Star Granger Season 5 - Chapter 11
Thoughts
"speech"
"Goa'uld speech"
SG SG SG SG SG SG SG
January 6th 2003 - Langara
Giving tactical orders from afar is a horrible way of battle making, but in this situation, there is no choice. By the time their ship captain will understand just how deep in it he really is, there will likely be no more fighters for him to command.
"All fighters, this is General Hammond - Hyper out!" the General orders.
Sadly, only three of his fighters comply. One F-302 has the misfortune of being launched directly into the neighbouring Ha'tak shields leaving his fighter drifting and crippled in the middle of this fire-zone. His three flight comrades narrowly manage to save themselves by listening to the order and jumping to the other dimension just before reaching said shields. The flight launched from the other hangar of the ship tries to clear off as well, only deciding to do so at sublight. This took them out of immediate danger, but left them at even closer range with Anubis main fleet.
At the same time Fluffy and Mermaid rush to the Prometheus' defence, albeit they are only as long as she is wide, so the amount of protection on offer is limited at best. It also positioned both our ships much too close to the three forward Anubis' Ha'tak ships for their cannons to be effective. All they have at this close a range is their regular torpedoes. Those can easily turn a regular Ha'tak ship into molten twisted metal, but will have a very hard time penetrating Anubis-grade shields. Our ships were never designed to operate at this range. Their design deliberately sacrificed close range efficiency, for the safety of being deadly at far over the maximum range of any Goa'uld weapon. Shields aside, The Prometheus's, all our ships as things stand, main defence at this moment is the fact that Goa'uld battle control and communications are so limited that those ship commanders probably don't even know where our ships are and what exactly their tactical situation is.
This won't last for long, though.
= USS Prometheus, this is Captain Floyd on HMS Cerberus. You are in a bit of a pickle here. Please clear off = Victoria's rather acerbic voice sounds over the comm.
On the ground, the situation seems to turn both better and rather dire. Apparently, the Langarians have finally managed to gather enough forces to start and push the Jaffa back. Casualties are quite horrible, but just as Harry said - array enough fire-power against them, and they're just as mortal as any other race out here. Especially since Jaffa weapons might be powerful. Most certainly intimidating. But, are neither accurate, nor long in range. Also, Jaffa, just as we discovered oh-so-long-ago on Moloch's planet, are not the most disciplined or well organised as armies go. A suitably trained and organised army, which refuses to be intimidated, will have the advantage in spite of the Jaffa better arms and armour. As things stand, the Langarians have three of those armies.
This pushes the overwhelmed Jaffa out of the fields and the streets, to look for shelter in houses, where families are. Also, it turns out that this military chap has decided to make a deal with the attacking Jaffa, and invited them into that secret base, deep underground, where their planet's Port is. Logically, he reckoned, since his country had already used all their available Naquadria on their neighbours, the Goa'uld would want nothing more from them and would gladly attack their enemies only.
Back up in space, that Colonel Ronson chap, commanding the Prometheus, had finally understood just how deep in it he really is. The Prometheus opens fire with all weapons available and tries her best to disengage. Sadly, the hail of rail-gun fire she is spreading around does nothing at all to the well shielded Ha'taks surrounding them. USS Prometheus also tries a few of her Naquadah-enhanced nuclear armed missiles she is carrying. At this touching distance these missiles speed is surprisingly adequate to reach their intended targets. Their yield is quite impressive as well, yet the blast is much too diffused to even bother Ha'tak shields of any grade. Also, out in space there is nothing to transfer the heat and pressure such weapon creates from the shield's boundary to the ship's hull, and any shield, of any grade can easily handle the radiation. Prometheus also carries a couple of our former generation cannons, but again - those were never designed for this range at all.
One thing the Prometheus burst of ineffective fire did achieve is to attract the attention of two of the three ha'tak ships in close proximity. Sadly, those are most certainly equipped for battle at close range. Both Fluffy and Mermaid hold for now, and do their best to cover the Prometheus too, but they're just too small. Both do their best to protect the bridge and propulsion first, and already other parts of the ship suffered substantial damage.
= Prometheus, this is Captain Floyd. Please disengage =
The poor sod tries, but Prometheus is a heavy beast and has thrust based sublight engines. It takes her relatively long time to gain momentum. Also, her trajectory out of this hot corner of the universe takes her, and our ships with her, closer to Anubis' main fleet.
Still, could be worse,
Underneath the planet's surface the Jaffa ground force finds itself broken, scattered, and desperately locked in between the miserable forces initially trying to hold them in bay, and the new armies gathered to drive them off planet. Then, there's the fact that being cut from their ships - the Jaffa only way off planet is through the Port. This puts the SGC teams and locals in that not-so-secret-anymore underground base under tremendous pressure.
"Can we send a unit there with some heavy weapons to help guard the Port?" Harry asks Peers quietly.
Peers doesn't even manage to reply and the Lieutenant Colonel commanding our Marines Commandos dashes out of control to order his people out.
"Block Port access only!" Harry calls after the man, who is soon away through the rings.
"I'll make sure they won't try and be heroes," Peers tells him softly and walks to a comm post.
Right, last thing we need right now is another Gibraltar.
"Tell your people they will have incoming through the Port in a few," Harry tells General Hammond, who nods and does the same.
It's the first time I see Harry in this position. He stands there, in the centre of control. His face guarded, hands crossed, as he follows the information stream on display. Letting people do their work. Staying collected.
I must admit that I was a tad miffed when Harry was chosen to replace R and not me, but I could have never done this. Keeping it together under fire is hard enough - but one only has to be afraid for herself. Sending others into battle? Is something completely different. I would have probably chosen to do nothing today.
Probably the reason I'm not the one in command…
"We need short range abilities added," Harry tells Ted softly.
"And much better torpedoes," Gabriel agrees.
Not that our ships are idle. Victoria orders her last cluster torpedo at the ship alongside hers. At this range, there's no place for FTL extravaganza, but all warheads make it through the Ha'tak's shields and most make it to its hull. A huge explosion follows. It takes only a couple of seconds for the explosion flash fires to be snuffed in space, leaving behind the view of a large scale, mostly superficial damage to the ship.
"Longer delay for the warheads to penetrate deeper into enemy hulls," Gabriel adds to the growing list without prompting.
Still, superficial did good work on most of that ship's cannons, pointing the Fluffy way. Shield emitters on that face of the ship as well. It also did an exceptionally good work on the bridge. That Ha'tak is now drifting away, venting air and Jaffa bodies - mostly black soldiers, to space.
Strange they have not sent any blacks with the ground force...
At the same time, HMS Mermaid has an even better weapon at her disposal. A tiny orange light leaves the front of the ship and heads towards the Ha'tak on her side. Naturally, it goes through its shields like they are not even there. This squid is very well charged. Potentially it has the power to tear this ship to pieces.
Well, more like turning it into a piece of Swiss cheese…
What the Mermaid doesn't have at this time is a mind able to continuously direct it to targets. Still, initial targeting is enough to guide the squid to destroy several of the Ha'tak's shield emitters. This is followed by a spread of three regular torpedoes. Without shields to stop them, those dig deep into the ship's hull and disable it.
Another spread of torpedoes is shot at the Gua'ulds yet is targeted at Anubis' flagship instead of the last ship in the vicinity of ours. First is the Cockatrice' last cluster torpedo, followed by three more regular ones. Accumulated damage is substantial, but that flagship shrugs it off. Worse yet, it leaves a whole and dangerous ship right next to ours. Even worse - it annoys whoever it is who's in control of that flagship.
"Charging!" someone on one of our ships calls.
On display, Anubis' giant power readings rise to a level never seen before from a goa'uld ship.
Right, poor HMS Seahorse might have witnessed this once.
"Power is fluctuating," remarks an engineer from the telemetry post. "Power production seems to exceed system parameters," a Tollan engineer seems to agree.
This is all fascinating, but,
"All reactors to shields!" Floyd orders.
Now, I need to pause this battle commentary to explain some ship engineering to you chaps, back at home.
You see, shields are not those huge capacitors, losing charge with each hit on them till they're fully depleted and fail. They are emitters continuously powered by the ship's reactors, or whatever power source a ship is using - although some capacitance is certainly in work. Also, a ship's reactor will always have more power to supply than the weapons fired at it deliver. Well, not 'always' - We can set a medium power crystal for a cascading failure, for example, and probably evaporate a whole star system. That Alteran galaxy-scale sub-molecular recinquicer, we hid on Dakara, was designed to disintegrate galaxies and all. Still, most weapons are designed to destroy a ship. Not the planet it's guarding or trying to occupy. Usually, not the ship firing that same weapon with it, and certainly not the universe itself.
What I'm trying to say here is that shield failing is usually due to overload, whether it is the emitter itself, the reactor's manifold, or any other component in the power grid. It's also rather sudden. I mean, one can know his shields are strained, and parts are heating up due to power channelling, but the shields are never 'down to 12.84%' or some other nonsense such.
Adds suspense and excitement to films, though.
All this was to explain that Victoria's said order wasn't meant to supply more power to her ship's shields, but to distribute that power drain through several routes, thus lowering the strain on each single one of those.
Out there, Anubis flagship fires this strange lightning into space around it.
Just how does lightning travel through empty space?
At the telemetry station a Tollan scratches his head in confusion. "It's multiphasic?" he remarks in surprise.
Scientific fascination aside, over Langara, the four F-302 who escaped closer to Anubis fleet just cease to be. Our capital ships are farther away, and at about fifty thousand kilometres from that flagship - seemingly at the edge of this weapon's range, yet results are quite devastating. The Prometheus can't withstand this kind of punishment at all. She's still somewhat protected by the Fluffy on her starboard side, but the forward half of her starboard hangar just isn't there anymore, and her bow is heavily damaged and opened to space. She still has power and propulsion and keeps doing her best to disengage.
On her flank, HMS Cerberus takes most of the burn, being the closest ship to Anubis'. Throughout the ship systems are straining and heating. Relays are failing.
"Roll!" Victoria orders in an effort to move the strain to fresh parts of the shield and power grid, and for a little while it works, till first, then third reactor's manifolds fail, leaving Fluffy with some propulsion, but basically defenceless. Then, on screen, Fluffy's bridge is suddenly bathed in red light.
"Dampners!" Victoria has no choice but to order, turning her ship into a blinking dot on connected screens, and sinking all our hearts, here in control.
This is an even more critical aspect of space travel which is hugely misrepresented in, well - all Sci-Fi shows as things stand. All of us have seen spaceships shudder and shake under either enemy fire or 'space anomalies'.
What's bloody 'anomal' about space phenomena?
Making crew members tumble, be thrown around like dolls, and ultimately - wish for seatbelts. Right?
Utter rubbish!
You see, there is nothing out here in space which can impose more force on a ship than that same ship accelerating or decelerating from, say - 0.2C or about, nevermind doing the same for superlight speeds, and not tear the ship itself to pieces. Inertial damping either works perfectly, or the crew is smashed to paste on the nearest bulkheads - there is no 'some' inertial bleed possible.
We learned this lesson way back over Moloc's. Dampners warning light is now something one can't miss and large emergency buttons are spread around in easy access to both officers and crew. Those cut all power to propulsion and fold the ship, leaving it drifting and tucked away from reality - till repairs are possible, or danger is through.
This unavoidable act of the Fluffy has left USS Prometheus unprotected on her starboard side. Luckily for them all, it's the end of that specific attack.
Anubis' flagship hasn't gotten off scot-free as well.
"Flagship power grid fluctuating," calls the Mermaid's sensor officer. "Explosions!" he then adds.
Back on the surface, more specifically - deep underground, the local Port comes to life. First, there's a small ripple, when a sensor drone is sent through.
"Down!" calls O'Neill, and most SGC and Langarian people comply. Most were hiding behind cover, as best as they possibly could, as it was.
Then come the hovercrafts. Those went a very long way from the first few we rigged back then for our Shipyard adventure. Each is manned by a pilot and a weapon operator. Rapid-fire heavy phasers open fire immediately at targets pre-marked using the drone. They then take position beside and above the Port to protect the hall. Those attack-hovers are crystal powered and are not much larger than an attack-helicopter cockpit, so they can move through most places, even indoors. Behind them a platoon of commandos pushes through the Port and takes control of the hall. Apparently, their commanding officer wanted to send in a whole company and take control of the planet. There were some shouting taking place over the comm. There will also be a serious discussion taking place after this battle day is over.
They consult with the locals and push forward to take over better defensible spots within the base, to hold the Jaffa back. Seems like the Jaffa forces are quite broken. Also seems like the Langarians are not willing to accept their surrender.
Up in space, cavalry finally arrives. A new hyperspace window opens up right in the middle of Anubis' fleet and out comes the Tria, to dwarf even his behemoth of a flagship. She doesn't faff around and starts spreading drones, like we can replenish those.
Here, in command, Captain Helia shrugs and smiles in approval. Beside her both Harry and Peers frown.
At this range, those drones are probably the most effective weapon available in this galaxy and the next. Problem lies with the definition of the word 'available'.
USS Prometheus finally manages to limp away at best speed. Damage control reports stream in and are making Hammond close in on himself. HMS Mermaid finally manages to finish the last ha'tak at close range. It's underwhelming in a way. A well targeted drone destroys its bridge and leaves it drifting aimlessly in space.
Effective, as I said.
Closer to the planet, Anubis flagship starts resembling that Swiss cheese, aforementioned. Between hundreds of drones drilling holes through her, and the inner explosions, which are the result of the lightning-weapon overloading its power grid, tearing her apart, this ship is quite done with. It does have one last surprise for us though.
"Let that ship go!" Harry orders Charles, when Anubis' bridge surprises us by turning into a 'Captain's yacht' of a sort and flees. Charles is understandably miffed about it, and asks for clarifications. This isn't an issue to explain over the comm, though, and explanations will have to wait till he's back at the base.
We can really do without Anubis' soul drifting around in the galaxy, and trying to find hosts to possess.
On Langara surface our hosts are dancing and crying. No Jaffa was left standing. The Langarians are still digging through rubbles and counting casualties, though. Up in orbit the rest of our fleet has finally arrived. The remains of Anubis fleet recognise the disadvantage and try to flee. A few ha'tak ships manage. Fluffy is still a blinking dot on display, though the dot is moving so she has some power and propulsion at the very least. I need to go to Jane's to see what the emergency is.
A glance at my mobile shows a message from R with an address in Chelsea.
"?" I text her
"!" is the prompt answer.
Sigh
Victoria is reporting over the comm.
=We are hit with some ionised energy. Lots of system overloads. Reactor one and three disconnected. Weapons down. Sensors down. Shields…=
And the rings take me down to London.
The address received is a lovely place a very short walk from South Kensington tube station, only to actually get there by tube one must make what looks like a circle of London. It's actually a nice walking distance from here, was it a nice day and not a freezing, windy and lightly snowing common mid-January one. A cab is the go-to London option but both Albert and Chelsea bridges are closed for maintenance,
For a year and a half now, mind you.
So, the cab will be forced to circle almost as far as the tube does. Also, at this time in the afternoon, I'll have to queue at the corner of the street for almost an hour, just to get one.
I would have Apparated there, but the only places I'm familiar with, at and around South Kensington, are quite public.
In the end, I take the 360 bus.
Sigh.
At least the bus arrives minutes after I've reached the station, and I'm not forced to wait twenty minutes, in the cold, for the next one.
R opens the front door almost immediately. Inside is warm, clean, and quite modern. Lots of books are everywhere, in bookcases, on shelves, stacked on any and every surface.
A home after my own heart!
My mobile pings and the news are grim.
"Had to go and defend Langara from Anubis," I update R. "Mostly try and save Prometheus. Sent two divisions and some Marines. Fluffy's out of commission. Half the crew is hurt with electrification burns, two…"
And R stops me and points towards Jane. She's in her sitting room, in front of the fire, bouncing a giggling Jade on her knee. He's clearly very advanced for his age.
R's son, though. Only to be expected.
Jane is smiling at Jade, telling him all kinds of nonsense, but her smile is forced. Brittle.
"Dear?" I ask her softly.
"It is said," she answers in a levelled and detached tone, "that '00' agents never manage to keep their loved ones safe."
It's those NID sods again. The Pentagon actually did a decent job trying to clean its act, but that's what one gets when partnering a relentless, ruthless, semi-black, semi-military organisation with the quite infinite greed of the business sector.
They're the ones who arranged for my stint with the celebrated Scotland Yard. Used some cloaking devices SGC has obtained from that group of aliens who tried to take over their facilities a while back. NID managed to backhand and blackmail those out of the airtight-secured, unbelievably-secret, practically-non-existent - area 51.
That whole 'The End' kerfuffle was their way to create an opportunity for that girl who shook me awake to scan me. She's being interrogated by the NSA now. Not too kindly, I hope. Mr Brummy isn't actually from Birmingham, but from a small town not far from Jacksonville North Carolina.
Kudos for managing the accent, though doing so inside the noisy The End probably helped. The bartender helped too.
I would have gone to cut his bollocks off as well, but it's too late. He was setting his safe house to explode, to cover his escape, only to be held inside.
"Ellie ran in to stop him, and we could do nothing but look as the house exploded." Jane tells me with a flat tone.
Apparently, there was another house explosion, not far from the first one, a bit later on that day. Mr. Brummy, whose real name was Devlin, was seen entering the house, albeit he was already dead at the time. Nobody was seen leaving. When the fire was extinguished and the rubbles search, a group of bodies were discovered. They were later recognised as very prominent figures of the world's business community.
Such a shame…
"That desk you offered," Jane asks both R and I, looking at Jade on her knee. "Is it still available? I can't go on doing this job."
"Would you like R's desk, or mine?" I ask her in return. "We need someone to take over interplanetary diplomacy."
"Right," R agrees. "Otherwise we will have to accept someone from the Office of Foreign Affairs, and all the gods in the universe wouldn't be able to guess just what havoc they might cook for us," R sighs.
This is the office which went behind Churchill's back and negotiated for a secret peace settlement with Hitler. Cabinet secretary Sir Turnbull told me once that there are still people within the illustrious office of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who are certain that 'that WWII debacle' was what happens when the Cabinet doesn't listen to the Foreign Secretary.
"Otherwise, you'll find yourself doing business development for almost-cold-reaction power stations," I shrug in agreement.
Jane nods slightly, busying herself with tickling little Jade.
"I'll talk with acting director Potter later this evening," I tell R, who rolls her eyes at me.
"I'll update M," Jane tells us softly. "I'll need a couple of weeks to tie up a few loose ends."
"So," R asks me. "What did you say about the Fluffy?"
February 1st 2003 - Moon base
"Lantean?"
Neta is a tad red in the face,
She looks happy.
but still smiles softly at me, over her mug of hot chocolate, and teases me back. "Jealousy is a green-eyed monster" she replies and makes me snort. It's not that I can blame her,
Too much,
We all grew too comfortable with seeing the planet as our oyster and popping about as we please, disregarding borders and local authorities. Just last weekend, Keira and I popped to NYC for this Evanescence concert. She came all the way back from Halla and all.
Neta tells me being stopped by a copper for crossing a street at a red light, in Tel Aviv, didn't even cross her mind as an issue.
Naturally, her Lantean boytoy didn't have any papers of any kind.
"Be glad that Jane has all those acquaintances, otherwise we would have had to use formal channels and all this would have turned embarrassing," I tell her, and she is properly embarrassed.
"Why are you here on a Saturday again?" I then ask.
On her way to Atlantis for the weekend. "They're thinking about a scouting mission to the Pegasus," she explains.
"Be careful," I answer. "Parents took Precious again for a spin, and Mr green-eyed went out for a walk with Luna, searching for frogs," I explain my own reason for being at work during an emergency-free weekend. "We'll all eat out together, later on."
"Welcome to Earth's space, Asgard ship." we hear control do their duty, as I walk Neta to Port to Atlantis. "Please keep behind the moon and be cloaked at all times - There is extensive unaware orbital activity going on today."
"The Columbia Space shuttle is returning from a mission," Neta replies to my raised eyebrow.
"Right!"
Totally forgot about it!
The Asgard ship is an old Biliskner one. It doesn't respond, opens its hyperspace window and leaves at once.
Curious?
"Please remind my parents to toggle the cloak on?" I ask control and am happy for his acknowledgement. Precious is a wee little thing, and the risk of it being actually seen from earth is negligent, but there are probably quite a few telescopes pointed this way today.
We stop at the observatory to watch Columbia's re-entry. Now, Earth's orbit isn't visible from the moon's observatory, us being on the 'dark side' and all. It's also too far away to notice something shuttle-sized with a naked eye. But the space shuttle flight is clearly projected by most holographic displays around the base, for us all to watch.
Columbia is dipping into the atmosphere now, heated by the friction of the mounting air density. Our Bricks make their descents under power, and are shielded as well so I have no experience with shuttle free descents, but -
"Isn't it a tad hot?" I ask.
Beside me, Neta frowns. A few clicks on a nearby post adds some sensor data to the visuals. "Their descent trajectory is too steep as well," she remarks softly.
We're about to head back to control when the air around the shuttle flairs. Soon after, the shuttle breaks into several parts, all falling and burning in the high atmosphere.
"Bloody hell!" someone exclaims behind us, but it's not due to the shuttle explosion.
On the transporter landing pad lights glitter and seven figures materialise. All in those bright orange, cumbersome, NASA EVA suits. All appear in various sitting positions and promptly fall down in a heap on the pad. All smoking, which promptly engages our fire suppression system, to soak us all.
Grand. Just grand!
"Get me SG command!" I all but shout at control, and am soon acknowledged.
"Colorado, this is Hermione, WIB," I deadpan. "We might have a wee bit of a problem…"
Huge shout, once more, to flyboy38, my beta, who takes the time to make sure the story is a much better read.
Also to Dalwolf For doing Brit-Picking for, well - you all, and help my British characters stay British.
I am eternally grateful!
