Chapter 20-Falling Back
"Battleships are exiting hyperspace in 20 seconds."
"All Missile Tubes, loaded with naqaudah enhanced sparrows."
"Gauss rifles ready with explosive rounds."
"Shields at 78 sir, sorry but it's the best we could do."
"Good enough, if we can take them out as they exit hyper we won't need to worry bout shields."
"I think your being a little too optimistic there captain."
Davis gave a slight grin, "It helps too look on the bright side once in a while, it usually helps."
"Lets how it does now", Veers cut in "they're exiting!" as he noticed the opening backwash of hyperspace appearing.
"All ships open fire on the jump points!"
The small fleet moved in, gauss rounds and plasma bolts hit almost instantly, with dozens of torpedoes following shortly after, an explosion was clear in the chaos of what was happening, debris spewing out of the anomaly, but it did not stop two aschen battleships exiting, and moving in for the kill.
"Damn it, take those things out!" the remaining fighters of the two lancer-IS squadrons, moved in to engage, against a foe that lacked fighters, the small one man fighters single role was to deliver twin sparrow torpedoes, from its 8 hard points before returning to reload to once again deliver its small payload.
Dozens of torpedoes burst towards the first battleship, from both the fighters and Endeavour, Twin Ha'taks joining in the duke it out with battleships at close range, like the battle before it, massive exchange of energy weapons were clear, blue and oranges orbs of light flying from ship to ship, impacting on shields or missing completely, and flying unopposed into the openness of space.
The 3 interstellar MTB's also joined in, firing berserker style with their light gauss rifles, escorting its big sister in the barrage, the majority of the battleships cannons ignoring them for the much more urgent, closer threat of the Ha'tak. Explosive bursts of metal cut through the energy barrier, leaving several rounds free reign of destruction against the hull.
The battleships shields reactivated around the former breech, halting, if only barely the second onslaught. Several turrets switched from the Ha'tak, and began chasing one of the MTB's, the Warspite.
MTB Warspite
Lieutenant Ferrell's day was just taking a turn from bad to worse, the signal beeping over his thoughts was a clear sign of that.
"How many?" he asked his weapons officer frantically, as several bolts of energy barely miss the Warspite.
"7 cannons are targeting us," a massive jolt ripped into the ship," 8 now."
"Bring us about, focus forward shields, and reload remaining torps."
"Aye sir, forwards shields at 20, but if we get hit anywhere else, not sure we're gonna hold together"
"Noted, but were not going to be on this ship for much longer." He said as he punched a few commands into his comm. Panel, "Okay a Vulcan cruiser is on its way, head for the cargo bay, I'll meet you shortly."
The bridge crew quickly dashed to the rings, they knew what Ferrell was planning, it was pretty obvious. The Lieutenant went over the readouts on the weapons station, shields at 12 and dropping, the worry lines in his face increased, he hoped this wasn't for nothing. Setting the final commands for the weapons, he sprinted out of the bridge and too the rings.
Space
The small warship seemingly sliced through space, on a warpath towards the attacking battleship, the Vulcan cruiser quickly closed in, beaming aboard the ships crew ,soon the warspite's sister ship joined, flying directly above it. Bursts of gauss rounds were fired, sparrows also joined in the onslaught, streams of white light burst through the aschen shields, the gauss rounds ripping into the armour like it was nothing. Coming within 4 kilometres off the ships broadside, the Cerberus broke off, leaving her sister the Warspite, to continue on a collision course. The aschen shields were slowly closing up, but it was too late, the Warspite impacted across the damage hull with more force then what any gauss cannon could achieve.
Aschen Battleship
The port hull cracked open, the small Tau'ri warship cutting into layers upon layers of wall, eventually slowing down to the huge resistance of the walls of warship hull, the captain of the battleship was still wondering how this was to be effective in comparison to firing on the ship, but then it hit him….
The Warspite exploded, the combined explosive power of the naqaudah warheads in the remaining sparrows, not to mention the reactor itself, as the amplified explosion rippled through the unprotected innards of the battleship, where it was stopped by strengthened walls, it traveled through corridors, nothing stopped the infernos path. After a good minute of letting the explosion spread its effects, all that was left was an empty husk of a ship.
MTB Cerberus
The Captain Warspite walked calmly to the bridge, ever since the rescue of the 2nd colonial fleet by the Blastboat, its maneuver done on the Cylon Basestar was placed on the basic training for all MTB crews, the Warspite's crew were sure to thank Harris for thinking of it. Coming up on the bridge, the Cerberus commander, Flight Lieutenant Drew Miller, span on his chair to face the new comer, "What a way to go huh?"
Despite the loss of his ship, Ferrell grinned, "she was on her last legs, best to take her out in a blaze of glory."
Drew nodded, "Since you're here we could use a hand, engineering's reporting some problems with the hyperdrive and your drafted in."
With that, both Ferrell and this ships crew got to work on the cramped little ship, its sister ship gone, but not without taking someone much bigger with it.
Space
One ship remaining, the combined forces of the Tau'ri fleet, converged on the lone battleship, the gathering of ships formed up for a final assault, with dozens, if not hundreds of sparrow torpedoes firing at the aschen ship, streaking towards it with a finesse effect, the missiles focused together, and smashed into the battleships shields, with enough force they seemed to disappear under the assault. The explosive force washed over the ship, covering it in the golden inferno of naqaudah enhanced explosives, not even a Goa'uld Mothership could survive that sort of attack.
RSS Endeavour
Davis, satirized with the attack, quickly ordered the fleet to prepare for the next task force. "There is still a good number of aschen ships in system, chances are they'll be coming this way, I want a relief ship to make a jump here ASAP."
"Aye sir, the Sir Galahad is making a jump from Ravensbright now."
The ops officer turned around nervously "Sir you might want to cancel that, we've got incoming aschen ships."
"Cancel it", he ordered the comm. Officer before facing the ops officer "How many?"
"35, their remaining fleet."
Davis eyebrows shot up into his hairline, "All ships fall back to the asteroid belts, we can't take these guys on with what we have!"
The fleet under Davis's command, immediately swung around in a flight path towards the rapidly forming hyperspace windows, dashing towards the fallback point at faster then light speeds, not seconds after however, 35 jump points opened up, battleships, frigates, and one giant of a dreadnought entered the small graveyard of ships and fighters, Molum was not impressed.
Aschen Dreadnought
In fact, Molum was quite pissed off, Gerol's plan to put the Tau'ri force off guard had failed, the sacrifice of 3 Sersopian command ships was for nothing! "Get Gerol on this ship now, his second in command shall take over control of the Relevance."
The security force nodded acknowledgement, before heading towards the teleportation chamber, to take custody of the high commander.
"All ships, this is Molum, we move onwards, head towards the asteroid belts in hyperspace immediately." The fleet micro-jumped towards the inner system, almost instantly exiting at the outskirts of the Alpha Centauri systems lone asteroid field.
"Commander, we are picking up forces above and below the field." The ships second in command reported.
"What about in the field itself?"
"We can't detect anything in the way of capital ships, but knowing the Tau'ri, they've at least got some fighters in there."
"Then it seems our path is clear, take us into the field, shields too full strength." Molum ordered confidently
"Sir I expect the reason why the Tau'ri didn't send ships into the field was a sane one, flying, let alone battling in an asteroid field is suicidal to put it lightly." His aschen equivalent of an XO reported. "We would need to be extremely cautious of every form of asteroid trying to hit us, not just the large ones."
"Exactly Shipsman, we would need to be fast, but it's such an unexpected tactic that the Tau'ri would never see it coming." The tactical view of the field came to life, "While they're busy trying to defend the expected attack areas, we charge though the undefended fields, while I do agree quite a few of our ships will be damaged by the asteroids, however I would think much less then facing a Tau'ri fleet."
The second in command nodded in a hesitant way, "I will inform the fleet, but I suggest we send a small contingent to occupy the enemy taskforces."
"Agreed, begin the fleet movements now." Molum ordered, the sudden flash of light introduced who the Supreme Commander had been waiting for. "Gerol, it seems that you plan failed."
The high commanders escorts pushed him forward to face their 'leader,' "An unfortunate turn of events, especially the loss of life, however it compares nothing to what you are planning!" he replied with a hint of scorn in his tone.
"You mean how we shall proceed unopposed to the human world?" he gave a slight smirk ,"While it is a risk, it is a risk that I, the Supreme Commander, am entitled to make."
"You're dooming us all and you don't even care." Gerol muttered, before resigning to superior orders.
Space
The fleet of aschen ships flew towards the outskirts of the belt, the forwards frigate line opening fire on the hundreds of asteroids, literally plowing through it, opening the way for her bigger sisters to move in.
12 minutes later 889 Squadron, Asteroid Field
Hidden amongst the millions of rocks that circle in completely random paths, was the Tau'ri's only defense in the belt, while small, and seemingly insignificant compared to a fleet of ships, it was definitely showing that appearance meant nothing.
Flight Lieutenant Gleeson, watched from his fighters cockpit, even with the constant rotation of asteroids blocking the view, and the sensors chancing millions of ghosts, he could see the aschen fleet trying to clear its way through the belt, it was obviously having trouble doing so, huge chucks of ships hull were taken out by impacts ranging from 10 metres, to microscopic in size. Now was the time.
"This is Striker 1, Striker Squadron, move in for attack run." He got eleven other replies of 'aye sir' and 'roger that', he grinned, the aschen have no idea what was going to hit them.
The squadron swiftly maneuvered its way though the belt, flying directly past the enemy fleet, before spinning a complete 180 degree turn, into the empty path the aschen worked so hard to make, that's when they attacked. The 12 striker fighter/bombers unleashed a swarm of sparrow missile that could only be matched by a cap-ship fleet, the strengthening of the aschen fleets forward shields left their rear completely unprotected, as the swarm impacted against battleship after battleship, frigate after frigate, they all feel in Striker Squadrons assault. Nearly 12 ships feel in the assault, basically the entire fleet suffering at least some form of damage. The ships turned to face the attack fighters, their massive ion pulse cannons aiming at the nimble craft, but the strikers were done already, their payloads drained, they moved back into the asteroid belts, hiding amongst the mass amounts of sensor ghosts.
Asteroid Belt, Inner System outskirts.
The calm and silent movement of rocks and dust played out in the surrounding space…no longer. The massive form of the Aschen dreadnought burst through the belt and into open space, soon the remaining fleet followed, their destination the distant blue and green speck of a world shining proudly in the darkness of space, their objective, the elimination and destruction of that world and its people.