Okay here we go guys, I know you've been excited about this but first I've got more Colonial name changes.

CO of Team 1 Captain Thomas Stinson – Captain Thomas Stison

CO of Team 2 Captain Samuel Fredericks – Captain Samuel Frederei

With that out of the way brace yourselves for quite a long chapter. I hope I can look back on it and call it my finest to date.

Chapter 20

Location: EDFS Shokaku

Date: February 17, 2025

Time: 0915

The Shokaku was en route, her hangar bays a hive of activity. The jet black F/A-302B Banshees being serviced and prepped for battle. Japanese crewmen, trained by the US in carrier operations, moved swiftly to get ready all over the ship.

Each man and woman had an unarmored suit with a rebreather mounted on their backs. The other portions of the suit had a full helmet and mask with a Kevlar vest and holster. Like their soldier brethren their suits had a normal outer cloth covering colored in grey digital camouflage. They also had a lightweight helmet that, like the rest of their suit, was sealed with the hose connecting it to the rebreather covered in a protective coating.

The flight deck personnel had the color-coded helmets and vests that signified their specialties. Red for munitions handlers, purple for fuel personnel, blue for plane handlers, green for catapult and arresting, yellow for directors, brown for inspections, and white for air traffic and signaling. There were Space Sparrows, rail gun ammunition, and most deadly of all were Valkyrie Anti-Ship Missiles. These deadly nuclear tipped missiles were much larger than the standard anti-ship missiles they had used before, being a full meter longer at nearly twenty feet long with a diameter of close to three feet. Each Banshee could only attach one missile, due to the weight of the missile itself, but they weren't going to use them today.

Their massive air wing was preparing for the upcoming mission in briefings and a few in last-minute simulators. The rest of the pilots were checking over their Banshees personally, trailing their hands over the smooth black metal as all pilots seem to do in a methodical ritual that such men and women did to connect to their machines. Their machines, the Banshees all Earth fighter pilots flew, differed from ship to ship, pilot to pilot. The Banshees of the Shokaku were jet black, as was standard, but on their right wings was a stylized dark red dot with the red rays of the JSDF's flag and old Imperial flag going out and fading into the black of the rest of the hull.

The Mohican Assault Gunships were another example of this unique paint scheme. The same insignia was painted into the nose of the craft, while the rest was the same black. The armament of these gunships consisted of two large railguns, the same used as anti-aircraft batteries by the ground forces, slung beneath the wings and two more above the wings mounted on the hull itself. A thirty millimeter cannon was mounted on the chin in a flexible turret that could target anything in a three hundred and sixty degree field of fire below the Mohican. Further down the wings were six pylons for mounting seventy-millimeter rocket pods, or four missiles on each. But each Mohican had another weapon on a special hardpoint on their bellies, a Valkyrie Missile.

As a consequence the utmost caution was being taken in the painstaking linking of the guidance system to the small hyperdrive to the targeting system of the Mohicans. Even more caution was being taken with the linking of the nuclear warhead by specially qualified munitions handlers. Once that was done, they were ready, as the Valkyries were the last weapons to be mounted on the Mohicans. All that remained was word, from their ground teams for the call for support.

Location: City Ship Olympus, Kobol

"Alright, let's get to work," Brenda declared, "Doc," she said, offering the tech specialists a way into the notably revamped and worked-on power control room of the city ship.

"What've you guys been doing?" Hailey cried out as she saw the massive power cables in the ZPM holes.

"Trying to get this thing working," Dr. Cruzii responded defensively, "No thanks to you guys sinking the damn thing."

"Cruzii, watch the attitude," Colonel Black snapped at the man, "Do what you can to get them started, use your security clearance to access what we've gotten done so far."

"Which hasn't been much, thanks for nothing Baltar," his assistant, Dr. Wimmera, grumbled under her breath as she pulled up a chair and started to boot up the Colonial system that was connected to the city's systems.

"Yeah…well best get to work guys," O'Neill awkwardly responded, stepping out into the hall where the rest of the unit was gathered.

"Military…" Underwood grumbled as they left, but turned to Hailey who was setting a hardened suitcase on a table in the corner, "No offense Hailey."

"None taken," she replied without hesitation as she typed in a code on the lock.

The case opened to reveal a Styrofoam lining with cavities carved out in the shape of the red conical EM-ZPM inside along with a copy of an Ancient Data Crystal with a copy of the Atlantis basecode and operating system. Dr. Underwood had another copy of the clear and white crystal, which he'd kept in a smaller version of the case Hailey had in his backpack. Hers was the first to be used, with the other being used as backup just in case.

"Another…data device?" Cruzii asked as he saw the crystal that Hailey had brought.

"No, power crystal, Zero Point Module," Hailey responded without hesitation.

"Looks different than the ones we found," Cruzii noted as he examined the large cone-shaped red crystal.

"You found ZPM's?" Hailey asked.

"Two of them, we weren't exactly sure of what they were until one of the Kobol Expedition ships started some experiments on them, nearly destroyed their ship. So we decided not to plug them in here for that reason."

"It wouldn't have done anything," Hailey noted evenly, "The operating system is wiped clean. Nowhere for power to be directed, the ZPM would just sit there with no way for the power to be used. At best you'd turn on the lights."

"We did manage that with this," Cruzii patted on the three massive power cables fastened to the central ZPM hub.

"So this should be simple, some of the basic secondary systems must have remained intact within themselves, this place is different than-ow!" Underwood yelped as Hailey slapped him upside the head, and then saw her giving him a look that said 'shutup', "Oh right…"

"Yeah…" Ruby said under her breath as she snatched the copy of the system code.

"Alright, gonna ignore that but remember that," Cruzii responded wistfully, his photographic memory taking every single detail and shape and symbol he could observe.

"What do we have to work with?" Ruby whispered as she sat down at a chair and saw the window open that was synced with the city's system, but saw nothing but nonsense, "Jeez McKay, leave them a mess why don't you?"

"What? Oh man, delete this crap first of all," Underwood chuckled, pulling out his tablet and connected an Ancient connection cable and went to an untouched crystal where he plugged in and started to sync up with the mess of a system Olympus had.

"Hold on what're you doing?" Dr. Wimmera interrupted him, "You're not seriously deleting this?!"

"It's jibberish girl, see," he held up his tablet to show the English translations, "Nothing here at all, but we've got to delete the whole system's code so it doesn't corrupt the right version."

"Besides, you've got copies to go through and figure that out yourself," Hailey responded as she turned on a flashlight and examined the power connections.

"How are you sure we do?" Cruzii responded, "No, wait, dumb question, Baltar's not that stupid."

He sat down and began typing into the desktop in front of him, which was the Colonials' master control center. But he was rather disappointed in the scientists before him who hadn't been able to figure out how to get their computers to interact with the system in any meaningful way. So he quickly started writing a simple program to start deleting the files the city had in its databanks which needed to be completely deleted.

As he tested it after a few moments of modifying the current program something unforeseen happened. The lights went out entirely, and the Colonial computers shut down as they lost power. What followed was a series of pops and a shower of sparks from the end of the cables that made everyone back away, covering their face instinctively.

"What the hell did you do?!" Cruzii snapped.

"I was about to ask you the same question!" Hailey replied, ripping out the cables, not caring that she was undoing weeks, if not months of work by the Colonials, "Useless morons…" she grumbled as the last of the heavy insulated cables and free sparking and now glowing ends clattered to the ground.

"What happened?" Underwood asked, "The whole system just died."

"We've lost power," Dr. Wimmera called out as flashlights began coming on and Colonel O'Neill rushed in.

"What'd you guys do?!" he demanded.

"Power's been cut, has to be the generators giving out, nothing happened in here that would have caused it," Ruby answered quickly, tracing her steps and her recording quickly, "Just like if you pulled the plug on any electronic device."

"Can we do what we need to do with that powering the city?" Cruzii pointed to the ZPM.

"Of course we can," Hailey replied as she looked into the three ZPM holes, but what she saw didn't give her a good impression, "Oh shit…the cutoff caused an overload from the cables, they sparked and may have damaged the inserts but I doubt that, I'll have to at least clean it. I can't risk putting the ZPM in there until that point."

"We don't have any of those supplies in here," Cruzii replied, shaking his head.

"I have my computer cleaning kit," Ruby stated, raising her hand.

"Give it!" Hailey ordered.

"Colonel," Colonel Black interrupted, stepping in, "We've got a problem, some of our security teams aren't responding and we can see smoke rising from the generators. The base is compromised."

"Shit, Colonel Valdez!" O'Neill called out to the other SG Team Leader.

"Yes Colonel," the darker skinned Mexican officer responded on the radio.

"We've got trouble, Colonel where-," O'Neill began, but was stopped by the faint sounds of gunfire echoing way down the hallway as Colonel Black lifted a hand to his headset.

"Hostiles have infiltrated into the city," Black snapped, "We've got reports of engagements in the other towers."

"It's chaos out there, they need help sir," one of the senior Colonial officers stated plainly.

"We need to fan out, secure the area around this room, and get a team to the control tower to activate the shield," O'Neill declared.

"What about us?" Brenda asked, referring to the civilian team members.

"You are staying here!" O'Neill snapped, pointing at the ground to really emphasize his point, "Defend this room and get that shield online. Hailey, you and…what's your name?" he asked Dr. Cruzii.

"Cruzii," he informed him.

"Colonel you okay with him going to the control room?"

"Of course, we'll need all the help we can get up there," Black agreed, "I'll get them there if you want to start sweeping the tower."

"Alright, Blanton, detach your section and go with them," O'Neill ordered, "Rosario you're with me, securing the outer approaches."

"Here, map," Dr. Wimmera offered, and the team commanders gathered around.

"Best to integrate the teams, don't want your security teams to open up on our own," O'Neill suggested.

"Okay…Frederei, split your team into fireteams, they'll operate with, Valdez?"

"Si, we're ready senor," Colonel Valdez stated.

"Good, make sure you ID your targets, last thing we want is friendly fire," O'Neill replied, acknowledging the inherent dangers that were present at the moment, "Especially since we've just started playing nice now."

"A rematch might be in works one day, on better terms," Black noted in a smirk, "In the meantime let's clean house. Stison, I want one of your fireteams, they'll help escort the techies and you take the other team and help secure the area along with…Rosario?" he pointed at the young Earth officer.

"We'll take care of your troops sir," Rosario nodded.

"They'll take care of you every bit as well as you will," Black assured her, looking at the map, "Let's see…we've got several Raptor landing pads, I've tried contacting them here, gone," he pointed at one of the sites and then another, "here, gone. No responses from any of them."

"The best places to set up ambushes are here, here, and here," Blanton suggested, pointing at trio of buildings that was a hub for several skybridges, "Set up our snipers there and we can dominate the area's windows and outer passages. I've studied the schematics for security reasons."

"We'll relay the plan."

"Mixing fireteams of four with fireteams from SG-36 and we can head off two of those building routes, secure them and press forward. Rosario, you and your team can take the other with another Colonial fireteam. The other team will have to move to the command center, there, once power is restored, they can get the systems restored, and get the shield operational."

"Sounds like a plan," Black stated, nodding in agreement.

"We're in agreement?" O'Neill asked, looking back and forth. The men and women around the table and the map nodded and gave murmurs, their grim expressions very much accentuated in the dark, lit with the light of their flashlights, "Okay, let's get this done."

The team filed out, and the officers began gathering their teams, the Spanish speaking Mexican team quickly put the Colonials off, as their language was nothing like anything the Colonials had ever heard before. Very few of the Colonials spoke old languages, but none could even recognize Spanish. Yet they were still able to recognize a few similar words, as was the simple fact of Spanish. But the Mexican ex-special forces troops spoke good English, which the Colonials spoke.

"Alright, I'm Colonel Yonathan Ramirez Valdez, I'm commander of SG-36," the man stated to the eight Colonial troops who were split off to operate alongside the Earth team.

"Captain Frederei," the Colonial team commander responded, saluting and shaking the hand of the Mexican colonel, "Your men ready for this?"

"My men have been doing their duty for a long time, this will be little different."

"Best way to think about it,"

"Vamonos," Colonel Valdez ordered to his men, who fell into line behind him with the Colonials alongside them, a map of the city on their HUD's.

The team quickly moved out of sight, leaving SG-1 to organize and move out as well. After a few moments of rush-preparation they did so, moving out at a quick-walk as Captain Hailey and Dr. Cruzii were shepherded out and up a flight of stairs towards the central tower's peak. This team of ten moved out quickly, with the Colonials leading the way. Meanwhile another mishmash Colonial/Earth squad, with O'Neill in the lead, rushed down the stairs towards the underground section where the tower was connected with the rest of the city at its base, with one long hall being the only access to the stairwell that led to the power room. This left Agent Fraser and a pair of RSEC guards as the only defense the room had along with the armed civilians, which included four medical personnel and three tech specialists along with Brenda Jackson.

"Hey Brenda," Dr. Lawson, or Cathy, their medical head asked nervously, "What do we do if someone…bad comes this way?"

"You remember what we were told, defend ourselves," Brenda reminded her, "In the meantime, um…Agent Fraser," she called out.

"Yes Miss Jackson?" the Colonial intelligence agent responded from the hall.

"Is that room there empty?" she pointed at an open door just across the atrium-like hall that branched out into three separate halls that each of their teams had started down, "I think we might want to get a medical station set up there."

"We've got doctors, might as well, lots of people are about to start getting hurt," Fraser nodded in agreement, "Doctors, if you please?" he beckoned the medical people forward, "You two split up, take one hall each, I'll take the big one."

"Yes sir," the two guards nodded quickly, shuffling over in the dimly lit corridor to the entrance of the atrium and kneeled down, carbines at their shoulders but not aimed downrange.

Cathy and Tew, her assistant rushed out quickly, flashlights on as they entered what looked to be a lab of some kind where there were several Colonial crates, tool boxes, and the makings of a work lounge set up on several fold-out tables that they quickly cleared off with the help of the two Colonial doctors Deckero and Hall.

As they went about their business quickly Brenda went over to Underwood, checking his progress as he cleaned up all three ZPM housing units.

"Mike please tell me you're almost ready," Brenda demanded of him as he worked quickly scrubbed and sprayed the cleaner into the slots, making certain not a single particle was left that he could see.

"Can't rush this kind of work Brenda…one bad energy transfer or contaminated charge and the ZPM dies," he stated, stress in his voice, "But good thing I'm a genius, done!"

"Here," Ruby stated as she carried the ZPM over to him.

"Easy," Underwood breathed, taking the device from her hands with both of his own hands as Dr. Wimmera sat there chewing her nails in rapt anticipation, "Okay, here it goes."

He turned the conical crystal down, hoping that the transfer would begin as soon as he put the device inside. His hands shook slightly as he brought it down, starting to immerse the crystal inside until it was halfway in and then glowed red and came to life with an audible hum. Sighing in relief he pushed ever so gently downwards and the ZPM was pulled in by the tower automatically and pulled in to the hilt. The lights came on immediately, and their computer screens lit up with the familiar jumbled mess of a phony operating code they needed to delete.

"Okay, we have power," Ruby called out, a relieved smile on her face.

"Get to work, hurry," Brenda ordered.

"Going."

The group hurriedly began typing on their tablets, beeping ringing out as they began working hurriedly. All three techies quickly began purging every single piece of code they saw. Brenda watched, rubbing her hands together nervously, anticipation building with the knowledge something was going to happen. As they worked, she began pacing, hating that she had nothing to contribute except as another gun.

"You're going to wear a hole in the floor my dear," Dr. Walt quipped from where he was seated at a lone table, a deck of cards in hand as played Solitaire, waiting for anything that would require his assistance in the room.

"I can't help it," Brenda responded with a sigh as she continued to pace.

"Have to be doing something at all times?" Walt asked cocking his head slightly.

"It's how I got this job y'know, I never stopped trying to…go the next step, be someone great. I mean you've been reading the reports on the original SG-1's, Atlantis, and everyone else who was involved in the early days. I've been trying to do what they did."

"I thought you were going to try and do what your father set out to do?" Walt inquired, remembering a past conversation they'd had.

"Well…that's why I started, it was the reason I went for this position. But now that I have it, I can't help but feel like I'm supposed to be this…hero that saves the day all the time. Like O'Neill, Carter, Jackson, Teal'c, Mitchell, and all them."

"So do all of us Brenda, this patch on our shoulders isn't a number, it's a legacy, and our duty is to uphold that legacy," Walt reminded her.

"How well's that going for us?" she sighed quietly, leaning against the wall, looking up at the ceiling, the weight of what she was doing and where she was dawning on her.

"Well," Walt said with a smile, "No one ever said it was going to be easy."

"Here," Hailey declared, pointing at a two sided door that she opened with a swipe of her hand over the blue sensor, "Transporter."

Indeed as she said was an Ancient transporter, which she'd known from McKay's reports had been relegated to a separate system, but tampered with.

"Underwood, have you purged and replaced the transporter systems yet?"

"First thing I did, as you asked," the scientist replied on the radio.

"Good," Blanton responded, "Hop in guys, this'll get us where we need to go really quick."

"What do you mean?" Colonel Black asked quickly.

"It's a transporter, hit any of these red lights and it'll teleport us there in the blink of an eye," Hailey filled him in.

"You've definitely seen this before," Sergeant Bradley, the big Colonial NCO, mumbled under his breath.

"A few times," Hailey said nonchalantly as the group piled in, Dr. Cruzii squeezing in rather uncomfortably close to her in particular.

"I'm assuming this operated on the same principles as the Ring?" he asked, although it was more of a knowing hypothesis.

"Look at you," Hailey smirked, "Pretty soon I'll be able to put a piece of cheese in a maze and have you find your way to it."

"Play nice…" Blanton reminded her.

"Hit the central red dot please," Hailey ordered, she couldn't reach because Cruzii was practically pinning her into the corner, shoulder to shoulder.

"This one?" Cruzii said as he pushed it, and thankfully for everyone inside the system was installed properly and they felt the familiar feeling of being transported.

"Secure the area," Black commanded as he and Blanton were the first to exit, flashing their rifles out and swept the immediate hall, which was empty. The Colonials and Earth troops were right behind them, and as was Hailey.

"No," Cruzii corrected her, grabbing her and holding her in the transporter, "More than enough guns to go around but not enough brains."

"I don't need you to hold my hand!" Hailey flushed quickly.

"Clear! Come you two," Blanton ordered.

They walked out, following their escorts closely. It didn't take long before they arrived at the central command center for the tall main tower.

"Friendlies coming in!" Colonel Black yelled out to the alert RSEC sentries in the main command tower.

"Identify!" one yelled from out of sight.

"Colonel Black, Recon One with Earth troops and technical advisors."

"We got word you were coming Colonel," another voice said in response as a helmeted officer, a Major, stepped into sight, carbine in hand, "Glad you made it. We've got hostiles across the city, my security teams are going dark one by one."

The team walked out and Colonel Black shook his head in response to the information.

"We should be able to do something about that," the senior officer nodded while his team passed by along with the Earth fireteam and their two techies, "How many men do you have in the city?"

"We had a full company, nearly two-hundred troops, but I've lost contact with at least half of them across the city and the landing sites are dark and the generators got hit by something."

"Or someone," Major Blanton interrupted as he entered the conversation, "Major Blanton, SG-1."

"Good to see Earth's come to the party, what're your people looking to do Major?"

"We brought along a power source and an operating system to bring Olympus fully online so we can activate the city's shields."

"Shields?"

"Apparently this place is more than just a city Major," Colonel Black informed the subordinate security officer.

"Learn something new every day in this job," the major quipped.

Back at the main atrium where the team spread out and Cruzii and Hailey rushed up the wide steps to the control tables things were going quickly.

"What've you gotten done so far?" Hailey demanded as she ducked under one of the consoles and began to link her own tablet to the crystals as Cruzii observed her.

"We've gotten the power grid systems purged, but there's a lot of subsystems that are contaminated," Ruby responded to her, "We're focusing on the shield's systems."

"Okay, we'll purge the command systems from here," Hailey responded, sitting down and getting to work, tapping her delete button more times now than at any time before.

"May want to purge the subroutines that do internal diagnostics, this city was half submerged when we found it, who knows what important components were damaged," Cruzii declared as he began what he'd stated needed to be done before Hailey could respond.

As they worked Lieutenant Holden, SG-1's sniper, rushed out onto the balcony with her M-501 Assault Rifle ready for use in its DMR configuration with a lengthened barrel and a variable power scope with optional thermal imaging and range-finder built into it. She popped open her bipod and got into position to start scoping out any hostiles she could see and call them out or engage if possible. But the fog was rather difficult to see anything moving in the buildings. The main piers in her field of vision were masked for the most part.

"Now's as good a time as any to test the sniper versus the machine gun theory," a familiar voice stated from next to her as Colonial Corporal Emerick kneeled down behind a pot and propped open his own bipod on his belt-fed SAW.

"Have to be able see your targets don't you?" Holden asked as she switched to thermal and saw a series of human figures in line, running at full sprint down the open space of the pier to her right and keyed her radio, "Because I sure do, Major, tally six bogeys. No visible weapons, their hands are free."

"Probably wrist-mounted plasma repeaters. Engage if you can."

"Copy that…" Holden grinned, and got the range and adjusted her scope accordingly, "Downhill…no wind…" she started listing off as the scope calculated the shot along with her own training. But before she could finish her scope went completely white, and a humming noise rang in their ears, "What the…oh shit! Got off the balcony!"

She picked up her rifle and stood to her feet but as she did so a triangular shaped craft emerged from its cloak and leveled two staff cannons at them. The Colonial Corporal, shocked at the sight, backed away in the opposite direction, firing his SAW at the transport as it fired. Two plasma bolts slammed into the edge of the balcony and threw both of them through the air and through the rebuilt stain-glass window.

"Contact!" came the inevitable shout as everyone scrambled for cover as another pair of plasma bolts flew in, striking the stairs directly in front of the stargate that led up to the control room.

Major Blanton rushed to a firing position as he saw the shadow of the vessel cover the open window as Lieutenant Holden began recovering, dragging herself down the stairs as the Colonial gunner did the same on the opposite side. Then a purple vial was thrown into the room where it shattered open and then a green one was thrown onto that, once the liquid inside made contact after the bottle shattered a white smoke cloud began billowing up to obscure the room.

Then, figures started rushing into the room, firing from raised arms at the defenders. Swarms of small plasma bolts hit all around at their targets as the enemy rushed forward with little regard for their own safety or the possibility of ambush or close combat. Rifle fire roared back at them, cutting down several of them instantly as others leapt over their falling bodies at full sprints, firing at the flashes they saw. A Colonial gunner on the balcony to the left of the gate was strike almost immediately as he was in the open.

His body fell to the ground and then the fire was redirected towards the control room, where Hailey and Cruzii were. Both dove to the ground, grasping at their weapons as the flurry of plasma rounds hit the ceiling and railings and the consoles themselves, but not damaging anything with their low-yield power. But the old Ancient glass was shattering, and Cruzii, as an instinct wrapped an arm around Hailey. However she shoved him off and grabbed her tablet and continued working, knowing that they needed to get the city operational.

By now bodies were falling left and right from the defenders' firepower. But now the fight was getting rather sporty. Major Blanton no sooner emptied his magazine into a rushing hooded attacker than one jumped up at him after leaping off of one of the light fixtures in the stairs he was taking cover behind. This was a mistake on the enemy's part.

Blanton grabbed at the outstretched leg as he turned to the left and let the hostile land with his knee above his shoulder and his left and right hand holding his calf like an axe handle. And once there, in the blink of an eye Blanton swung the man's body like an axe or sledgehammer into the floor, where his head connected with a lethal blow.

Next to him the Colonial Major fired a burst at point blank into the chest of an opponent but as he turned to fire again at another the man he was aiming at ripped the barrel up and jammed his weapon arm into the Colonial's chest and fired, sending three plasma bolts through and through. A shot the head from Colonel Black prevented the enemy from taking any more lives as he faced his own close-in fight.

An opponent wielding a long knife rushed him and swung at him. The first slash Black ducked under to the left, the second he dodged to the right, releasing his carbine he grabbed his combat knife in his left hand and his pistol in the right. As the man attacked with a third right-handed slice Black reached up with his blade held reverse and stepped into the attack, letting the man's forearm sink itself onto his knife and as the man screamed in pain Black pulled his pistol up and pushed back as he fired three rounds into his lower chest.

From his right another hostile charged with knife and plasma repeater brought to bear. He fired a wild burst that Black ducked under and swung his blade at his head. But Black ducked and spun as he swung his leg up and caught the guy's neck in the crook in his knee and with the force of the move swung him into the ground and placed his pistol barrel in in between his eyes and fired.

Three hostiles fell to a sweeping fire from Lieutenant Gibson's SAW as he continued mowing down several hostiles pouring in from the balcony. But that gave Sergeant Bradley, who held one of the Colonials' rocket launchers, an opening.

"Cover me!" the deep voiced NCO ordered sharply as he pulled out the long missile launcher and held it in both hands.

Gibson rushed out, firing another burst along with the recovered Colonial gunner who laid onto the trigger and poured fire into the door to their right where several hostiles had come barreling through, only to meet lead.

Bradley charged forward, seeing one of the enemy charging him with his arm brought to bear out of the corner of his eye. But as soon as he saw him a puff of red popped out of his coat and he collapsed and Bradley saw the green form of Lieutenant Holden aiming her rifle at where the man had once been. Nodding he turned his powerful rocket launcher on the shape of the enemy craft.

"Rocket!"

He pulled the trigger and the millisecond between the bang of the rocket going out and the impact of it against the Tel'tak's hull seemed to mesh into one instant explosion. The craft twisted away, on fire and trailing thick oily smoke as lost altitude and went into a death spin, crashing into the water without being seen by anyone.

With a pair of grenades tossed outside on the balcony by Gibson and a pair of Colonials the room was secure, with the bodies of over twenty enemy combatants laying in pools of blood along with at least three Colonials.

"You guys good up there?" Blanton asked.

"We're good!" Cruzii declared, but didn't check his surroundings before he said that.

In the messy, chaotic firefight, one black-cloaked hostile had gotten past the troops below, and up the stairs. He now charged at Hailey who was on her knees, getting up. But Cruzii, hearing the steps, saw him. Rising from his kneeling position he grabbed the man's arm with his right hand and gave a nasty left cross across the attacker's jaw. They both dropped to the ground, black writhing around on top of black, as they wrestled for a killing blow.

Hailey rushed over, rifle pointed at the two, trying to get a shot that wouldn't harm Cruzii. After waiting a couple seconds she stopped and then remembered something. She was carrying a Zat, so she pulled that out and nonchalantly fired it into the two of them. Both cried out in pain, but the hostile got the full blow of it, and rolled off, clenched up in pain until Hailey fired again, killing him.

"What the frak was that?!" Cruzii demanded to know, shaking from the pain.

"Zat gun," Hailey responded, deactivating it and returning it to its holster, "Back to work."

O'Neill led the way forward, M-501 locked and loaded. He could see that the power was on and that there was a great deal of fighting going on in spurts of activity that echoed through the empty halls. Occasionally the group came across signs of the enemy's presence, opened and flung about Colonial equipment, papers, and sometimes, a few bodies.

They'd seen only one body that had belonged to their enemy, and this was all he needed to break down the hostiles' capabilities. Plasma Repeaters, nasty Gou'ald era weapons that had proven time and again to be the equal of most submachine guns and pistols, the body they'd found also had a stun grenade, which could be an issue in the cramped indoor conditions that they were in. But their foe was unarmored, without technology, and now, without darkness.

As the team moved to a balcony with a dome of glass going up and down, facing out they could hear something below them.

"Hold it here," O'Neill ordered, getting nods from the unit who kneeled down against the wall, watching carefully around them in all directions.

O'Neill himself started crawling on his knees towards the entrance to the long curved railing over an old open courtyard twenty feet below. There were old inactive fountains, ancient furniture, décor, and other such niceties being examined for treasures by a gaggle of a dozen enemy soldiers. Their faces were entirely hidden, but the weapons he could see were the same as the one body they had found. There was a circle staircase against the glass that he could make out another four enemy troops starting to ascend that connected with their own, and he ducked back out of sight once his recon was complete.

"Okay, we've got sixteen hostiles," he stated plainly, "Newbold, SAW, and you..." he pointed at the other Colonial SAW gunner clenching his teeth trying to remember his name, "Guy whose name escapes me, take positions."

"Guy whose name escapes me?" Major Rosario chuckled as they got into position.

"What? We only just met," O'Neill quipped with a characteristic smirk.

"Okay that's fair enough sir," the Colonial responded over his shoulder, "Don't worry about it."

"We've got other things to worry about boss," Pauley reminded him, "What's the plan sir?"

"Okay, first thing, grenades, then you two lay down as much suppressive fire as you can," O'Neill began, "Pauley, take your team and sprint across, I want full crossfire on the ground floor, you guys," O'Neil pointed to the last three Colonials, "One of you with me, the other two on rear guard. We're heading to the opposite hall, and once there nothing gets past us. We're going across first, try and draw fire."

"Roger that sir."

"Gonna get loud, they've got buddies around and they're gonna come running, watch for reinforcements," Pauley advised everyone.

"Make your shots count, no misses," Rosario impressed on every one of them.

Right as O'Neill was about to say something a sudden boom shook the building and a shadow fell over the building as a roar of gunfire from outside reached their ears. After a moment the fire subsided slightly, only for a loud bang to sound out. The shadow above them fell away, and O'Neill looked up to see a Tel'tak spinning wildly out of control with fire and smoke belching from a hole in its side. The vehicle crashed in between the piers in front of them.

"That's it!" one of the Colonials could be heard whispering in joy at the victory.

But their joy was short-lived, a yellow light fell from the sky, blasting a cloud of smoke and fire into the air where a Colonial CIWS turret and its accompanying equipment were dug in. The warbling noise of heavy incoming plasma cannon fire sent shivers down O'Neill's spine as more explosions sounded off in the distance. Then, a trio of Death Gliders swooped by in the near distance, their ground troops below him cheering their comrades' arrival.

"Oh shit…" O'Neill hissed, "Their buddies have decided to join the party."

"That was our anti-aircraft net wasn't it?" the Colonial officer, Lieutenant Bragg, sighed sadly.

"Hopefully your people got out of the way, but your guns and missiles, no such luck," Pauley sighed.

"Frak, why can't we get any of the good shit?!" a Colonial sergeant hissed under his breath.

"This fight's not over," O'Neill ordered, "come on."

He crept out of the hall entrance, circling back away from the edge to not be seen at a low run. Everyone else followed him out, taking their positions as ordered. Once checking to be sure the hallway was clear O'Neill decided he needed to express a little rage for the enemy still cheering like fans of a team for their air support. He walked out and signaled with a hand motion for everyone to move forward. Aiming his rifle down at a single man standing on a fountain wall he dialed in the target.

But before he could do that, an orange flash in the reflective tile caught his eye. But the flash was then replaced by the blurred but still visible image of an orange glow, growing larger. Curious, he looked up, and saw it.

"Oh…my…" he barely managed to get out as he realized what it was.

The entire assembly, Earth, Colonial, and hostile included, all turned their heads skyward. The cheering of the enemy died down, and the Colonials all began beaming in great big smiles as they saw what was falling towards the planet surface.

"You crazy…" someone whispered in awe, and he was right.

What they were seeing was a Colonial Battlestar, having jumped into the atmosphere of Kobol it was now plummeting downwards, gaining speed, orange flames of massive amounts of friction causing it glow with a contrail following its massive bulk like a comet. O'Neill had heard the rumors of what Battlestars could do, but never would he, or any rational being for that matter, even consider jumping into a planet's atmosphere! Yet, some crazy Colonial commander decided to ignore what everyone else decided might be the most logical course of action and substituted it with something that walked a fine line between genius and suicide.

Small dots burst from the flight pods as the Battlestar dropped further, dozens and dozens of them. These he recognized as Vipers, and was very happy to see those fighters come out like an angry swarm, here to protect their ancestral homeworld. His awe was replaced with downright panic as he realized that the Battlestar was now getting a little too close to the ground, dropping closer, and closer, and closer. The friction flames he could now pick out the individual textures of, and was mouthing the word, jump, over and over again.

As said that a sudden flash and the shape of the Battlestar was gone, replaced by a hollow ball of flame that was sucked back into the massive void. The entire building shook after a moment as the shockwave hit the city, and the reality dawned on them; this fight was only beginning. This was drilled into them as Vipers flew overhead, chasing Death Gliders with guns blazing.

Smiles plastered the faces of the ground team at their own air support arriving on scene, and so they turned their attention back to their opponents below. O'Neill was the first to speak.

"Didn't see that comin' did ya?" he hollered, causing the whole assembly to turn at him and look up to see themselves in a bad spot.

This didn't stop them from raising their weapons however, and the team opened fire. After a loud tearing roar of gunfire the entire force in the courtyards fell dead, all too easy.

"Alright, let's go find some more!"

I think I'll pick up the rest of the fight in the next chapter, this one was getting rather long. Hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. And see if you can spot an SG-1 Easter Egg I put in this chapter (What was the quote and from what episode of SG-1?). It was kind of a tribute and it seemed to fit. As usual leave your thoughts and whatever else you want to say in a review, let me know what you thought, and I'll see you next time.

Next Chapter Preview: The fighting continues, and things go wrong. Just another day in paradise.