Jump Chain Gothic 12 - BTVS 4
Part 13
In Orbit of Rannoch. Halloween Universe.
While Rannoch was rather arid when compared to my homeworld of Earth, because the planet was formed closer to its star and has slightly less ocean coverage, the world seemed pleasant enough and it was impressive to look from up in orbit. On the world below photosynthetic life was concentrated around rivers and oceans, with large expanses of harsh desert in between the many waterways. The importance of plant life and shade in ancient quarian culture could be told from Rannoch's name, which translated as 'walled garden'.
To the sensors of my starship, the most obvious feature of the quarian homeworld was the numerous heat sources in orbit. From above thousands of geth space stations watched over the planet, but the machines didn't have many platforms actually down on Rannoch. By now there would be more quarians on the surface of the world than geth as the citizens of the Migrant Fleet were working on resettling their homeworld.
The geth had looked after the world, restoring any damage done during what they called the 'Morning War' the conflict that drove the quarians off the planet, or least the geth programs remembered it happening. They were well aware that in reality, they had only existed for a couple of Terran years, but didn't mean that there was no tension between the quarians and the geth, or at least some of the quarians were nervous.
Because of this Padme had decided to host a party of some kind on her ship that involved plenty of high ranking quarians, some geth platforms that could talk (entities somewhat similar to Legion I figured) as well as diplomates from other parties that had some interest in this new alliance, such as the United Federation of Planets, the UNSC, the Earth Alliance, a few alien races I knew nothing about, and the Citadel Council.
Those groups would have a lot of contact with the quarians in the future because I'd funded the creation of a new Jumpgate in a nearby system so now a lot of organisations would be able to reach this part of the galaxy to trade. Also, this part of space could be accessed by the Mass Relays which linked it to Council space, and while they were not happy about this change with the geth they did want to expand galactic trade.
Sure the geth didn't want to involve themselves with the lives of organic civilizations, but they would want to acquire some information and technology. They would likely do that using my consortium or the quarians as middlemen of sorts when trading with organics.
"Where is Faith?" I asked Jane.
Since the Gothic Consortium was a major player in this new alliance, and because this new power bloc would shake things up, and get a lot of attention from powerful groups, it was important for the Gothic Consortium to make its presence known at this gathering.
Other trading organisations would try to muscle in what was our dominion if we didn't show that we were here to stay. As such, I'd wanted to bring as many of my companions to this ship during this party as possible to show that we had a real presence here.
Most of my older companions didn't need me to watch over them at events like this, but I did want to keep an eye on Amy and Jane, Faith should have been here with me as well.
"This isn't her kind of party" Jane replied.
It wasn't as if I cared much about diplomatic affairs such as these. I often left this sort of thing to Padme or one of my other companions with the right skill set, because they had a talent for dealing with this sort of thing and unlike me, they could actually enjoy this sort of thing.
"All she had to do was put on her dress uniform and smile," I said, "Is that so much to ask?".
I felt sure that Jane and Amy were bored as well, as unlike the other companions that I had here they weren't used to this sort of thing. Other companions of mine were happily chatting away with the representatives of groups that I either knew a lot about or very little. I should spend some time talking as well.
As for the dress uniforms, they were just fancier versions of the mostly black outfits we all normally wore when we wanted people to know that we were part of a larger organisation.
"As it turns out, yes," said Amy.
I'd have to pay a visit to Faith soon so as to remind her that she was to follow my commands, but for now, I would have to make nice with some diplomats.
(Line Break)
The Phoenix. Halloween Universe.
Faith wasn't surprised when her foster father entered her room with a frown on his face. She'd figured that he would come to punish her for not going to that stupid and boring party, and she would accept any punishment that was heading her way.
"Bare your ass and bend over the bed" Gothic ordered.
The young Slayer undid her belt and pulled down her jeans along with her panties before bending over as ordered. There was no need for them to speak about why Faith needed this. She'd been a bad girl and now she would pay the price for not obeying the Jumper.
"How long will this take, Daddy?" she asked, trying to sound as cute as possible "It's passed my bedtime".
Soon he began roughly squeezing Faith's ass, something that she didn't mind at all, and she didn't really have a bedtime she just knew that if she acted a certain way he was bound to have sex with her, and punish her less, this was something she wanted.
"There's no way I'm waiting too long to fuck you" Gothic admitted.
After groaning softly and biting her lip as getting felt up made her happy, Faith spoke again.
"I hope you'll forgive me," she said.
But not too quickly she hoped.
"Your ass is going to pay for disrespecting me" he promised.
The young Slayer knew that this punishment would not be all bad.
"Yes, Daddy" Faith was now saying while she whimpered submissively "Do whatever the fuck you want to my ass! It's all yours!".
She pushed her ass up higher into the air.
"Damn right it is!" he said.
His hand pinched her butt and smacked it.
"This hot Slayer ass is all mine now" he confirmed, "Maybe if you're a good little girl and take your punishment I'll let you suck my cock".
The teen girl did her best to wiggle her butt.
"Yeah Daddy, I'd love that." Faith stated, "I'll make you cum real hard in my mouth".
That was when the punishment began and Faith cried out in surprise as Gothic used her own belt to punish her butt. The level of noise caused by her crying out and the whacking noise seemed so loud to Faith that she was sure that someone would hear her despite the soundproofing.
As her ass received more and more whacks, Faith opened her mouth to protest but stopped herself. She got spanked all the time, but the belt was much worse. It didn't hurt that bad, and she would heal fast thanks to the powers that Gothic had given her. He'd given her so much and she not been grateful enough, it was right for him to punish her, and she promised herself that she would accept this punishment. She wondered if it hurt more this time because she wanted it to.
"Are you glad that you're getting punished, baby girl?" Gothic asked.
She quickly decided what she needed to say next, and while it was hard to think clearly when your ass is getting bet by a belt, Faith somehow managed it.
"Mmmmm, spank my hot Slayer ass and then fuck it" she begged.
She felt sure that her saying that pleased him, and this turned out to be correct the brunette found soon found out as the Jumper cast a special spell on her before he began to fuck her. She cried out joyfully when the anal penetration began and both of them took a moment to enjoy the feeling.
"You are so tight" Gothic commented, "You really are just the perfect anal slut, aren't you Faith?".
If so that was fine with her.
"Guess I'm just a natural butt slut who was always meant to bend over and get butt fucked by her Daddy" Faith declared even as the fucking started getting more intense "Ooohhhhhh! Yes, daddy! Fuck your little girl's ass good! Bust open my asshole with your enormous dick! TREAT ME LIKE THE TRAMP I AM!".
Faith kept going. Only wanting to be butt fucked more.
I'm a dirty slut who loves it up the butt, and I deserve to be punished!" she yelled "Please punish me, daddy! Spank and fuck my slutty little ass till I can't sit down for weeks!"
SMACK! SMACK!
With that, he began to slap whatever parts of her ass he could and Faith could only scream in response. Her ass would suffer for a while even after this was all done, but right now she didn't care about that all.
(Line Break)
The Phoenix. The Tau Ceti System.
After meeting with a diplomat at a recent reception above the quarian homeworld I'd been informed that this system would soon be invaded by a hostile alien race known as the Harvesters, or as they were known to me, the Independence Day aliens.
Because like the Epsilon Eridani system the Tau Ceti system was so densely populated and so important to galactic commerce, much like the other mostly human systems such as Beta Hydri, Epsilon Eridani, Gamma Leporis, Mu Herculis, and Sigma Draconis, the fact that there was a large group of nasty xenos on the way hadn't been told to the general public so as not to cause a panic. Even I hadn't known until recently and I would have been totally dependant on shared information on this matter if I hadn't sent out some cloaked probes.
From what I'd been able to find out so far the Harvesters were a race of highly intelligent and technologically advanced hive-mind extraterrestrial beings. They were a threat to the whole galaxy as they existed to harvest and destroy planets in order to refuel their massive ships, to grow in number, and to perfect their already impressive technology. They were quite willing to do so at the expense of driving indigenous races to extinction.
The Harvesters operated as nomadic hive minds, travelling in large, technologically advanced spaceships that were capable of holding their entire civilization. As far as we were aware they had no homeworld or colonies, and as such no worlds if their own that could be attacked.
While under the command of their Queens, the Harvesters travel to selected planets and then incapacitate any indigenous populations that could pose a threat, and then harvest the planet's resources until there is nothing left.
Since groups of them had attacked other worlds before they were somewhat known to the galaxy and there was footage of them in action. It had become clear to all in this galaxy that the Harvesters were completely merciless and single-minded in their conquests. They made no attempt to peacefully coexist with other lifeforms and instead prefer to destroy them before moving on to their next target.
The Harvesters are an extremely advanced species in terms of technology. They had mastered the construction and operation of directed energy weapons, very strong deflector shields, and they could construct massive spacecraft. Their technology is both mechanical and biological in nature, hence their very organic appearance. In essence, their technology and other materials are 'grown' rather than manufactured
In terms of FTL travel, these aliens utilize wormholes of some sort so as to significantly decrease the duration of their journeys between the stars, but they don't travel very quickly as the group now heading into this system had taken months just to get from outside the system where their wormhole appeared and past the Ort cloud.
They seemed to be in no rush, and this was giving the organisations that had come to the defence of this system plenty of time to prepare for the attack Since the worlds of this system were so densely populated evacuating their massive populations simply wasn't an option so we would have to protect them.
My probes showed that there were a number of enemy ships on the way. To start with there was a Mothership, which was truly a megastructure and according to my information the central hub for each group of Harvesters. Not all of their motherships were the same size, some were over 2,900 kilometres in diameter and constituted more in mass than all the smaller vehicles of a Harvester fleet if combined.
The Mothership provided nearly impenetrable shields to every smaller vehicle via signals. All ships that enter the Mothership's range are put on automatic pilot and brought to dock in the central transport storage facility at the centre of the ship. Beneath the storage facility is a staging area, where Troop Transports and infantry are assembled. During an invasion, the Mothership will generally remain at a distant orbit and not engage directly with the target but will provide shielding for the smaller vessels.
A mothership came with a number of City Destroyers. A City Destroyer was a 15 mile-wide craft that serves as the primary offensive weapon during an invasion. The ship is dome-shaped, with a command tower protruding from one end. The Destroyer is noted for being slow-moving, but devastatingly effective against populated areas.
In the centre of the underside of the Destroyer is a large cone-shaped weapon that, after charging, delivers an energy blast has the approximate effect of an atomic blast. There are a number of ports across the surface of the Destroyer that may both deploy Attackers or deliver small, concentrated energy blasts capable of destroying human military aircraft.
They also many small fighter-class vehicles known to have similar capabilities to a McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet when in a terrestrial environment, and they could match other starfighters easily enough when in space.
The interior of a Harvester fighter was designed to be commanded by two to three aliens. The small attack craft is known to be armed with two small energy cannons that serve as viable weapons against small targets.
Also, these Harvesters, they had a sort of troop transport, which was a medium-sized craft. The ship was comprised of an elongated dome with a command structure hanging beneath, in a similar vein as a human zeppelin. While landed the Troop Transport rests at ground level, where ramps lead up to the underside, where scores of aliens may be loaded single-file into the craft.
These transports would only be deployed when it came time to mop up any survivors of the City Destroyers and the fighters. By that point, the Harvesters would have destroyed any defenders in space so it seemed unlikely that I'd get to see any of the transports.
"Looks like we are up against a lot" I commented.
The 2D image of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise-D replied to what I had just said.
"We've battled these aliens before," he told me "the last time we were able to bring down their shields by using a computer virus, but since the different queens are in contact with each other its very likely that they are now aware of this tactic and will have come up with a way of preventing us from using another virus against them".
I figured that someone in Starfleet must have seen the movie.
"So we have no choice but to use force" Picard was now saying to myself and the other captains in the fleet that was forming within this star system "The Harvesters will not even bother to speak with us, and they will destroy all the habitable planets in this system if we do not stop them".
This system was densely populated, for example, the planet Aurora, a world settled by a group of humans called the Spacers, currently possed a population of 200 million humans and 10 billion robots. Another highly populated planet was the Jaridian homeworld.
"The majority of the defence fleet will be made up of the Jaridian navy" Picard was now saying "and Starfleet will aid them".
In the Canadian television series created by Gene Roddenberry and directed by David Winning. The alien Taelons were somewhat dubiously welcomed to a version of Earth, where their advanced technology ushered in a sort of golden age. It turns out, however, that the alien race was sterile and dying, and that they were intent on bioengineering humanity (at the cost of humanity's own self-determination) to serve as proxy warriors in a final confrontation with their millennial hereditary enemies, the Jaridians of the Tau Ceti system.
The body heat of the Jaridians was notoriously out of control to the point that they literally burnt alive as a result. In exchange for helping with this problem, the United Federation of Planets had been allowed to keep a large military presence in this system, including a few dry docks.
"We also have elements of the Andorian Imperial Guard and the Vulcan Defence Force aiding us" the captain then added, "This system sits between their space so they have vested interest in keeping it stable".
Since aspects from many Star Trek era were mixed together there were factions within the Andorian and Vulcan populations who still felt hostility towards each other. Having the Tau Ceti system between them helped to keep things calm as it acted as a buffer.
"How many vessels can the Gothic Consortium send to aid us in this battle?" I was asked by Captain Picard directly "Aside from the Phoenix".
I pretended to give it a little though when I had already decided some time ago.
"Aside from this ship, I'm bringing two more Battlestars with full fighter complements" I answered.
Since I wanted to keep people guessing about how many spacecraft my group had I never mentioned how many ships we had overall to anyone and since the ships we had were hard to scan no one outside of the group would ever be sure that I always flying around on the ship. Starfleet sensors were better than most so it didn't surprise me that Picard knew for certain that the ship I was currently on was the Phoenix.
Others were sending vessels as well, including the Klingons, the UNSC, the Earth Alliance and some other groups. With the sheer amount of ships and firepower it might be possible to bring down the mighty shields of the Harvesters, but I wasn't going to bet on so I was glad that some of my girls were already working on a plan.
(Line Break)
The Artemis. The Tau Ceti System.
"Even with our supply of transphasic torpedoes and the aid of the rest of the fleet, we can not win this battle" stated Seven of Nine without a hint of feeling in her voice "We will be able to damage the mothership and even take out a few of the city destroyers, but that will not be enough to save this system. The shields around the Harvester vessels are simply too powerful, as such me must find a way to bypass them".
Within the conference room of the Battlestar Artemis, sat Seven of Nine, Samatha Carter, the younger of the two Tali'Zorahs and Winifred Burkle, the latter two had been invited over to this ship so that they could exchange ideas with the two companions who commanded this Battlestar.
"Can't you just build more of these special torpedoes?" Fred asked.
Like Tali she was looking over the diagrams of the weapons. She'd had been playing catch up for a while now trying to understand the level of science used by Gothic's group, and while she still had much to learn she had a fine mind.
"Maybe we can increase their yield" the quarian suggested.
The two older women in the room had already considered both of those options.
"We just don't have enough time," Sam said, "They aren't exactly easy to build or modify".
In the Star Trek universe, the transphasic torpedo was an advanced type of torpedo weapon of unprecedented destructive potential used by Starfleet. A single torpedo was capable of destroying a Borg cube. This weapon technology was acquired by the crew of USS Voyager in 2378 from Admiral Kathryn Janeway who had come from an alternate timeline.
However, the transphasic torpedoes used by Gothic's groups were not the same as that technology only shared a name with the Star Trek weapons. The torpedoes used by Gothic and his companions had phase cloaks installed within them which allowed the projectiles to go out of phase so as to bypass any defences. This was effective, but the torpedoes were costly to make and difficult to modify due to how complex they were.
"Can we install a phase cloak into a big bomb and just fire that?" Fred wondered.
Samatha suddenly had an idea.
"No," she said, "We can't just stick a phase cloak onto a big bomb, but we can transport a big bomb into the mothership and then denote it near the mothership's power source".
Seven quickly caught up with this idea.
"From what we know of the Harvester's technology all of the other ships in their fleets are provided with the required power for their shields from the mothership" she was now saying "Therefore if we can cripple or even destroy the Mothership then the entire fleet will become vulnerable to our weapon's fire".
There was more for her to say.
"If we take a ship that can phase cloak, such as the runabout that Gothic obtained during the start of the 3rd Jump, and fly it by remote as close to the main power source of the Harvester mothership as possible before denoting we could destroy the mothership," Seven said to the group "We have a few hours before the battle begins, more than enough time to create an explosive device of sufficient yield to destroy the mothership".
Samatha didn't think that this was as simple as Seven thought it would be.
"The power source could be shielded and we can't bring the runabout out of phase within the generator" she pointed out "or the ship would be destroyed before the bomb can be activated, and what if any signal we send to denote is blocked".
Seven had already considered this.
"We have more than enough naquadah to enhance a suitable explosive device to make it destructive enough to overcome any shielding around the power source," debated the former borg drone "and since I will be on the runabout. I will be able to fly it to the optimal point for the device to detonate. When killed I will simply re-spawn within the Cosmic Warehouse as I have done before".
Samatha gave this some thought.
"Maybe I should take my M-Ship in as a backup in case your plan doesn't work" she mused "A second attempt might be needed".
Fred and Tali were a little shocked to hear this.
"You're talking about blowing yourselves!" Tali protested.
Seven and Sam were not concerned.
"Once you have finished your first Jump and properly joined Jump Chain you obtain a form of immortality" Seven of Nine explained "Even if Samantha and I are both killed we will simply reappear within the Cosmic Warehouse after a few days. Only Gothic's death will bring an end to Jump Chain as such he must not come on this mission".
While Fred and Tali had been given this information in the past it was only now that began to understand what it really meant.
"If our plan fails we will need a backup," Sam said to the two newer companions "So while we work on our idea why don't you go see the boss and find out what he has planned".
With that, the four women left the room.
(Line Break)
The Phoenix. The Tau Ceti System.
Now that the battle had begun a person could be forgiven for thinking that the bridge of my ship would be filled with frantic activity, but that was simply not the case, the cloned asari I used as crew, who were all a little genetically different than their sisters who lived in the Mass Effect universe and this one, did not panic because they knew that I had this situation well in hand.
We had several plans on how to end this battle quickly. Already Seven of Nine and Samatha Carter were flying two ships that were out of phase over to the Harvester mothership, they were out of phase and would remain so until it was time to denote their bombs. If one wasn't enough, and given the sheer size of the alien mothership that might be the case, then the second bomb would finish the job.
If they both somehow failed then I'd have to go with the plan I'd made, and that was to board the mothership, by also flying past its shield and hull, and then finding a computer which Cortana could link up to.
My thinking was that if a 20th-century virus could corrupt their computer system then my AI should have no trouble even if the Harvesters had upgraded their internal security since the virus trick was used on a different group of them.
Cortana would bring the shields down and we'd just portal out before the fleet in the system blew up all of the aliens. I couldn't make a portal into the ship because this wasn't the same model of mothership as in the Independence Day movie and as such I could not visualise its interior.
I could even send Cameron in my place who wouldn't care if it was a one-way mission or not, as while she would re-spawn like a killed companion, but I'd rather keep her at my side in case the Harvesters somehow managed to board my vessel.
This could happen as one of their known goals was to improve upon their existing technology so I wouldn't be surprised if they had boarding craft of some kind. They didn't in the movie, but 20th century Earth had no space ships for them to board or any tech they'd want to harvest. The technology on the planets and the vessels in the system came from a wide variety of sources and as such would be tempting to take in a boarding action.
While I still had my transphasic torpedoes as an option my Battlestars simply didn't have enough of them to make any real difference. Taking out a few of the city-destroyers would hurt the Harvesters but not stop them from killing every last living thing in this very densely populated star system.
My absolute last resort to stop the Harvesters would be to use the Nova bomb I'd gotten last year from a wrecked version of the Andromeda Ascendant to destroy the whole system in a very short amount of time.
Sure that would kill everyone, but so would the Harvesters and then they would do again to some other star system in this part of the galaxy which was also full of people. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that as I wasn't sure I could actually fire the Nova bomb and kill everyone here. I was used to having death and violence in my life, but killings billions, even if they were all about to die, I just didn't think I could actually do it.
For now, I needed to focus on the battle as while taking out the mothership would render all the other vessels shieldless it wouldn't render them weaponless and they could still kill millions before they were all destroyed. While the city-destroyers were a big threat they had no ship-to-ship weapons, unlike the mothership that we were all wisely keeping our distance from, but the biggest threat of all was the fighter craft.
In addition to their decent manoeuvrability, and their ability to travel into space unassisted, the fighters possessed the infinitely more valuable ability to produce and envelope themselves in a powerful particle shield that protected the ship from stuff like space debris to small-arms fire, all the way up to one or more successive direct hits from highly explosive air-to-air missiles or 20mm auto-cannon fire.
However, their shields did have limits and could be taken down with directed energy weapons, unlike those of the larger vessels, this was because the shield generators of the fighters were fed energy from the nearest mothership or city-destroyers, and there was so much energy a craft of that size could handle. As such while our own fighters would have trouble bringing down the enemy fighters our capital ships could stop them.
It seemed likely that this method of energy transference was what allowed each fighter to produce enough energy to power both the propulsion, internal avionics, life-support, and weapons systems in addition to maintaining a working constant-use or even multi-use shielding system.
Even my group's most effective naquadah generators would be strained to power all those systems and the Harvesters were fielding thousands of the small craft. The sheer amount of trained pilots they had was both impressive and scary, to say the least.
The idea that the fighters got all their energy from larger craft made sense as in the movie, despite the best efforts of Area 51's scientists working for nearly 50 years in dedicated study and reverse-engineering, no similar power plant could be replicated to power a salvaged Harvester fighter craft. Ironically, during the arrival of the aliens during the War of 1996, the crashed craft spontaneously re-activated as energy was somehow transmitted to it and that was led to the defeat of the aliens.
"We need to capture some of their fighters," I said to Cameron "If we could figure out how the larger ships send the energy and how the fighters make use of it that energy we could use the tech to improve our own fighters".
As long as the equipment wasn't too bulky we could upgrade fighters to take energy directly from the Battlestars, which had more power than they needed, and then the fighters could start to use more powerful weapons as well as shields. Of course, I'd want them to keep their own generators as well, but they could be downsized. Something to look into.
"If their shields do come down try to disable as many fighters as you can with the Star Wars ion cannons" I ordered, "We can beam the aliens out of the fighters later, and let the other Battlestars know about the idea".
Assuming the mothership did go boom as planned, and the other ships in the fleet didn't have their own plan that got in the way, everyone should be too surprised to even notice me snagging a few fighters. I was eager to get my hands on some of their technology.
"We have scans of several types of fighters, Captain Gothic" reported one of the crew.
Since my Battlestar was hanging back, because unlike my companions I wouldn't re-spawn, I was able to study the enemy without worrying about my ship coming under too much fire. The few squadrons of fighters who did get close to this ship were blasted apart by the plasma cannons of my Battlestar.
I noted that were indeed several kinds of fighters. One type that I quickly labelled as Interceptors were more advanced versions of the standard fighter craft. While having a resemblance to the Fighter, this model was equipped with more powerful weapons, with two cannons on the end of each wing, plus two forward cannons. Interceptors had more manoeuvrability as well, and they seemed to be going after our fleet's fighters, including the vipers I'd sent out, and some of them looked to be escorting what I guessed to be a squadron of bombers.
"They are going after Starfleet's drydocks" Cortana informed.
Since the Starfleet of this universe didn't have the shipyards that in the Prime Timeline could be found around and on both Earth and Mars, they were more dependent on the drydocks in this system than their canon counterparts. Losing them would be a big blow to Starfleet.
"Move to intercept" I ordered.
If the shields came down as expected then I would have to content myself with capturing some of these interceptors and maybe a couple of bombers, assuming I didn't blow them all up first.
(Line Break)
Runabout. The Tau Ceti System.
Travelling at full impulse across the system while the battle for this system began was a strange experience for the two companions. They were out of phase so anything that they countered, such as waves of enemy fighter craft, simply passed them by, or sometimes right through them, as if they were nothing more than ghosts.
Not that Seven of Nine let such things bother her. Even if she had cared about such things as ghosts, she was too focused on her important mission to even consider how like an immaterial spirit she could be feeling right now.
As for Samantha Carter, she was too busy battling her own fear to worry about much else. On an intellectual level, she understood that she wouldn't die even if Seven failed her mission and she had to blow herself up as well, as she would re-spawn, however, on a more primitive level she wasn't sure if she could actually denote the bomb she'd brought onto the vessel. Most people had a healthy fear of death and couldn't easily take their own lives.
At least she wasn't worried about her M-ship, it like the runabout, was a CP item and would be restored soon enough, she'd find it within the Hangerbay addon soon enough, and even if it couldn't magically reappear she could have simply built a new one.
The mothership moved at a steady pace and was surprisingly fast considering its size. Scans showed that it was mounted with powerful energy cannons. Given the sheer amount of energy being produced by the mothership's main reactor it should be able to shoot multiple targets simultaneously even while defending itself and proving energy to the other ships.
Not that it would bother blowing up the M-ship and the runabout if it was able to detect it, that was the thousands of fighters were for. Seven and Sam knew that while for now, the fighters weren't going to be able to do much against the defending fleet it would only be a matter of time before the defending vessels began to fail as their shields were overwhelmed.
With this in mind, the two women focused on their mission. Seven's runabout passed through the shields of the mothership and Sam lost track of the other vessel, they could detect each other while they were both out of phase, but something inside the mothership was interfering with those scans.
So Sam had to wait and wonder if she would have to attempt the mission as well, and just when she'd decided to fly inside the mothership so as to try her luck the whole thing suddenly exploded, but since Samantha was out of phase she was unaffected at least physically. Emotionally it sure gave her a big shock.
(Line Break)
The Enterprise-D. The Tau Ceti System.
"Focus on the fighters" Picard ordered.
The galaxy-class starship shook as a number of alien attack craft opened up their weapons. The shields were holding, but some of the energy of the alien weapon's was leaking through and damaging the Enterprise, and it would only get worse as the number of small craft simply kept increasing in number despite the efforts of the defenders.
"Fire all phasers and give me a spread of photon torpedoes," Riker said to Wolf who was up at the tactical station "and keep firing, we can't let them overwhelm us with sheer numbers".
At times like this Picard actually would have liked to have his counterpart who commanded the Enterprise-E around even if it was weird for them to be two of him, but even that ship wouldn't have much difference here, and it was needed elsewhere. It looked as if they wouldn't be able to win this battle, and if this version of the Enterprise was lost then at least the other Picard would carry on their work.
"What about the viruses?" Picard asked Data "Are they having any effect".
While they'd known that they wouldn't simply wouldn't be able to transmit another virus into the alien mothership's systems it had been worth trying to sneak one via a communication anyway just in case one of the harmful computer programs found a way in.
"The Harvesters are not accepting any signals directed at them" the android reported.
Sheer firepower simply wasn't an option here either as the alien ships had much better shields than any of the defenders, and they worked in such different ways that trying to match frequencies so that their weapon's fire would simply pass through the shields was totally pointless.
The ship shook again and without needing any orders Wolf opened fire again, expending the last of the photon torpedoes as he did. The quantum torpedoes had been used earlier in the battle, so now it was down to phasers. Every time the phasers lashed out they would destroy a single alien fighter craft, but there were so many that it seemed as the Enterprise would be stung to death before too long.
"I'm open to suggestions," Picard said.
The senior officers had discussed battle plans for hours, but nothing they'd come up with had many any difference, and just when Riker was about to suggest that they retreat while beaming out as many people as they could before leaving the system, a plan that would at least save some lives, the alien mothership suddenly, and without any explanation, just exploded.
When that happened the alien fighters began to go out of control, and while the city-destroyers kept coming they lost their shields and soon blasted apart by the powerful weapons of the Jurdian navy. Before long the Andorians regrouped and attacked the large saucers along with the few Klingon ships, a few old birds of prey, that Chancellor Gowron had agreed to send to the battle.
"I want an explanation for what just happened" Picard ordered, "If there's a way to destroy the Harvestor motherships then we need to know about it before the next attack".
(Line Break)
The Phoenix. The Tau Ceti System.
I felt Seven of Nine vanish from my senses even as the mothership went boomed as planned. I didn't feel her die, because she hadn't died, and while she lacked the power of the Force, she was still a living thing that I knew well so I'd been able to sense her presence in the general area.
"Enemy ships are losing shields!" a member of the crew yelled.
I was already working on the next part of the plan, and to help this along I sat in my command throne. From this seat, I linked my mind to the ship so that I could better control it. I didn't fire the ion cannons that disabled many fighters and other smaller craft, as the crew were doing that, but I did beam out the aliens and disperse their atoms across space so that no one could object to us taking the craft.
Before the battle had even begun I'd been granted salvage right to any enemy craft that I disabled. I felt sure that I would be allowed to study what remained of the mothership and the city-destroyers, but by the looks of things around here, soon there wasn't much left of anything other the fighters and other smaller craft.
"I wonder if they will be able to figure out how the mothership was destroyed?" said Cortana.
Starfleet senors were very advanced, to the point that they made little sense, but all they would find would traces of a runabout if that, and some unknown explosive device, if that.
"I don't really care," I said to the AI as I used my mind to tractor in some of the fighters into the shuttle bay "Once we've gotten a chance to recover any vipers we've got left and Sam's M-ship, we'll leave this system for a while. If Seven wants to come back to poke at the debris she can. I want to go back to exploring".
Helping the quarians recover their home had been nice, and that was still ongoing, it didn't need me to oversee the work, so I should be able to return to my main mission, which was to recover tech and other resources to be studied in the next Jump while having some fun.
"Picard is hailing us" I was informed.
The guy no doubt had some speech about our victory here and why it was so regrettable that we'd had to take so many lives so as to protect others. I'd keep the channel on mute.
.