Chapter 8.
Antarctica, Above Ancient Defense Platform.
Major Samantha Carter was worried, after their harrowing entry into Earth's atmosphere and nearly nose diving into the frigid ice below they had finally reached their location, the Goa'uld cargo ship hovered over a ragged icy plain, energy spitting out from beneath, a beam that drilled down, deep into the history of the planet itself to find something, anything that could save them from this crisis.
Looking back at Colonel O'niell she couldn't help but think about his losing battle with the repository of the Ancients as it continued to rewrite his mind, how much longer he was going to last was anyone's guess but it wouldn't be to long now, she was interrupted from her inner thoughts by Teal'cs voice.
"Anubis could not have missed our arrival"
"He has not, Al'kesh and Gliders approach, many!" Stated Bra'tac
'Things are not looking good', thought Sam.
"More ships approach from the opposite direction" Bra'tac added.
Looking back at O'niell Sam yelled out their situation.
"Sir were about the get our asses kic-" only to be interrupted by Bra'tac.
"They are not Goa'uld"
Sam ran to the forward view port and looked out in the direction Bra'tac indicated, her heart soaring at what she saw.
Death Gliders and Al'kesh raced to their prey, eager to prove their worth to their god, only to find their lives being snuffed out before they could even give thought to the idea of their own deaths by a barrage of angry orange lights blowing up their ships in great numbers.
The Star-Hawks raced towards SG-1 eager to prove that their new fighters could take on the best the Goa'uld had to offer, the fighters quickly pursued their enemy counterparts in vicious dog fights, the Gliders struggling to match the superiority of the Star-Hawks.
Just as the Jaffa began to understand how much they had underestimated their enemy, their warrior spirit took an even greater hit when they saw the Earth ship coming right at them guns blazing furiously, not unlike a vengeful god!
Sam on the other hand was elated and could finally take a breath of relief, when she saw the ship move over them she couldn't hide her surprise at the vessels rather significant visible upgrades.
"Is that Prometheus!?".
Prometheus Bridge.
"Defend that scout ship at all costs and open a channel to that ship" Hammond ordered.
"Channel open" I reported back.
"SG-1 this is Hammond, do you read?"
"Yes sir and its good to hear from you!" replied Carter
Looking over the sensor screens I could see that the Al'kesh were dropping like flies and the sky was nearly clear of Death Gliders, a far and away better showing then the original time line Prometheus and 302's were capable of doing.
"Shields holding at 98 percent sir and regenerating, the gliders and Bombers aren't strong enough to cause us significant damage." I reported to the general.
"Excellent Doctor, keep me appraised of any changes" came the response.
"Aye sir" I returned, things were going well and Anubis will not be pleased with the poor showing his Jaffa were giving, he will bring the hammer down hard upon us and soon.
Anubis's Mothership, Orbit.
"My lord, our Al'kesh have been destroyed and our Gliders are in retreat from the Earth vessel and their fighter craft" said Anubis's First Prime worriedly, he did not expect this level of ability from the primitive humans of the Tau'ri and his god will not be pleased. He was right.
"What?!" hissed Anubis who began looking over his own sensor data coming in at a console on his command throne, what was this he thought. These were not of the same design of fighter that attacked his ship and destroyed his main weapon! What was going on! Why did the Tau'ri Attack vessel have a far larger energy signature then even his Hat'ak class ships!
Impossible, could the Tau'ri have discovered some unknown cash of Ancient technology and learned to harness it? If so that ship was more dangerous then he first gave it credit, it must be destroyed and quickly.
"Send in another 2 waves as well as 2 of our Hat'ak, have them destroy the Tau'ri vessel, immediately!" Commanded the god Anubis.
"Of course my lord, you will be done!" simpered the Prime.
As the 2 Hat'ak and 4 dozen gliders and Al'kesh descended to the Tau'ri's position Anubis grinned under his hooded cloak, this threat would not last long enough to cause him any more trouble, he would not be denied any longer.
Antarctica, Prometheus Bridge.
Oh that's not good I thought to myself, the ships sensors clearly showed incoming enemy ships, a lot of them and that wasn't all.
"General we've got incoming, I count 4 dozen Glider/Al'kesh mix entering the atmosphere directly ahead of our position and that's not all, 2 Hat'ak have just entered the atmosphere behind them and they're heading straight for us"
Everyone on the bridge froze for a moment and looked at me in trepidation, these were quite the odds but I knew we could face them well enough.
"Understood Doctor, I think its time to unveil that party favor of yours don't you think?" said Hammond as he turned his chair towards me, he didn't know what this weapon was exactly but Felger said it would help turn the battle in their favor so he decided to trust the scientist on this one.
"Yes sir, looks like this party's heating up, with you permission?"
"You have firing control son, give em hell."
My vicious grin seemed to give a renewed confidence to those on the bridge as they redoubled their efforts in their assigned duties.
Bringing the new weapon online I ran a quick diagnostic and everything was in the clear, the turret came online and the large single barrel moved quickly to aim at the incoming Hat'ak ships, who had just begun firing as they came into visual range.
"Designating targets as Alpha and Beta" –the new forward viewing window zoomed in and highlighted both ships as they pounded on the shields with their plasma cannons, the words Alpha and Beta appearing over the left and right flanking ships respectively- "target Alpha has been locked" –the turret quickly focused on the left incoming Hat'ak- "round loaded, subspace distortion field established, firing in 3, 2, 1."
Flashback.
"So Mr president lets talk about the new weapon mounts there on the top of the model I gave you" I said
"Please do son, they look mighty impressive so what do they do then" asked POTUS.
"Well sir, as I explained before I made a deal with the Asgard for some technology by trading 70 percent of the neutronium I had in my part of the deal, one of those technologies was the spatial distortion technology they used before hyperdrive, you see in the early days they would send cargo containers of supplies to nearby colonies by creating a subspace field around the container and essentially catapulting it to the targeted system at several times the speed of light and that got me thinking."
"About what Doctor?" the President asked.
"What would happen if you made a cannon that shot a round at an enemy ship at several times the speed of light" I smirked.
Stunned silence was what I received although is was quickly broken by one of the generals.
"What?"
"Simply put the harder you hit something the more damage you do, so imagine if you will a battering ram that shoots a projectile that weighs 5 tonnes composed of Naquadah/Trinuim and carbon hitting an enemy ship at several times the speed of light."
My audience had looks of pure awe, I leaned forward finishing my little presentation on this weapon with a final thought for them to ponder.
"How do you think the enemy ships would fare against that kind of firepower?" I grinned devilishly.
Flashback end.
The target locked, the weapon ready, I pressed the firing control and let rip the dogs of war.
"Welcome to Earth"
A quick flash of light, a blink and you'll miss it moment, left the barrel of the weapon and struck target Alpha, the ships shields blew off the vessel completely, popping like a balloon, secondary explosions began to shake the Hat'ak as the power conduits exploded in the vain attempt of trying to stop that much kinetic energy focused solely into a single point, the shield generator blew causing a feedback into the ships power systems, a few Talon missiles later and the ship was destroyed in short order.
Well, to target Beta's horror the crew watched their companion explode due to something that was fired by the Earth ship but they couldn't understand the sensor data they were seeing, the ships commander deciding that discretion was the better part of valor began pulling the ship up and away from the Tau'ri monster that destroyed the other ship. Too little, too late.
Another flash of white light that quickly hit the retreating ship and it too lost all shields as well as engines and began plummeting to the ground, a few more Talon missiles and they too joined their brothers in arms in the afterlife, the threat neutralized.
"Targets destroyed General" I reported, although I was still looking at my status screens reading the data from my prototype weapon, seems everything worked as expected, excellent.
It was only then that I noticed the absolute silence around me,I Iooked up and saw everyone completely gobsmacked starring at me like they had never seen me before, even Hammond had his chair turned to me and was just staring in slack jawed awe.
"What?" I asked, everyone just seemed to be frozen in abject awe and horror, it was getting a little uncomfortable if I had to be honest.
"Doctor Felger, I know that you made some special weapon as a surprise for Anubis but you never really explained what it was and well, what the hell was that?!" Hammond gestured to the forward view port in incredulity.
"OH! Well that was the first use of my brand new weapon system, the Warp cannon!"
"Warp cannon?" he asked.
"Ya, essentially it wraps the projectile in a subspace distortion field which than launches it at light speeds at a target and as you know the faster an object travels the more mass it accumulates so when it hits a target all that energy is delivered into a single point, think of it as an interstellar version of a battering ram" I said happily.
"I see, well um, well done" Hammond said, he was still kind of out of it, this was a weapon that would change the very face of space warfare and he never thought something like that could exist, he's was going to need a drink after this.
"Yes well I only had enough time and material to make 30 rounds and I just used 2 so we are going to have to use it in conjunction with our other weapon systems, so keep that in mind please." I informed the general.
"Understood Doctor, whats the status of our fighters?" asked the General.
Looking up I responded with a smirk "Haven't lost one yet and they're clearing the enemy fighters and bombers away quite nicely".
Major Cameron Mitchell really did think they were in trouble when not 1 but 2 Hat'ak class ships descended form the sky and began firing on the Prometheus, he was just about to order some of his squadron to engage the Motherships when all of a sudden one of said ships started blowing up, he could have sworn something really fast hit it just before a large wave of energy just pealed off of the ship and then it started exploding, It didn't last long since the Prometheus put it out of its misery pretty quick, his pilots really couldn't hide their surprise at what just happened either, not like he could blame them problem is they were now clogging the comms channels with their shouting.
"What the hell was that!"
"Oh my god did you see that!"
"How could I not see that Rodriguez!"
"Holy crap the other one just went up too! What the hell does Prometheus have that's doing this!"
Cam had had enough of that chatter and decided to put his foot down and get some order back into the ranks.
"Alright that's enough, all of you! I don't know what that was and quite frankly I don't care right now, focus on your jobs we still got a lot of tangos out here to clear, get your heads in the game people!"
Receiving affirmatives from his squadron they jumped back into the fray plasma repeaters firing and Claw missiles turning Gliders and Al'kesh into mince meat, the Star-Hawks had proven their worth a hundred fold already but this day wasn't over yet.
Anubis's Mothership, Peltak.
Anubis the god of death himself could not believe what he was seeing. From his sensor feed he just watched 2 of his Hat'ak, ships that were several times more powerful then the next Goa'uld equivalent, disappear from his sensors in a matter of seconds!
How was this possible! Where did they go! Did the Tau'ri discover Ancient weapons that put them on par if not above his own?!
He couldn't allow the Tau'ri vessel to survive here, if he was lucky they may have just found and bolted on this weapon they'd discovered and they couldn't have any other to use against him, with that in mind he turned to his Prime.
"Bring the fleet into position above the Tau'ri vessel! Destroy it!" He raged!
The Anubis class Mothership along with the remaining 35 Hat'ak moved closer to Earth and positioned themselves for orbital bombardment, once in position all ships began firing down at the lone Earth defender.
Antarctica, Prometheus Bridge.
The ship shook and shuddered under the withering bombardment from space, the crew held onto consoles and chairs to keep from rocking to and fro as they tried to continue their tasks.
"Shields are down to 86 percent, Phase shift armor is down to 97 percent, their hitting us hard General I don't know how long we can't hold here under these conditions!" Warned Ronson.
"Hold your position." Hammond said stoically.
"I'm re-routing emergency power to dorsal shields, that should take some of the edge off but we can't hold here forever sir." I informed Hammond, the Prometheus was far more powerful then before but even she would be torn apart under a sustained bombardment after too long.
"Understood" was all I received in return, thankfully we didn't have to wait too long to get some good news.
"Scout ship has cleared the hole!" reported Major Gant.
"Set course for Anubis's Mothership, move us out of here" ordered Hammond
"Bring main engines online, emergency thrust!" came the order from Ronson.
The Prometheus began to move, rising even under the bombardment of plasma fire pounding on her shields, her sublight engines roaring to life as she blasted off to face Anubis head on.
I was busy orienting the shields to counter the heaviest fire from the Goa'uld ships all the while Prometheus continued firing her plasma repeater cannons and Talon missiles at any targets of opportunity, I also assisted with firing the warp cannon at any Hat'ak that tried flanking to the rear, I couldn't let them move behind us, if that happened I wouldn't be able to use the cannon for risk of hitting the Earth.
Several Hat'ak exploded under our own withering barrage of weapons fire, I also fired a few shots of the warp cannon into Anubis's Mothership, I wanted to see what kind of damage I could do to that behemoth! The answer to that question was quite a bit.
Anubis's Mothership, Peltak.
The Peltak shook horribly as sparks and explosions flew from consoles and walls, he gripped his chair as hard as he could to steady himself, whatever weapon it was that the Tau'ri had been using was just used against his ship and the damage was not minor.
"My lord! Shields are down to 17 percent! We have lost 3 shield generators and I am detecting multiple internal explosions from damaged power conduits! We have also lost hyperdrive and several plasma cannons!" His First Prime yelled over the loud noises around them.
Anubis felt that human chill again, not only had he failed in turning back the humans in the Ancient outpost down below but he also failed to destroy the Tau'ri vessel which for all intents should have been destroyed some time ago! How had it survived weapons fire that would have folded even his own ship!
Perhaps he should retreat to his escape craft and return another day, he had obviously underestimated these humans, he would not do so again.
Earth Orbit, Prometheus Bridge.
"Shields down to 67 percent, Phase shift armor down to 82 percent, we've expended half our ordinance already, I'm trying to recalibrate the shields to counter more of the enemy fire but Anubis is using similar tech to our repeaters! Its hard to pin down a certain set of frequencies but we are countering a good chunk of the enemy fire." I informed the General, we were doing way better then the OG Prometheus had done when it was in that same position we were in, still we couldn't fight forever and we ran the risk of Anubis retreating the more of his ships we destroyed.
"Do what you can Doctor, your doing a great job already, just keep it up" said Hammond, the good Doctor really impressed him, this situation was a stressful one to say the least, still Felger kept his composure and continued doing his work even under fire as they were, they had really underestimated the man.
Antarctica, Ancient Outpost.
Major Carter shouldered her Plasma repeater rifle again and began laying down covering fire against the horde of Kull warriors trying to make their way to their position, Teal'c and Daniel also laying their own fire down range and thanks to the anti Kull attachment they were dropping quickly the problem was they kept getting replaced just as fast!
Reaching behind her to her belt she pulled out her shield grenade, a lovely invention by Felger industries (inside joke between SG-1), primed and threw it slightly ahead of her team, the grenade deployed a sphere of energy around all three of them as well as effectively keeping Colonel O'niell safe as he had just sat in a crazy looking chair that happened to be positioned smack dab in the middle of the enemies firing line.
The Kull's weapons splashed harmlessly against the shield but it wouldn't last for long, not under this assault but the rest of SG-1 took advantage to the situation and redoubled their efforts in taking down their relentless enemy, Sam reached just behind her and unhooked a rectangular box like device, pressing a button on said device she then handed it to Teal'c who lobbed the thing just behind the transport rings that allowed access to the chamber, the box righted itself and propped on little legs, a red laser light began shining from the little machine and the box on top of the legs began scanning the area, finding targets it then began unloading fast moving plasma round mixed with anti Kull energy from behind the enemy lines, this little portable turret chewed threw the Kull before they could figure out what was killing their numbers so quickly giving SG-1 a little breathing room, still she could already see the rings activating again, they couldn't hold forever, Jack had to do something.
"Sir what ever you're gonna do!" Sam called out to her CO, she didn't have to wait long as the ground ahead of them collapsed and a bright yellow light began emitting from it, something was coming.
What came from that hole were several hundred, meter long devices that looked strangely like glowing yellow squid, not to look a gift horse in the mouth the Star-Hawk pilots watched as the glowing weapons began taking out some of the Death Gliders as they continued their climb up and out of the atmosphere.
Earth Orbit, Prometheus Bridge.
The ship was taking a pounding but she was still holding strong, I was doing my level best to keep her shields above 50 percent but I knew it was a losing battle yet it was a battle I was willing to fight till my last breath, thankfully I knew that wasn't necessary in this instance, looking at the sensors I saw our salvation coming up behind us rapidly.
"General incoming weapons fire from the surface!" I reported.
"Cease fire! Break off, get us clear." Ordered Hammond, Ronson replied in the affirmative and Prometheus rocketed away from the Goa'uld fleet as quickly as her sublights could move her.
Anubis's Mothership, Peltak.
This entire venture had turned into a nightmare of epic proportions! How had the Tau'ri developed a vessel of such quality in such short a time?! How had the intelligence on said craft been so wrong?! He finally decided that he'd had enough of this battle and was just about to order a general retreat and evacuation to his escape craft when his ship began shaking again in earnest, looking out the forward viewport he could see hundreds of tiny yellow lights racing at his fleet and from what he could see his Hat'ak were dropping like flies!
"My lord our shields are of no use!" Yelled out his Prime but he no longer cared, he saw through the viewport as the lights raced towards him, this was the weapon of the Ancients?! Then what was the weapon the Tau'ri ship used against him and his forces!? He didn't really have the time to ponder these thoughts as the lights nearly blinding him ran through his ship and with one last raging "NOOOO!" Anubis and his fleet were destroyed, the Earth was safe once again.
Earth Orbit, Prometheus Bridge.
"What was that?" Colonel Ronson asked no one in particular although he did get an answer or sorts.
"That was SG-1" Hammond responded back, the sound of Victory in his voice as well as relief.
I couldn't help it, I started laughing not at the Generals words but more of surviving the situation, sure they did in the show but I had to live it along side them and this was my first life or death situation.
Thankfully others on the bridge started laughing as well as the tension left us, even Hammond joined in a bit.
"Alright everyone lets get back to it, we have to make sure the system is secure and make sure that everyone's alright" ordered Hammond.
Receiving an affirmative from us all we got back to work making sure their were no stragglers from the enemies forces, the battle of Antarctica was over, now I deal with what comes next, Anubis himself.