Thundersdawn PT5: Chocky's Thunder

by Chaos_eternus

Note: I do not own nor do I claim ownership of characters and concepts from Chocky or Stargate SG-1.

For a link to the Thundersdawn official archive, see my profile.

Chapter 8: Engagement

USS Persephone

"Captain! Receiving Torpedo guidance data from Prometheus, we have a target!" Tactical officer Diaz shouted over the din of weapons fire, damage reports and orders which filled the bridge.

"Load tubes, upload guidance data and prepare to launch!"

"Aye Captain"

Diaz frantically inputted the commands into her console, it seemed somebody had at last spotted a weakness in the mothership's shields, hopefully one they could exploit. She grabbed hard onto the edges of her console as Persephone rocked once again, sending unprepared crewmembers flying across the bridge. A crewman, a senior petty officer from damage control judging by the uniform hit the helm with a crack, before falling to the ground, his back obviously broken. Diaz winched, and turned back to her console as the shudders finally stopped.

"I've lost helm control!" the cry from the helm chilled Diaz to the bone, without helm control they couldn't manoeuvre, couldn't dodge and on this course, could quite possibly crack a whole in the mothership's shields all right, just not with the enhanced sidewinders.

"Damage control to the bridge, Crash priority!"

USS Iwo Jima

"Commodore!"

The shout from the replacement tactical officer, a Lieutenant Roberts distracted Harris from the sensor reports he was receiving, just as an icon on the ship status display flicked straight from the green of minor damage to the flashing red of critical damage.

"Persephone has lost helm control! They are on a direct course for the mothership."

"Shit! How long?"

"No idea, but tactical is obviously still online, they're pouring on the weapons fire"

"Lets get them some covering fire then, Helm, move us closer to Persephone, Tactical, covering fire!"

"Aye, cap… Commodore.."

MTB01, Blastboat

"New contacts, 8… make that 14, 20, 28, 32… 32 contacts leaving the mothership, profile suggests Al-Kesh bombers Captain."

"Course?"

"One moment…" CPO Greene locked carefully over her sensors, they were in a very vulnerable position here where they had fallen back to guard the Paladins after the fleets failure to quickly find and exploit a weakness in the mothership's shields. Now the main fleet was trying to simultaneously protect Persephone and keep weakening the mothership's shields, whilst the Dauntless' and the Valour's Hour mopped up the last of the few meagre fighters that had launched in support of the mothership. Why so few fighters had launched was not the Chief Petty Officers concern, but the 32 Al-Kesh now heading straight for the MTB and the Paladins she protected were.

She turned quickly to the MTB's captain, a Lieutenant-Commander Harris from Sunnydale and simply said, "Inbound"

Xander cursed, and shouted down the length of the ship "We got incoming!"

"Gauss rifles charging, capacitors at 55%, torpedoes green, awaiting targeting data, Pulse batteries… 4 green, we got a CPU failure on number 3." Greene replied, quickly flipping through the screens of her consoles.

"Flip number three to manual targeting and have slave it to… shit! It'll have to be my console."

"Aye, Captain."

USS Iwo Jima

"Commodore!" Roberts shouted, a strained tone in his voice, "Blastboat reports 32 Al-Kesh inbound."

"Divert Indomitable and Indefatigable immediately to Blastboats location, tell them Flank Speed, Valour's Hour will have to polish of those fighters on her own, we cannot lose those Paladins!"

"Persephone reports main helm control back online!"

"Finally!" Harris barked, "Tactical! Torpedo guidance, I want on a full volley on those shields."