10: Dawning Alliance
by Chaoseternus
When Enerina is sent to investigate why every gate in an area of space will not establish a wormhole, she finds something totally unexpected...
ElevenWhen Morden arrived in system, he found to his distinct discomfort and surprise a League Navy that was certainly waiting for him.
That was to put it mildly, not a part of his plans.
Not with only three Ha'taks and a relatively small group of Centauri warships at his disposal, his fourth Ha'tak being left behind whilst extensive repairs were completed. But, he decided, his plan was still sound, approach the League Shipyard under cloak and kill it, quickly decisively. Then recloak, moving to the outer boundary of the League Navy, taking any targets of opportunity out along the way, signal for the Centauri vessels to drop out of Hyper and join them and introduce the vastly inferior League warships to a frontal assault.
The fact that the League was clearly anticipating an attack just made the timing a little tighter; they would react a lot faster.
Deciding to keep to his original plan, Morden ordered his three Ha'taks to advance under cloak. Unfortunately for him his arrival had already been noticed by a stealthed warship and his plan anticipated.
Diving carefully through the League vessels, all of which had been briefed not to react to the ship that flashed past their viewports but not their sensors, Captain Dodge USN brought the Stingray to a stop, hovering protectively above the Vree Shipyard, weapons loaded and ready for the Goa'uld to arrive.
Morden didn't know a Dauntless II was in the area, he didn't know he had stealthed warships to worry about. If he did, he might not have fallen into the ambush so completely.
The three Ha'taks decloaked well within range of the Vree shipyard and promptly opened fire and just as promptly, found themselves under fire as the five dead' warships clustered around the station, brought reactors online and began engaging the Goa'uld warships joined swiftly by a barrage from behind the Goa'uld vessels, a distinctly Tau'ri barrage of Gauss rifle fire and torpedoes from a ship the Ha'taks sensors couldn't lock onto.
Noting how swiftly the closest League warships had turned and started charging towards their position, Morden decided discretion was the better part of valour and cloaked, hoping to escape to safety.
But cloaking meant he had to lower the shields and impacts rained across the vessels armour before the League vessels lost their weapons lock. Dodge had no compunctions about blind fire, and ordered the gauss rifles to continue firing so long as they continued to hit something. He was rewarded as atmosphere explosively vented out of one Ha'taks hull, giving a clear position for the Stingrays target.
Their cloak failing as impact after impact compromised the hull, the Jaffa dropped cloak and attempted to raise shields but failed to get the shields up in time. Tau'ri and League weapons fire rained down on the Ha'tak, destroying the shield generators before they could fully power up. The hull armour was destroyed, melted or blown off, layer by layer.
The Ha'tak died, swiftly and quietly, al power failing as atmosphere blew out all over the hull, bodies and debris tumbling into space from the dead warship.
One down.
A trail of destroyed ships was the only clue to the course taken by the other two Ha'taks, as the two ships decloaked either side of their target, raining fire down on it then recloaking, moving one ship further to their rendezvous on the edge of the system.
It was a trail even a child could follow, a fact that had been missed by Morden in his typically Goa'uld arrogance. The League Navy were quick to redeploy accordingly, joined by the darting yet hidden shape of the Stingray.
When the Centauri warships responded to Mordens command and dropped into normal space, they found themselves staring down a fleet that had them outnumbered two to one. That, considering the number of second rate or under maintained warships among the League fleet made the odds about even.
They hadn't been expecting even odds, and they didn't know about the Stingray, that one ship shifted the odds, unbeknownst to the Centauri.
Forming their ships into a solid wedge, with the two Ha'taks at the point, the Centauri fleet charged, attempting to forcefully divide the League fleet then turn and smash the one half before the other could regroup.
They almost succeeded, even with Stingray dropping all stealth and going to full combat mode right in the centre of the Centauri formation, tearing capital ship after capital ship to shreds. Indeed, despite the disruption caused by Stingrays appearance, they had successfully cut the league fleet in half and had now concentrated all their fire on one half, tearing through the fleet whilst the Ha'taks watched their rear and the frantically reassembling League Navy units that had been forcefully split off from the main body.
But Prometheus arrived, moving like the Cruiser she was she tore into the Centauri lines, breaking Stingray out and shredding ships as fast as her targeting computers could acquire a shooting solution.
The two Ha'taks were forced to redeploy to deal with her and Stingray, leaving the Centauri rear uncovered. The second half of the League navy, now truly the bulk of the League Forces wasn't missing an opportunity like that and despite their unorganised ranks, they charged straight into the Centauri rear.
The Centauri were now in trouble, caught between two groups of hostile ships but the Centauri Commander made the sensible decision and ordered his ships to break through the weaker League fleet to their front and then regroup.
Unorganised and broken, the League warships at the Centauri front scattered, thinking only of personal survival and not the battle. Their disorganisation made it easy for the Centauri to kill almost a hundred of the League ships without opposition, but then the Minbari arrived, their engines straining as they dived at maximum speed through the scattered League vessels straight at the Centauri right flank.
As the Centauri shifted to meet this new threat, the Narn also arrived at their front and with League Forces attacking their rear, Minbari at their flanks, Narn moving to engage and their ally desperately trying to break off and disengage, the Centauri decided to cal it a day and jumped, heading straight towards Centauri space.
Morden and his two ships were in real trouble, the League was deliberately keeping ships so close to the Ha'taks shields that if Morden opened fire on them, his own ships could be damaged and it prevented him from jumping. It was obvious they were deliberately keeping him here at great risk for the heavy hitters to come and finish him off and Morden really didn't like that.
He couldn't cloak either, too many ships already had him targeted, they would tear through the Ha'taks hull armour in seconds, he had no doubt of that. It didn't help that his allies had just signalled him that they were calling it a day. He couldn't blame the, he would have been gone long before this but it made his situation that much worse.
He couldn't even manoeuvre, his shields were getting paper thin and if he moved, the League warships would impact on his shields, tearing them down. He really hoped they didn't figure that little factoid out.
If he knew the New arrivals were a task force with specific orders to destroy him and his forces, he would have been a lot more worried. In desperation, he ordered power diverted from weapons, life support, gravity; every system energy could be begged from in fact and diverted to shields. He would force his way through.
He never got the chance, he watched as, if on some prearranged signal, all the League warships dived away from his other Ha'tak, giving the Tau'ri warships a clear line of fire. The heavily damaged warship died quickly.
Then the league warships dived away from his Ha'tak and seeing the forces that were preparing to deal the death blow to his ship, Morden bowed his head then tapped swiftly at the Command Console.
For the God Anubis! was the last thing heard from the Ha'tak, before her reactor went critical, the deliberately triggered explosion tearing through League and Minbari warships like a hot knife through butter.
