Chapter One-The Revealing Threat
Earth, Hammerfest Base
In the bases shipyards, dozens of ships were held in the construction pylons, most Prometheus classes, or transports ships, but one in particular was ready to be sent on its first mission, the prototype flagship of the growing earth fleet, the Earth Star Ship Thor.
While still not one hundred percent complete, the growing threat in the colonies forced it to be sent to reinforce the fleet, today it will launch, and tomorrow, it will be a ship that the forces of Baal will fear.
ESS Thor.
"Anti-Grav engines online."
"Internal Dampeners to maximum."
"Ion Engines on standby," the ship pilot reported on the final check,"were ready for launch sir."
Vice Admiral Ronson, formerly of the USS Prometheus, and earths longest serving starship commander, took the captains chair. He frowned slightly, knowing that much of the heavy armament of the Thor was yet to be fitted, only the twin forward ion cannons, and a half a dozen pulse cannons spread across the hull were its primary weaponry. Hopefully its network of missile tubes and railguns would cause enough pain to Baal's forces, as it was sent to reinforce the colonial fleet.
"Activate anti-grav engines, all hand prepare to breech the atmosphere."
"Aye sir, Hammerfest reports our escort wing's here to see us off."
"Confirmed, Incoming Orca squadron, their taking up position against our port and starboard." The Ops officer reported.
"Were at optimum height, ready for main engines."
"Fire them up."
The mighty dreadnoughts engines burst to life, glowing with a golden fury of light, as it raced towards the sky. Its fighter escorts were a true contrasts to the Thor's size, the golden form of the Orca Rapid Response Fighter, just over 17 metres in length, was absolutely dwarfed by the metallic grey form of the Thor, which was nearly 40 times the length alone.
The behemoth cruised towards space at just over mach 10, well over the speed needed to break the earth's gravitational pull, the Orcas barely keeping up. You could see the construction of the Moscow and London taking place from both sides, both but even the Thor to shame in shear size, Philadelphia in its complete stage was 4 kilometres from top to bottom. Despite its designation as battle station, it was far more then that, it was an orbital colony and command station. Nearing Mars orbit, the dreadnought prepared for the jump to the New York System.
ESS Thor
"Sir, were picking up some strange readings up ahead."
"Verification?"
"Yes sir, they seem to…..sir they're uncloaking!"
Space
High speed fighters literally appeared out of no where, assaulting the unprepared Orca escorts before they could get their shields online, green orbs of plasma spat out at the fighters gun emplacements, the superheated plasma melted into the armour of the Orca's, corroding it. The F-307's broke off, hastily trying to bring up shields, frantically avoiding the green blobs of destructive force. The Thor itself, faired little better. Twin fighters of the unknown force, traveled swiftly down the Thor's broadside, bombing the heavy armour with multiple plasma salvos, running along the hull at insane speeds, only to spin a full 180 degrees in an insanely tight turn, and fire a full onslaught into the ships engines.
ESS Thor
The bridge was a mess, without the shield, the full force of the attack was thrown at the dreadnought, only now its CWIS network activated, the dozens upon dozens of railguns fired with a screaming vengeance at the swarm of enemy fighters.
"Activate the hyperdrive, order the Orcas to return to earth!" Ronson ordered, as the ships shaking became much less severe with the now active shields.
"No luck sir, we only got sublight." The Pilot replied.
Ronson scowled at the thought, only one thing to do bar turning around, "Full speed towards the jumpgate, if we don't shake them off in the run, then a jump to the colonies will."
"Aye sir, approaching 0.01 c now."
Space
The giant ship, being engulfed by the dozens of fighters, suddenly jolted forward, then cruised at speed too fast for the human eye to notice, as if it suddenly disappeared. The Orca's using this to their advantage, quickly let off a swarm of sidewinders at the enemy, before double-timing it back to earth.
Enemy Squadron
Colonel Slavik loved the new fighter, it proved just then to be more then a match for western starfighters, and with them in numbers they crippled their mightiest warship! Its futile attempt at escape, they doubted the technology of the Nod? And with it the power of Kane? He would correct that doubt with this act.
"All Banshees, prepare hyperspace jump!"
ESS Thor
The battleship, approaching 0.3 c, still a good 5 minutes from Jupiter, pumped everything they could into the ships engines, they knew the enemy was still out there. It was surprising that at such high speeds the ship didn't turn into mush, the thought of traveling nearly half the speed of light was a bit too much for the somewhat green crew of the ship. 'Leave it to the cleaners' Ronson thought to himself with a small smile.
"How long at our current speed until the Jumpgate?" the Admiral asked the Thor's pilot
"2 minutes 43 seconds until were in the jumpgate vicinity." The Young ensign reported.
"Good, chances are they'll be waiting for us there, head directly for the jumpgate, max possible speed, send the activation code 50 seconds before we head through."
"Aye sir, code is ready to be sent on your mark." The Comm. Officer reported, setting the signal to standby.
"2 minutes, were approaching 0.5 c."
Banshee Squadron, Hyperspace
The colonel sat comfortably in his fighter's cockpit, he was used to hyperspace now, he had been doing it for years now, thanks to the great leader's fleet of refit uda'jeets, and especially to the 5th generation uda'jeets, more commonly known as the Banshee Interceptor.
"Colonel Slavik, we are approaching the enemy battleship."
"Drop out of hyperspace and fire as much as you can, we'll make a final jump to the Americans jumpgate to finish them off."
"In the name of Kane."
Jumpgate Control, Jupiter Orbit
Junior Lieutenant Greens, was bored to put it lightly, an invention of the Hebridians, that they offered to earth, was a fixed hyperspace window generator. While simple enough, it opened a route to hyperspace, allowing ships without hyperdrives to travel at FTL speeds, however there was a drawback. The generators could not open an exit point for the traveling ship, and the original prototype was lost in hyperspace, luckily it was unmanned, so work was put in to creating a jumpgate network based on the stargates. The original network was of the Hebridian system, and its colonies, it now spread to earth, its colonies and many of the allies in the war against Baal. The dialing system was based on the stargate symbols, for easy references, the actual gate itself was totally different. Once dialed successfully, the outer locking systems would open up, the hyperspace window would open up and send a signal to the designated exit point, the gate then creates an open hyperspace path, using donated Asgard hyperdrive technology to create an almost instantaneous jump.
The whole concept was boring after the 47th time you heard it from your CO. Greens was sick to death of it, with no scheduled supply runs for the day, the only thing that could possibly happen is an emerg..
"Attention jumpgate command, this is the ESS Thor, requesting jumpgate use, authorization code 47-Beta2-5Gamma-Delta9."
Green fumbled for the controls, shaken by the sudden appearance of the Flagship.
"Roger that Thor, gates opening, be advised your moving pretty damn fast, hope that things got good breaks."
"Negative, were going in the gate full burn, you might get some company once we go through, we've given a call for reinforcements, just sit tight."
Green gulped nervously, 'Goa'uld forces in the home system?' "Roger , were activating our shields just incase, jumpgate command out."
ESS Thor
"Windows open sir, were moving in at 0.6 c"
"Okay ensign, let the computer lead us in, precision is everything now, were threading the needle." Ronson ordered.
The last few coordinates were plotted in, "Aye sir, 15 seconds till were in."
"Sir we're detecting multiple hyperspace windows near the jumpgate!"
Ronson smirked." That's them, let them try and hit us going this fast."
Banshee Squadron.
"Colonel, they're not slowing down!" Slavik's wingman reported the obvious, the radar clearly showing the extremely fast moving battleship heading towards the jumpgate.
"I don't care, in the name of Kane we will complete our mission!" he swung his fighter around and fired into the active jumpgate. "Destroy it!" he ordered, "destroy it before the ship can escape!"
Soon all the banshee fighters fired uselessly into the gates shields, given time they would have punched through, however in 0.021 seconds it didn't matter. The Thor charged in, at just over half the speed of light, the force of the ship moving at that speed threw the fighter clear from the jumpgate, as it closed the hyperspace window behind it.
"Sir we have failed, we must leave before enemy reinforcements arrive!"
"No, not yet, we'll destroy this gate first, it will hinder the westerns abilities." He smirked maliciously. His gloved thumb ram circles over the trigger on his joystick, hopefully this will make it up to the great leader for the failed mission. He jammed it down, releasing the swarms of plasma fire against the weakened shields of the jumpgate, the wing mates followed, little did they notice, the Thor asked for help…
The USS Alaska, 3rd of the Freedom class battleships jolted into real space not 4 kilometres off the gate, its network of railguns springing to life, unleashing a berserker fury against the enemy fighters, anti-aircraft missiles joining the barrage, the banshees lucky enough to notice quickly disengaged and jumped to hyperspace, those too caught up in the battle, cracked under pressure, and were thoroughly slaughtered in the onslaught from the Alaska.
Colonel Slavik contemplated his predicament, he had failed in a mission personally assigned to him by Kane, a mission of such great importance, it would put the western powers in such a state of disarray. Their flagship, supposedly unstoppable, was defeated by a fighter squadron, barely 30 minutes into its launch! It would have dropped any plans of further dreadnoughts, and when the insurrection happened, it would make subduing the people of earth that much easier. For now, he thought of what awaited him, but at the Temple of Nod…
New York System, Jumpgate
The purple backwash disappeared, once the Thor exited, using its powerful engines, forced the ship to slow down to normal speeds within 40 seconds of exiting, suffice to say, none of the crew EVER wanted to do that again.
With severe damage to do outer hull, and a perfect opportunity to be fitted with its full weaponry, the Thor found itself in the colonies only shipyards, the Norfolk yards, close to Manhattan, it wasn't going anywhere for a long time.
Sol System, Earth, Nod Facility near Tiber River, Italy.
The usually busy place of the research labs were even more frantic then ever, the visit of Kane to personally inspect the development of project Tiberium, they were so close, but close wasn't enough. The biological element, codenamed Tiberium, was an organic virus of sorts designed to seek out naqaudah deposits in the earth's surface and draw them to the surface in the form of crystals. Unfortunately it contained two major drawbacks, one it gathered so little naqaudah from the underground deposits that supposedly existed, requiring it to be spread over large areas to draw substantial amounts, and finally, it was completely poisonous to carbon based life-forms, some testing of it revealed to have severe mutational effects, completely reorganizing the human DNA code, Kane had requested further research into these 'tiberian life forms' in hopes of creating a warrior able to counter the supposedly unstoppable kull warriors of Baal.
The head scientist ran into the labs, "Quickly everyone, Kane has arrived!"