Chapter 14: Engagement
Thundersdawn
The constant rocking of the station was getting on Captain Peters nerves, 'it was a several thousand tonne space station, so why do I need to regain my sea-legs?' she thought, irrelevantly.
"Captain, we can't take much more of this!"
"Where is the fleet?" Peters screamed to be heard over the din of weapons fire, shield impacts, tortured metal and incessant reports.
"Dauntless, the 302's and Lancers have engaged the gliders and Al-kesh, Iwo Jima has broken through and is now engaging the Ha'tak's"
"New Contact! Prometheus class, just dropped stealth mode and is moving to engage, IFF says USS Eisenhower, Captain."
"Nice timing, really, now tell them to get their arses in gear…" Peters paused as she grabbed hold of the nearest console to anchor herself as the station gave a particularly massive lurch "…before our shields give way!"
"Captain! The gliders have been destroyed; the remaining Lancers are regrouping and moving to assist the 302's"
Dauntless rumbled and shook as the Al-kesh fired salvo after salvo into her hull, Dauntless and the 302's had destroyed many of the Al-kesh but they were relentless, fanatical in their attempts to destroy the Dauntless. Something had to give, and with a mighty flash of energy it did, Dauntless' shield generator blew. Victorious, the Al-kesh moved to deal with the 302's as a last salvo impacted on Dauntless' hull.
"Captain!"
Peters followed the pointed finger to the tactical display on the main viewer, as the icon representing Dauntless flickered and turned black, a 15 appearing next to the icon. IFF frequency 15, Ship crippled, unable to abandon.
A wave of horror passed through Peters, but she suppressed it, and turned to the task at hand, her eyes filling with tears.
"Signal the Lancers, forget the Al-kesh, the 302's can handle it, we need them here!"
"All right people! You heard Peters, lets get tone on the nearest target, Ha'tak 4." Wing Commander Ross commanded over the airwaves at her mixed bag of surviving Lancers from 633, 649, and 598 squadrons.
"Mossie 1, good tone."
The Lancers launched their Naquada enhanced sparrows across the gulf of space at the Ha'tak. Of the 15 missiles launched, one misfired and went wild, disappearing into space, 2 were destroyed by weapons fire, still 12 Sparrows got through, impacting near simultaneously on the Ha'tak's already weakened shields, they gave. With a flash of escaping energy, the Ha'tak vanished, debris spinning out across space.
"That's it for the Sparrows; let's sort those Al-kesh out."
Peters smiled, relieved as the Hatak vanished from the tactical display, soon followed by another as Thundersdawn, Iwo Jima and Eisenhower caught another Hatak in a lethal cross-fire.
Her smile quickly disappeared as Iwo Jima disengaged, air bursting from her shattered bridge, bodies spilling into space.
She glanced at the status displays and cursed, every shield was lit a blood red colour, most were flashing. Blood red meant heavily damaged, flashing, failure imminent. This did not look good, and all they had left was Eisenhower, Thundersdawn, she glanced at the fighter controller's panel, 8 Lancers without Sparrows, and 15 302's. No, this did not look good at all.
She cried out as Thundersdawn shook once more, the last thing she noticed before hitting her head on a control panel was the lights flickering off on every panel in the command centre.