26 – The Pegasus Invasion, Part 2
(TIS Rome – Bridge - 06.19.2022, 1245)
The last suicide ship had exploded. Between them, they had wiped out Terran One and thirty-one Ha'tak-class ships. ~Not to mention countless support ships.~ So now came the time for Apophis to make his move. This was made easier by the fact that the Wraith had joined the fleet, collecting all his targets in one place. ~Time to end it.~ Even with the Wraith here, he still had the numerical advantage. Not to mention the fact that the Terran ships were more advanced. Apophis activate the communications unit built into his command chair.
"All ships, open fire !"
Which was exactly what the fleet did. The defenders and the planetary defense grid returned fire, taking out several ships. But Apophis could see the power levels on the enemy ships dropping. It only a matter of time before they took the fleet out. That was when the senior weapons officer turned around.
"Admiral, we are receiving distress call from our beachhead," He began. "The Wraith had launched a counter attacks against three of our worlds. Our forces are requesting reinforcements, sir."
"Order Task Force Three to respond."
"Yes, Grand Admiral," The officer said and gave the order.
A dozen Ha'tak-class ships and their support vessels broke away and jumped into hyperspace. The distraction dealt with, Apophis turned his attention back to the enemy fleet. As a result, he didn't watch the long-range sensors. A single blue dot appeared. And then another, and another, and another. Within a minute, there were dozens of dots. And they were all moving towards the fleet.
(Atlantis – Control Room - 06.19.2022, 1245)
Lieutenant Orlov had taken out enough Deathgliders and was now firing at the ships in orbit. That was the good news. The bad news was that the Fleet was taking a pounding. ~We need a plan, or this is going to end badly.~ Woolsey thought. Alas, there were no allies for them to call on. Every ship all their allies could spare, was already here. So it was time to get creative.
When Atlantis and Vanaheimr had landed on Sateda, they had done so on the planet's largest ocean. Called the Middle Sea, it was located between the two largest continents on the planet. The cities were parked near the island of Tavora, which was about the size of Luxemburg. Tavora had no locals, because the Satedans had never colonized it. This had been because the island had been pretty distant from any major settlements.
But with two city-ships to support it, colonization had become a very different proposition. The plan was to construct an underground city. This would not only hide it from enemies, it would also keep the surface free to be turned into farmland. But it had not taken long to discover that the island consisted of a layer of soil above solid rock. This had resulted in the construction teams needing explosives to do their work. And then word of the invasion had reached them, they had been evacuated to the mainland. Leaving their explosives behind.
Delivering the explosives could be done by means of Vanaheimr's Vanir transporters. But the problem was the fact that the explosives would not be powerful enough to destroy the enemy ships. ~But if we can disable them…~ Woolsey opened a channel to Vanaheimr. He was greeted by the sight of Ran, who was apparently helping out in their control room. ~Great minds and all that.~
"I have a plan," Woolsey said.
"Good. Tell me."
So that was exactly what he did.
(TIS Rome – Bridge - 06.19.2022, 1249)
The Wraith reinforcements were in bad shape and several of the Vanir ships had already been destroyed. The enemy had used an advanced teleporter to get the crews of the Vanir ships to safety, but Apophis considered this a simple stay of execution. Then the sensor interface beeped. The enemy was now using their teleporters to beam materials out. He was about to order his weapons officer to run an analysis when an explosion rocked the Rome. ~Explosives !~
"Order all ships to engage their teleport jammers, now !" He barked.
"Yes, Grand Admiral," The weapons said, before giving the order.
The ships engaged their jammers, but several of them had already been damaged and others were simply too slow. Seven more explosions ripped through the Terran fleet. The enemy had targeted the engine rooms first, with the second target being the bridge. Four ships had been hit in the both the engine room and the bridge, leaving them crippled.
Rome and three more ships had only been hit in the engine room. The problem was that the crippled ships were still moving, leaving them at risk of colliding with the rest of fleet. Not to mention the fact that they might explode. This forced Apophis to assign ships to tow them away from the battle site. He had barely finished giving the orders when his intercom came to life.
=/\=Engine Room to Bridge, come in.=/\=
"This is the Grand Admiral, report !"
=/\=This is Engineer Day'lak. The explosion was considerable, Admiral. Twelve of the crew were killed and the hyperdrive is off-line, sir,=/\= Day'lak paused. =/\=Also, the fire suppression system is down and eight weapons placements are non-responsive, sir.=/\=
"Cut power to those weapons and divert it to the functional placements. Focus on the fire suppression system, we can fix the hyperdrive once the battle is over."
=/\=Yes, Grand…=/\=
That was as far as the Engineer got before the channel went dead. Before he could ask what was going on, the lights on the bridge all went out. And that was only the beginning.
(Zacharias – Bridge - 06.19.2022, 1252)
Zacharias was barely capable of keeping herself from decompressing. One more hit and the whole ship would explode. ~This is the end.~ Larrin thought. She was trying to signal for beam-out from the Vanir, but the radio was dead. Then the sensors began to beep as something approached. It took some work, but she was able to get a view of the enemy fleet. And something was attacking them. ~What the…~ The ships she could see, appeared to be covered in some kind of dark cloud. Inside, she could lightning bolts blasting to and fro.
"What is happening ?" O'Neill asked.
"I have no idea, but something tells me that the Terrans aren't going to like it."
Larrin got the feeling that O'Neill's assessment was dead on. ~And if those clouds are as lethal as they look, the Terrans will simply end up dead.~ But there were a lot of Terran ships, so Zacharias' changes were still slim to none. She hoped that the people on the planet were doing better.
(Atlantis – Control Room - 06.19.2022, 1255)
Rodney McKay's fingers were flying over his keyboard. The energy signatures of the Terran fleet were fluctuating. And he was trying to figure out why. ~Come on, tell me what we're looking at.~ Then the laptop beeped as one of his searches got a hit. He opened the right folder and read the results.
"Oh, crap."
"You have something ?" Woolsey asked.
"Just after we arrived back on Atlantis, we encountered a shadow creature," McKay began. "It was part of the Ancients research into ascension."
"The one you send to M4X-337 ?"
"Exactly," McKay said. "We later determined that the shadow creature was captured by the Ancients near the start of their stay in Pegasus. That creature wasn't thousands of years old as I first thought, it was millions. Now, that creature was sentient, but primitive…"
"But if these are 'present day' members of the species…"
"They are more millions of years more evolved and smarter. And if they are capable of feeding on the Terran fleet…"
McKay didn't have to finish the sentence. There was a good chance that one invasion had just been replaced by another.
(TIS Rome – Bridge - 06.19.2022, 1255)
All of the Rome's systems were breaking down. Whatever these clouds were, they were sucking the life out of the ships. Apophis was attempting to contact the rest of the fleet, but to no avail. Then the engineering console exploded.
=/\=Hull breach on deck three.=/\= The computer announced. =/\=Recommend ship evacuation.=/\=
~Been there, done that.~ He had abandoned his previous flagship after the disaster at Earth. If history repeated itself, Emperor Anubis would execute him personally. Suddenly, the lights came back on and the list of failures stopped growing. He looked out the window that doubled as the main viewer. The cloud was gone. He tried the sensors, but they were off-line. ~Blast !~ Suddenly, the communications unit on his chair beeped.
=/\=Come in, Rome.=/\=
"Who is this ?" Apophis barked into the unit.
=/\=This is TIS Istanbul, sir.=/\= The voice said. ~The Istanbul is an Al'kesh.~ =/\=We are attempting to destroy the clouds, sir. But they are absorbing our weapons fire, sir. Orders, sir ?=/\=
Apophis considered his options. Between what he had seen and what he had just heard, he had realized that these clouds were not actually clouds. The fact that they had ignored the smaller targets was an indicator of decision making. And that meant intelligence. ~These being are feeding on energy.~ They had attacked the capital ships, clearly labelling them as a bigger threat and source of food.
"Are the clouds moving from Ha'tak to Ha'tak ?"
=/\=Yes, Grand Admiral.=/\=
"Order the fleet to retreat to the beachhead."
=/\=Grand Admiral ?=/\=
"You heard the order. Order the retreat now."
=/\=Yes, Grand Admiral. Ordering the retreat now.=/\=
Apophis did not blame the crewmember for asking confirmation of the order. He also knew that whoever he had been talking to had taken a huge risk by asking the question. Because most Terran Admirals would have him executed for posing it. But not Apophis. If they remained here, the creatures would eventually feed on all the Ha'tak-class ships.
And then the planetary defense grid would finish them. But if they retreated, he could salvage a portion of the fleet and the creature would turn to the only other source of food around. ~The enemy fleet and Sateda.~ So tactically speaking, retreating was the right thing to do. As if on cue, the sensors came back on-line. Apophis made his way to one of the control consoles and checked them.
It turned out that their reactivation was no coincidence. Somebody down in the engine room had managed to reboot the sensors. ~Time to see how things are going.~ All the Ha'tak-class ships that could jump away on their own, were doing so. The rest were being towed away by the surviving Al'kesh and support ships. A jolt told him that the Rome was now also being towed. Seconds later, the ship entered hyperspace and he lost sensors contact.
(Zacharias – Bridge - 06.19.2022, 1307)
The Terrans were gone, leaving the surviving ships alone with the clouds. If the clouds attacked them, there was nothing they could do about it. ~Apophis was counting on them doing that.~ Larrin thought. But the clouds had other plans. They turned away from the planet and vanished in a rainbow of light.
"It's over," O'Neill said.
"For now," Larrin began. "But as soon as he realizes his plan didn't work, Apophis will be back."
"Not in the short term. His fleet took quite the pounding."
"Speaking of which, we have work to do."
O'Neill nodded and the two of them began overseeing the repairs to the Zacharias.
(Saudi-Arabia – Press Room – 07.01.2022, 0800)
Amar Nadir waited for the transmission to begin. His superior gave him a nod and he stepped up to a lectern facing dozens of cameras. ~Here we go.~ This was a transmission that had been in the works for years. It had been in 2002 that Saudi Arabia had first heard whispers about something happening at Cheyenne Mountain. Over the years, Saudi Arabia had managed to scrape together pieces of the puzzle.
And eventually, they had found allies. ~Other countries locked out of whatever is happening there.~ Together, they had discovered it was not just the Americans locking them out. The Russians, the Chinese and many other nations knew what Cheyenne Mountain was really doing. But Saudi-Arabia and her allies had been blacklisted for some reason.
~And then the crash happened.~ Their examination had confirmed a lot of their theories and led the way to an NID officer called Alexander Farrell. Although how was kind of vague, Nadir was not complaining. Because Farrell had confessed to murdering a report called Armin Selig and provided a copy of his files. It had been those files that had cracked the mystery wide open. And so here he was.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the world press, I am Amar Nadir. Thank you all for coming. Today I want to brief you all on something called the Stargate Program…"