Author's Notes: Just a quickie chapter since I'm sure you were all wondering how the battle would go. I'm going to switch over to writing Shadowrun for the next few days so expect a chapter update for that story relatively quickly. Now on with the story. Enjoy!
Chapter 13: Battle of Sector Seven Nine Four
The Beliskner screamed through hyperspace, her commander sitting in his command chair unblinking, unmoving, barely giving off the impression that he still lived. Thor sat silently on the empty command deck, for centuries it had been his preference to command a ship by himself, allowing him to take larger risks, to go where he pleased and to do what he pleased with his ship. For centuries he had been the commanding officer of the Asgard Fleets. Leading campaigns that crossed galaxies, seeking out the enemy wherever they had chosen to hide themselves and also leading rescue missions to save primitive species from exploitation by races similar to the Goa'uld.
Thor could remember all those centuries, millennia really, ago when his wife had presented him with their first son. Magni had been the pride of his life. For thousands of years they had been the perfect family, his sons and daughters choosing to follow their father and joining the Asgard Fleets. It had come to no one's surprise that they had swiftly risen through the ranks, being the son's/daughter of Thor and grandchildren of Odin, they were expected to be the best and they had proven that without a doubt.
And then the Replicators had appeared. At first they had been no more than a curiosity to be studied and examined but soon after their first appearance they had begun to multiply in numbers, rapidly, and assimilate into their bodies the technology nearby. Expeditionary forces had been dispatched to attempt to contain the problem, they were never heard from again. Soon after their disappearance the Asgard had learned the true horror of the Replicator menace, somehow the artificial intelligences were able to subvert control of Asgard ships, modify them to incorporate whatever technologies that the Replicators were themselves constructed of, and then use them in battle against the Asgard themselves.
The first attacks had been devastating, and overwhelming, dozens of Replicator controlled ships had appeared over the skies of Asgard worlds and begun to fire. For untold centuries the Asgard had feared no race in combat, none had been able to match their technological prowess and thusly very few Asgard worlds had any defenses in orbit or on the ground. Only worlds that had been colonized during those early years still retained any active fortifications, rarely updated even when the technology that they were constructed with had long become primitive and quaint by Asgard standards. Odin, aboard the Sleipnir, had been dispatched to deal with the problem everyone thinking it would be easily solved but to their surprise the Replicator ships had been able to quickly overpower this warship and Odin had become one of the first to fall beneath the juggernaut that was the Replicators.
A beep on his command console drew Thor's mind back to the present and he became aware that he was only seconds away from reemerging into normal space amid a raging battle. Knowing he had precious seconds to prepare for combat he quickly tapped in a series of commands, ordering the ship to transfer all available power into the engines, shields and weapon systems, diverting power from non-essential systems. The subsequent demands by the weapons and shields systems forced the ship to revert back into normal space, not able to meet the demands for such a speedy intergalactic voyage and power the other systems at the same time. It worked better than Thor could have imagined.
The Beliskner reverted back into real space directly in the center of a half-dozen Replicator controlled vessels. Before they had the time to react he had already fired upon each of them, using his ships more advanced weapons suite to destroy one, shattering the shields of two others as he passed. Unable to hit all of them Thor had used the transporter beams to move debris from the ships he had targeted and beamed them into random sections of the interior of the enemy's ship, overriding the normal protocols that prevented the reintegration of an object within another one. Two objects cannot occupy the space at one time, to do so would be to violate the laws of physics, and thusly those ships vanished as atomic bonds ruptured under the stress.
The modifications that had been recently installed at part of the latest overhaul to the fleet thanks to the recent advances uncovered from Loki's perusal of the Ancients repository of knowledge that had been removed from O'Neill's brain. Loki, along with a cadre of scientists, had managed to discover a number of technologies that would be useful in the war effort and had combined them into the prototype warship currently under construction on Othala. The Asgard High Council while extremely pleased with these discoveries had still demanded that they be battle tested to see if they would garner the expected results under battlefield conditions.
Replicator ships were usually class for class more powerful than their Asgard counterparts, save for in a few key areas. Their shield systems were based off Asgard designs and were therefore still vulnerable to Asgard weaponry, though it usually took a concentrated attack by superior numbers to batter the shields down and then to destroy the ship itself. This is why to date Asgard tactics in the Replicator war had been to assemble overwhelming superior numbers for fleet engagements which had allowed the Asgard to slow the juggernauts advance from completely unstoppable to a slow crawl. They could defeat them in space but on the ground was another matter altogether. The Asgard had not fought a true war in millennia and were wholly unsuited from ground combat, preferring to instead using weapons fire from orbit to remove any obstacles that might be on a planetary surface.
The Replicators had used the Stargates to bypass Asgard fleets all together, boiling out of Gates across a thousand worlds and infesting them beyond the ability of the Asgard to remove without rendering the planet uninhabitable. In desperation the High Council had ordered the deactivation of all but a handful of Gates in the hopes that it would slow the Replicator advance. It had worked beyond their expectations; the Replicators were stalled in their tracks the war settling into a stalemate that for the time neither side could break. Though with each passing hour the Replicators grew in strength and numbers.
Thor swiftly and artfully with the skill of a grandmaster altered his ships heading, arching it between the burning hulks of two Ragnarok class destroyers he used the ships tractor beams to drag them behind the Beliskner. The twin hulks were snatched from a near standstill to a sizeable fraction of the speed of light, placing enormous strain on the tractor beam assemblies but they held. Spinning the ship like an ancient toy Thor used the tethered hulks as a battering ram to smash them into the two remaining Replicator controlled ships that had surrounded him upon reemergence from hyperspace. Before the twin hulks had actually impacted upon the shields of the Replicator ships Thor fired concentrated bursts from the Beliskner's forward particle beam cannons to drop their shields, the flaming wreckage smashing into the defenseless vessels mere seconds later.
Within a scarce twenty seconds of his arrival Thor had destroyed six ships for no damage down to his own. The ships sensors showed that the rest of the fleet was not faring so well against the armada of Replicator ships. Hundreds of Asgard warships lie burning throughout the system, though each was flanked by a score of formerly Replicator controlled vessels a testament to how valiantly they had fought and died.
Accessing the remaining active ships databases Thor was able to gain an overall picture of the battle, it seemed that the tactic of the day had been to use the hulks of previously destroyed or disabled ships to hide behind then pop up to deliver overwhelming firepower to disable enemy ships. Hence the reason why so many disabled Asgard ships had the burnt out hulks of Replicator ships floating nearby, something that wouldn't be possible in a normal one on one engagement let alone one on twenty.
Tapping a rune he opened a channel to the Fleet. "This is Supreme Commander Thor, all ships are to form up on me for an immediate counteroffensive."
Icons blinked on his sensor map, showing which ships were acknowledging his orders. Those that didn't were probably already infested with Replicators and would soon be lost.
The Beliskner glided through the rapidly assembling fleet, Asgard ships falling into position on his flanks both above and below the orbital plane of the solar system ready willing and able to continue the fight. The world they were dying for wasn't too important to the Asgard; the population had been evacuated days before when the first indications of a Replicator attack had been discovered, Othala easily absorbing the incoming flux of refugees to the homeworld.
A communications channel opened with the barest flick of a finger. "Commander Tyr, assemble a squadron of ships at co-ordinates zero-nine-zero by two-four-three and await my orders. You are not to engage without my direct authorization."
"Understood. Commander Tyr out." the channel closed as swiftly as it opened. Immediately Tregard squadron, comprised of twelve Beliskner and Ragnarok class warships, broke formation and flew to a position above the elliptical plane, awaiting their instructions.
Opening another channel Thor spoke swiftly and decisively giving the orders to Modi, his other son who was usually never far from his brothers side when it came down to a fight. Trusting in his son's instincts and ability to fight through the pain of his brothers death he gave him his mission. Acknowledging his orders Modi's ship broke formation and flew off, towards the primary of the solar system to await further instruction.
Turning his full attention back to the battle Thor could feel nothing but rage that these machines had been responsible for the death of his eldest son. Barely able to keep that rage from boiling to the surface and overwhelming his mind Thor took direct control of the Beliskner and sent it on a path directly into the heart of the Replicator armada. Out of a fleet that had numbered nearly seven thousand ships the Replicators had been slowly whittled down to less than a thousand, granting them an edge of nearly five to one against the remaining Asgard warships.
If the Asgard lost this battle then the Replicators would absorb all raw materials in this system, grow stronger, more adaptive to the tactics that had been used against them and then they would move on to the next system. Determined to not give them that chance Thor ordered his ships to spread out in a massive wave. Using combined timed on target shots they were able to slowly drive the Replicator ships closer and closer to his predetermined attack point.
"Tyr, commence attack run."
"Commencing now." The reply came almost instantly, Commander Tyr obviously having been waiting for the word. The twelve ships of Tregard squadron arced downward from above the Replicator fleet and began to fire upon ships that had thought themselves relatively secure in the center of the armada's formation. The Ragnarok class destroyers, ancient beyond measure and woefully inadequate to stand up to the incoming fire were the first to fall in the attack run but they managed to shield the Beliskner's in the group until they could reach optimal range.
Once within range transporter beams lanced out from the Asgard squadron, easily penetrating the shields on the Replicator controlled vessels and removed specific key components from various locations throughout the enemy ships. Without those components to regulate the reactions within the ion neutrino reactors they reached critical mass within seconds, the internal explosions ripping the ships apart. The shockwaves created by the death knell of a score of vessels destroyed the intricate formation of the Replicator fleet, leaving it vulnerable to the second attack wave being lead by Thor, the Beliskner leading the charge from the forefront of the fleet.
Thor looked at his tactical display, curious at the unconventional nature of Tyr's attack pattern. By all conventional wisdom it should not have worked that effectively, Replicator shields were similar in nature and design to Asgard ones, preventing such tactics from working under normal circumstances but now that he reviewed the tactical data from Tyr's command ship he could see that the Replicator vessel's shields had been severely depleted over the course of the battle, hence the reason why they had been near the center of the enemy fleet. 'I will have to commend Tyr on his quick thinking once the battle is over.'
The Replicator fleet was shattered; internal explosions were shredding their carefully constructed concentric defensive posture. Asgard warships were flying past at distances that could be measured in kilometers, though the confused and dazed machine race was still able to command a significant advantage in sheer firepower but with the Asgard ships literately in the middle of their formation weapons fire meant to destroy Asgard ships was now impacting on Replicator controlled vessels.
"Modi, now."
Near the solar systems lone star Commander Modi activated a gravimetric pulse of sufficient power to disrupt the delicate internal balance of the star's core. Without that delicate balance to keep it intact the star went nova instantly. Activating his ships hyperdrive Modi was well on his way back to base before the shockwave could have threatened his ship. He knew that his father, Thor, along with the reminder of the assembled Asgard forces would have to remain in position long enough to prevent the Replicator forces from escaping the system which increased the risk of themselves being caught in the commencing supernova astronomically.
Modi sat silently on the cavernous command bridge of his ship awaiting word from the Fleet. The supernova would disrupt communications to and from any ship caught within the solar system so the only way to receive word on the plans success would be for Thor to reemerge above Othala or any other Asgard controlled world. Watching a chronometer Modi felt every second, as it slowly counted down to zero, the time for the shockwave to have reached the battle's position. Which meant that if he didn't receive word from Thor in another twenty seconds he wouldn't receive any at all.
Suddenly space was ripped open as dozens of hyperspace capable warships decelerated from supraliminal speeds to sublight as they reverted back into normal space. The Beliskner at the forefront of the fleet, though not unmarked from the dangerously timed exit from the last solar system, one entire flank of the ship was scorched and melted, as if actually physically touched by the fiery wave of death that had emanated from the dying star.
The Asgard fleet had been badly depleted from the battle barely 2 percent of the forces that had been deployed to meet the oncoming Replicator invasion force surviving at the end but the entirety of the Replicator fleet had been decimated. It was a victory but a pyrrhic one at that.