I've been here beforeā¦
A.T. R.T. 13:30
After the Daedalus cut the communications the people in the control room watched their screens in silence. The visual sensors, up to the limit of their range as it was, were blinded by the fire fight, and radar only showed two large points connected by a solid stream of shots.
They watched as one of the dots began to move faster and faster, gradually closer to the second one, and then collided. Nobody needed to be told which ship had come out on top.
After a minute spent in a respectful silence, Elizabeth cleared her throat, and after a false start sorting out her emotions, she said, "Raise the Shield. John, deploy the jumpers and prepare defence teams. Rodney, you and I are going to set the self-destruct." Her voice was perfectly calm, but her face betrayed her emotions. Rodney, after looking away for a moment to compose his, followed her to the controls.
They both entered their access codes, and the warning sounded. The self-destruct was armed.
A.T. R.T. 13:50
Rodney was flicking through the Atlantis database, trying to find an advantage. He had reached the entries about the jumpers. Much was not translated, as they generally learned things as they went along, but Rodney knew enough Ancient for that not to be a big problem.
He paused as he read a paragraph, and then read it again. He let out a cry of "I've found something," bemusing the other scientists in the room who should have been long used to his sudden outbursts. He dashed off towards a transporter.
He burst into Elizabeth's office, where she was also trying to find an edge. "I've got something." He cried.
"What?" She asked, caught up his excitement enough to not be annoyed by his sudden entrance.
"Well, we've always assumed the jumpers have to decloak to fire. They don't. They can't do it for long, it's hard on their power supplies, but we can make it look like drones came out of mid-air!"
"How long will they last?" Elizabeth asked
"Ten, possibly fifteen minutes before they'll need to decloak."
"Will it be enough?"
"If the shields are anything like the Goa'uld's, then easily."
"Good. Tell the jumper pilots. I just hope it is enough."
Rodney dashed out, nearly knocking down two marines on the way, and relayed the news. It spread quickly, and pretty soon everyone seemed to think they'd win this battle. Elizabeth desperately hoped they would.
A.T. R.T. 14:10
Cadman looked out at the stars, wondering if this was the last time she would be able to do so. She'd seen the destruction of the Daedalus on the jumper's sensors, and couldn't shake the feeling that that would be her fate as well. A flicker, a faint image, caught her eye. Right where they'd predicted, the cruiser appeared. It seemed completely unaware of the twenty five jumpers lying in wait.
As she was leading the squadron, Cadman made the decision to wait. They knew the cruiser's front shields were almost impenetrable, but perhaps the rear ones would be a weak point.
She watched as the jumpers closed in behind the cruiser, and when she saw they all had a clear line of sight, she sent the signal to open fire.
Fifty drones appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and headed towards the cruiser. A further fifty appeared from different locations as the jumpers moved after each salvo, giving the impression of many more jumpers than there were.
The cruiser fired back at where the drones appeared from, but none of them connected, which was just as well as a single shot could easily destroy a jumper. Over two hundred drones were moving towards the cruiser before the first one hit. That was enough power to destroy a Goa'uld Mothership, but as the first drone hit the shields, Cadman knew it wouldn't be enough.
The drones were destroyed instantly by the shield, which seemed unaffected. Each one merely caused a flash of light on the glistening wall.
Cadman, seeing they needed desperate measures as things were definitely not going their way, started to release her drones as fast as she could arm them. She watched as the others followed suit, great clouds of drones appearing out of empty space. They'd soon run out, but that was unimportant. Preventing the Genii from taking Atlantis was all that mattered.
Where a couple of clusters met the shield at the same time, one or two of the drones penetrated and did a little structural damage, but it wasn't enough to stop the ship. For a moment, it stopped firing, as if it was considering its next movement. Cadman could feel that something was out of place, and all her instincts told her now was the time to run. However, she couldn't quite work out exactly what was wrong.
The next shot from the cruiser connected with a jumper, which dissolved in flame. Then, another was hit, another fireball lighting the battle field. The Genii could see them, and they were losing jumpers one by one. They were running out of options.
Cadman sent the warning signal to Atlantis, and then threw all stealth out of the window. Across an open channel to get the attention of the remaining pilots, she bellowed, "Target everything you've got at the engines!"
She watched as six or seven other jumpers released what must have been their last drones. Was that all that were left? They'd lost so many jumpers, almost all of Atlantis' squadron, all in one battle. The drones swarmed together and converged on the engines, and several managed to penetrate the shields. Cadman cheered as she saw them explode into many small fragments, but the rest of the ship remained intact.
The cruiser, enraged by their enemies' successful blow, swatted the remaining jumpers like flies. Then, with the fireballs of its foes barely fading, the cruiser moved slowly towards Atlantis.
A.T. R.T. 14:40
The remaining people, having watched one if their last lines of defence be smashed to pieces, were taking advantage of the extra time they had been given as the cruiser moved into firing range.
The armoury and defence stations were a controlled frenzy as weapons and flak jackets were passed around. In the Chair Room, John was making himself comfortable in the Chair, with Rodney hovering over the monitoring Computers, keeping an eye on as many systems as would fit on his data pack's screen.
An alarm sounded, and Elizabeth came on the radio. "The cruiser's in range."
"Okay Elizabeth." John lay back on the Chair, which then tilted back, and closed his eyes to concentrate. At his command lay the entire native defence capability of Atlantis. Hundreds of drones, each at his explicit command, lay in racks, waiting to be launched. The shield lay like a shimmering wall above them, and beyond that, the Genii cruiser was moving. When the shooting started, every shot would be a brilliant point of light.
Attached to every single item was innumerable information about speed and trajectory and any other information the sensors collected. It had been a lot to cope with at first, but now John could deal with most of what he was presented instinctively.
He saw the cruiser stop, easily within his reach, and he focused on it. Imagining his arms extended, he directed a cloud of drones towards it. Controlling both each drone individually and the entire group as a whole at the same time, a skill that apparently came with the gene, he directed them as a close group towards the cruiser's port side, where scans had revealed their main power generator. The tactic, which had worked before with the jumpers' drones, failed.
With intense concentration to not broadcast every word over the comms, John muttered, '''s not workin'."
''What?" Rodney replied, looking up from his screen.
"The drones ar'n't gettin' through."
''Why? They are the same as the ones in the jumpers." Rodney said, and then paused. "But they're not, are they?" He asked rhetorically.
John muttered something along the lines of, 'work it out', and turned his concentration back to the task at hand.
The cruiser had begun to bombard the shield. It still fired slowly, but the weapons were far more powerful than those of the Wraith. The shield was taking a serious beating.
With most of his consciousness attuned to Atlantis, he was subconsciously responding to the events around the city. His head followed the movements of the drones in the air and his body visibly twitched in time to the shield impacts.
Rodney watched, concerned, hoping victory wouldn't come at a higher price.
A.T. R. T. 15:10
Rodney watched the progress of the battle closely. Though the Wraith had the experience of fighting Ancient technology, the Genii seemed to have the edge with weapons and shields, even if they had stolen them. The shield was failing a lot faster this time.
Suddenly, the previously silent but twitching form of John gasped and sat up. The glow of the Chair faded and Rodney looked up at him. His face was full of surprise and, what was worse, horror.
''What's up? Why have you stopped?" Rodney asked.
''We're out of drones. "
''What!"
"I've used them all!"
''What about the spares?"
''It took us a couple of days to load that lot! I don't think we've got time to load any more."
"What can we do?"
"Pray, Rodney. Pray."
