21 – The War / Earth – Part 2

(USS George Hammond – Bridge - 05.03.2022, 1336)

George Hammond was still plummeting towards Earth, but Kevin Marks had managed to use the Reaction-Control-System to make the ship stop rolling. And his fingers were still moving over the controls. Sheppard was about to ask him what he was doing, when the lights went out. Outside the window, the surface was getting very close. And then…it was replaced by a hyperspace window.

~The incident with Attero Device.~ During that mission, Marks had been trying to hack into the Helm of the Daedalus. He had failed to do so in time. Fortunately, Sheppard had managed to save the day. He had used a Traveler ship to create a window, which had allowed both the Traveler ship and the Daedalus to travel through a planet.

And Marks remembered that mission. So he had diverted all the power he could to the hyperdrive. It had been a risky move, but it worked. The George Hammond reappeared on the other side of the planet. Seconds later, the lights came back on and several consoles sparked.

"The hyperdrive is down, sir," Marks said.

"Yeah, I figured as much," Sheppard began. "Do we have enough inertia ? I'd hate to do this whole crashing thing again."

"Yes, sir," Marks said, while a message appeared on his screen. "And engineering just send a message that they are working on the sublight engines, sir."

Before Sheppard could answer, three Terran ships appeared ahead of them. It was crystal clear that crashing had just become the least of their worries.

(USS Spera – Bridge - 05.03.2022, 1336)

Grand Admiral Apophis really wanted the crew of the Spera dead, that much was sure. His ship was blasting at them, forcing T'Zalo to keep dodging the bolts. Cadman had managed to land several hits on the enemy flagship, but it hadn't even put a dent in their shields. ~I hate it when the bad guys upgrade their stuff. It usually leads to a really bad day.~ Vale thought. He looked at the sensors just in time to see the George Hammond jump through Earth. ~Gotcha!~ He had an idea and turned to T'Zalo.

"T'Zalo, bring her about to 238 mark 32."

"Got a plan for another trap, Colonel ?" T'Zalo asked.

"Not yet, but I'm working on it."

"Good enough for me, sir."

T'Zalo set the course and engaged it. Vale had noticed that three Al'kesh were headed towards the George Hammond. They were clearly planning to blast the damaged flagship to pieces. But Vale had not picked the new course at random. It would take them between the Hammond and the attackers. ~If Apophis follows us, he'll block the Al'kesh.~ Of course, the flagship would then be able to open fire on the Hammond. ~That, and it won't take long for those Al'kesh to bypass the flagship.~ Alas, Vale had no better idea at the moment.

"He's chasing us, sir," Calhoun said.

~Good.~ The Al'kesh opened fire on the Hammond. But half of their bolts ended up hitting the flagship. Before the Al'kesh could fly past the flagship, T'Zalo swung the Spera around. And the same time Cadman fired at one of the smaller vessels. It spiraled out of control and headed straight for the flagship.

(TIS Superior – Bridge – 05.03.2022, 1338)

The Al'kesh hit the Superior's shields and exploded. One of the bridge console blasted itself apart mere seconds later.

"Shields are down twenty percent, Admiral," The weapons officer reported. "Weapons at eighty-seven percent."

That was when the Austerlitz entered the picture and opened fire with her Asgard beams. She took out the other two Al'kesh and then hit the Superior with everything she could muster. Apophis order the weapons officer to fire upon the new Tau'ri vessel. Austerlitz was commanded by a man called John McAllister.

The Terran version of McAllister had been born to a rich and well-connected family in Spain. He had quickly risen up the ranks to become the governor of Earth. ~For now, he is probably planning some means to become ruler of the whole solar system.~ His ascension through the ranks had been aided by the fact that he had been an only child. It was also well known that his military skill were non-existent.

"Fool," Apophis began. "Fire the drones."

"Yes, Admiral."

Superior unleashed a salvo of drones. Apophis had never liked McAllister. So the thought of killing the man brought a smile to his lips. But he was about to learn the hard way that there were limits to Imperial Intelligence. And that this universe was a very different place then the one he called home.

(EUS Austerlitz – Bridge - 05.03.2022, 1340)

Colonel John McAllister was Scottish. He had been the third child born to Alexander and Maggie McAllister. His father had been an accountant and his mother had thought drama. Between them, they had made just enough money to take care of their children. Like Alexander, the oldest McAllister – William – had become an accountant.

The difference was that William was working for the British Army, instead of a civilian company. It had been this example that had led to John to putting on the uniform. He had turned out to be quite the recruit, ending up reassigned to the Special Air Service. This assignment had put him on the radar of the right people, who had selected him for command of the Austerlitz.

It had also been the fact that he had served in the SAS that was about to kick the Terrans in the jewels. The SAS kept the records of its people under heavy security. And when a Terran spy had tried to acquire McAllister's file, he had been caught. The spy had been thrown in jail and the SAS had seized his equipment. They had then created a copy of William McAllister's service record, which they had altered to pass for John's. This fake file had then been transmitted back to the Empire.

"Incoming drones, sir," Austerlitz's weapons officer said.

"Ricci, turn her twenty-two degrees to port. De Vries, fire railguns five, six and seven."

"Aye, sir." Came the replies.

McAllister had poached Gerda De Vries from the Royal Netherlands Navy, where she had served on a De Zeven Provincien-class ship. Not only were these ships the workhorses of the Dutch Navy, they were the most advanced ships in the fleet. So they were the closest thing to the Austerlitz-class he could find. Marco Ricci was the best pilot the Italian Air Force. Besides helicopters and jet fighters, he was also rated on the F-302, Goa'uld cargo ships and the Ha'tak-class.

Ricci turned the ship, while De Vries fired the guns. The drones dodged the bullets, which gave Ricci room to dodge the drones. The bad news was that the drones quickly turned and came at them again. However, before they could hit, Ricci threw the ship through another turn. At the same time, the Superior fired another wave.

"Okay, folks, here we go," McAllister said. "Activate Maggie."

"Yes, sir," De Vries said.

Maggie was the codename for a little trick the Austerlitz had up her sleeve. During what was now known as the "Avenger 2.0 Incident", then-Colonel Jack O'Neill had captured an Al'kesh. Said Al'kesh had later been stripped of it hyperdrive, which had been installed aboard the original Prometheus. The Prometheus had been stranded on a planet called Tagrea, but that was a whole other story.

What mattered, was that before the Al'kesh had left, the folks at Area 51 had stripped everything they could from the ship. Including its cloaking device. After learning what they could from it, they had put the components into storage. But John McAllister had been done his homework and convinced the right people to dust off those parts. The New Asurans had upgraded the cloaking device, which had been installed aboard the Austerlitz.

The cloak engaged and the drones lost their target. Which confused whoever was controlling them just long enough for the default programming to kick in. And the default programming was for them to hit the nearest target. ~Gotcha!~ McAllister thought. Because the nearest target was the Terran flagship.

(TIS Superior – Bridge – 05.03.2022, 1342)

All the drones hit the Superior.

"No!" Apophis yelled.

The Helm console exploded and one of the structural beams holding up the ceiling snapped. Then the lights died. Apophis barely made it to the corridor before the forcefield in the main window failed and the room decompressed. The doors had closed in time, but things were not much better in the corridor. There was clearly extensive damage to the entire ship. This was confirmed when he heard the sounds of impacts on the hull. ~The ghost!~

Before he could curse, the computer tried to say something. But the words were distorted. He made his way towards Engineering and discovered what the computer had be trying to tell him. ~The shields are down.~ This was made obvious by a large hole in the bulkhead, beyond which was the cold of space. A forcefield was struggling to keep the atmosphere in. Quickly making his way past the hole, he reached cargo bay three. This cargo bay doubled as an escape pod launch station. Three of the four pods were already gone.

"Cowards, they will pay for their insolence."

Apophis entered the escape pod and launched it. The pod had barely cleared the Superior when the ship began exploding. Ten seconds later, the Terran flagship was gone.

(Tria – Bridge - 05.03.2022, 1350)

Between the survival of the George Hammond and the death of the Superior, the battle was slowly begin to turn to in favor of Earth. The defenders had managed to kill only eleven Ha'tak-class ships, but all of the support ships were gone. ~Still, forty-nine versus thirteen. The numbers are not exactly on our side.~ On the bright side, the HMCS Victory and HMCS Liberty had joined the Austerlitz on the offensive. Meanwhile, the USS Spera and Korolev had taken up position to protect the Hammond as it conducted repairs.

"Tria to Hammond, how are things looking over there ?" Colonel Yin said into the his radio.

=/\=We've almost got the sublight drives working again.=/\= Sheppard said. =/\=But the Asgard beams are in bad shape, we'll be lucky to get one back on-line. How are you doing on drones ?=/\=

"We're fresh out, but the pulse weapons are still going strong, sir."

Besides drone weapons, the Tria was also armed with Ancient pulse weapons. It had also been fitted with the weapons from two Al'kesh. The first Al'kesh had been the one that Maggie had come from. And in 2006, a Ba'al clone had crashed an Al'kesh on Earth. That ship had been stripped for parts as well. Its cloak had been damaged beyond repair, while her hyperdrive had been given to the European Union. It was being used to develop upgrades to the Austerlitz-class engines. The weapons had been installed on the Tria.

=/\=Good.=/\= Sheppard said. =/\=Keep at it, we need…=/\=

Yin was about to ask Sheppard if something was wrong, when he saw what had made the Brigadier pause. The shields of several Ha'tak-class ships were dropping. And the defenders were not afraid to use the opportunity this presented. But the Yin couldn't help wondering how this had just happened.

(Lucia Prime – The Cave – 05.03.2022, 1340)

The alien vessels were moving away from Prime at high sublight speed. ~Guess that answers that.~ Morris thought. Which meant that it was time for their next move. When the Colonials had fled the Empire, they had brought intelligence with them. When these pieces had been puzzled together, it had provided the Lucian Alliance with extensive information on the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Fleet. Unfortunately, they had been attacked by the Fourth Fleet. Which meant that all that information had been totally, utterly useless.

~Come on, Dani.~ Overseer Danielle "Dani" Yeager was the commander of Alliance Intelligence. The agency had been almost completely wiped out during the Fall, with Yeager being one of only three survivors. In the years since, Yeager had led a program to rebuild it. These days, it was still not the biggest organization in the Alliance. But with ninety-one members, it was a working one again.

While they had been waiting for the Terrans to arrive, Morris had been making calls. The first person she had called, had been Yeager. They had already know that the ships were Fourth Fleet at that point. Besides intelligence, the Colonials had also provided them with the gear needed to read Imperial transponder codes. Morris had assigned Yeager to find out where the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Fleet were. As if on cue, one of the console operators turned his chair around. He had picked up a telephone that was integrated into this console.

"Madam President," He said. "Overseer Yeager has an update for you, ma'am."

"Thank you," She took the receiver. "Dani, what do you have ?"

=/\=The Eighth and Ninth Fleet are not part of the attack. They've been assigned to protect the colonies on Chulak, Delmak and Netu. But the Seventh Fleet is here and under the command of Grand Admiral Apophis himself. The Fleet is attacking Earth, ma'am.=/\=

"And you're only figuring this out now ?"

=/\=No, I figured it out over an hour ago. But I figured you were all busy with the whole planet-under-attack thing going on.=/\= Yeager paused. =/\=Are the ground forces still panicking ?=/\=

"Yeah, we're working on that." Morris said. "Good work, Dani."

Morris hung up the phone and decided what to do next. ~The Senate probably wouldn't approve.~ But they weren't here. ~Too busy panicking upstairs.~ So she wasn't going to ask for permission.

(Stargate Command – Briefing Room – 05.03.2022, 1342)

=/\=Unscheduled incoming wormhole.=/\= Sergeant Yorrick Anders said.

Yorrick Anders had been assigned to Stargate Command in 2018. He was a Technical Sergeant who – together with Sergeant Dan Siler – ran the technical side of the Gate Room. At the sound of his announcement, Carter made her way down to the Control Room. Quinn followed her. The iris was closed and the defense team was in position.

"What do we have, Sergeant ?" Carter was asking.

"No incoming traveler, ma'am. No radio transmissions so far," That was when one of screens changed to show table of some sort. "It's a digital file transmitted on a wireless network, ma'am."

"It looks like a spreadsheet to me," Quinn said as he joined Carter.

"It is," Carter said. "But it's in Goa'uld," She worked the keyboard and the computer translated it. "Transponder number, ship names, radio frequency and a column marked prefix."

"Prefix ? As in Wrath of Khan, Enterprise lowering Reliant's shields, Prefix ?"

"Maybe. There's only twenty-seven names here, so this is not enough to take out the entire fleet," It was at this point that the wormhole disengaged. "Besides, there is the question of who send us this information. Orders, sir ?"

"We can worry about who send us this information later. Transmit the prefixes on the provided frequencies."

"Yes, Mister President." Carter said.

Carter sat down at the workstations next to Anders and got to work. At the same time, Quinn went back the briefing room. It would be the best place to keep tabs on the effect of the codes. He knew that this move was a gamble. ~Carter was right about us not knowing the source.~ But the defenders were outnumbered and they could use all the help they could get.

(Tria – Bridge - 05.03.2022, 1357)

The prefix list had allowed the Fleet to take out twenty-two of the remaining Terran vessels, leaving the odds thirteen versus twenty-seven. And with no support vessels to focus on, the Ancient outpost was now free to fire on the capital vessels. At the same time, the Hammond had finished repairing the sublight drive and one of the Asgard beams. She and Spera were providing cover fire for the Tria, which was firing plasma charges at one of the enemy ships.

"Sir," Tria's weapons officer began. "The enemy fleet is retreating."

And indeed, the surviving ships were jumping into hyperspace. Unfortunately for the Tria's target, it's hyperdrive had been knocked off-line already. The Hammond fired her Asgard beam and their shields collapsed. This allowed the Tria to land the killer blow. Finally, the last Terran ship jumped away. The Battle of Earth was over.

~For now.~ But it was no secret that this was only the beginning of the Terran Wars. And there was the issue of the Terran warship that had collided with Earth. Which meant that even if there wasn't a round two, they would have their hands full.

(Earth – Al-Ahsa Oasis - 05.03.2022, 1415)

There were burning chunks of metal scattered all over the desert and the oasis. The Terran Ha'tak-class ship that had entered the atmosphere, had ended up exploding. But it had not been destroyed completely. Chunks of hull had survived the trip, scorched crates of cargo came raining down and a handful of escape pods had landed in one piece. But none of the crew made it down alive.

The field stretched for miles, with some of the debris having landed in the ocean. All the local emergency services were hard at work dealing with the situation. Fortunately, nobody had been killed. But there had been several wounded. This gave the Ambulance Service and the local hospitals plenty to do. At the same time, the fire brigade was working to put out the flames and the police were keeping people away from the danger.

As the hours passed, the fires were put out and the debris was collected. Eventually, badly burned pieces of organic matter were filtered out. These had been gathered and turned over to the Army, which had immediately classified their existence. They had then been spirited away to the nearest base for examination. Which was eventually going to become a problem.

Because the Al Ahsa Oasis was located in Saudi Arabia, which was not part of the International Oversight Authority. Over the years, the IOA had grown. But they had also created a blacklist of nations, which the members all agreed on should *never* find out about the Stargate. After a long and heated debate, Saudi Arabia had been added to the black list. But things were about to change. And not for the better.