Part 1 - Fires of Revolution
Chapter 15 - To the World's Ending
The SGC Resurgence and its escort fleet emerged from their dimensional warp. The inter-dimensional bubbles faded away. Suddenly, Edward stood up.
"Full reverse!" He shouted.
The helm officer frantically hit a series of buttons. The ship began to vibrate for a few seconds before the ride became smooth again. Gwen looked out the view screen to see why Edward had given the order. In front of them, an enormous fleet of ships sat in tidy ranks.
"Tactical. Bring shields up. Activate the hardpoint, weapons hot. Code red, all hands to battle stations. Ops, inform the rest of the escort to do the same."
"Aye."
"Contact headquarters and tell them to send as many ships as they can."
"Done, sir."
Edward sat down again. He clasped his hands together and stared out the view screen intently.
"What are they all doing here?" He muttered to himself.
Gwen closed her eyes. She felt power, a type of power she had only felt when around Conall.
"It's Conall. He's on one of those ships." She told Edward.
"What makes you so sure?"
"My spider sense. It feels the same as when I was around Conall."
"Understood. Ops, give me a rundown of what I'm looking at here."
"Data from the USS Enterprise-J has registered all ships in front of us apart from one. It shows they are all Starfleet, Klingon and Romulan."
"Conall has a thing for Star Trek, it seems. What about the one the Enterprise data didn't identify?"
"It matches no vessel encountered by any resistance members."
"Where are the reinforcements, and why aren't these guys shooting at us?"
"Reinforcements are warping through now. As for why they're not firing, my best guess is that the sheer number of them is cluttering their sensors to the point they can't tell us apart from their own."
"Plausible."
Outside the Resurgence, hundreds of dimensional warps appeared as multi-coloured groups of bubbles which grew in size. From them, countless ships began to emerge. Most were Sol Galactic Command, but many others were notable. The USS Enterprise-J emerged from one just in front of Sanctuary II. Suddenly, from the ranks of Conall's fleet, a Starfleet ship surged upwards towards the resistance fleet which still continued to grow.
"Admiral, we're receiving a transmission from the Starfleet ship that just broke formation."
"Put it up." Edward replied.
The view screen shifted to the side. An image of a starship bridge appeared.
"This is Captain Picard of the USS Enterprise-E. I made my allegiance to protecting Miles and Gwen a few weeks ago. I will continue to honour that."
"Thank you, Captain."
The view screen moved back into its central position and Picard disappeared.
"Ops, tell me what's happening."
"We have ships reporting in from all corners of the multiverse, sir; all are resistance members. Fifty percent of the SGC fleet calling in. Sanctuary II, USS Enterprise-J and now E, UNSC Infinity, twenty percent of the Battlestar fleet. We have more coming in all the time. If I list them all we'll be here until the battle is over."
"Any Borg?"
"Not yet, sir."
"Have all ships ready. Open contact with the fleet."
"Aye sir. Channel open."
"This is Grand Admiral Melbourne of Sol Galactic Command. It seems Conall has chosen here for the first major engagement of the war against him. Help your allies, defend your friends. We fight to the last ship, and to the world's ending. Melbourne out."
Gwen looked at Edward.
"Was that supposed to be motivational?"
"No, that was orders. I've never been good at the whole speech thing."
"You don't really seem like that type."
"Thank you for your confidence. Ops, order all ships to engage."
"Aye. Engaging."
The skies above the smoking remains of Minas Tirith erupted in a blaze of gun fire. Everything from simple bullets to enormous balls of energy flew at Conall's fleet. In an instant, Conall's fleet began to return fire. They broke their ranks and began to attack from all directions. The Resurgence shook heavily as a Starfleet Miranda Class got in the way and was smashed apart.
"How we holding up?" Asked Edward.
"Hardpoint holding; no damage to hull. Shields are at ninety-eight percent. Rotary cannons are all operational. Point defence lasers are obsolete against energy weapons. Ballistic missile turrets are online."
As the battle raged on, hundreds of ships fell victim to the onslaught. Balls of flame and smoke crashed to the ground a few miles below. Slowly but surely, every ship began to take damage as their shields were worn away by the phasers and disruptors of Conall's fleet. The Resurgence shook as a photon torpedo struck its shields.
"Shields down to fifty percent, Admiral. I'm receiving requests for help from the USS Enterprise-E, UNSC Infinity and a number of other ships."
"Change course to help the nearest."
"Changing course to help USS Enterprise-E." Announced helm.
The Resurgence began to turn slowly, belching out enormous quantities of bullets from its complement of rotary cannons. A rain of missiles was launched from a missile turret at the front of the ship. They struck a Romulan warbird which exploded and spiralled down towards the ground.
"Our missile supply has been exhausted. Rotary cannon ammunition supplies down to thirty-five percent."
"What about those missiles that R&D were planning on testing?" Asked Edward.
His tactical officer turned their head.
"Admiral, they've never been tested. We have no idea what a temporal weapon could do."
"Noted. Have them loaded, but do not fire."
"Aye."
The ship shook violently again. Gwen realised she was scared. That was a normal reaction to something like this, but she had been in so many situations a bit like this where she was vastly outgunned. Perhaps it was the lack of control she had?
"Shields are at twenty five percent and falling rapidly."
"How's the hardpoint doing?"
"Hardpoint is failing. We've struck far too many ships."
"All hands standby for shields to fail. Ops, auxiliary power to hull integrity."
"Shields are down! Auxiliary power sent to hull. Attempting to rebuild shields."
The ship began to shake violently as ordnance of all kinds pounded it.
"Admiral, we have a Klingon Bird of Prey on a collision course."
Edward let out a small growl.
"Can we get out of the way in time?"
"No, sir. We're too slow."
"All hands brace for impact."
The Bird of Prey closed in. It was ablaze. The view screen had changed its view angle so that it was looking at the ship. Gwen felt her blood running cold as death drew ever closer. Her life began to flash before her eyes. She worried about her father; it had been a few weeks now since she had seen him and e hwould be worried sick. She thought about Miles, how she would never see him or his goofy sense of humour again. The image of her friend Peter lying dead flashed into her mind. Suddenly, she was brought back to her senses.
"Admiral! There's a Cerberus fighter on a collision course with the Bird of Prey. It's the fugitive."
Edward stood up, surprisingly steady with the ship shaking so much.
"Transfer the occupant! Now!"
They watched as the Bird of Prey exploded in a shower of debris and crumbled towards the ground. Gwen's heart pounded. Had they managed to get Miles before the ship had crashed? Edward sat down again as the shaking began to intensify.
"Admiral, this battle isn't going well for the resistance. All Sol ships are out of ammunition. A number have returned to HQ."
"We still have ammunition."
"Only the temporal missiles, sir." Replied tactical.
Edward took a deep breath.
"Aim for the furthest of Conall's ships. Fire a single missile."
"Target selected and locked. Firing."
A lone missile tore out of its launcher at the bow of the Resurgence. It dodged and weaved through the battle before slamming into its target and shattering. For a moment nothing happened. Then, a small black dot appeared which grew slowly, but was getting faster.
"Admiral, that missile...I don't know exactly what it did but some sort of black hole is opening. It's not a black hole in the normal sense; those shrink as they consume. This one is just growing limitlessly."
"On screen."
The view screen turned to look at it. Edward stood up as the hole continued to grow. The ship stopped shaking as Conall's ships began to turn and try to flee through an enormous golden gateway that had appeared.
"Order the fleet to return to HQ ASAP."
"Aye."
The Resurgence began to be consumed by the multi-coloured bubbles. As Middle Earth crumbled away into the hole, the last of the ships jumped away leaving behind nothing but a black void.
Crossovers in this Chapter
- Star Trek
- Avengers
- Lord of the Rings
- Halo
- Battlestar Galactica