parts to cover the entire planet again."

"What's so special about this part? From what I understand, the shield generators we use for planetary shields are the same as those used on city ships, we've got a bunch of those laying around in the Pegasus galaxy don't we, can't we cannibalize their generators?" The Secretary of the Treasury asked.

"The generators for city ships are optimized for a relatively small shield area, extending it across an entire planet would require much more energy, provide a relatively weak shield, and be subject to overheating much quicker. Those we use are optimized for wide area coverage. As to the suggestion of cannibalizing the generators from the city ships in the Pegasus galaxy, it would not only leave those ships unable to defend themselves, we simply wouldn't have the capacity to power those generators on Earth. The shield generators of city ships are fed power through specially designed high capacity power lines, the generators were designed with this specific power line in use, and are unable to draw power from our planetary power grid. We modified our generators to use a more common type of power line, which is easier and cheaper to produce, and also available worldwide. If we were to use those generators on Earth, we would first need to set up a power grid on Earth, similar to that on a city ship. Such a job would take months." Allison replied.

"Then bring a city ship here." The secretary of state said.

"Even if we brought one city to Earth, it wouldn't work, it would take to many ZPM's. Also, if the city ship were to arrive during a Dominion assault, it would be unable to land, as city ships are extremely vulnerable during landing and take-off." Allison said.

"What? how much ZPM's could it possible take?" The secretary of state asked surprised. For him, as for most of the military and civilians, the supply of ZPM's was nearly limitless.

"We've currently got a supply of about seven fully loaded ZPM's which we could deploy on any location." O'Neill commented darkly. "Recent usage by the fleet has increased threefold, especially the use by smaller vessels is really cutting deep into our supply. According to Doctor McKay, we'd need at least twelve ZPM's if we want one city ship to provide a shield for most of the planet, at such a strength that it would repel anything the Dominion could throw at us, for a duration of at least three months. Add another three ZPM's to supplement the supply of a city to cover the landing city ship." O'Neill said.

"So we're short eight whole ZPM's?" The secretary of state asked. "Can't we take ZPM's from incomplete ships currently being constructed at the Atlantis shipyards?"

"Those are included into the seven we've got available." Allison said. "We've basically been running a deficit on ZPM production and consumption for the last year, we also sent quite an amount of ZPM's to the fleet." Unable to say exactly why, not everyone had clearance.

"Can't we scavenge ZPM's from other posts? One or two from Atlantis, another one or two from the Midway station, several from the planetary grid currently powering useless generators, the Titan Jump Gate station has a ZPM we could take. Some of the 304's not with the fleet might have a ZPM in use." Ryan suggested.

"We'd be taking a very big chance doing that sir. Taking two ZPM's from Atlantis and Midway, both will need as much ZPM's if attacked. Titan will be near defenseless without that ZPM, it'd be a disaster to lose those jump gates. The city ship that is to land would require as much support from the still working generators to beef up the strength, so I'd rather not leave them without ZPM's, they'd be reliant on ion power generators." O'Neill said.

"I'd have to check on the 304's and 306's that are still around whether or not they could donate a full ZPM, some of them would already have seen heavy use on a battleship or carrier previous to being installed on a smaller ship, it's basically where ZPM's go to die. Considering the state of affairs in Pegasus and the void, I could do with Midway losing two ZPM's for a short duration. Atlantis on the other hand, one ZPM, at most. Preferably one that would be replaced by a half full one." Allison said. "Could we take one or two from the stores at Caprica?" she asked

"Do we need them there?" Ryan asked.

"Yes, without the ZPM's the Colonials lose their city shields covering Caprica City and Delphi. We might be able to get one or two, as well as a partly use one to replace a full one on Atlantis. But the Colonials won't be happy." O'Neill said.

"I'll talk to president Roslin about it." Ryan said. "General Allison, do you have three more ZPM's to spare?"

Allison checked with her aid who had already started searching for ZPM status' across the ships still left within the milky way and Pegasus galaxies. "As I suspected, most of the ships left are equipped with second hand ZPM's. I do have a wolfpack group which was recently equipped with new ZPM's, they've been doing some amazing stuff since the Dominion came to the galaxy. I'd rather not bench 'em."

"They'll have to make do without those ZPM's, Earth needs 'em." Ryan ordered. Allison simply nodded and started drafting orders for the wolfpack to return to base and secure their ZPM's.

"Okay, now that we have the required ZPM's, which city ships are we going to bring to Earth?" Ryan asked.

"Based on the current specs and plans for the city ships I'd suggest we bring back the Rivendell to provide the shields, and the Tomb to provide cover for Rivendell." O'Neill said.

"Those names based on the public naming game you guys put out there?" The secretary of State asked.

"The Tomb, yes, it was chosen by gaining a majority of the votes in the public poll, it refers to the fictional Warhammer series. Rivendell was chosen by the naming committee, the chairman is an apparent fan of Tolkien's works." O'Neill explained. "Both ships, as well as all others in the Pegasus galaxy, are being improved with additional weapons and systems, Rivendell has already had her shield grid upgraded last month, while the Tomb just finished doubling her standard drone compliment. Both ships are far from finished, but are the best for the job. I'll have orders drawn up for both ships to prepare for departure at their earliest convenience, once the ZPM's have arrived. I'll make it clear to them that they should bring as much supplies and building materials as they can, they probably won't return to Pegasus for a while." O'Neill said.

"Get it done General, the faster the better." Ryan said.

July 15th

Gateroom, Midway station.

General Sheppard was waiting patiently for the Milky Way gate to finish dialing. He had been summoned to the gateroom by no less than General O'Neill himself. He wasn't sure why exactly, but he feared it had something to do with his refusal to part with two whole ZPM's. finally the gate finished dialing. After the event horizon stabilized General O'Neill stepped through, followed by a dozen heavily armed marines, who escorted several of their comrades carrying metallic cases.

"General O'Neill." Sheppard greeted his superior.

"Sheppard." O'Neill returned simply. "Let's go to your office." He turned to the marines, "Colonel, get yourselves going to Asuras II. I'll collect the remaining goodies and bring them along within the hour. Don't talk to anyone else about it until I join you."

The marine colonel saluted and continued on to the other gate where he requested a transfer to Asuras II, the second home of the replicators, and now the biggest base of the Tau'ri in the Pegasus galaxy.

O'Neill and Sheppard walked to Sheppard's office on the station. Once they were inside the office, O'Neill turned to a control panel and placed his hand on it. "General O'Neill, authentication code Sierra-Gulf one four Foxtrot Romeo. Commence top secret security protocol Gamma, disable any and all recording devices, once done, disable this panel for the next twenty minutes."

"Sir, what are you doing?" Sheppard asked surprised. He knew O'Neill had the ability and authorization to order such security protocols for any office in the federation, yet it was customary to ask first.

"What I'm about to tell you cannot leave this room, the very existence of the Federation depends on it." O'Neill said softly.

"Sure sir. What is it"

"At this very moment, our fleet is in pursuit of three Dominion mother ships known to be transporting the Dominion Emperor and a sizable chunk of his leadership. In two days, we will ambush the Dominion fleet and attempt to take the Emperor and kill the rest. Nearly the entire fleet is dedicated to this mission. The biggest problem we had with this mission is the extreme distance at which it takes place. As it stands, our fleet, assuming it survives, won't be back until July 28th."

"What? I'm lost for words sir. Why take such a risk?"

"Multiple reasons, some more realistic than others. First off, understand that the Dominion have a near inexhaustible supply of ships and men, the only reason they aren't swarming this region of space is because of its distance to their core worlds. The longer this war goes on, the more hostile forces we'd be facing. What we hoped to do, aside from providing a morale booster after all the losses, is to scramble their command and control structure, creating delays in transfers of forces. Furthermore, the hope is that if we prove we can strike millions of light-years from home without warning, the Dominion would need to use massive amounts of resources to secure all their holdings within at least a hundred million light year. At best, the loss of their leader and his successors and command staff will lead to internal strife and possible even a civil war, preventing the Dominion from sending additional forces to our galaxy. It's a long term gamble, because even if it works we might as well call the wrath of the entire Dominion military in the local group against us."

"But we expected a Dominion attack to come within a few months after the cease fire ended right? Why abandon our defensive plans to take such a gamble?"

"Because we had a large shield covering Earth, we could hold out long enough for the fleet to return and lift any siege of the Sol system. Unfortunately we hadn't taken into account that the Dominion could find themselves a way through our shields. The first attack damaged parts of the shield network, but we managed to repair most of it, enough to ensure full cover again. Preceding the second landing however, Dominion strike forces managed to infiltrate our lines and make direct attacks on a number of shield generators. We've lost our ability to provide full planetary cover, and we don't have the spare generators to reestablish it. That's also why I need both the ZPM's I asked for Sheppard."

"Sir, with all due respect, If you don't have the generators, no amount of power is gonna throw up a strong enough shield to hold back a Dominion mother ship. We ran the simulations on Atlantis during a solar burst of radiation. The Ancients required three ZPM's to cover most of the planet from some relatively weak radiation particles, and that was using authentic properly working shield generators."

"That's why we're bringing in additional shield generators."

"I thought there were no spares?" Sheppard said confused.

"I seem to remember you acquired several ancient city ships recently." O'Neill said. "The plan is to fly two ships to Earth, one to provide the majority of shield power required, which together with the remaining shield generators should be enough to create a proper planetary force field, the other to cover its entry into Earth's atmosphere. McKay and Carter did the calculations, the shield ship requires an extra 12 ZPM's, while the cover ship requires an extra three in order to stand up to a full Dominion fleet."

"Look Sheppard, we're scrounging up ZPM's from every corner of the federation to make this possible, we're taking some from the Colonials, Atlantis lost some, we took our entire stockpile, and now Midway also needs to give up two." O'Neill said. "If I had it any other way I'd leave it at the one, but we need the second as well. In the meantime you still have one ZPM which should be enough for day to day operations and a defense for a few days, in the meantime we'd figure out how to support you in the unlikely event anyone would attack the station. It's not as if that has ever happened so far. And anything that can harm you within those few days, is something we don't even want anywhere near Earth."

"True. I understand sir, I'll have the two ZPM's prepared for immediate departure. Thank you for explaining this to me personally sir."

"No problem, in fact, that's not the only reason I'm here." O'Neill said mysteriously. "How're your flying skills?"

"Depends on the machine really, I'm still checked out of the Falcon's, been working on the Viper a bit as well, but I'm not yet certified." Sheppard said.

"I was thinking something bigger." O'Neill said, "city ship bigger."

"You want me to fly one to Earth?"

"Yes, I want you to fly the Tomb, she'll cover the Rivendell. The Tomb has a double complement of drones as well as some secondary armaments installed already, you know how to fire those drones like no other, you have the most experience aside from the operators with the Aurora fleet."

"With pleasure sir." Sheppard said. "Will you fly Rivendell?"

"Yes. I've never flown a city ship before, but aside from you and Doctor Beckett, no living being has. I'm looking forward to it." O'Neill said smilingly.

"It's no harder than flying a jumper, the city does most of the work for you. Just think lift-off, and a checklist will appear in your mind, follow all the steps or think execute all, and you're golden."

"I got as much from your reports and my time in the Antarctica chair back in the day." O'Neill said. "Say, is Admiral Adama around?"

"No he's at Asuras II for training." Sheppard replied.

"How's the refit going for the Galactica? Can she be made combat ready?"

"Doubtful. Most of the old equipment has been torn out and we've finalized upgrading the structural frame. We're about to install four ion neutrino generators for regular power generation, but once all weapons are installed, and full shields are operable, she'll need a few ZPM's to function at full strength. We're about done with laying all the new wiring and power conduits."

"In short?" O'Neill asked.

"We're a bit ahead of schedule, and I could ask the engineers to work double shifts. The end of the month might be double, but we'd be cutting corners left and right. She'd be ready to fight a few battles before she needs to return to port to finish her up, and repair any deficiencies discovered in the meantime."

A chime indicated that the twenty minute mark was about to expire and the security could not be guaranteed anymore.

"Make it so Sheppard, we'll need any help we can get."

"Yes sir."

Sheppard activated his mike. "This is Sheppard to Midway control."

"This is Midway control, we reed you General." The officer of the watch reported in.

"On my authority, unplug two ZPM's and prepare them for transport in five minutes by me, General O'Neill, and a detachment of marines. Adjust all systems according to new power availability, keep station and shipyard operability at highest priority. Also inform the shipyard that the outfitting of the Galactica has the highest priority and that all efforts should be made to make her combat ready in short order."

"Understood sir, the ZPM's will be ready in the gateroom in five minutes."

Sheppard acknowledged and ended the call. "Sir, if you don't mind I'll swing by the infirmary before joining you in the gateroom."

"Sure thing." O'Neill said. "How is she doing?"

"Sir?"

"That ascended chick you knocked up."

"Ah."

"You think nobody would've noticed?"

"Who knows?"

"Just the joint chiefs, the surgeon general, the president and a few others. It's been kept quiet, classified even. For her safety as well as your child. Nobody knows what'll happen with a half human, half ascended baby."

"She's doing well. There are some complications though, the baby's been growing about three times as fast as a normal baby. Apparently that was normal for the Lanteans. The doc's been keeping an eye on it though."

"When is she due?"

"End of the month probably. But it's really just guesswork right now."

"I see. Good luck." O'Neill said before he left Sheppard's office.

Gateroom, Asuras II

Ten minutes later

It had taken a bit more time to get to Asuras II but eventually Sheppard, O'Neill, a detachment of marines and two ZPM's arrived through the stargate. They were greeted by Larrin.

"Two Generals to my little outpost?" she said in her normal teasing fashion.

"This is not the time for that Larrin." Sheppard answered.

She switched to a more serious tone. "Those the remaining two ZPM's?"

"Yes." O'Neill replied.

Larrin motioned for two nearby marines to come forward. "These marines will escort you to The Tomb, Rivendell already got all ZPM's she needs."

"Thanks." O'Neill said.

"So what's going on?" Larrin asked, knowing full well that she wouldn't get the truth.

"That's classified." Sheppard replied.

"You know?"

"No." Sheppard said. He noticed Larrin didn't believe him. "Look, if I'm not even allowed to know, do you really think they'll let you know?"

"Considering the place I keep safe here." Larrin started but quickly stopped understanding that her reasoning wasn't exactly spot on.

"Talking about this place, "O'Neill started, "How many Aurora's could you make combat ready in half a month?"

"While still diverting all necessary means towards the cityships?"

"Yes."

"I've got three ready right now, and maybe one or two more if I focus all remaining resources to 'em."

"Do it, Have all combat ready Aurora's join the Galactica at Midway by the 26th."

"Okay." Larrin replied.

July 16th

TFS Shughart

The TFS Shughart had latched on to the mothership as planned. Ever since it had remained at its place under strict emissions control. Nearly all systems were powered down and 3 out of 4 reactors were off-line. One of the systems that was down was the air conditioning, most people were walking around with their coveralls down around their waist as the temperature was pretty high.

Just minutes earlier, General Dex had sent a weak signal to the other two ships, telling them to initiate the second phase of the operation, rigging up a docking collar and cutting through the hull of the mothership. Already, a second reactor was brought online slowly and several systems were activated to aid in the activities. All measures were taken to prevent detection.

In the CIC, General Dex and several officers stood around a bank of screens, all showed camera feeds from soldiers and technicians involved with the second phase. It also showed an outside shot of the two ships, with a docking collar extending from the Shughart, slowly extending, being lit up by hyperspace.

"Five meters out." A technician reported.

"Twenty seconds to contact." Someone reported.

Time passed by slowly for those in the CIC as they watched the outside feed.

"Contact." A technician said.

"Pressurizing the collar."

"No leaks, pressure is holding."

"Any signs they are on to us?" Dex asked.

"None sir. Business as usual."

"Continue with the second phase." Dex said.

"Cutting team reports suits up. Entering the airlock." They weren't going to take any risks, they did not know if the area directly behind the outer hull was pressurized or not. If it wasn't, and there was no airlock, it could potentially empty the Shughart of air in seconds.

"Cutting team commenced operations." Back in the old days of SG-1 and SGA-1 the process would have taken hours, nowadays, it would take just minutes to cut through the two meters thick outer hull, thanks to Asgard cutters.

A minute passed before the cutting team reported back.

"Cutting team reports dropping pressure in the collar, it appears that the other side isn't pressurized."

"That's okay." Dex said. "We've prepared for that. Depressurize the collar. Advise all teams of the situation."

Nothing changed immediately, some indicators switched from pressurized to depressurized and the teams that would go inside the mother ship rechecked their pressure suits which resembles Colonial flight suits.

Within minutes, a hole had been cut through the outer hull. Once the inside area had been secured, more teams entered. One team would hook up with the internal systems in an attempt to hack into the ship and help their cause. The other teams moved to the two areas of interest, the hyperspace engines, and the CIC/Imperial quarters. Fortunately both areas were located relatively close to each other, considering the ship was over 90 kilometers long. The planners had decided that the teams could use specialized quads and bikes to retreat from their strike points since there was enough room between the inner and outer hull. While moving into position they wouldn't use the quads and bikes since there was enough time to walk, and they didn't want to risk being detected.

It would take both teams about an hour to get in position and start breaching the inner hull. This would be a little bit more delicate, they couldn't cut into a busy hallway after all. The team that would place charges at the hyperdrives had it relatively easy, most of the charges they'd have to place were close to the hull. Only one charge had to be placed somewhat further inside the ship, at the main engineering computer, which, if there was a catastrophic event to the hyperdrives and would force the ship out of hyperspace, would alert the CIC to the situation and coordinate response actions. Disrupting these responses would potentially cause additional damage to the ship and possibly overload the sublight engines, making the mother ship a sitting duck. The team that went after the emperor and senior members of the government did not have the luxury of setting some charges and be done with it. The brass wanted confirmed kills on as many of the targets as possible, so soldiers had to go in and get confirmation the old way. The soldiers would use an improved version of the Sodan cloaking device to get in close. They preferred to use a phase shifting device, but its performance while in hyperspace was shaky to say the least. The initial members of the team would construct an airlock outside an abandoned corridor to facilitate the insertion of the rest of the team, which would depart from the Shughart about three hours before the charges would destroy the hyperdrives. There was about an hour scheduled in for any unforeseen circumstances, and about an hour before the strike, they would infiltrate the ship, and take up positions in empty areas near their targets. Once the attack started, they would assault their designated targets as quickly as possible and retreat once they had completed their assignments, using the vehicles previously placed near their entry point.

After about ten minutes the cyber team reported in with good news.

"Cyber team to general Dex."

"This is Dex, what've you got Cyber?"

"Sir, we've successfully hacked into their security systems. We can now disable alarms and we have access to internal sensors, within minutes we'll also be able to manipulate the internal sensors to show whatever we want them to."

"Good work Cyber, keep it up." Dex said. "Cyber, start searching for the high priority targets and map densely populated areas."

"Already on it sir."

"Report back when you've got more results."

Forty minutes later a technician broke the silence that had descended upon the CIC. "Assault team Alpha is in position, they are setting up the airlock, time till completion, twenty minutes."

Dex looked up at a clock which counted down to the time the charges would go off, and the entire assault would start.

"Bravo team is about halfway there, they report no obstacles for the bikes and quads, all terrain is even."

"Everything is going the way it's supposed to." The Shughart's commander commented.

"For now." Dex said. He had been on enough missions where everything seemed to be going just fine, right up to the time where it all went to hell.

"Receiving low energy transmissions from the TFS Gordon and Murphy, both report success so far and are continuing as planned." The communications officer reported.

"Cyber to CIC, be advised, we've detected an airlock activating less than a hundred and fifty meters away from Bravo team, internal sensors suggest at least two life signs in the airlock."

"Dex to Cyber, copy. Stay on it."

"Dex to Bravo team, be advised, at least two lifesigns in an active airlock within a hundred and fifty meters of your current position, use any measures to avoid detection, over." Dex said.

"Bravo to Six, copy, we've got them in our sights." The leader of bravo team replied. Six was a term for the commander of a unit, in this case General Dex. The entire CIC was quietly waiting for the danger to pass, hopefully.

"Bravo to Six, threat is down. I don't think they spotted us, we're checking them out now."

"Copy bravo, what happened?"

"They got to close for comfort, we took them out at range."

"Copy." Dex said. "Dex to Cyber, check for any calls or alarms from the area of Bravo team."

"Yes sir, do we have personal ID's on the life signs?"

Dex checked with Bravo team who had reached the two Dominion. Personal ID's were quickly found and the Cyber team ran them against the mother ship's database.

"Cyber to Dex, They were there ahead of schedule. They were supposed to replace some faulty sensors on the inner hull, nothing high profile, happens all the time. They have nothing to do until tomorrow morning, about twenty minutes before we kick off actually."

"Are they anything special?"

"Negative, just a section chief and crewman getting some work done ahead of schedule."

"If they don't show up for their shift tomorrow morning people might get suspicious. If they run their last whereabouts they might take a look at that airlock, that's a bit too close for comfort actually. Cyber, can you alter the records to show their ID's being used elsewhere on the ship?"

"Maybe sir, we can't remove the current log entry, we could add additional entries to make it seem like they were elsewhere later though." Cyber suggested.

"Do it, and stay on it."

"Yes sir."

The next few hours went by without incident. The charges were placed at several locations around the hyperdrives and the team that set the charge at the main engineering computer completed their mission without any problems. The other teams successfully prepared the airlock and prepared the escape vehicles. With nothing more, Dex and many of the command crew went to get some sleep before the operation would start.

CIC, TFS Enterprise

July 17, T-2 hours

A lieutenant approached the general in charge of the largest fleet ever to be assembled by the Tau'ri federation. The General had been the main leader of the Tau'ri's Milky Way fleet ever since he was appointed as commander of the Odyssey, many years ago. Every major battle to be fought in the milky way galaxy which involved the Tau'ri fleet saw him in command. In mere hours, he would once again command a Tau'ri fleet, in what could be a decisive battle, if they lost, or merely lost to many ships in victory, the Tau'ri Federation, and by extension, the entire alliance was doomed to the Dominion.

"General Emerson, a sample of the content in the containers in our hold." The lieutenant said as he held up a small canister. The canister was about twenty centimeters long, and about three centimeters thick.

Emerson took the canister and opened one side of it. He held the closed side up and allowed the contents to slide out into his free hand. He smiled as he saw what came out. "Victory cigars." He held the cigar under his nose to smell it, and though he was no smoker, he couldn't deny that it smelled good. "How many do we have?"

"Several thousand in our hold, logs indicate that all ships received one or more containers."

"Have them distributed among all pilots and crew. Inform the other ships to do the same." Emerson ordered. The lieutenant acknowledged the order and went off to execute it.

"General, we're in range for a low intensity transmission to the Shughart." The communications major said.

"Right on time. Send the signal for the go-ahead. Beyond that, maintain emissions control until we're at T-1 minute."

TFS Shughart

July 17, T-10 minutes

Time had passed by quickly and all teams were ready for their assault. The ship was at condition one and nearly ready for combat.

"Status of the reactors?" the commander asked his tactical officer. Aside from running the covert operations going on inside the mother ship, there was also a ship to command.

"Reactors 1 and 2 are at 40% power to reduce emissions, reactors 3 and 4 are cold." The tactical officer immediately responded.

"Maintain reactor output at 40% for reactors 1 and 2. Warm up reactors three and four and put them on standby." The commander said. "Let's be ready for a fight."

"Yes sir."

The last 8 minutes passed by slowly, it didn't help that several timers were all nearing zero.

Once the last minute disappeared and only seconds were remaining Dex spoke up one last time.

"This is Dex to all units, we're less than a minute away from the start, good luck."

Hyperspace

The massive hyperspace track contained three massive mother ships and numerous support ships, these ranged from battle cruisers to small corvettes. Over 99 percent of all the power required for the hyperspace window was provided by the three mother ships. The three mother ships led the way in a V formation with the rest following behind.

Simultaneously, all three mother ships showed small but noticeable flashes of light and fire leaking through cracks in their hulls, followed by their hyperspace engines flickering, and dying, some even exploding. Now tasked with providing all the power for such a large hyperspace track, the other Dominion ships found themselves unable to do so and in less than a second, from the first charge going off, secondary explosions followed as hyperdrive engines all across the fleet, overloaded and exploded. What followed was a sudden and violent return to normal space. The mother ships did pretty well, the escorts, not so much. Numerous escorts, combined with the damage caused by the secondary explosions, suffered catastrophic damage during their uncontrolled return to normal space. Ships crashed into one another and debris spread everywhere and damaged other ships, in some cases destroying them outright. Some of the debris and ships managed to impact the rear of the mother ships, endangering the Tau'ri ships docked there.

The TFS Shughart, which was docked to the second mother ship, was off the best. The mother ship's starboard side, marked the outside of the formation, and was therefore relatively well shielded from debris, it was there, that the TFS Shughart was docked, just like the TFS Gordon and TFS Murphy. The TFS Murphy had taken the lead mother ship and was therefore generally too far away, to quickly, to be threatened by debris. The TFS Gordon however was not that lucky. It found itself in the path of an out-of-control battle cruiser. As collision alarms went off inside the bridge of the TFS Gordon, engines flared up attempting to reach military thrust as docking clamps and the docking collar were torn from the ship as it attempted to break free of the mother ship, and get out of the battlecruiser's path. As the distance between the TFS Gordon and the mothership grew, and the Gordon sped up, safety appeared within its grasps. However, it was not to be. The battlecruiser impacted in the exact area the Gordon occupied mere seconds ago, it dug deep into the side of the mother ship. As it reached the inner hull, the forward sections were compacted and eventually the main reactor blew up. Parts of the battlecruiser were sent in every direction, including the Gordon's. As the Gordon banked away, it's rear section was pierced by a large sliver of hull. Nearly instantly, the rear sections were detached from the main body of the ship. As capacitors and generators overloaded, both parts exploded in mere seconds.

CIC, Enterprise

The command crew looked on in horror as the Gordon vanished from their screens, over a hundred souls lost in the opening moments of the battle. Aware of the plan, everyone hoped that the boarding team was still alive, yet it would be difficult to retrieve them, although plans had been made up for such an event.

Their commander quickly brought everyone back to the task at hand. Orders were issued and fire orders went out to the gunners aboard every ship in the fleet.

Drones, missiles, railgun rounds and plasma bolts all flew towards the Dominion fleet, now confused and in disarray.

"Dominion fighters launching." A major reported.

"Vector in primary intercept squadrons." Emmerson ordered. The primary intercept squadrons totaled nearly 80 squadrons of F-311's, also known as Viper Mk.9 When in Colonial service. The Vipers were much better suited at the space superiority role than the F-302's which were being used as bomb trucks in this fight. The F-302's were already in position over the Tau'ri fleet, loaded down with nuclear missiles, ready to saturate the Dominion fleet with nukes. The Drone fighters, DF-310's, would stay closer to the fleet, to act as a final screen against anything that got through the interceptor screens. Initially this had been criticized but eventually everyone understood that the Drone fighters could be sacrificed if necessary, to safe a ship, whereas manned fighters could not.

Knights lead

"Knights lead, intercept Dominion fighters coming your way, course zero-zero-eight, range 95, angels three, you're cleared to engage."

Knights lead switched his comms to his squadron. "Knights, Launch long range missiles at my mark. Five, four, three, two, one, mark." All 20 fighters of knight squadron launched four anti-fighter missiles simultaneously. Other squadrons did the same thing and within seconds, thousands of missiles were underway to the first Dominion wave. The Vipers didn't wait and followed the missiles towards their targets, now much lighter and more nimble.

The near simultaneous detonation of so many missiles blocked out the Dominion fleet for a seconds. In that second, over three quarters of the 8000 strong, Dominion fighter wave was destroyed by missiles, or shrapnel as nearby fighters were struck.

"Knights, remember to stick with your wingman and to stay clear of the fleet's firing solutions." The squadron leader offered as a last piece of advice. "Open formation, weapons free, and engage!" At once, the previously tight formation broke up into ten parts as fighters and their wingmen went off to chase targets within their sector. Some fired one of two short range missiles aboard, but most stuck with the two plasma cannons and the projectile-based auto cannon for the close range killing. The fight that followed was short and one sided. Though the Dominion pilots were by no means bad, after all their Emperor got nothing but the best for his defense, the massive and brutal destruction of over three quarters of their force simply left them shaken and disorientated, an easy prey for their opponents.

Flag CIC, Enterprise

"Dominion fighters defeated." A lieutenant reported. "Forty fighters lost. Multiple rescue beacons active, SAR birds are launched."

"Have the intercept squadrons assume a defensive position between the two fleets. They are free to engage anything that comes their way." Emmerson said.

"The battleships are to target the Dominion mother ships' main weaponry. Battlecruisers are to disrupt any Dominion attempt to organize."

"Reactor of Primary-three is overloading, receiving a transmission from strike team three."

"This is… Primary objective…ed. Unable to retreat, pinned… set main gen… overload….luck. out." The transmission was garbled and many parts were incoherent.

"Clean that up." Emerson ordered.

"Trying sir, but we can't clean something up which we simply never received."

"Primary three is suffering catastrophic damage from multiple internal explosions." A lieutenant reported. "It's breaking up!"

"Any sings of our people getting off?"

"Negative sir." Someone reported. "They're gone."

"Okay. Let's redeploy our forces to deal with just two mother ships. Have the 302's prep for a nuclear attack." Emmerson said. "What's the status of strike teams one and two?"

"Both are proceeding as planned and team two is about to enter the imperial quarters."

CIC, Shughart

"General, Bravo team is in position at the main entrance. Alpha team is 20 seconds out. Charlie through Foxtrot teams are less than two minutes away from their entry points. Bravo team requests permission to go ahead." lieutenant Ryan reported.

"Once they've linked up with Alpha team they are a go." Ronon Dex said.

"Snakedoc, this is wildcard, link up with Alpha team and proceed as planned."

"Understood."

Bravo team

Snake doc was the codename for a veteran special forces operator. He and his team had executed a number of high profile missions since the Tau'ri federation was formed. They were among the best in service of the Tau'ri military and when it was determined where the Dominion Emperor would be at the time of the strike, they were called upon. His team was listening in on the conversation with their base of operations and knew what was expected of them. They also knew that the Dominion had massed nearly fifty warriors on the other side of the thick doors that separated them from their targets. It had been expected and they had planned accordingly. Two team members removed a large framework from their backpacks and quickly assembled them into two, 2 by 2 meter large shields. They were bulky and unwieldy, but would give them enough cover to advance into the imperial quarters and fight their way through. The other team members prepared a number of canisters containing incapacitating agents as well as flash bangs. The canisters contained an agent which would irritate and disorganize any Dominion who got in contact with it, akin to CS gas, but to humans it was harmless, it was one of the few agents which affected the Dominion and not humans.

This all happened very quickly and by the time they were done they were joined by Alpha team, another veteran team. Alpha team took one shield, while Bravo team took the other. Four people lined up behind each shield, with the first one carrying it, the second and third person ready to shoot around the edge, and the fourth person to help out wherever needed and to throw grenades and identify all the dead they passed. As they blew open the heavy doors separating them from the Dominion guards their new toys were immediately put to the test. Several dozen Dominion were waiting for them and opened up full auto on the two shields. The eight operators quickly recovered from the blast and within seconds they tossed grenades to kill the Dominion. Most Dominion got in cover and some tried to throw the grenades back. Three out of four were killed before they could throw the grenade, the fourth was hit mid-throw and the grenade bounced of off the shield.

Slowly, both teams started advancing through the wide corridor. Dominion soldiers fell left and right as they had very little chance of hitting one of the elite Tau'ri soldiers. They made good progress until they reached the first quarters which they had to clear. Some thought had gone into the clearing of quarters. They could not just bypass the quarters without clearing them, but they couldn't clear the quarters without clearing the hallway first. To compensate for only two members being able to enter a room without compromising their security they had created a special explosive device. It carried the power of ten fragmentation grenades as well as four flash bangs. The idea was that the frag grenades would first go off and do as much damage a possible, then the four flash bangs would detonate and incapacitate all who were still alive. A second after the flashbang went off, two soldiers stormed into the room and killed everyone who was still alive. As one of them came out of the room, the fourth soldier went in to get pictures of their targets for identification.

They moved down the corridor and swept every room they encountered. Many Dominion were encountered and killed, but few targets were identified. After nine more doors, the corridor opened up to an open area. in the center were stairs which led to a plateau. From the plateau, more stairs led to the second floor, with balconies from which people could look down on anyone who approached the stairs. From three sides, corridors converged on this central area and the other teams would come from those other corridor. They halted to await the arrival of the other teams, they would need their help in assaulting the second floor. Several Dominion came running out of the corridor to the right and proceeded towards the stairs. They didn't even make it halfway as six guns killed them. Shortly after the Tau'ri assault team appeared at the entrance to that corridor, exchanging hand signals to sign their status, and greetings. A minute later the same thing happened to the last remaining corridor.

After more greetings were exchanged they moved forwards, keeping their weapons raised at the balconies in case Dominion soldiers appeared. A few did, and they were gunned down, but it was nothing compared to what they had expected. Once they got upstairs, the layout was different from what they had expected, instead of a large open area all around, only one side had an open area, in that area, dozens of Dominion, young and old, were huddled together. Most had their arms and hands raised to protect themselves and a few held them up high. Some were even saying 'we surrender' and 'please don't shoot, we're unarmed'.

All six teams stood dumbstruck, in no planning session had they expected this to happen. After a second to get over the idea of having to take prisoners Snake Doc took charge. "Foxtrot, get down and cover those corridors, also get in contact with cyber and see if our retreat option is still available." He said to one of the team commanders. "Alpha and Bravo will cover Charlie, Delta and Echo while they search for our targets." Five affirmatives sealed the deal and all teams went to do their job. The twelve soldiers that went into the crowd of Dominion had their weapons at the ready, they had no idea what was going to happen. Some got their scanners and held them up to faces of Dominions sitting on the ground, some had to be made to reveal their face.

"Got one." One of the soldiers said.

"Who is it?" Snake Doc asked.

"Jack of Spades." Referring to the playing cards assigned to the Dominion leadership.

"Cuff him and bring him forward." Snake Doc ordered.

"Queen of Diamonds." Another soldier called out.

"Same deal, bring 'em forward."

"Ace of Diamonds and Hearts." One called out.

"Keep 'em coming." Snake Doc called out.

Downstairs, Foxtrot team engaged a dominion force attempting to reach them. On top of it all, the ship rocked several times as it was hit by heavy weaponry.

"Clock's ticking, he who finds the ace of spades gets a month paid time off."

"You better start paying out boss, I got him. Ace of Spades. The big boss!"

"Congrats Corporal. Bring the bastard forwards." Snake Doc said. "How far along are we?"

"Done Sarge." One team reported.

"Same here boss." The other two teams reported.

"Alright, lets count our prisoners." Snake Doc said. He already knew there would be to many, he had only orders to bring back one, preferably dead. He did a quick count and came to a grand total of 18 high value prisoners. "18 total." He said out loud.

His team mate 'Cool Breeze' came up to him and asked, "What do you want to do with them?"

"We've got orders for just one of them, and we'd get bogged down if we'd try to take 'em al." He said. He had already made his decision, it hadn't been the first, and might not be the last, yet he didn't like this part of his job. "We take the Ace of Spades and 86 the rest of 'em." Dirt Diver had come up to him to see what was going on and produced his sidearm as he caught the last of it.

"No" Snake Doc said, "Not your job, not your burden to carry."

"Isn't yours either, so shut up and share the burden with the rest of it."

"Fine." He switched his earpiece on to a unit wide frequency, "This is Snake Doc, we've located the Ace of Spades and a large number of targets. We're 86'ing the luggage and taking the Ace of Spades. Charlie and Delta teams, take point, extraction route alpha, Bravo team will take the HVT and Alpha will provide close support, Echo and Foxtrot take the rear. Prepare to move out in a minute." Immediately all around him people started moving. He himself grabbed two cuffed prisoners by their arms and dragged them to the edge of the balcony, which didn't have a railing. Once they were on their knees, he stood behind them, and put a bullet in each head, their bodies falling down from the balcony. The other team members did the same, and after two trips, all excess prisoners were dead.

In the meantime the other dominion hadn't been sitting quietly, at the sight of the first dominion being executed they gasped in shock, and anger. The started screaming and some rose, soldiers from Alpha team had to fire overhead to prevent them from becoming a threat.

Once all prisoners were dead and the HVT was down the stairs as well, the column formed up and moved out. They would be heading for the inner hull, where they had placed vehicles which would take them towards the Shughart.

Flag CIC, Enterprise

"Second group of interceptors is returning for re-arm. Third group is heading into the fray." A lieutenant reported.

"TFS Mars has lost shields and is venting atmosphere, General Chekov has transferred his flag to the TFS Abydos, the Mars is lost."

"Sir, Team one is requesting pickup."

"Where's the Murphy?" Emerson replied. The Murphy carried team three into battle, the team which was now gone. It had disengaged in time to prevent being destroyed along with the mother ship.

"Adrift under cloak between the two remaining mother ships. She attempted to dock with the mother ship carrying team one, but was hit by secondary weapons fire along the way, she's lucky she wasn't spotted by the dominion, but her engines are down for at least another twenty minutes."

"Okay. Will she survive phase three?" Emerson asked.

"She's got shields and cloak operational, both running on separate systems."

"Good. Let's commence phase three, and send out the orders for phase four to commence the moment phase three is finished." Emerson ordered.

"Also, tell team one to be ready for pickup at extraction point X-ray. Inform the Prometheus to pick up team one once phase four commences. And to be careful."

"Sir." Several personnel confirmed.

"Also, once Phase four has commenced, have the Sumner approach the Murphy, and get it out of danger. I don't want her between those two monsters once we start blowing 'em up."

"Tally on the hostile fleet." A colonel ordered.

"Two mother ships."
"fourteen battle cruisers"
"Twenty-eight heavy cruisers"
"Seventy light cruisers"
"Nearly two-hundred destroyers, frigates and corvettes."

"Time to rain some fire down on 'em." Emerson said. "Order Blacklight to commence strike, no holds barred."

1000 kilometers above the Tau'ri fleet

Colonel Tom Franks was a seasoned fighter pilot, being 54 meant that he had entered service in 1989. He had first dropped a bomb during the first gulf war flying an F-15, and had kept on doing so in later conflicts. Eventually he was assigned to the F-22 and after just a few years as squadron commander he got invited to the F-302 program. Since then, he had worked his way up to his current position as CAG-TFS Marshall Sumner Air Wing. Officially too old to fly the new vipers he was forced to use a F-302, or remain aboard the ship. He elected the F-302 to any desk job.

"Task Force Blacklight, commence full strike. Phase three is in effect."

"Alright boys and girls, that's us." He said as he powered up his craft from the slumber it had been in to avoid attracting attention. "Power up and prime weapons. Prepare for full burn."

From across the collection of 302's affirmatives returned. Soon enough the other CAG's, or their replacements, reported their units ready.

"Task Force ready. All fighters prepare for full burn in five… four… three… two… one… Kick 'em!" He said as he pushed the throttle fully forward, locking it in the after burn position. Speed was of the essence during their attack, if the enemy had a chance to realize their purpose and send out fighters to intercept, things could get really bloody, really soon.

The fighters quickly accelerated to maximum velocity. They had nearly 2.000 kilometers to cover before they would start their bombing run, during which they would dive down about 500 kilometers before releasing their two mk. X nuclear missiles and returning towards friendly lines. Time to launch would be approximately 1 minute and 35 seconds.

During their approach Colonel Franks thought it all over. Nearly 2.000 F-302's, each carrying two Mark 10 naquadah enhanced, tactical nuclear missiles, each good for approximately 20 Megatons of destructive power. That totaled to 4.000 missiles, and 80.000 Megatons of nuclear fire raining down on the Dominion. It wouldn't destroy anything more than a destroyer, but it would shake the living hell out of the rest, and take care of any fighters in the area. Furthermore, it would blind out their sensors for a while which would make for shoddy aiming as the fleet moved in to fight up close. As he neared the dive point, he realized he was laying down a very large, and expensive, nuclear smokescreen.

"This is blacklight lead, commencing dive." He turned the aircraft upside down, and pulled the throttle back out of afterburn, but still at maximum regular power before pulling the stick back and aligning himself with the Dominion fleet they were now directly above. Once his craft had acquired the correct vector he pushed the throttle back to full burn.

In addition to his own strike, the fleet would also launch part of their nuclear stockpile. Most would be mark 7's, but some mark 9's would be launched, this was merely a diversion, as most would be shot down. The only reason these weapons weren't placed on the F-302's was that they were too visible, unshieldable from Dominion sensors. A Mark 9, with a yield in the gigatons, would trip any alert system and attract a lot of attention, even from the Dominion, whose mother ships were known to shrug of dozens of the things.

"We've been spotted, two hostile squadrons approaching, weapons fire inbound from several ships!" a pilot reported.

"This is blacklight lead to all elements. Engage hostile fighters with missiles, but keep on target at all cost." They didn't have much in the way of fighting back. Each craft carried exactly one space superiority missile, and their standard compliment of cannons. Their biggest advantage would be the massed amounts of missiles being fired. Within seconds, nearly a hundred missiles went out to the 30 odd Dominion fighters, which didn't stand a chance.

Five seconds before weapons-release, a notification came up, telling him that his missiles had been given the correct navigation data and was ready for release.

"All Blacklight fighters, Weapons free!"

As he saw the engines ignite on other fighter's missiles he selected the missiles and pushed twice. His craft shook as the two missiles detached from the airframe and ignited their engines. As he looked around he saw numerous missiles detaching from their craft and igniting their engines. Now it was time to pull back on the stick and get out of the dive, in order to head back to the ship.

Flag CIC, TFS Enterprise

General Emerson, as well as many other crewmembers were watching the screens depicting the assault intensely. Nearly every missile made it through the defenses of the Dominion fleet, which was overwhelmed by the attacks from multiple directions.

The moment the nukes detonated, the screens simply went white. The combined force and flash was too much for any camera to handle. After a second or two the screen adjusted for the bright lights still going off. The result was shattering, nearly half the smaller ships, and even a few cruisers were gone, either simply disintegrated, or broken apart. No fighter had survived either, as expected. Fortunately all Tau'ri fighters had been at a safe distance. According to sensor readings, the Dominion had been launching new fighters less than a minute before the attack, possible to thwart the F-302 attack, or possibly to take on Tau'ri Vipers. These had all been destroyed as well.

"Commence phase four. All ships close in and engage. Prometheus and Sumner are to execute their mission."

"Yes sir."

"Get me the status on the Shughart and team 2."

With phase four commenced, the Tau'ri fleet, which until now had been sticking close to one another, broke up in separate units. Usually smaller ships, such as 304's and 306's stuck to their squadron while making attack runs. The battleships also moved in under the cover of nuclear fire which blanked the Dominion sensors. Their attacks and movements were closely coordinated by an AI system aboard the Carrier Hammond, it had also determined the most optimal strike targets for the blacklight attack run. With most of the fleet moving off to close quarters, the carriers, dronecarriers and Aurora's remained behind, except for the carriers with specific orders. The other ships were deemed to sluggish to maneuver between hostile warships. So far, the Aurora's had spared their Ancient drones, awaiting the final attack to take down the mother ships.

CIC, TFS Shughart

"Sir, General Emerson wishes to know the status of team 2 and the ship."

"The ship's ready to go, we're just waiting for team 2 to return." The commander of the ship replied as he looked over at Dex.

"Tell him it's complicated." Dex replied skeptically. He activated his comms unit, "Snake Doc, this is six, what's your status?"

"We're pinned down badly. We're just one corridor away from our rides but we can't get there." Snake Doc replied.

"Cyber, this is six, do you have an alternate route for team 2?"

"Negative sir, We've got badguys approaching from every direction, their best bet is to make a dash across that corridor."

"Snake Doc, what's the status of your portable shields?"

"All used up getting here."

"Can we beam them out if we go full power?" Dex asked the commander.

"No, they're too far away."

"Sir, I've got something, I may be able to vent all air from their direct area."

"Snake Doc, can you get your suits on? And put a mask on the ace of spades as well?"

"Affirmative. Give us two minutes."

"Cyber, you've got your answer. Start venting the atmosphere in two minutes." Dex said. "Snake Doc, once that fire slackens I want you to make a run for it, the fastest one you've ever done. The fleet's getting antsy out there."

"Copy."

"Sir, I'm getting reports of combat damage to the hull." A lieutenant reported

"What? How's that possible?" The commander said surprised. He walked over to the lieutenant's terminal to check it out himself. "Have you checked this?"

"Yes sir."

"I'm also seeing hull breaches and venting of atmosphere in adjacent areas. No weapons fire impacting anywhere close though." An ensign reported. "This is weird. All the damage is located at the underside of the ship, near our docking clamps."

"Boarders!" Dex said out loud. "Sound intruder alert and call up the marines to any sensitive areas." He ordered.

An ensign looked over to the commander for confirmation, he simply nodded. "Order the crew to take up arms and gather up at their assigned stations."

Several crewmembers immediately left to get some guns from a small arms locker. Once they got back they offered weapons to the various crewmembers whom, sometimes hesitantly, took them. When an ensign got to Ronon Dex, Dex replied by pulling out his trusted gun he had picked up in the Pegasus galaxy. The ensign knew enough and moved on.

"Do we have camera's in those corridors?" Dex asked.

"Yeah. Let me pull on up." A lieutenant said. Several nearby screens switched from technical read-outs to real time camera feeds. The lieutenant started searching through various feeds until he found some that showed Dominions.

"Crap." Dex said. "Snake Doc, this is six, be aware, the ship's been boarded. We're unsure how many are on board at this moment, or if there are more underway. please hurry up."

"Seal of those areas, try and slow them down as much as possible." The commander said.

"Give me an external view, the area of the docking clamps." Dex ordered.

A screen switched to an external camera which panned around to show the docking clamps, and the docking collar.

"Oh my god." A lieutenant gasped.

"They're everywhere." Dex said softly. The camera turned again to show the hull of the mother ship. It showed hundreds of Dominion swarming out of an airlock and heading for the ship.

"We can't hold them off." The commander said.

"We have to, at least until my people are back aboard." Dex said forcefully.

"Ronon, my men aren't marines, they're space forces, they can't hold out against so many." The commander said, his decision made. "Set all reactors to full power, activate shields and cloak. Disengage docking clamps and the collar. Engage engines and set a course away from here towards friendly forces. Once we get in range of a carrier we can receive a party of marines to clear the ship, until then we have to hold against what's aboard now."

"Commander, you can't abandon our people now that they are so close!" Dex said.

"We're no use to them dead either." The commander countered. "Report to general Emerson: Shughart has been boarded by dominion forces, retreating now to prevent additional Dominion forces from boarding the ship. Request marine assistance to clear the ship. Also requesting that team two will be evacuated through alternative means."

"Sir, the cargo bays, mess hall, living quarters 2 and sickbay have been overrun by Dominion forces." Someone reported.

"They are heading this way." Dex said. He looked at a map of the ship. He looked around at the people in the CIC. There were a few marines, who stood guard at the entrances, but most were nervous crewmembers, warily holding their rifles. "Aside the marines, anyone have combat experience or advanced training?"

Four held up their hands, three had a ribbon for the advanced marksman qualification, the fourth had nothing showing his training or experience.

"Advanced marksman qualifications for the three of you. How 'bout you?" Dex asked as he got to the fourth.

"Secret service special agent Conner." The lieutenant, or special agent, said.

"What made you leave the secret service?"

One particular lieutenant looked at Conner in disbelieve. "That bastard, he promised to not send an agent after me again!"

"Lieutenant Ryan, the president was adamant that someone protected you during your service with the fleet, especially since the Dominion made an attempt on galactic leaders, showing that their reach was very wide."

"How 'bout the two of you finish that later." Dex said. "We've got two doors to defend, four marines and five skilled soldiers." Dex said counting himself as the fifth fighter. "I want two marines outside each door, firing at everything that's coming down the corridor, they are supported by two fighters." Dex turned to the secret agent, "I assume you want to stay close to Ryan?" Conner nodded. "Fine, you stay here and organize the defense in case the Dominion break through before the cavalry arrives."

The marines and appointed crewmembers split up and started building cover using crates and stuff lying around. The ship had initially been packed with supplies to support so many personnel for such a long time.

Flag CIC, TFS Enterprise

"Sir, TFS Shughart reports being boarded by Dominion soldiers, they request marine reinforcements to repel boarders. They also request we pick-up the strike team, they were unable to get to the ship in time."

"Do we have a fix on the Shughart's position?"

"Subspace transport beacon is squeaking like a pig. We can beam in through their shields and cloak once we get in range." A colonel said. The subspace transport beacon made it possible for Tau'ri warships to beam through shields and cloak which would normally not be possible. Unfortunately, the beacon only worked on short ranges.

"Okay, Enterprise will do both. First we beam two platoons of marines over to the Shughart, about fifty marines should do the trick there. Then we swing by the mother ship to pick up the strike team." Emerson said.

A number of people acknowledged and the Enterprise started moving quickly. It would take her a few minutes to reach the Shughart, and even longer to get to the strike team.

CIC, TFS Shughart

The Dominion had arrived in the corridor outside the CIC. The marine guards and crewmen were fighting for their lives. They were pumping out lead at an astonishing rate. A near constant stream of lead slammed into the wall behind the boxes where the Dominion had taken cover. A large number of dead Dominion soldiers were testimony to the fierceness of fighting. Only few Dominion dared to raise their head and return fire, most paid dearly for it.

Ronon stood behind a number of stacked crates, they reached until his chest and allowed him to shoot while standing up straight. Because of the toughness of the Dominion armor and physique he was forced to set his gun to the highest setting possible. It allowed for fairly lethal shots, but did drain the power rather quickly. It was during his second reload that he saw a marine fall backwards, his face burned away, at the barricade of the other corridor. Without thinking about it he returned his attention to the task at hand. He came up again and aimed down the corridor, downing two Dominion who came rushing in sight.

To his side he suddenly saw a blinding light. As he turned his head to look at the other barricade he saw the aftermath of the plasma grenade that had detonated. Not a second later a Dominion rushed through the barricade. Ronon aimed his weapon and squeezed off two rounds stopping the Dominion cold, just as bullets started hitting it. He decided to try and plug the hole himself. He tapped the marine with him on the shoulder and told him to lay down covering fire, to which the marine replied by continuing to squeeze of salvos down the corridor. He tapped the crewmember near him on the shoulder and told him to follow him. He got a grenade from the other marine and entered the CIC again and headed for the opposite door, leading to the now, probably, packed corridor. The crewmembers in the CIC had all taken cover behind several consoles and were covering both doors. As another Dominion walked through the door they downed him before Ronon could do anything.

As Ronon reached the other hatch he pulled the pin from the grenade and releasing the lever. Not waiting around to cook the grenade, he tossed it around the corner, into a crowd of Dominion preparing to throw a number of grenades into the CIC. The combination of the standard Tau'ri fragmentation grenade and several primed and ready cause utter mayhem in the corridor, causing the emergency hatches to slam shut, cutting of a fire that started to blast into the CIC. In the corridor, things were worse, part of it was on fire, another part inaccessible by a ruptured cooling line, and another part, further down the corridor, had its oxygen sucked out by the damage control systems, to prevent it from spreading to nearby main power and control lines.

"Okay people that was a lucky shot, we won't have one again. Orientate towards the remaining door!" Connor ordered. As the everyone who hadn't already done so switched their aim to the remaining open door a marine stumbled through, clutching his stomach. He was soon followed by two of the ensigns.

"Sorry sir, we were out of ammo, we had to pull back." one of them said. "Estefan's dead." The other added. They both took the mortally wounded marine and dragged him to the rear of the CIC, where another crewmember went to work on him. They then went to restock on ammunition and reload their rifles.

Meanwhile, the Dominion hadn't been sitting on their hands. They first attempted to rush through the door, and were cut down, all six. The next group tried to get some cover by tossing in a grenade. Aside from everyone diving for cover, the grenade landed in a depression, from where it did little damage aside from the ceiling. In return, Ronon acquired another hand grenade and tossed it back into the corridor. It exploded with a loud thump. Most likely one Dominion sacrificed himself for the greater good. The next group threw in another grenade, sending everyone for cover. However, they hadn't activated the grenade and once a Tau'ri shouted 'grenade' they stormed in surprising the defenders who took two casualties before the four men strong group was mowed down. Conner picked up the Dominion grenade, activated it, and tossed it into the corridor. The Dominion tried it again, but this time two lieutenants in the rear of the CIC did not take cover, and mowed down the first two Dominion before the rest of the CIC took care of the remaining six, losing one of their own.

Running low on defenders, the commander was getting anxious. "Ryan, how long until the Enterprise is in range?!"

"Any minute sir, I can't be sure because of the amount of jamming going on by the Dominion." She replied. "hey!" she shouted to Conner as he pulled her down violently as she tried to access a console. A plasma bolt barely missing her head.

Before the next group of Dominion stormed in, they tossed in some sort of flash bang, distracting most of the defenders. Twelve Dominion soldiers stormed in, randomly shooting into the CIC. One had his head taken off by Ronon's gun, a second engaged Ronon in hand combat, resulting with a small knife to the back of its skull. A third and fourth were taken down by a Satedan sword which Ronon had retrieved from his back. the fifth soldiers was shot by Ryan, the sixth followed suit by bullets from Ryan, Conner, and two other crewmembers. The seventh Dominion was killed by the commander as they both shot each other simultaneously. The eighth was shot by Ronon and the ninth was taken down by a combination of crewmembers. The tenth lunged at Ronon and barely missed him, he was rewarded by a severe cut to the neck, leaving him bleeding to death in a matter of seconds. The eleventh managed to get a hit in on Ronon's face sending him stumbling back, reeling from the impact. Before he could get a second hit in, he was riddled by a burst from Ryan, sending him down. Meanwhile the twelfth Dominion came in, bypassing the still recovering Ronon heading straight for Ryan, he was cut down by Ronon, who shot him in the back twice.

The thirteenth Dominion was a surprise to all. The speed and force with which he struck caught Ronon off-balance, he was sent flying back into a wall. The Dominion then proceeded to Conner whose attempt to smack him with his rifle was easily defeated. Two crewmembers got some shots into the Dominion, but he didn't seem to care. He then proceeded towards Ryan, who was just a few steps away from Connor. Ryan, reloading her rifle as she had emptied it on the Dominion attacking Ronon, was caught by surprise and in a bad spot. She tried backing up but the Dominion leapt up to her and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her of the ground with ease while his free hand now held the Dominion version of a pistol. He didn't aim the pistol at Ryan, but at the other crewmembers, using her as a shield. It worked, two crewmembers were hit and either wounded or killed before Connor got his last shot off. His weapon clicked as it was empty. The Dominion had noticed though and turned around to face Conner. Sensing the danger, and knowing he didn't have any cover, Conner had no other option than to duck sideways. This surprised the Dominion who tried to shoot Conner, but was blocked by his human shield. While trying to reacquire his target, he was shot in the neck by Ronon, who was still in a seated position against the wall, barely able to aim. A second hit quickly followed hitting the head of the Dominion soldier. Three crewmembers quickly started adding to the damage by riddling his back with bullets. It all proved to be too much and he collapsed, first to his knees, and then forwards, on top of Ryan, whom he still held tightly at the throat.

Conner was one of the first to be there to drag the Dominion off of Ryan. First prying open the hand holding her throat closed, and then getting the rest of the Dominion off. As he checked her for wounds he saw some green blood trickling from several wounds, rounds which had penetrated the body of the Dominion. He would need to check her for any impacts, but most likely these rounds were caught by the vest Ryan wore. As he moved up her body, he was shocked. On her chest, he discovered a large burning wound, having burnt away part of the right breast and caused massive bleeding.

Later attempts to reconstruct the battle, using surveillance footage and eye witness accounts determined that the Dominion's pistol had gotten caught in the webbing of Ryan's vest as he tried to reacquire a shot on Conner. The part that got stuck was the handle controlling the power level, setting it back to a lower setting, preventing the weapon from simply blowing straight through her body, but as Ronon shot the neck of the Dominion he reactively squeezed of one last round, aiming straight at Ryan's chest. Had the pistol been an automatic, Ryan would have been hit multiple times.

Barely in control of his panic, he had been trained for just such a situation, he shouted out for a medic knowing full well that there were none present, only one crewmember with a first aid training. "Peters! Get down here now!" he yelled. The woman who had first taken care of the injured marine quickly crawled over to avoid getting hit by the new wave of Dominion. Meanwhile Conner searched for a heartbeat and found one.

"Sheez." The crewwoman said as she arrived and oversaw the damage.

"I've got a heartbeat, but it isn't strong." Connor said. "What do you need?"

"A surgeon or a miracle, preferably both." She blurted out. She began administering a shot of nanites in an attempt to safe her. The nanites could only do so much, and considering the damage, all they would be able to do was preventing any more blood loss, and preventing infections from infiltrating the bloodstream. To aid the nanites, she added a bandage which would provide external resources for the nanites. "She needs a medevac asap."

"Got it." Conner said. He moved over to the communication console but before he got there he heard weapons fire from the corridor. Hoping it was the relieve force he had just a few seconds to call for a medevac before the Enterprise would be out of range. "Enterprise Enterprise, this is Shughart, requesting an emergency medical beam out for transponder Romeo-Oscar-Charlie, Zero, Eight, Four, Seven, Delta, priority Black."

"Negative Shughart, we're out of range. Proceed towards the Hammond, once out of danger drop cloak and shields for longer ranged beam out." Someone on the Enterprise replied.

"Shit!" he said as he got the news. That same moment the first marines entered the CIC and greeted the survivors.

Flag CIC, TFS Enterprise

"Approaching the mother ship." A lieutenant reported.

"Now comes the tricky part." Emerson commented. In order to beam out the strike team they would not just have to approach the mother ship, but also lower part of their shield. It would only take a few seconds, but weapons fire was already coming in on most sides of the ship. In an attempt to minimize the chance of any serious damage, they had chosen the mother ship's underside, since it didn't have any heavy weapons there, and at a distance of less than a kilometer, there would be no way for other ships to get a shot in.

"Enterprise in position." The same lieutenant reported.

"Executing evac." Another lieutenant reported.

The ship rocked somewhat in the meantime as light weapons fire coming from the mother ship found its way onto the hull. Yet none would seriously damage the ship.

"Light weapons fire impacting on the dorsal hull armor, no penetrations, just some scorch marks."

"Evac completed. Shields restored to full protection."

"Course set for main fleet." A lieutenant reported.

"What is the status of the Prometheus en Sumner?"

"Sumner has retrieved the Murphy and is nearly back with the fleet. Prometheus is still attempting to retrieve the strike team, they are being harassed by Dominion cruisers and fighters."

Emerson had a look at a tactical plot. The Prometheus was being pummeled on all sides constantly, there was no way it could retrieve the strike team without taking serious hits to her hull.

"Re-route the Enterprise and have two battleships, and a squadron of cruisers divert to aid the Prometheus. Once we get there we will beam out the strike team while the Dominion are still preoccupied with the Prometheus. In case they divert their attention to us, either the Prometheus, or one of the battleships executes the evac." Emerson ordered.

"Have the Aurora's commence phase five on this mother ship." Emerson said indicating the mother ship they were rapidly leaving behind.

The mother ship for its part, didn't want the Enterprise to leave yet. The Enterprise's rear shields absorbed hit after hit of the mother ship's main weaponry.

"Rear shields at 60% and dropping, we've got a minute or two with this level of firepower left." Someone reported.

"Why aren't we evading those shots?" Emerson asked a little bit annoyed.

"We're trying to, but the Dominion are firing a spread on our position, no matter where we evade to, we're gonna get hit." The navigational officer reported. "Just a bit more distance and the Dominion will either have to increase their spread allowing us to dodge between shots, or risk us outmaneuvering their spread altogether."

"Sir, Prometheus reports boarders on her dorsal hull, they're heading for local shield generators."

"Have the Prometheus break off and retreat to the main fleet. Make sure she covers her dorsal side well."

"Yes sir."

In the meantime the first of the ancient drones fired by the Aurora's were launched. Whereas previously in the battle they had fired the newer Tau'ri built drones, now they deployed their supply of Ancient drones. Each Aurora carried approximately 8.000 ancient drones, out of a total capacity of 12.000 drones. With fourteen Aurora's present and a first salvo of about 1.500 drones per ship, that made of a total of 21.000 drones heading for one mother ship. It was not expected to completely destroy the mother ship, but would do enough damage for the second wave of equal size to carve some serious holes into the ship. Enough for the passing battleships to widen, and eventually large enough for 304's to launch nukes into, in order to finish the mother ship off.

"We have arrived sir." A lieutenant reported.

"Commencing evac."

"Prometheus is out of danger, the boarders have been defeated. Some casualties incurred, as well as hits on the hull."

"Understood."

"First wave of drones successful."

"Evac completed."

"Commencing return to main fleet."

"Tell the rest of the fleet to go all out on the mother ships. The Aurora's are to fire their remaining stores on the mother ships as per phase five." Emerson ordered.

The ship shook some as the main weaponry from the second mother ship found its way to the weakened rear shields of the Enterprise. None of it made it through, but the shield emitters were weakened.

"Status of rear shields?"

"Down to twenty percent. Any more hits and some energy might bleed through."

"Transfer energy from the forward shields to the rear shields." Emerson ordered. "What's the status of that medevac request by the Shughart?"

"Reached the infirmary aboard the Hammond."

"Do you have an ID on whom it concerned?" Emerson asked.

"Checking." The lieutenant replied. The lieutenant raised an eyebrow as she saw the name. "A first lieutenant Ryan sir."

"What? What's her status?"

"Shot in the chest by Dominion weapons fire. Currently in surgery, still in critical condition." The lieutenant replied. "Sir, is that the president's daughter?"

"Yes." Emerson replied. "Keep me updated on her condition."

"Second wave has impacted the first mother ship. Battleships and 304's are going in for the kill."

Everyone watched the screens depicting the strikes on the mother ship. Ship after ship made a pass on the massive hulk. The ship was on fire at multiple locations and showed numerous sings of damage. It wasn't defenseless yet though. Several 304's were destroyed as their shields were brought down by either a hit from the mother ship's main weaponry, or multiple hits from secondary armaments. The second mother ship had adjusted its course somewhat to give assistance to its sister ship. The first to notice was the TFS Rodney, a 305 class battleship. It had lined up a seemingly great shot which could destroy the mother ship if luck was on their side. It did require a head-on approach to a damaged gun port. As it made its approach it was targeted by other weapons and took heavy fire. To adjust for this, energy was redirected from other parts of the shield which were not under attack, and sent to the forward shields. What they hadn't taken into account was a broadside from the other mother ship. Though somewhat poorly aimed in that the shots nearly fell behind the Rodney, they were in luck since the Rodney's rear shields had just been weakened by the power transfer. The last two hits managed to breach the shields, and destroy the sublight engines.

Out of control, and on a collision course, the Rodney's commander saw no other option than to remove the safeties on all remaining nuclear weapons, and evacuate the crew and the ZPM's. Overseeing the last minute of his ship personally, the commander perished along with about a quarter of his crew as the Rodney rammed her way into the innards of the Dominion mother ship. About one ship length inside the mother ship, the remaining nukes detonated. The combined force of all the nuked led to the mother ship breaking in two, signaling its end. The two halves slowly drifted apart as secondary explosions rocketed them and split off even more pieces.

The TFS Cheyenne had been behind the TFS Rodney and had seen the destruction of her sister ship. Now the target of the second mother ship, she attempted to evade the second broadside. Though initially successful, it did bring her closer to the second mother ship, as did the third salvo. Eventually, the fourth salvo hit home with full force on the Cheyenne's already worn down shields. Though holding out, the shields were damaged enough for two nearby battle cruisers to blast their way through 'em, into the hull of the Cheyenne. In an attempt to roll her dorsal shields towards the battle cruisers, she condemned herself as the fifth salvo hit home again, tearing large pieces off of the Cheyenne, breaking her apart and detonating her reactors. Two nearby 304's were also taken down by the combination of the mother ship's main weaponry, and cross fire from battle cruisers.

Upon seeing this, Emerson ordered the Aurora's to fire the remainder of their stocks at the second mother ship.

While the drones bridged the distance between the Aurora's and the remaining mother ship, the rest of the fleet learned to stay out of the mother ship's field of fire. The mother ship, unable to maneuver fast enough to acquire firing solutions on the faster Tau'ri vessels, decided to take another approach. It's sublight engines flared brightly as it increased power to full. It's course wasn't away from the battle, but to the main cluster of Tau'ri carriers, drone carriers, Aurora's and assorted damaged ships pulled from the battle line.

Approaching the main fleet rapidly, the mother ship was hit by the remaining drones aboard the Aurora's. large holes were carved out, but the ship wasn't slowing down. By now it was clear to Emerson that the mother ship wasn't going to fight them, but ram them, use it's bulk to absorb as many Tau'ri ships as it could. Recognizing the danger, Emerson had the fleet disperse at haste. He also ordered a second missile strike into all the weak spots created by the drone strike. The remaining Dominion escort ships adapted a similar tactic, going after the 304's and 305's in pursuit of the mother ship. Quickly recognizing this, the individual commanders broke off and evaded the Dominion suicide attacks. Unfortunately not every ship had luck on their side, several ships were targeted by more than one Dominion ship, two already damaged 304's were lost to ramming, while a 305 was crippled by being clipped by a Dominion battle cruiser.

On command, all ships with missiles remaining, launched whatever they could get airborne against the Dominion mother ship. Though no mark IX warheads were included, enough mark VII's and V's were included and the staggered arrival time made for a near constant strike on the mother ship. For two minutes, it was consumed by nuclear explosions. In the end, debris was all that was left of the mother ship, having first broken in two, before being broken up in more and more pieces. It wasn't without casualties on Tau'ri side though, numerous drone fighters and several manned fighters were destroyed as well, a 305 suffered crippling damage and had its crew radiated, while three 304's and a 306 were flat out destroyed. Also a drone carrier was lost as it was hit by a large chunk of debris before being rammed by a Dominion battle cruiser.

On the flag CIC, the news was announced calmly.

"Final mother ship destroyed." No one cheered, no one clapped, no one smiled, to many comrades had been lost today, many more would be lost in battles to come, the war wasn't over by a long shot.

"Mop up the remainder of the Dominion fleet." Emerson ordered. "Give me a tally on the hostiles."

"One battlecruiser."

"One heavy cruiser."

"Seven light cruisers."

"Two destroyers."

"Have all 304's and 305's with sufficient shield strength engage the remaining Dominion ships. All other ships are to assemble on position Delta and commence battlefield wide search and rescue operations immediately. Also prioritize repair of damaged hyperdrive systems. We need to be ready to get out of here asap." Emerson ordered.

"Yes sir."

For the next five minutes the remaining Dominion warships were destroyed. None were able to escape due to the damaged sustained during the violent exit of hyperspace at the start of the battle. Eventually the all-clear was given.

"All hostile ships destroyed."

"Understood. Have all ships regroup at Position Delta except those who are on SAR missions. Prepare a ship count and status update of the remaining ships. Also prepare a preliminary casualty list."

"Yes sir." A number of people answered.

"Any news from the Drones about Dominion movements in the region?" Emerson asked.

"A task force of four cruisers is underway, ETA 8 hours. Another four groups have also set course for our direction, earliest ETA 17 hours."

"Nothing of worth within four hours travel time." Someone reported.

"Very well, we'll proceed on schedule, have every ship ready to go in four hours."

Emerson left the flag CIC and headed for his quarters. Once there he prepared a secured message for Earth. It wouldn't arrive for a few hours but that was alright.

"This is General Emerson to Fleet Command. Operation Valkyrie is a success. The Ace of Spades has been captured and all other targets have been killed or destroyed. Casualty report and ship status reports are still being compiled. My estimates are approximately twenty percent losses or heavy damage on material, and ten percent losses on personnel. I expect detailed reports to follow within two hours, and for us to leave for the next waypoint in four hours after completion of essential repairs. Emerson out."

The message was encrypted and sent to Atlantis. It's arrival would no doubt cause quite a stir, but also bring relieve to all those who were awaiting news of their success or failure. Emerson went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. Once done he left for the flag CIC again. On his short way to the flag CIC he encountered several crewmembers hauling equipment as well as a pair of medics transporting a gurney. It reminded him that he too had been close to the battle, he hadn't been far away fighting through some digital connection. He made a mental note to get down to the flight deck, and see if he could help out patching up fighters.

Three hours later, a full casualty report was finished.

"Sir, the Pluto managed to get all fires under control, part of the ship was vented after a fire threatened a munitions storage area. Casualties are minimal."

"Thank you. Is the casualty report ready?"

"Yes sir."

"Read it to me please."

"Ship losses are as follows:"

"F-302: 2000 at start, 265 losses, 200 with moderate to heavy damage. 275 pilots and RIO's lost."

"F-311: 5600 at start, 490 losses, 375 with moderate to heavy damage. 320 pilots lost."

"DF-310: 1152 at start, 300 lost, 95 with moderate to heavy damage, no personnel lost."

"BC-304: 100 at start, 14 lost, 40 with moderate to heavy damage, 4189 crewmembers lost."

"BB-305: 40 at start, 8 lost, 14 with moderate to heavy damage, 9382 crewmembers lost."

"LCS-306: 42 at start, 12 lost, 18 with moderate to heavy damage, 1239 crewmembers lost."

"DC-308: 12 at start, 1 lost, 2 with moderate or heavy damage, 125 crewmembers lost."

"CVZ-309: 6 at start, 0 lost, 2 with moderate or heavy damage, 428 crewmembers lost."

"Aurora: 14 at start, 0 lost, 2 with moderate damage, 15 crewmembers lost."

"Total ships lost, 35 which is 16 percent of total deployed, total fighters lost 1055, 12 percent of deployed . Total crew losses 15.945, 15 percent of total deployed. total ships with moderate to heavy damage: 78 which is 36 percent of deployed. Total operational ships: 101, which is 47 percent of total deployed. Most damaged ships will be able to enter hyperspace on their own power and all ships who cannot at this moment are expected to be able to in one hour. Personnel losses do not include those too wounded to be healed and who will perish in the coming days including those exposed to deadly amounts of radiation."

"Thank you. Encrypt these reports with top level security and forward them to Fleet Command."

"Yes sir."

"Get me fleet wide." Emerson ordered.

Within a minute Emerson was received on all ships.

"Crew and officers of the fleet. Today we scored an important victory against our opponents, but we paid a hefty price for this. We lost 35 ships, over a thousand fighters, and nearly 16.000 of our comrades. Especially this last number will weigh heavy on our souls today as we are recuperating from the strain of battle, repairing our remaining ships, collecting our dead, and storing them for later burial. By now, all of you should have received a cigar, traditionally it is considered a victory cigar, while this may be true, it is also a remembrance cigar, let it represent all those comrades we've lost today. Within the hour, we will set course for the next waypoint on our way home. We cannot rest on our way there. Expect the enemy to put pressure on our home world and they will be ready to meet us once we get home, so I want every ship in tip top shape by the time we get there. We will restock our weapons while en-route, to Earth. Carry on"

AN: So this took me a while. I'm going to try to release smaller chapters from now on.

Someone suggested I get an extra beta for spell checking. I could always use one more, if there are volunteers, please send me a PM.

For those also waiting for more chapters on Rescue over New Caprica & future's past, these are on a permanent hold, my apologies.