"It's amazing in a way that we haven't visited this region before," Captain Michael Chambers observed as he and the navigator of the USS Prometheus, Major Michael Bowen crunched numbers for their next sprint through hyperspace. The fact that both pilot and navigator shared a first name caused occasional confusion off-duty, particularly since the two were likely companions even then, sharing several hobbies - including regular bemoaning that Air Force regulations barred them from cultivating the extensive beards that they both coveted, instead limiting them to modest mustaches.
"Not many stargates very close to Earth," Bowen replied without looking up from the computer calculations that he was checking. "And there aren't all that many Goa'uld holdings that we know of between Earth and the edge of the Galaxy." The lack of information on this region was one reason that Prometheus was testing the new hyperdrive, fitted after the forced layover on Tagrea, by spot-checking promising star systems in the area that NASA thought were likely to have planets. The astronomical data would hopefully be useful for the eggheads in that agency, once it was declassified.
Chambers shrugged. "It still seems weird no one's been out before. Anyway, I've got my figures done. You?"
"Just a minute."
True to his word, Bowen finished typing a moment later and shunted his results to the other officer for comparison. Usually navigation would be done entirely by the computer, but as this was as much a training voyage as anything Ronson had ordered the two of them to check as much as they could long hand, as a precaution against the navigation systems failing.
"Okay, figures match up to within the margin of error," agreed Chambers after a few seconds of comparison. "We heap big navigators now."
Bowen rolled his eyes at the derision - they'd both come up through bombers in their respective specialities but in the airforce, piloting simply had more kudos to it. "I suppose I might let you out on your own if you had a map and a compass to help you find your way at night," he joked back and twisted in his seat to look back at the woman in the centre seat. "We're good to go, Ma'am."
Lieutenant-Colonel Kathryn Grabowski, the Prometheus' second in command was holding down the bridge for this duty shift, reviewing the updated supply manifest that the galley had filed earlier in the day (among other exciting but actually quite important items of paperwork that were on her electronic desk). "And only thirty million times slower than the computer?" she asked wryly. "You're getting better at this, boys. Alright then. Captain Wulf, notify StarGate Command that we're moving on to the next system."
As Andrew Wulf typed the communique up for a burst transmission back to Earth via the Prometheus' subspace transmitter, Grabowski thumbed the shipwide speakers open. "Now hear this. Now hear this. Hyperspace in five minutes. Hyperspace in five minutes."
In minutes, Earth's first starship made a sweeping turn and darted through the hyperspace window generated by the powerful engines.
.oOo.
"Stealthstar's ready to launch," Tigh reported. He lowered his voice. "Are we really doing this, Bill?"
"We're really doing this," Commander William Adama said with a nod of confirmation. He lifted the handset next to his station on the Battlestar Valkyrie's CIC. "Stealthstar." There was a hiss and click and then he could hear the soft breathing of the pilot he was about to send out. "How's it look, Bulldog?"
"All looks good, Commander," Lieutenant Daniel Novacek told him. "She isn't a Viper but the crate'll fly."
Adama's lips twisted in amusement. "I guess that she will. Good luck, Lieutenant," he rasped.
The commander had the mike halfway back to the rest and his lips were parting with the launch order when Novacek's breath caught. "Something out there!" the pilot snapped, almost simultaneously with an alarmed cry from a bridge officer as the DRADIS display crackled, something unidentified disrupting its detection abilities almost on top of the slim Battlestar.
Outside, a blue-white hyperspace window was forming almost directly in front of the Valkyrie's left-side launch tubes. Only a second later, thousands of tons of starship bolted out of hyperspace as the Prometheus arrived precisely on the targeted region of space. The odds against a hyperspace window intersecting a solid object by chance were literally astronomical, but the odds of what actually happened were even longer.
The Prometheus emerged from hyperspace coasting rapidly along a converging course with the larger but barely drifting Valkyrie.
Grabowski had barely time to voice the first word of an order to evade, Adama without an outside view to see the situation for himself had no time to do anything except hope that the Valkyrie's helmsman would react fast enough.
In fact, the battlestar slowed perceptibly as the young officer at the helm tried to retard the Valkyrie enough to let the new arrival pass in front of it. At the same time, the Prometheus reared up as Michael Chambers fired the ventral control thrusters, the only propulsion that would respond fast enough, in an attempt to boost the X-303 up and over the Valkyrie.
It was almost enough.
Almost.
With a scream of metal, the right flight deck of the Prometheus sliced into the uppers of the Valkyrie's wedge-shaped forward hull, tearing a gash more than fifty metres long through the layered armoured belts. Shards of the armour ripped through the flight deck, shattering the fighters there and killing a dozen startled USAF flight engineers. One corner of the deck wedged against a structural beam inside the Valkyrie and for a terrifying moment, the smaller ship pivoted, the nose dropping again before the stress cracked the flight deck from front to back and it tore in two, seperating the two starships.
The Valkyrie's troubles were not over however, as a secondary explosion in an ammuniton bunker for point defense cannon in that area of the ship detonated, spreading fire through upper decks thus far unbreached. The Prometheus was hardly better off, spinning and with severe structural damage from the collision.
"Stabilise us!" Grabowski snapped to Chambers and hit the intercom for the commanding officer's quarters. "Colonel Ronson to the flight deck!"
With that done, she assessed the situation around her. The nervecentre of the Prometheus had taken no direct damage but the sudden impact had flung Major Bowen halfway across the room and he lay unmoving on the floor. Wulf had fallen out of his chair, but was already getting back on his feet.
"Damage control?" she asked David Borgstrom at the engineer's station. The stocky officer was already scanning his board. "No responses from the starboard flight deck," he reported. "Minor issues all over the ship. The hyperdrive's shut down, but looks like it's just the failsafes. What the hell happened?"
"Just what I want to know," William Ronson said as the door slid aside to let him onto the flight deck.
"Collision, sir," Grabowski said, standing aside to let him take over the command station. "There was another ship right in front of us as we emerged from hyperspace. They must have been operating under some kind of stealth, because we didn't pick up any emissions in the area."
Ronson nodded his understanding as he sat down. "Alright, let's get this under control. Kathryn, see to Bowen. David, get damage control teams to work." He frowned out the forward window as the spin of the ship brought Valkyrie into view. "Damn, we've seriously dented them as well. Andrew, tell Stargate Command what's happened."