The Illuminasta dropped out of hyperspace in far orbit around the blue/white gas giant that had a number of moons covered with Wraith structures. The large cylindrical Columnar-class Alterran warship slipped smoothly out of hyperspace…then all hell broke loose.
"Enemy contacts," the male holographic avatar of the ship's computer reported immediately after reentry to normal space. It automatically raised shields and prepped the ship's replicator armor. A few small ripples were visible as the thickness layers were reset to correspond to the positions of enemy ships. "Their numbers exceed our combat capabilities. Recommend immediate withdrawal."
Chad Stevenson mentally activated the holographic display above his command control chair. The space surrounding the planet and moons was filled with clumps of Wraith ships…all of which were now shifting positions in response to their presence.
"Hmmn…so much for undefended," he said calmly. "Identify ship variants present."
"Wraith fighter, cruiser variants A and C, biological transport, material transport, battleship, and dreadnaught…with an additional 2 new ship designs not cataloged within memory banks," the overly formal hologram stated with just a touch of simulated exasperation.
On the hologram a swarm of darts aggressively broke away from the slower capital ships and moved towards the Illuminasta.
"Gunners stand by," Chad ordered. Behind him, his command crew of Lanteans leaned back in their smaller control chairs and brought the ship's plasma cannons online…but Chad refrained from opening the weapon's pods. He mentally set the ship's sensors to maximum volume and began recording as much tactical and technical data as they could from this range.
"Hyperspace jammers spinning up," Illuminasta reported, highlighting several ships within the swarm that Chad noted numbered 2,145 capital ships and at present 3,000+ darts with that number rising by the second as they deployed from their orbital ships and rose from the surface of several planetoids. On the tactical holo the first of the Wraith darts closed within plasma cannon range and the Lantean gunners opened fire and began swatting them from the Columnar's perimeter.
The one and only door onto the bridge opened and Stan Stevenson ran out of the lift, down the long bridgeway, and stopped just behind Chad's chair. "That's not good," he noted as he scanned the holo, frowning. "What is that?" He pointed to one of the unknown ship designs.
"Good question. Looks like the Wraith have been busy."
Stan glanced at the small dots representing the darts as they were effortlessly picked off by the Lantean gunners. "They don't usually waste darts without a reason," he mentioned.
"That's what I was thinking," Chad agreed. "Min, anything curious out there that we're missing?"
"A great deal is curious…but if you wish to know the reason for the Wraith fighters' suicidal attacks, then I would suggest you pay closer attention to the surface activity."
With a thought Chad brought up a long range scan of the nearest Wraith occupied moon.
"Here," Illuminasta highlighted for the sake of alacrity. They only had a few minutes before the hyperspace destabilizers reached full power and took away their primary escape route.
On the surface there were a multitude of structures, bluish in color…but some of them were moving. It took a moment for Chad to recognize what he was seeing, then he immediately began to extend the weapon pods.
"Those slick bastards," Stan commented, slipping into an unoccupied gunner's seat. He assumed priority command and the previous Lantean settings reset and gave him full access to the ship's systems. He took command of the ship's ventral pesqua launcher and launched a massive swarm, a fourth of the hold's capacity, as soon as a minimal breach between the separating pods was attained.
The leading racks of pesqua glowed to life and leapt up from the depths of the ship and exited in a thin stream that thickened as the pods continued to separate.
Chad's dorsal-launched pesqua were half a second behind, and made for the second prong in an elongating fork as they raced from the ship, weaving around a few Wraith ships in the way, and headed down into the atmosphere of the closest moon towards the closing armor shells beginning to cover the external exits of several Wraith surface Hives. The massive colonies were burrowed into the planet's crust, with only a few large prongs leading up to the surface. The moon's bedrock effectively acted as a massive shield, with the surface exits, each the size of a small city, as the one major weak spot in their defenses.
The prongs also held substantial weaponry, but none that could reach all the way up to the Columnar's high orbit. However, since the Wraith were effectively caught with their pants down...their defensive armor shields weren't raised…they had to distract the Alterrans. Thus the darts were being sacrificed to buy time.
Similar tactics had been used during the Wraith/Lantean war…but the Stevensons all possessed the knowledge of the Repositories, which included the entire military history of the Alterra, including every tactic and battle the Ancients had fought in or observed…and the Wraith's distractionary tactic, while ingenious, was an old and familiar stratagem. As it was, the clones had acted just in time.
The two pesqua streaks separated into 5 groups and slipped through the closing armor shells and dug deep into the subsurface hives. Using a combination of remote control and autonomous targeting and navigational protocols, Chad and Stan cored through level after level within the monstrous structures, depleting the pesquas' power charge just shy of empty, then detonating them in the most ideal positions possible. Even as the thick armor shells locked into place, the Alterran missiles spun about inside, chewing the interior to bits and causing maximum damage possible.
The quick thinking proved to be quite the coup, but only 40% of the targeted colonies had been damaged. They were so massive that not even the pesqua swarm could completely destroy them. It would take several more attacks, but now that the armor was in place, burrowing through it would seriously diminish charge prior to penetration, thus mitigating the amount of damage possible to roughly 10% effectiveness.
A host of cruisers were beginning to close within attack range as even more darts swarmed around the insanely large Alterran warship. The ship's plasma cannons were busy killing the tiny ships and began taking a few long range shots at the approaching cruisers as all the Wraith ships within senor range traveled at maximum speed towards them.
"Min, a few deep planetoid scans please, then it's time to go," Stan said.
"Soon…" Chad amended. "Let's knock out a few ships first."
"Their jammers are reaching saturation point," Stan argued.
"But they're not in position to block our exit," Chad said as he mentally relayed a navigational display to Stan's chair. He pinpointed 7 exit vectors that the Wraith wouldn't close off for several minutes.
"Alright, if you want to play it that close. I'll take the Lox."
"Min, recalibrate the primary weapon for 5% bursts," Chad said, mentally bringing up the fire controls. He could make the adjustment himself, but the computer was faster…and supplemented orders with tangent imperatives. In this case, Illuminasta went ahead and factored in the weapon's new parameters into the combat computer, which gave new damage estimates 'at a glance' through the tactical systems. Other minor recalibrations were made as well, all within a blink of a second. The Alterrans' pseudo AI's gave the crew both the flexibility and speed required to operate at maximum tandem efficiency, exceeding anything that the ship's computer or crew alone could accomplish.
Chad fired the first of his 20 shots at a cluster of cruisers, managing to hit and destroy two with the single potent energy lance. He adjusted his aim while plotting a basic course away from the gas giant. He relayed the waypoint mentally to Illuminasta and let the ship's computer navigate the ship while he tilted the axis for optimal firing position…which meant at times the ship was moving sideways towards target. It looked ungainly, but with the ship's inertial engines such maneuvers were as easy to accomplish as moving forward on a linear trajectory.
Two Lox blasts leapt out from the starboard pylons and shredded five cruisers in a hail of biological debris and smaller, secondary explosions. Six more of the Wraith ships were damaged, but not destroyed by energy arcs coming off the destroyed ships. In some cases, five Wraith ships were chain hit by the Ancient energy weapons. The remaining cruiser clusters immediately broke ranks to increase formation spacing.
Chad noted the change…the speed of their hive mind interconnectivity was impressive, but they didn't stand a chance against the Alterrans' superior firepower. The only threat they posed was with their offensive capability, multiplied by their superior numbers. As far as defense went, the Wraith were a poor match for the Alterrans. Then again, most insectoid species didn't put a lot of stock into defense, and regarded most units as expendable. Quite the opposite from the Alterran approach. Their massive Columnars were built around the strategy of limited, controlled engagements where they would have the upper hand and not lose a ship…while the enemy forces would be systematically whittled down and attrition would be in their favor.
It was the superior strategy…lest the Columnar come against a threat that could eat through its impressive defenses and superior mass and kill the ship. In which case a large percentage of the Alterran fleet would be eliminated in one battle. The Columnar were designed as chess pieces to be moved around the galactic board, and were not considered expendable…which was why a pullback was necessary at this point. The Wraith fleet had more than enough firepower to overwhelm the single massive ship, though some of those numbers could be attenuated with various battle strategies. Firepower wasn't the be all and end all…how you used it mattered a great deal. But in this case, it wasn't worth the risk…and the numbers were so stacked that there wasn't any choice but to retreat. But not before they added some attrition to the Wraith side. Alterran shield energy was much easier to regenerate than Wraith hull armor…let alone them having to construct new ships.
As the Illuminasta approached departure point, large spherical regions of the tactical map were shaded, showing the regions that the hyperdrives would not function within. The spheres moved with the Dreadnaughts that housed them as they attempted to trap the Columnar and sacrifice as many ships as needed to bring it down. The ship's computer was constantly running calculations and making subtle alterations to Chad's navigational orders and saw that there was no danger. They would reach the waypoint with 47 seconds to spare.
The Alterran/Lantean crew continued to down Wraith ships as the stress on the Columnar's shields gradually increased, but well within tolerance levels. The Wraith plasma cannons were dangerous enough, but the Ancients were good at building shields, and with a potentia backing them up with enormous recharging power, it would take a far greater concentration of Wraith firepower before the power trend would go negative and the shield strength would begin to deplete. The Wraith fleet wasn't in position to do that just yet, so it was simply a waste of Wraith resources as the Columnar traveled to its way point, engaged hyperspace engines, and left the Wraith-controlled star system.
The massive Dreadnaughts, each 2/3s the size of a Hive ship, spun down their hyperspace jammers and began to redeploy into previous positions, as did the rest of the massive Wraith fleet. Below, on the single moon that had come under attack, the surface hives began the slow regeneration process that would eventually restore their biological constructs to perfect working order. The Wraith were a patience species…and given enough time could regrow any and all damage taken. Today was the first day the Wraith had bought themselves more time. The first time they had turned the Alterrans back. They didn't care about the losses they'd incurred, and news of the small victory spread throughout the Wraith Hive mind across the galaxy. This new/old enemy was formidable, but not invincible.
The Wraith had just gotten a taste of hope…and of the numbers it would take to turn back the Alterra. And that was a very dangerous thing indeed. The war was no longer one sided…they had a chance, but it would require a great effort, and a significant change within the Wraith on an order of magnitude greater than any seen over the past 10,000 years.
So was the conclusion of the eldest warmaster, nestled safely within the heavily defended Wraith 'inner core'…a series of 26 worlds that the Wraith viewed as most sacred. The Lanteans had called this particular world Ijara, now it was home to some 4 million Wraith that knew it was Orocein, which translated vaguely as 'war prize.'
The warmaster had no 'name,' per say, but rather a telepathic presence unique to this particular queen. Her presence was so strong, in fact, that most Wraith became almost inert in her presence. She found this particularly annoying…what good were her subjects if they became unfunctional? Thus she chose to remain hidden, deep within the crust of Orocein, and controled her brood from afar. She could see what they saw, feel with their hands, and pry into their thoughts at will. They had no secrets from her, for hers was the most powerful of minds.
She saw the battle at Urutie through the Hive mind, and breathed in heavily when the enemy ship finally withdrew. Her mind worked fast, and within moments she had analyzed the situation and began issuing orders across the galaxy. Those Wraith that had returned to slumber, must awaken. It was time to multiply…but with so little food in the galaxy, and their cloning farms still within preliminary development stages, another source of food would be required…and one was available, but it would require the sacrifice of many Wraith to devolve to a lesser level…even those that had not been cast down.
Thus it was that the warmaster ordered. She sensed hesitancy within the Hive mind as the other queens considered her order as a 'request'…but none challenged her, nor withheld their compliance. Drastic measures must be taken, they all agreed. And if this was to be it, then so it would be.
Wraith gatherers across the galaxy that had returned to slumber began to arise again…and the warmaster sent another command to her personal brood on Ijara, awakening the builders, warriors, scientists, and others that had not been needed in mass numbers since the defeat of the Lanteans and the beginning of the tranquil years of dominance over the galaxy. Most of these other castes remained in stasis until they heeded their queen's call to service…while the gathering caste tended the humans throughout the galaxy. For 10,000 years the gatherers had been the active Wraith within the Hive mind, save for a small number of the others that remained awake to tend the Wraith infrastructure. A few more had awakened recently to assist with the new shipbuilding efforts to counter this new threat, but most could not be awakened when there was too little food to go around as it was. Those gatherers that could, had returned to sleep, diminishing the risk of their own food poisoning them, and allowing their limited human resources to be utilized more strategically.
No longer.
The humans within the Pegasus galaxy had never encountered the true Wraith civilization…only the gatherers sent to pluck them from their worlds, and then the confines of the transport ships that would take them back to the gatherer Hives or, for a smaller number, back to a Wraith world where they would feed the others who remained awake to ward the sleepers and attend the queens.
Even when Atlantis emerged with its human whelps, no more than the gatherers had been tasked to deal with the nuisance…for very few other ships remained, and those stood guard over the inner core. The massive Wraith war machine that had so easily defeated the Lanteans had been dismantled, so it was that the humans actually entertained the notion that they stood a chance of defeating the Wraith.
With the warmaster's order, that war machine began to regrow…