Chapter 21
Location: Battlestar Galactica, In Freefall
Date: February 25, 2025
Time: 0935
"Well, this oughta be different," Lee said calmly as he gave a thumbs-up to the catapult director.
Immediately after that he was shoved back into his seat as his Viper was flung forward. He could see a hot orange glow in front of his as the atmosphere the Galactica fell through was burning hot outside it. He knew there were dozens of other Vipers already launched with a hundred more behind him. As the rumbling Viper accelerated he punched his engine, and gripped his controls.
The Viper exploded out of the launch tube, rumbling rapidly as the air buffeted the Viper roughly. Lee dove for airspeed and control over his Mk. VIII. He saw the orange flames die away immediately, and he could see the green, fog-enshrouded, highlands and mountains of Kobol below his. Other Vipers flew in the same manner, trying to file out into formations. He glanced down at his DRADIS as her airspeed got into combat speed and saw it come to life, green Vipers around the scanner along with red unknowns, although he knew that these were hostile.
"All Vipers, let's clean house, secure the airspace," Lee spoke up through his comms as he looked around, and saw a duo of Death Gliders below his Viper and dove on them.
He went inverted, rolling and diving as he jerked back, bringing his gunsight on target, the pipper coming into view. When his gunsight was on the pipper he pulled the trigger, and sent heavy cannon shells right at the wingman. The enemy fighters had no clue and only figured it out when the wingman's right wing was cut off. He noted the kill, more for intelligence purposes than personal numbers.
As soon as the first one was shot down the second was sent running. It banked left, and Lee saw the looming towers of the fog covered Olympus. He paused for a split second in admiration, but then the sight of smoke all around the outer rings and a column from within the city snapped him back into the battle. Lee swung over in hot pursuit of the Glider, waiting for the craft to clear the city, so he didn't damage any of the buildings.
As he did this he noted that Galactica had jumped, and winced at the possibility of the Galactica by itself against much superior vessels, at least until the rest of the fleet arrived. However he had to stay in the moment, in-atmosphere dogfighting held a different set of dangers than the normal space-based combat that fleet-based Viper pilots were used to. Low-level flight always held risks, and he had to stay in the mindset he needed to.
"Apollo break! Break! Break!" he heard Starbuck yell, "Hostile fighter diving on you!"
Lee pulled hard on the stick and jerked his bird right, and saw the globs of golden plasma zip past his canopy. He caught sight of three Death Gliders, and one of them exploded as a missile came from in front of the nose of his Viper after slamming into the nose of the craft. Then Lee whirled his head around as he heard a whooping yell from the one and only Starbuck. The popping of the tennis ball-sized cannon shells roared past his canopy and then the dart-like Viper flown by the blonde pilot roared right on past as well, tearing a second fighter into pieces as she tore past them.
"You are insane!" Lee yelled, knowing how close she'd come to having collided with all of them.
Righting his Viper he banked hard, and saw a pair of Vipers to his upper right recognizing the tail marks as two new pilots. They were flying in a straight line, up high, a very big no-no. Before he could yell out to them a plasma bolt slammed into the middle of the nose and sent it flying up and then plummeting.
"Blackout's hit! Blackout's-," the wingman yelled before screaming into the comm another bolt from the clouds blasted into their engines and the Viper dropped down on fire.
"Eject! Eject!" Lee desperately ordered as he banked towards the source of the fire, the clouds.
Neither of the two Viper pilots managed to eject.
"We're with you Apollo," another pair of Vipers answered the challenge, pulling into formation with him, their markers easily visible on his HUD.
"Watch your spacing you two!" Lee warned, looking at how close they were to his wingtips.
As soon he looked back the clouds burst open with a large triangular, disc shaped craft, an Alkesh. The gunship fired at them, claiming another one of the Vipers to his right before Lee could pull the trigger, blasting away the left wing. The Alkesh barreled towards him, and his eyes widened as he yanked at his controls, activating his emergency thrusters on his nose and below his engines and held on.
His Viper bucked hard, the nose diving down and the tail bucking upwards hard. He laid onto the trigger, firing his weapons into the Alkesh, but it didn't do too much. He managed to regain control of his fighter as the Alkesh dove towards the city, firing at several Vipers, not hitting any of them fortunately. Lee accelerated towards it, climbing above and then dove at it, firing his guns at the craft and began locking his missiles. Black smoke began pouring from the engines and the craft shook from his punishing rounds.
"Die frakker!" he yelled as he fired two missiles the moment he heard the warbling of the missile lock.
The two Archers lanced out and slammed into the top and rear. Two big holes blew open the rear of the craft and it began crashing to the ground, but in this case the ground below it was the city itself. The craft began spinning and coming apart. Lee saw the destination of the crashing ship, and knew that this would not end well.
"Olympus! You have a hostile ship on a collision course!"
Location: City Ship Olympus
"Olympus! You have a hostile ship on a collision course!"
"Oh frak," Colonel Black hissed as he saw the black smoke trail coming right at the city, "You two better hurry up!"
"Not ready!" Cruzii yelled back.
"Oh this won't end well," Sergeant Bradley groaned he looked out at the smoking Alkesh.
As they watched other Vipers opened fire, slamming missiles into the craft, splintering off small and medium-sized pieces. The wireless was absolutely alive with the Galactica's pilots desperately trying to stop the craft, seeing as the anti-aircraft batteries were silent or cratered. But it did very little good. The wreckage was going to slam into the gathering of buildings at the end of one of the piers.
"Brace!" Major Blanton yelled.
The first piece to collide with the city was the biggest. It slammed into the pier, not the towers, a smoke cloud obscuring the fireball within it. Several smaller pieces crashed into the windows and buildings around it along with numerous splashes in the water to show just how badly the Galactica's pilots had mauled it. Black smoke rose from the buildings where the fires burned, and immediately the thoughts began turning into words.
"Frak! Were there people out there?" Colonel Black yelled.
"No idea Colonel," a young lieutenant responded, his eyes wide with fear at the turn of events.
"Well frakking get your radio and have everyone check in!" Black roared at the man, "Frak!"
"Oh God," Hailey gasped, looking out at the sight, "Two of the shield generators are out there!"
"Worse," Cruzii interrupted, grabbing a pair of binoculars from off of a table, looking out at the pier, specifically the edges, "That wreckage just punctured a lot of the floats holding up that section of the city."
"Can it hold?" Blanton asked.
"No idea," he responded, "But we need to get over there and check those shield generators."
"Alright," Blanton nodded, "Colonel."
"I agree, Captain, how much longer do you need?" he asked up to Hailey.
"The systems are purged, just a matter of installing the systems and their support systems and their failsafes, protocols, and several more things but it can be done by the others in the power room."
"Alright, Colonel, I'll take one of mine if you want to lend me two of yours," Blanton asked.
"Right, Bradley, take Emerick," Black ordered, "Doc, you go with them."
"I was gonna ask but you answered it," Cruzii smirked as he stood up.
As the two techies walked down Black grabbed Cruzii by the best forcefully, stopping him in his tracks.
"Keep an eye on what she does," he whispered, "Memorize it, I want to know everything that they're doing as best we can."
"Already done, I wasn't purging the systems, I was recording their download of the city's systems."
Black was taken back, but he understood the importance of it, and the fact he hadn't been caught was even more impressive. The Earth technical officer Cruzii was shadowing was not just a piece of ass to him, Cruzii was learning, watching everything she was doing.
"Good, don't let her out of your sight," Black ordered, "We might be fighting together, but I don't completely trust them."
"I'm sure the feeling's mutual."
Location: Battlestar Galactica
"Jump completed!" Gaeta called out, "DRADIS contact! Identified, twenty-nine hostile warships."
"Twenty-nine," Adama gasped, looking at the DRADIS board, "We can't take twenty-nine."
"Bill, the fleet'll be jumping opposite in moments," Tigh reminded him, "We're well outside their engagement range, at least what we think it their engagement range."
"We need to buy time, navigation, plot short range jump, three hundred thousand kilometers back, charge magnetic cannons! Lay in a full concentrated volley on the lead ship. Full power to the bow degaussing field," Adama called out, "Launch Vipers!"
On that order nearly two hundred Vipers were launched from their launch tubes. They quickly forme a screen, well out of the way of what was coming out after them. Out of the four launch bays came the forty-eight Raptors the Galactica's flight crews had armed to the teeth, tip-mounted gatling guns, top-mounted missile pods, and two nuclear missiles on their underbellies. They didn't have all of their Viper escorts, having launched all but an emergency contingent of forty-eight birds. However the plan was that they wouldn't need them, the Vipers on the planet below would draw off the bulk of the enemy's fighter cover and let the massive nuclear-laden waves of Raptors to fire at will.
"All squadrons ready," Dee called out.
"All batteries answer ready, magnetic cannons laid in," Tigh informed him, "They're in range."
"Raptors wave one, nuclear salvo execute," Adama ordered with his classic even tone.
"Wave one, fire," Dee relayed.
Eight of the lead Raptors fired their two nuclear missiles in one massive wave of fire. All sixteen missiles dropped from the racks, ignited their motors and sped forward. The lead Hat'ak came forward, knowing that it was the target. The others stayed in formation, unaware of the impending trap. The nukes zeroed in, ready to detonate.
"Long range ripple fire, magnetic cannons execute," Adama ordered now, his calculations of hitting with an overwhelming amount of firepower hitting their timers.
"Fire."
The ship shook as the first large projectile was ejected at its extremely high velocity. The Viper-length dart projectiles moved at a fraction of the speed of light, covering the distance almost instantly. And as the first hit the second was fired, in very close succession.
As the second shot left the port tube the first slammed into the shield of the first Hat'ak, causing it to stutter in place. The second one struck in the same place, right behind the first as a third shot was fired from the bow of the Galactica. The third round hit with enough force that the Hat'ak's shield began to fluctuate as its shields tried recovering and focusing their remaining energy onto the same place as they were getting hit, but their power generators were not able to handle it, and other parts of the shield suffered. Unfortunately the weakness was enough that the poor quality of the ships forced the overworked system to try and push more energy than it had to the parts it was draining. This all happened as sixteen nuclear missiles struck the shield one last time.
In a series of brilliant flashes the line of missiles pounded the shield, stressing it, and at the thirteenth missile impact broke it. The following missiles detonated against the ship's armor, blowing the Hat'ak apart, sending pieces of its hull against the shields of its sisters.
"Target destroyed sir!" Gaeta proudly proclaimed.
A cheer sounded out on board the Galactica's bridge, but Adama quickly ended it.
"That's one out of nearly thirty," he stated, "Charge magnetic guns, target the next closest ship. Hopefully this works," he mumbled to himself as he looked at the command table in front of him, the images of the enemy fleet getting closer and opening a bigger and bigger gap between them and the planet.
"If they have to strengthen their shields in a direction then this should work," Tigh declared.
"Time on the fleet jump?"
"Fifteen seconds sir,"
"They're getting in range," Adama noted, the circles around the enemy ships denoting the ranges that the previous engagement had recorded them to be firing from approached the Galactica.
"Hostile ships are firing!" a Viper pilot called out.
"Evasive maneuvers," Adama ordered, "Flank speed, steer zero-four-five, twenty degrees down. All batteries open fire, focus on the closest enemy ship."
The Galactica's powerful steering thrusters sent her nose diving at the order. Her engine pods burst into life, and her Vipers and Raptors kept in loose formation around her. The first shots missed, flying through the formations of Vipers and Raptors without striking any of them. And Galactica's main battery answered, firing in rapid succession with their armor piercing warheads. Many dozens of twin projectiles screamed outwards, aiming at the enemy ship that was now in the lead. Other such plasma rounds were fired after the initial volley, and Adama ordered another turn.
"Reverse your turn, starboard thrusters, keep our guns on target."
"Aye sir."
"Sir, jump timer has expired," another bridge officer called out.
"Here they come," Tigh hopefully declared.
On that signal a fleet of Battlestars jumped into orbit, well behind the enemy fleet. The IFF's on twelve Battlestars came up immediately, followed by those of twenty-eight cruisers and forty-nine destroyers. Upon their jump the fleet made rapid tidying maneuvers to free up the firing lanes of the larger cruisers and Battlestars. Each was equipped with magnetic cannons, but only the Battlestars had the full-sized versions, and the cruisers had smaller versions, each being roughly half the size of the Battlestars' rounds. The destroyers didn't have any at all.
But that didn't stop them, and so they had jumped, ready to fire. The magnetic gun carrying warships had a very simple set of instructions, focus fire, ship by ship until the target was destroyed and then switch to a new target, and continue the process. Nuclear missiles were launched en masse from the silos of the destroyers. The thick gray contrails were led by the orange flames of the large ship-to-ship weapons, and flew forward. The range was longer to them than even the Galactica had started out, but the destroyers had been ordered to choose their own targets and focus the firepower of ten seven ships' missiles each at the advanced enemy vessels.
However the volleys from the ripple-firing Battlestars fired first. The big guns of the four-barrel Mercury class and the twin-barrel Valkyrie class did their jobs as designed. The Mercuries fired first, unleashing their shots one by one in rapid succession. The closest Hat'ak felt these blows to its weakened rear shields, with the fourth shot fracturing them and letting through high velocity shrapnel that punched through, tearing open holes in the hull. A fifth shot from another Mercury ripped the ship's golden pyramid open right above the joining outer segments. The ship quickly started dying, and the Colonial ships switched targets.
Their volleys were impacting with the force of many nuclear missiles, their ultra-dense projectiles' weights slamming into shields at extreme velocities, fracturing and breaking the shields of two more motherships, which died upon the next shot. But it took the cruisers many more shots to accomplish the same task, a dozen shots from the cruisers hammered the enemy shields of a third Hat'ak before it too fell to the fire of a lucky shot from a heavy cruiser. By now the nuclear barrage had reached the enemy fleet, now in chaos.
Nuclear fire coated the spreading ships, some now firing in reflex to the sudden attack on their rear, while three of their number continued after Galactica. But now the Galactica was not far enough away to dodge the fire coming at it.
One by one shots started getting through, and the degaussing field was forced to prove its mettle. The plasma hit the powerful magnetic field, its electrons and ions finding the paths created by the powerful generators of the brand new warship and conformed to them, but the inner high density core of plasma was not so easily burned off. Strings of the less cooperative projectile sliced through, hitting the hardened armor, splashing across its face to different resulting effects. Most hit and instantly cooled, burning their way through the upper layers to no damaging purpose other than heating up the interior below them rather noticeably. A very few others where a confluence of fields occurred did more damage.
"Breach on Deck Twelve, automatically sealed, fires reported on Decks Thirteen and Eleven around the impact. Fire suppression system is not responding in those sections."
"Damage control parties, evacuate those sections and vent," Tigh ordered, taking over damage control.
"Sir, two destroyers report hits," Dee called out, "They can't take the punishment Admiral."
"Order the capital ships to split fire and target two ships at a time and order destroyers to take emergency maneuvers. Helm, bring us to fire on one of these bastards, Raptor wave two and three fire!" Adama responded.
"We need to get those Vipers into the fight Bill, they're no good to us in formation," Tigh said.
"If they get caught in those radiation blasts they won't be worth a damn at all," Adama cut him off, "Keep firing."
"Sir their fire is incredibly inaccurate," an officer called out, noticing a trend, "They're trying to close the gap with us to get hits in."
"Very well, cut main engine pods at the turn."
"Can the engines take that kind of extreme acceleration sir?" Gaeta asked.
"They'll have to."
The ship kicked upwards, the blue fiery thrusters dying out as their fuel supply was cut away, stopping them from bringing them any closer to their enemy. But the directional thrusters aimed the bow cannons right onto their target, causing the Galactica to start drifting down, her bow like an arrow pointed at the lead Hat'ak.
"Simultaneous volley fire, execute."
All three cannons fired at once, three parallel darts slamming into the shield of the Hat'ak in front of them. The force shattered the weakened shield, but the shots didn't get through. But the waves of nukes did, and blew the ship apart and vaporized most of it, kill two for the Galactica.
Hat'ak Flagship
"Milord, another ship lost!" the helmsman called out in a panic, eyes wide with fear.
"They're tearing us apart sire, we have to withdraw!" one of his highest ranking generals pleaded.
"All ships, assume line formation aimed at the planet," the king ordered, still seated at his throne, "We'll go where they can't."
"But their fleet sire!"
"Once in the atmosphere they won't be able to use their most powerful weapons, that planet means too much to them."
His smile was formed with the knowledge that the Colonials had proven how much they treasured this place. When a single Alkesh had been lost in the dogfight over the city the reports had been clear. The Colonial Vipers had focused their firepower upon the falling craft before it could slam into the great floating city. They would risk themselves to protect this place, so he was going to use the planet and all it signified as a shield.
The fleet gathered in a messy line, providing a very slim target profile, and aimed right at the Colonial formation, gathered and firing at his ships. Nuclear blasts shook the ship and bathed the shields in heat and radiation that they fought away easily enough, but the hypervelocity rounds were another matter. While their manually targeted plasma rounds found trouble at long range the Colonials were more than willing to slug it out at ranges that his gunners would miss most shots. But they'd landed hits at close range, destroying two of the Colonial destroyers and damaging several light cruisers.
"Forward through their formation, fire at the closest ships," the armored king ordered, "Destroy as many as you can."
At that command the great fleet charged.
Battlestar Galactica
"Enemy is charging the fleet."
"Pursuit course, charge main guns," Adama quickly ordered, "Tell the fleet to keep their distance, jump if they have to. Can't risk losing any more ships this far from home."
"They're gonna close the gap," Tigh growled, "If they get in under the guns…"
"We'll be torn to shreds," Adama finished for him, "This is what we were thinking might happen."
"That's why the Battlestars have two jump drives, but the escorts don't have that luxury, if they jump it'll be several hours until they're ready to jump again after jumping twice in such close intervals," Tigh shook his head.
"No one ever said this was going to be easy."
Another series of shots fired from the Colonial fleet, blowing apart the shields of the lead Hat'ak, which shattered from three cruisers blasting it. The shots traveled through, but the wreckage continued forward, acting like a shield, a cold-hearted calculation by the enemy fleet commander. As the fleet closed the Colonial gun batteries opened fire, sending slugs smashing against the shields, mostly harmless even in such cloud-forming numbers.
They returned fire, smashing into the magnetic fields of the Battlestars, damaging them lightly, but the cruisers and destroyers faired rather poorly as the fleet began jumping. Three destroyers suffered direct hits that effectively put them out of the fight, blasting open gouging holes that their magnetic fields and weaker armor couldn't handle. Two cruisers were also hit, but jumped away after suffering critical damage. As the enemy closed the Battlestars gave the order for their escorts to jump, they themselves staying to cover them.
In waves of flashes the Colonial ships jumped, leaving an open corridor that the enemy dove through, firing as they went. Numerous plasma shots cut into the flank of the Battlestar Acheron, blowing open one of her flight pods' landing bays and critically damaging two of her port engines. But the guns of the big ship continued firing.
The other Battlestars, themselves the only remaining combatants, turned to give chase. But they were just too slow, and their escorting Raptors and Vipers couldn't loose any nukes, or else kill each other in the radiation wave. But it was enough that the enemy didn't try pressing their advantage, having had enough of the Battlestars' firepower for the moment.
"Sir, they're not circling back," Gaeta informed the Admiral, who himself could clearly see it for himself.
"No, they're aiming for the planet, they know that we can't risk firing our magnetic cannons at the planet," he noted.
"And we sure as frak can't nuke Kobol," Tigh sneered, unhappy with the cowardly half-retreat of their enemies.
"Vipers and Raptors are all we've got," Adama sighed, "Recall all birds, order all bombs and conventional anti-ship missiles be loaded onto as many birds as we can."
"Pass the word sir?"
"Yes, all Battlestars are to recall whatever they've launched and to arm them with conventional anti-ship munitions and bombs," Adama ordered, "And send a runner Raptor back to the rally point to have the escorts return as soon as possible and bring in the Marinestars, we'll need all the birds we can get."
As the orders were passed along a new DRADIS contact came up on their scanners.
"DRADIS contacts! Bearing one-nine-zero, karom zero-three-zero, distance fifty thousand kilometers."
"Identify," Tigh ordered, but didn't get a response, as the operator was in shock at what he was seeing, "Dammit ensign I gave you an order."
"Saul," Adama interrupted him, pointing at the IFF's that came up as the Galactica's sensors classified what they were seeing.
He walked over, and looked down at what the scanners were saying had jumped into the system. What he saw made him hunch over and take a closer look. He saw nine different ship signatures, only one of which was not identified.
"Earth ships?"
"They have a habit of making themselves known when things get nasty," Adama stated as the Earth squadron accelerated and began covering ground on the enemy fleet.
"Sir, several Battlestars are asking for instructions, the Earth ships are closing fast."
"Hold fire, do not engage," Adama replied instantly, "Safe to say they're on our side for a change."
"They're launching fighters!"
"Sir, the hostile fleet is turning to face the Earth ships."
"This'll be interesting," Tigh noted.
"Let's see what they've got."
As a unit all but one of the Hat'aks faced the Earth ships, the other diving into the atmosphere where the most powerful weapons of the Colonials were not going to be employed. However the enemy fleet found itself staring down the muzzle at a formation of Banshees screening a line of Mohican gunships. At a prearranged signal the Banshees broke away, clearing the Mohicans' firing line. A volley of missiles was fired immediately, each targeted on one specific mothership. The missiles flew straight and true, and the Colonials could only watch as the missiles seemed to just disappear all of a sudden once they were close to the enemy ships, having activated the preset hyperdrives in their fuselage.
"What?" Adama asked, but then his question was answered when each ship was blown apart, flashing from within with the power of a nuclear explosion within the ships themselves.
"The frak…" Tigh breathed uneasily.
"I thought I'd seen everything," Adama chuckled.
"Sir, there's still one ship moving towards the surface."
Hearing that report Adama scrolled the screen to see the ship in the atmosphere, hovering over the landscape, staying close to the ground, the Vipers they'd launched in the atmosphere steering clear of it. Around it other smaller craft, Troop Transports fell in behind it. It was headed straight for Olympus.
"Get those Vipers back aboard and re-armed now!"
City Ship Olympus
"We've got incoming," the radio called out in Agent Fraser's ear.
"Where?" Fraser asked, standing up and moving down the hall to a window, "Nevermind."
Above him the shadow of a Hat'ak hovered overhead, moving slowly into position over the city. The Vipers had all gone, knowing they couldn't do anything to harm it. But several smaller craft passed them, and began coming down outside the window onto the piers and level parts of the city.
"Troopships," Colonel Black called out, "Seven of them. We're in for it now."
ZPM Power Room
"Shit," Fraser snarled, looking out at one that had landed just beyond the group of towers in the center of the city, and knew that there were bound to be enemy troops coming for them now.
"What?" Brenda called out, running over to the window where Fraser stood, and saw the troopship landing, "Oh come on! Guys! Get that shield up!"
As she said that a golden plasma blast blew the glass away and sent both of them flying backwards, sprawling out onto the ground. Fraser registered what had happened rather quickly, a shot had landed against the bottom of the window, missing them but the concussion had blown them both off of their feet. Pieces of glass had cut into his face, only scratches, and he felt his right had been cut as well.
"Gods…dammit," he gritted through clenched teeth, seeing a piece of glass in his palm the width of his finger and yanked it out, quickly wrapping a length of his black bandana around it.
"You okay?" Brenda asked, trying to get to her feet.
"Yeah, you?" he asked in return, looking at her and saw she had a cut on her cheek, but not much else.
"I'm fine," she said, shaking her head, "Thank God for this armor."
To accentuate her point she pulled a dagger of glass from a pocket on her chest where it had lodged itself, poking her finger through the hole. As she got to her feet a blue energy bolt sliced through the air next to her and she had to duck. Fraser got to a knee and saw that there was a large group of hostiles pushing through an alley on the main deck of the outside, firing blue and orange projectiles at them. He brought his carbine to his shoulder and aimed at the advancing soldiers.
He hesitated when he first saw them, noting that their attire was not at all what someone with energy weapons and space warships should have worn. They each had on chain mail armor with a yellow cloth jerkin that reached down to their knees. All of them had on barbute style helmets, of varying designs but basically the same style. They each had a silver symbol on their chests that he didn't quite get a good look at, but then again, he needed to just shoot them.
"We've got hostiles pushing up on us from outside," Fraser called out, squeezing the trigger.
He sent armor piercing rounds downrange, more than a hundred yards away. But he had the range, and the enemy soldiers started falling one by one as he picked them off. They all immediately gravitated to cover, two more falling to fire from his carbine's long range fire. However he was the only one firing, Brenda had scooted over against the wall opposite of him as return fire came at them randomly.
"You're gonna have to shoot back," he yelled out to her.
"I've never shot at anybody before!" she cried out, flinching as he fired again, but had to duck back as another energy blast ripped by him and hit the wall.
"Well they're shooting at you now," Fraser responded, "Now's the time to use that."
He pointed at her P90, and she grasped it, and scooted over to the edge and peaked at them.
"Oh God there's over a hundred!" she yelled, seeing the gathering of them now rushing forward, this time with large shields in front of them.
"Then shoot them!"
She poked her P90 out from around the corner and immediately opened fire, the kick of the weapon causing the barrel to climb. She wasn't a soldier, she was a politician, a civilian, someone who had no business being in a fight like this, but she was still here. However soldier or not the bullets didn't care, and hit the wall of shields now moving forward, penetrating them easily, and wounding the men behind them, causing the closely gathered formation to start stumbling, but they sprinted forward anyway. There were just too many.
"Colonel! We need some help here!" she yelled out into her own radio, "We've got a ton of these guys coming right at us!"
As she said that there was an explosion below them, two floors down, which shook the floor slightly. They then heard the yelling and heavy footfalls of their attacks below them. The building was breached, things were really starting to get testy now. Two more Colonial guards that had already been there rushed over along with Dr. Tew, the Earth team's medical assistant.
"Doc?!" she yelled.
"No time to argue with morals," he shrugged, moving over to her.
"Okay, you two, this window," Fraser ordered the two Earthers, and then to his own men, "You two with me."
The other two Colonials nodded and Fraser led them down the stairs to the floor in between them and the ground floor. However as they got there the enemy was running up below them as they got to the halfway point. Fraser caught sight of the first of the enemy and leveled his weapon and fired a trio of bullets into the first individual who fell and then laid onto the trigger and emptied his mag into the gaggle charging up. Strafing to the left as he got to the next floor the other two fired as well, one trying to follow him, but a blue blast struck him in the chest and he went sprawling backwards. The other man tried rushing to his aide but got hit in the side, laying out onto the landing and screamed in pain as he tried putting pressure onto the wound.
Fraser snarled at the shot from below, and ripped out a grenade and pulled the pin as he yanked out his pistol. Running forward he saw two of the enemy run up the stairs, but he was on top of them before they could get their long staff weapons onto him. The one in behind the closer one was to the right of him, and Fraser charged them both, sprinting at full speed. He jumped into the air, pulling his legs up and grabbed the first man with his left arm and fell down. At the same time he was driven forward by his momentum, and with that he kicked the second man through a window while he fell with the chainmail armored foe struggling in his headlock.
"Frag out!"
With his right hand he chucked the grenade right down the stairs, where he saw dozens of enemy troops rushing and crowding in, trying to get up and at he and the others. There were several enemy troops rushing up the stairs at him, and they leveled their weapons at him. But a tearing sound of SMG fire beat them to it, and sent three of them tumbling backwards onto their comrades, who pushed them aside. But Fraser now released the helmeted man and pointed his left arm at the two leaders pushing forward, blasting them away with several shots to the chest. One particularly stubborn one charged him with the intent to stab him with the prongs on the end of his staff, but Fraser rolled to the side and blasted him in the shin and then into the crown of his head right as he hit the ground.
However before anything else happened a powerful dusty explosion tore through the ranks below him. A wave of screams announced the grenade's powerful blast had done its job and the remaining foes retreated, trying to get a grip on what was going on. With this reprieve Fraser drew his pistol back over his shoulder, poking it into the still live enemy warrior, blasting him with the last shot in his magazine.
"Nice job," he said as he saw Brenda standing there, P90 barrel smoking from the long burst she'd just fired, "Reload, they'll be back."
As he stood up he saw the Earth doctors, both of them now rushing to the aide of the two Colonials. When Dr. Lawson kneeled down next to the first guard that had been hit she placed a finger to his neck and then his wrist and instantly went into doctor mode.
"I need to get him onto a table now!" she snapped at her assistant.
"What about him?" Tew asked, referring to the other wounded man.
"His injury isn't life threatening at this moment," Lawson responded as she began cutting away the man's vest and uniform below it, revealing the injury to his lower right chest.
Tew rushed over and grabbed him under his armpits and began to lift him up, the fairly large man grunting under the weight as he lifted him off of the ground. Meanwhile Brenda covered them as Fraser helped the other man to his feet, steadying him as they went back up the stairs. Brenda reloaded her weapon, pulling out another magazine from a pouch on her chest and was about to put it in when there was a metallic groan that sounded out below and then all around the hall.
"Oh that can't be good," Brenda whispered out.
"Metal making noises never is."
"Brenda!" Dr. Underwood called out, running over to the hall as they came up the stairs to meet her, "We've got a big problem!"
"Oh no…" she responded, "What is it?"
"Well…we've gotten most of the systems up and running, as you know, but when we ran a system diagnostic we did a full maintenance scan to check to be sure nothing was damaged."
"Mike, short version please," Brenda replied, grabbing him with one hand.
"We ran a scan, there's damage in the building where one of the shield generators is located and we can't power to it, the conduits have been damaged."
"Can you fix them?"
"I don't know, the damage could be from tampering, from battle, from the water, it's just giving me a red light. This city is much older than we had originally thought, it doesn't have the same abilities as Atlantis!"
"You're telling me you can't fix it from here?!"
"I can try rerouting power through the secondary conduits, but the shield generator isn't able to operate on the amount of power those conduits can give it," Underwood said, finishing with the worst news, "Someone has to go to that generator and tweak it so it does operate."
Fraser now joined the conversation.
"I'm assuming there's another problem with that."
"Yes there is. The problem is this, those levels are beginning to flood. The city's sinking."
Well we've seen that problem before haven't we? But never in the middle of a battle with bad guys everywhere. Let's see how this works out.
Now I want to get one thing clear to you guys who are going to be saying that the Hat'aks are getting nerfed. They're not. I specifically explained in a previous chapter that these are not the same quality of ships that had been built by the Gou'ald, these are copies of copies, and so their abilities are now but a shadow of what they were able to do many years ago.
And the degaussing fields that the Colonials are using to defend their ships is based in science, I spoke with a professor at my school and he agreed with me, this method of defense against plasma based weaponry is feasible, and could work. So I don't want to see any whining saying that the Colonials are getting too much too fast that doesn't work. Those particular concerns will not be addressed, as I am tired of having to repeat myself.
Now, with that out of the way I'm hoping that the action is to your liking, and I'm hopeful that we can see a new update in the near future.
Next Chapter Preview: How long will getting this damned shield up take? Well that depends on the temperature of the water, so not long.
(A cookie for the first person to get that reference.)