A/N: To Guest: As you can see, this fic hasn't been abandoned, and neither has any of my other stories (unless I've mentioned it on my profile). It will take me a longer time to write all my chapters and then upload chapters for each story to the site. Coupled with the fact that I don't have as much free time as I did before thanks to work and studies means that I can't update as often as I wish.
Orbit of Earth, now.
Ba'al was slightly concerned that the shield enhancements to his mothership wouldn't work, especially when there were a few drones that slipped through the outer shield. He was relieved that the drones had lost the vast majority of their power before exploding upon impacting the inner shield. He managed a smile as he looked out at the damaged ships of the Pegasus Alliance which were still firing their plasma weapons while the while the main weapon in his mothership, powered by the Eye of the Gods and enhanced by ascended knowledge thanks to Quetesh, was recharging.
It was the waiting that had him impatient... the waiting for the main weapon to be recharged.
While he was mocking both the Pegasus Alliance and the Federation Alliance in their inability to beat him, the Goa'uld thought back to long ago when he discovered that Adria was killed. Before the SGC, Homeworld Security, and the IOA ever realized that the Trust had agents everywhere in the IOA itself… Ba'al ordered one of his clones to find the site where Adria was killed. Once the site was found, one of his clones then gathered dried blood on the ground before leaving the planet. Ba'al kept the blood sample away after having checked its DNA viability, and in the meantime, he travelled to his base on a planet at the far side of the galaxy.
There he had an underground bunker containing stargates to one day have his own Stargate network, as well as DNA samples of the System Lords. It was all so that he could, in a roundabout way, have the system lords under his control. He didn't want to 'grow' them in case, despite any genetic tampering, the System Lords would turn against him. But there was one he had a soft spot for, and that was Quetesh.. but he wanted to advance his own plans for subjugating Earth before even thinking about cloning Quetesh.
And t would be much later, following the resounding defeat of the living weapons that were the spark for World War Three on Earth, that Ba'al retreated back into the far regions of space. From there he went into stasis for a few years; he wanted some peace so that he could begin plotting his revenge.
After being in stasis for a little over fifty years, his Jaffa woke him up. He had a plan, and for his plan he needed to create a clone of Adria. He needed the body of the Orici with the knowledge of the Ori written into her very genetic code in the palm of his hand, with a symbiote that he could control. Ba'al was very aware that, for all intents and purposes, Adria was the Ori and she had the powers of a near-ascended being. So that those powers could never be used against him, Ba'al placed genetic locks in her body… included nanite explosives if her powers were ever used against him. He also placed a block that would prevent her body from Ascending; all so that she could never escape his grasp.
Then, after he cloned Adria, he placed a cloned Quetesh into her body. His heart jumped when Adria opened her eyes and then glowed orange. A smirk appeared on her face before she was led out of the cloning chamber with Ba'al holding onto her hand.
"Ba'al," Quetesh said looking at her new body, and then back up at her fellow System Lord, and then at all the other Jaffa that were in the chamber bowing their heads down. She then turned back to Ba'al with a smirk and a tilted head, "I see you have been busy."
"Come, my queen," Ba'al said as he held out his hand. A hand that Quetesh grabbed before she was led out of the small chamber, "we have work to do."
It had taken the two of them years, as the last two system lords, to develop an Ori power source using Ascended knowledge- all thanks to Adria's memories. Following the creation of the power source which rivalled a ZPM and the shield enhancements, Ba'al brought forward plans on his greatest coup thanks to the Trust infiltration in the IOA; research on Tau'ri weapons development thanks to the data in the Sunnydale Ancient Outpost, as well as the outpost in Death Valley, and the initial stages of Tau'ri research on the Ancient drones.
Ba'al wanted a way to lessen the effective of the drone, the ultimate weapon the Tau'ri had in their arsenal. And he was certain that, with Quetesh's cunning and Adria's ascended knowledge, he would be able to develop a shielding system to prevent the phasing weapons to be rendered ineffective. For centuries, the both of them plotted their revenge with a handful of Jaffa among them.
Then came the day that Ba'al came across information that Anubis had been conducting a classified experiment up till his 'death'. Ba'al discovered Anubis' experiment, a prototype weapon- a living weapon genetically engineered to be grown into a near ascended state of evolution. These living weapons would be cloned and then they would be ascended to go to war with the Ancients. At least that was the plan that Anubis had. Ba'al and Quetesh discovered the prototype weapon, Khalek, two hundred and seventy four years ago and used his genetic code to create more clones. So that they could be controlled, Ba'al nullified their near ascended abilities by genetically engineering their DNA. They were still highly durable, but they retained no use of the other abilities associated with near ascension such as Telekinesis, telepathy, rapid healing, heightened senses, and energy manipulation.
But even without those gifts, they were formidable warriors. With the Tau'ri having left Earth and gone, Ba'al assumed, into hiding, his first mission was to subdue the Lucien Alliance.
That he did, by wiping them out using the clones as his new Kull warrior army. With no other immediate threat, he and Quetesh built up their forces for the next two hundred odd years. And now, the time had come to announce their return. The new, ascended knowledge based 'dimensional' shields had done its job adequately. The shields withstood the impacts from the Tau'ri's ultimate weapon, the Ancient Drones, and were holding even though their power had been drained by stopping the Drones.
Ba'al pointed a finger at his First Prime who said that the plasma pulse weapons all around the ship's hull were ready to be fired. When the Goa'uld system Lord started to brag, broadcasting to all ships, about how he preferred that the people of Earth were his slaves, the man turned his head and stared at the First Prime. He then nodded his head and brought his arm down, signalling the First Prime to fire all pulse weapons while the main weapon- the Ori enhanced Eye of the Gods- was being recharged.
Persephone, at that same time.
The Pegasus Alliance ships continued firing all their weapons, chipping away at the energy shields that surrounded Ba'al's mothership. This led to several questions forming in Lisa's mind in regards to what the System Lord and Quetesh developed using the latter's ascended knowledge. She knew that General O'Neill and the Slayers had to board the ship not only to retrieve Ba'al so that they could question him on the location of his command center; the Alliance needed to download information on the enhancements made so that their ships could be able to better defend against any other surprises that could pop up over the coming years.
As the massive Goa'uld motherships' shield continued to flare from Alliance weapons fire, Lisa knew that there were only shields of two major races that could have prevented the drones from working as intended; the Ancient and Asgard shields. Lisa remembered hearing about how Thor was kidnapped by Anubis hundreds of years ago, and the Goa'uld downloaded information on various types of Asgard technology from his mind. She was also very aware that Ba'al used to work for Anubis, and that after his disappearance, Ba'al took over his Kull warriors and had access to knowledge of Asgard technology.
'It just took him this long, and Adria's help to deploy the shielding tech using Asgard and Ori knowledge,' thought Lisa to herself before looking at another screen while the Pegasus alliance ships, including the Aurora class vessels, continued firing their energy weapons systems and missiles. 'Shields are regenerating, and we're continuing to fire our weapons. And the mothership? Well, the Mothership's just standing there and…"
The Persephone then started to shake as the mothership fired yellow pulses of plasma from turrets all along its hull. However, the damage to the Persephone's shield weren't as extensive with the hits from the plasma weapons. She was thankful that the main weapon was still being recharged, but it was that particular weapon which needed to be disabled.
Lisa then turned to her left while Ancient beam weapons and missiles hit the shields of the mothership, "prepare to beam the Horizon weapons to the Galactica."
"Ma'am," Major Daniels said nodding his head.
Lisa was sure that there would be a meeting on the after-action reports they were going to file on how arrogant they were to believe that all the Goa'uld were destroyed. It was that belief that enabled the Pegasus Alliance to ignore the Milky Way, and focus all their attention on the Wraith. Lisa knew that they had spent centuries understanding the Ancient database in Atlantis, and once they did, only then were they able to improve their shields to battle the Wraith threat. It was through centuries of understanding the Ancient technology that the Tau'ri were able to improve their weapons systems, their engines, shields, and hyperdrive. However, they believed the Ori threat to have been neutralized, no one thought that Ba'al could have cloned Adria's body, and as a result have access to Ascended knowledge.
It was a perfect storm the Tau'ri didn't anticipate.
"Continue firing," ordered Lisa as the Persephone continued to fire her missiles, pulse, and Ancient beam weapons while the Goa'uld mothership fired pulses of yellow energy, shaking the Persephone, and the other Alliance vessels. As a result, the Goa'uld weapons fire slowed down the shield recharge rate. 'Huh, a ZPM versus an Ori power source; this is gonna be interesting.' Lisa then was told that the Horizon weapons, five from the Persephone and five from the Vantage were beamed to the Galactica and were being loaded onto the waiting Raptors.
Galactica, Orbit over Earth.
The Mercury class Battlestar Galactica was firing all her weapons at the Mothership while the recently beamed over Horizon's from the Persephone and the Vantage were being loaded onto the hard spots on the hull of five Raptors. The nose section of the ten bullet shaped weapons were being quickly disassembled in the Flight deck, which was shielded from the dangers of space thanks to the shield that protected the crew working on the runway under atmosphere. The ship shook slightly while being bombarded by the Mothership's weapons as Apollo yelled over the speakers in the port flight pod that the deck crew had three minutes to launch the Raptors before the mothership's main weapon was recharged.
"Move it, all of you!" yelled the Chief of the Deck, Bridgette Keyes, as she waved her arms and signalled the deck crew in charge of the Raptors to finish loading the weapons. While Chief Keyes was supervising the arming of the weapons, the pilots were receiving orders from Apollo to take full control of the enhanced Naquadria filled missiles housed within the Horizon platform. Once the pilots had a stable connecting to the weapons control system in what remained of the bullet shaped weapons delivery system after removal of the 'nose', revealing the pointed, dark grey, missiles that were all together capable of destroying an entire large continent.
"This is Raptor 122 to Galactica Actual," said the lead pilot once his systems showed a connection to the weapons system.
"This is Actual," Apollo said as he looked at the hologram in the CIC being projected from a pedestal in the middle of the room. He was surround by officers behind several different consoles all around him, quiet murmurs from the officers could be heard relaying orders from another section of the CIC to send the ship to the port side.
"Raptor 122 leader reporting, sir. We're ready to fly."
"Launch all Raptors when ready," said Apollo into his headset while he was tapping on the hologram in front of him. The hologram then zoomed to several areas on the Goa'uld mothership, to show the location of the pulse weapons, the main weapon and the reactor, the shield generators, and the hyperdrive The information on the targets was then shared with the other ships in the Alliance, "orders are to jump in between the shields, and then fire away at the interior shield. The Horizon weapons have been put to their maximum yield so.. so once you fire, jump out immediately. Raptors 122 through 127, do you copy?"
"Yes, sir," all five voices said at once.
"May the gods be with you," Apollo said as the Raptors flew off into space one after another. They fired their RCS thrusters to get off the deck and then fired their fusion drives to propel themselves through the Flight Deck, and then passed a shimmer – the shield- before finding themselves in open space. The lead pilot, Captain Jayce Stevens, was in control of Raptor 122 in the lead of the other four which had taken up position on either side of his ship. As they headed for the flashing Shields of the Goa'uld mothership, all thanks to weapon fire from the Pegasus alliance, Captain Stevens saw a hyperspace window open up before the Melbourne exited and went on straight for the planet below. He watched the Mothership fire on the Melbourne with its plasma pulse weapons. The pulses hit the shields while the computers on the Captain's Raptor took that time to detect the borders of the inner and outer shield, and then automatically plotted a course to jump into the middle.
"All Raptors," the Captain said as the Pegasus Alliance ships fired continuously, so much so that the scanners were reading that the out shield was down to seventy percent while the inner shield was down to seventy five. The Captain then took a deep breath while the Chulak class ships protected some of the damaged Federation ships from being destroyed. "Jump!"
Voyager, that same time.
Seven picked herself off the floor while the side of her face stung. The last thing she remembered was being flung into a wall after the ship suffered a massive jolt after having been hit three times with weapons fire from a Ha'tak class vessel. She grabbed the side of a console, and looked at the two unconscious, but breathing, bodies on the floor as she stood up on unsteady legs before stumbling to the console in front of the massive display that was showing her the battle over Earth. Seven still felt different in her new body, and getting used to the pain and the feeling of blood trickling down from a cut to the side of her head was something to get used to.
She stumbled to the central console at the edge of the astrometrics platform while the ship lurched to port. Seven grabbed the side of the console as her heart raced while Voyager, along with four other Federation and five Romulan vessels fired weapons, both phaser and disrupters, at the attacking Ha'tak vessels until the Goa'uld ships blew up.
"Captain," mumbled Seven as she looked at the astrometrics screen in front of her which showed the ship they had just destroyed breaking up, "that was the last enemy ship."
"Understood," Janeway said as the alarmed on the bridge rang out while smoke rose from the tactical and port sections of the bridge following small explosions. Janeway then walled for the Doctor while she limped to her chair while Chakotay was helping her. "How's our other orbital guest?"
"The Pegasus ships are still firing on the shields," said the former drone as she brought up sensor logs on the yellow dots that smashed against the shields of the Goa'uld mothership minutes earlier. She noticed that the dots, a squid shaped weapon, was slightly out of phase when it approached the shields… but they were still blocked. Seven looked through the data while she observed other sensor reading showing the launching of the Raptors from the Galactica, and then there was the coming of the Melbourne.
Seven was breathing in and out while blood rushed through her body as she focused on the Raptors. "Captain, sensors are reading some sort of nuclear ordinance on those fighters."
Before Janeway could respond, Paris turned and told her that the Vantage was broadcasting a general alert.
"On speakers."
Vantage, a few seconds earlier.
"Get ready, Old Man," Jon told General O'Neill who then nodded his head before he rushed to the locker room where Daniel and a team where prepared to move out. Jon then turned back to the Tactical display which showed his shields as being at thirty percent, with half of his weapons operational; and all those weapons were continuously being fired. There were several hull breaches from the earlier firing of the mothership's main weapon… with similar damage to the other Pegasus Alliance ships.
Jon saw the Raptors jump into the space between the inner and outer shields while he ordered that a channel be opened to the fleet, both from Pegasus and the Federation Alliance, "this is General Jon O'Neill of the Vantage. All ships, raise your shields and prepare for nuclear detonation." He then closed the line before connecting to Dawn in Atlantis on a scrambled line.
"Dawn," said Jon as he watched the Raptors jump away after launching the missiles towards the interior shield, "target the mothership. Prepare to fire two hundred drones on my order. Aim for the shield and weapons generators. And then I want the primary weapon taken out."
"Got it," said Dawn as weapon fire from the death gliders were hitting the Atlantis shields while being engaged in dogfights with the Arrows, Vipers, and the Peregrine fighters. Dawn pointed at one of her technicians and ordered her to target the generators. Just as she finished speaking, there was a brilliant white flash of light as the missiles hit the interior shield of the mothership. The sensors in all the Federation Alliance ships went off the scale with even Data and Laforge on the crippled Enterprise checking the data being collected on the destructive power of the nuclear weapons.
And their sensors were correct, even if some, like the Romulans, believed that they were getting incorrect readings. The Tau'ri fire power from the ten Horizon platforms were enough to cause an extinction level event if fired on a planet. The immense power and electromagnetic pulse rippled through the inner shield of the Goa'uld mothership and fed back into the shield emitters and power conduits resulting in power surges, many of which caused explosions in the interiors of the ship taking many Jaffa with them. There were explosions in the generator rooms for both the inner and outer shields, the debris from the exploding generators acting as shrapnel destroying one generator after another while the mother ship shook violently.
Ba'al fell onto the ground, as did many of his Jaffa and Kull Warriors while explosion occurred all over the ship. The Jaffa in the command center were still struggling to stand as the ship groaned looked up at him before saying that the outer shields were fluctuating. And then there was an explosion as a section of the ceiling in the command room fell, killing the Jaffa who just spoke. Sparks then showered into the room when, back in the Vantage, Jon just learned that the outer shields of the Goa'uld mothership were fluctuating.
"We're detecting explosions inside the ship," cried one of the bridge officers as Jon gave a small smirk.
"All ships! Continue pounding them!" yelled Jon yelled as the Vantage, Persephone and then other Aurora class ships, the Galactica, the Jaffa's Chulak Class ships, the Asgard ships, and a combination of the Federation, Romulan, Vulcan, and Andorian vessels fired at the mothership. The shields flared as most weapons fire went through; some photon torpedoes and phaser went through the shields causing explosions in the hull while several blasts of plasma energy shattered sections of the hull while some of the Ancient beams from the Aurora class ships and the beam weapons from the Asgard vessels tore through the 'petals' which focused the energy of the main weapon, "Atlantis, launch drones!"
"Fire!" yelled Dawn, back in Atlantis, into her earpiece as Major Bartlett used the Ancient Chair to fire the weapons. The doors at the end of the south pier opened up as two hundred drones, yellow squid-shaped weapons, flew out in a straight column to the surprise of the pilots of the Peregrine Federation fighters. The column of yellow turned to three columns as it passed the Federation Alliance ships and the Pegasus Alliance vessels while the Melbourne, having sent it's package to the surface, turned to the mothership and began firing her Ancient beam weapons, missiles, and plasma bursts. The shield surround the mothership was flaring up while instruments showed that it was fluctuating wildly, resulting in sporadic weapons fire breaking through. And since the inner shields were now disabled, there were explosions on the hull and the 'petals', which started to tear off from the main weapon.
Sensors detected thousands of hull breaches in all along the mothership from the detonating of the Horizon weapons resulting in explosive decompressions that ejected hundreds of Jaffa and Kull Warriors into the vacuum of space. The damage to the ship was further exacerbated by the drones which passed through the weakened outer shield to the cheer of the bridge crew from the Pegasus Alliance ships while the Federation Alliance could only stare at their sensors in stunned silence. The drones then passed through the outer shield, and then penetrated the hull. They destroyed the remaining shield generators, the weapons control systems, the main weapon- the entire section was torn off as the drones perforated the hull multiple times until what used to be the upper dome was torn off and floating in space. The Drones took out the Hyperdrive as well so that Ba'al could not escape.
"Yes!" yelled Jon as he punched the air once the ship was confirmed to be disabled. "All ships, hold fire." He then ordered a transport lock onto Ba'al. "can we get him back here?"
"No, sir," said an officer. Jon listened as the man, Lieutenant Hernandez, explained that their transportation sensors couldn't get a lock on him. Jon nodded his head before sending a message to General O'Neill that he needed to be ready- he and his team were going to board the ship and capture Ba'al, "the Stargate's still active, so we need to get him alive for questioning. This is a race against the clock, I'm sure the Federation guys will be forming teams to board Ba'al's ship."
"That's what's I'd do," General O'Neill said while he put on a set of armour.
"You have two minutes," said Jon before contacting the other Pegasus ships on a scrambled line. In the meantime, there were explosions from where the drones pierced through the ship before decompression sucked out more Jaffa and Kull warriors out of the decks that had been smashed through by the drones.
Persephone, now.
Lisa punched the air as she watched the drones destroy the weapons, shield generations and the mothership's hyperdrive. The war was essentially over, now the mothership was powerless and all they had to do was collect data on what Ba'al did to improve his shields and weapons. They then, in her opinion, needed to destroy the data. It was all so that neither the Federation nor any of the others races in the milky Way, especially the Borg, could not get at it. The other job was to destroy all information on the hyperdrive so that Pegasus would be safe while the Alliance went back n work on improving their defensive and offensive capabilities.
Buffy's youngest daughter then sighed in relief before she placed her hands on her hips and looked around at the crew cheering in the bridge. Suddenly, she then had a sense of deja-vu as she narrowed her eyes at Major Daniels shaking another officer's hands while patting her shoulder. He was saying 'good job' before he cheered and hugged the young woman, Captain Wells. With a weight falling on her shoulders as she recalled the dream she had years after being activated, Lisa then turned and listened to the sounds of cheering all around her. It seemed so surreal as Lisa closed her eyes and recalled the dream.
It was a couple days before the time dilation devices were due to be turned off, and Lisa found herself having a picnic with her parents, her brother and sister, her extended aunts and uncles. Everything seemed real to her; even the warm breeze that brushed past her arm while her brother and father were barbequing. She was siting next to Buffy at a wooden table while Willow, Giles, Faith, Anya, Daniel, and Tara surrounded her as they joked and laughed. Lisa looked over her shoulder at her aunt and uncle, Rose and Jay played with their kids while Tara's adopted daughter, Camille, was painting a skyline she hadn't seen before.
Lisa smiled, not caring about the place she was dreaming about, as she turned back to her mother. She lay the side of her head on Buffy's shoulders when there was a suddenly red flash in the sky. Lisa quickly pulled her head up to then sky and stared at the sun. She then saw a black dot forming, "mom? Aunt Willow?" Lisa looked back down and saw that the others were continuing on as if there was nothing happening. She then turned and called for Xander, but he didn't answer… even when the air started to get hotter.
It was then that Lisa heard sounds of people cheering and clapping. She heard a muffled voice in the distance saying 'good job' and 'we did it' while there were others saying 'it's over'. The sounds of cheering were coming from all around as she spun around searching for the source. Suddenly, there was a 'boom' from the sky and Lisa turned, lifted her head, and watched in horror as a massive stream of orange and white shot towards her. She felt her body burning from the fire before she snapped her eyes open and shot up in bed.
Back in the present day, 'It's not over yet,' Lisa thought as she spun and stared at the goings-on around her. She then turned to Major Daniel's and ordered him to run a full spectrum scan, "set course for the sun. I want to know…"
"Ma'am?" asked Major Daniels.
"Set course for the sun, full military thrust. Channel power from all weapons and the hyperdrive to the shields. And get me a secure line to the Vantage, Galactica, Belisknir, and Atlantis."
"Ma'am?" asked Daniels.
"Do it, that's an ord…"
The alarms on the bridge started to blare once again before Lisa could finish what she wanted to say when there was a massive flash from the direction of the sun. Everyone on the bridge stopped celebrating as they rushed to their consoles.
"A weapons platform just decloaked and fired a high yield burst into the sun," yelled Nakamura.
"We're detecting a rising prominence on the surface of the sun!" yelled Daniels while Lisa ordered engines to full. Daniels, then turned to Lisa with eyes wide open in horror, "sensors are showing the prominence is about to collapse. We have one minute before a massive Coronal Mass Ejection streams towards Earth, ma'am."
Lisa knew there wasn't any time to waste. She rushed to the Command Chair and sat down. She activated it as the seat pushed back. She then checked power levels and accessed all emergency controls. The bridge was now shut out, with Lisa taking full control as she closed her eyes and activated the emergency beam out protocols.
"Col…" Daniels wasn't able to finish what he wanted to say before he was washed in white light. Lisa targeted everyone on the ship and transported then to the Vantage and three of the other Aurora class ships; the Sunnydale, Tsun TSu, and the Ganges.
"Major?" asked Jon as Major Daniels appeared on the bridge and then turned to see the Persephone enter hyperspace, and then come out in orbit of the sun.
"Persephone!" yelled Jon as alarms blared in his bridge just as General O'Neill and his team were beamed over to the mothership. Daniels rushed over to Jon while the others from the Persephone were looking at each other confused.
"I had a dream.. I mean I didn't know until now what it was about and…" said Lisa through the Vantage's speakers as she rerouted all power from weapons, life support on every deck, and interior shields to the still recharging shields that hugged the ship. "shields are at fifty seven percent and rising. I can block the stream for a few minutes, sir."
"This is Atlantis," said Dawn as alarms were going off in Stargate Operations while she stared at a screen with a stunned look on her face, "Jon, are you getting this?"
"Yea," Jon replied while Seven, Data, Laforge, and everyone on the other ships watched as the prominence continued to rise, "I…"
"It's a coronal mass ejection," cried out Dawn into her headset. She knew that the shield could cover a vast section of the planet, which meant that there were hundreds of thousands who were still going to die. She also knew that the injured and damaged ships still had people on board, and they would be in danger too even if the other ships warp away or entered hyperspace. Dawn had only a few seconds to think before turning to her technicians and asking them how long it would take for the survivors on the damaged ships to be beamed away.
"Two minutes, but… oh no.." the young man looked at the console in front of him after it beeped. Dawn then turned and stared at the screen as the curves prominence stopped rising while the Persephone was just above it, and then it began collapsing.
"Emergency launch procedures, now!" yelled Dawn. There wasn't time to beam everyone away, and the shield wouldn't be able to protect the entire planet. Dawn knew that Atlantis' shield was the only thing that would be able to divert the stream that was about to come their way. The city started to shake while she told Starfleet Command to get the Peregrine Fighters out of Atlantis' exit vector, "all Slayers, take cover. Retracting shield for emergency take-off."
"Ma'am!" cried out Hernish, one of the technicians who looked up at her with eyes wide open in horror, "the prominence has collapse. We're detecting a charged particle stream heading directly for the Persephone."
"Lisa!" yelled Dawn as the shield retracted while Atlantis was in the air. The orange dome surrounded the city-ship as the Stardrive fired, shooting the ship into the sky. "Lisa! Do you hear me!"
Dawn then turned and demanded to know how long Lisa had before the Persephone's shield failed.
"According to our readings," said another technician, Goran, looking directly at Dawn who was panting, "the stream will last for five hours… give or take an hour. And that's approx…"
"And the Persephone?" asked Dawn as her heart raced, "what about the Persephone?:
"Current shield levels? She'll last three minutes… we're already detecting a temperature build up behind the shield, and the hull is starting to buckled at the bow," said Hernish as Atlantis entered orbit. All the ships detected the coming storm, with the Romulans, at least the ships still operational, warped away leaving behind the ones that were damaged. Seven detected the stream that was being diverted by the Persephone as did Data and several science officers while the Melbourne, the Tianjiang, the Petersburg; the Asgard ships, the O'Neill Two, the Valhalla, and three of the Chulak class ships flew towards the planet on Jon's orders so that they could extend their shields to protect the majority of San Francisco and Oakland while the Arrows and Federation fighters continued to take the death gliders.
"Dawn, Dawn," Buffy's voice came through the speaker as she and several other Slayers took cover while Death Glider fired on the Starfleet campus and the cities. Once the shield was retracted, several Death Gliders strafed the Starfleet Command campus forcing the need for cover as Josie was crouching next to Buffy speaking into her headset, "what's going on? We almost cleared this section, and…"
"A Coronal Mass Ejection is coming this way, Buffy," said Dawn as Atlantis hurtled towards the sun. She bit the bottom of her lip in nervousness before speaking once again, "it's Lisa. She took the Persephone to block the particle stream. It's bought us some time."
"Dawn…" whispered Buffy as her heart raced when she recalled the brilliant flash of light in the sky mere moments ago, "is.. is she…."
"She's a Summers, Buffy, we're stubborn," said Dawn gently, as Atlantis was twenty seconds away from the sun after passing past mercury, "she had to get really close so that she could block the stream before it fanned out and.."
"I'm getting a faint life sign," said another technician.
"Buffy," Dawn said nodding her head, "we have a life-sign, and… and we're gonna get her back."
Buffy closed her eyes and took in a deep breath before she nodded her head. She closed the line with her sister before peeking around the side of the wall behind which they were taking cover.
"Is everything alright?" asked Josie as she looked at Buffy who was peeking out the side of the wall.
"My daughter's up there," she replied when her ear piece buzzed again as a faint orange glow washed over them.
"This is Colonel Shang of the Tianjiang to all Slayers, you are covered."
"Come on," said Buffy as she walked out of cover while Josie followed behind her. "Faith, Rona? You guys got that?"
"Yeah, B," Faith replied as she and several others, including the SG teams, got out of cover, "we're fine."
"All Slayers," Buffy said as she glanced at the sun, "we're almost done."
TBC.