Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: Sg-1, Stargate: Atlantis or any other television programs, video games, books or movies used in the telling of this story. I make no money off of this work of fiction, and would rather not be sued anytime soon as I make very little money and need it to pay the bills, buy food and pay for the ridiculous cost of fuel.
To UNSC ODST: Thanks for the support, I wanted to give readers a better idea of what the inside of the Magnus would look like while the crew prepares for battle. If all goes according to plan, then the next chapter should have an introduction to the Republic and what state it's in. As for the alien fleet, you'll just have to read to find out.
To WBH21C: Thank you, I've been trying to write this up to be as interesting and compelling to read as I can, but as this is my first attempt at writing fic, I'm not sure how it's going. Earth will be getting some samples of Naquada sometime in the next couple of chapters, so you've still got some waiting to do yet.
To Saetan: Don't worry, there's going to be plenty more of this story to come.
A/N: Due to the time constraints it puts on the story as a whole, I will no longer be using specific dates for the events that occur hereafter. Instead, I'm going to simply state the month and the year.
I have also decided that, because I'm now working more and have more classes to get through, instead of making one large chapter with all the content that I originally had planned and told you all about at the end of the previous chapter, I am going to be splitting it all up into smaller chapters, which should let me update more often and let me feel like I've accomplished something when it comes to this story.
Also, for anyone interested in a more direct Halo/Star Wars/Miscellaneous crossover, I recommend you check out Bien-128snew story, Halo: The Intergalactic Wars, found under the Halo archive, rated M. It makes for a good read.
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March, 2187
Orbit Of New Caprica
Inside The Ionic Nebula
In the three months since they had settled on this gods-damned world, they had achieved nothing more than the creation of an over-glorified tent city. At now-President Gaius Baltars insistence, Admiral William Adama had allowed the Colonials to stop and settle down on the first habitable world they had come across since leaving the now-irradiated colonies.
Now, the Columbia-class Battlestar Galactica, the Mercury-class Battlestar Pegasus and a dozen smaller civilian vessels that had been retrofitted with some basic weapons hung in high orbit of the world dubbed New Caprica, maintaining their silent vigil, ever watchful for the return of the Cylons, the mechanical (and bio-mechanical) entities that had destroyed the Twelve Colonies Of Kobol and murdered more than thirty-five billion people in the process.
It had been months since the last Cylon attack, since the day a thermonuclear device had been activated onboard the Cloud 9, the luxury liner that had been home to nearly three thousand people at the time of its destruction.
Menacing in a way that few other ships could match, 1350 metre long, alligator-headed Galactica slowly - but gracefully - moved about, switching places with the much larger Pegasus, commanded by Admiral Adamas son, Commander Lee "Apollo" Adama, at the head of the small fleet. With its two long flight pods - hollow tubes upon which strike craft like the venerable Viper Mark II or the advanced Mark VII could make hasty landings - , four large engines arrayed at the rear in a square, dorsal and side-mounted auto cannons and the over-sized main rail guns, the Galactica, despite her age, was not to be taken lightly by any foe.
The Pegasus, retaining the same basic alligator-head and dual flight pod design, was 500 metres longer and nearly twice as broad, with double the armour, weapons and engines. It was the most advanced and powerful warship that the Colonies had ever employed, aside from the two prototype Trinity-class Battlestars and, of course, the Zeus-class Warstars, and was easily able to beat pretty much any ship in existence in a fair fight. Or so the Colonials believed.
Unfortunately for them, that belief was moments away from being shattered in an unheard of display of pyrotechnics and technological mastery that the Colonials had only ever seen in science fiction television or literature.
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The cruiser dropped out of the swirling realm of slipspace, and instantly activated its weapon systems and shields. The occupants of the cruiser glared hungrily out the nearest view ports at the small group of ships that occupied the space above the large terrestrial world, eyes gleaming and mouths salivating at the prospect of finally finding real food.
A quick scan of the ships revealed weak and horrendously outdated armaments made up of auto cannons, rail guns and a very small number of nuclear warheads. Further scanning revealed that the two largest ships had thickly armoured hides, but the armour was constructed of obsolete materials.
Deciding to give their prey a chance to survive, the commander of the alien cruiser ordered shield strength to be reduced by half and that all gunnery positions were to avoid making direct hits on any of the ships. It had been a long time since these predators had last had interesting quarry.
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Galactica Combat Information Centre
"DRADIS contact," Petty Officer Anastasia "Dee" Dualla cried out the words that the bridge crew of the Galactica had hoped never to heard again.
"Cylons?," Colonel Saul Tigh snapped a query, although he was fairly certain he already new the answer. At the same time, Admiral Adama delivered an order.
"Launch the alert Vipers," the grizzled-yet-venerable commander ordered, and down in the launch bays the Galactica's scant dozen Vipers were launched from magnetic rail systems into space. Across the void just a few dozen kilometres away, the action was repeated with the Pegasus' more numerous squadrons, Mark IIs and VIIs joining up in attack wings or taking defensive positions throughout the fleet.
"Uh, unknown, sir," Dee replied, looking a little perplexed as she watched the DRADIS screens. "The contact is fading in and out of visual range, I think it might be some kind of stealth ship."
"Could it be Colonial? A Stealthstar maybe?," Tigh asked, looking to his long-time friend and commander for the answer. Adama leaned forward slightly, looking at the sensor readouts of the new contact. It was much larger than any Stealthstar the Colonies had ever made to his knowledge. In fact, it was about the same size as a Cygnus-class Firestar, what had been the Colonial's mainstay heavy cruiser before the Cylon attack.
"Not a design I've ever seen," Adama finally answered, narrowing his eyes slightly. If it was new Cylon ship, that meant they had been found. If it wasn't, then Adama didn't know what it meant.
"Sirs," Dee called for Adama and Tighs attention. As one, the two older men turned to face her. "Lieutenant Katraine reports some kind of visual distortion from the ship, bright red lights coming from what look like gun ports."
Adama frowned and shared a look between himself and Tigh, then returned his attention back to Dee.
"Order the Pegasus to lock-on to the ship with its main guns and prepare to destroy it if it looks like it's going to attack," Adama said, then turned to Lieutenant Felix Gaeta.
"Order our gunnery crews to do the same, if you please Mr. Gaeta."
"Yes, sir," Gaeta replied, then set about delivering his orders.
Dee gasped as, just as she finished relaying the Admirals orders, one of the smaller Colonial ships disappeared from the DRADIS display and the "Kat" Katraine reported the ship had fired a weapon unlike any she had seen before.
"Sir, the unknown ship has opened fire and destroyed Majestic Wonder!," she reported to her CO. Adamas head snapped around at the report, then swivelled back to Gaeta and gave the order.
"All gunnery teams, open fire."
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Bridge of UNSC SOCOM Stealth Cruiser Magnus
The Magnus dropped out of hyperspace less than ten seconds after the Majestic Wonder was destroyed, all hands at battle stations and weapons already seeking a lock on the unknown ship that was trading fire with the battle cruiser and battleship analogues of the human fleet.
"Tactical, maximum zoom on that ship," Burrows ordered, and immediately the holographic representation of the system narrowed down to show an image of the alien warship. Burrows, and indeed the entire bridge crew, were repulsed by what they saw. The ship was about a kilometre long, shaped like some massive locust that had had its legs ripped off, the hull bulbous and uneven. But it wasn't the design that had the crew of the Magnus grimacing. It was what decorated it.
The entire outer hull was covered in corpses, nearly all of them of unrecognisable species, but a good number of human skeletal remains hung from the ship like some kind of grisly trophy. A goodly portion of the 'decorations' appeared to be fairly fresh, although it was difficult to tell because the extreme cold and airless environment of space killed any bacteria that might have sped up the rate of decay.
Burrows continued to watch as the two human ships pummelled the alien vessel with projectiles, saw the tell-tale flicker of an energy barrier, watched as the ship fired some kind of energy weapon that emitted a bright green glow. Saw the grazing impact on the battleship analogue and noticed that they had no shields. If the Magnus didn't enter the fight quickly, it would an entirely one-sided slaughter.
"Firing solution for the Ion Cannon ready, sir," Siobhan reported. The Commander narrowed his eyes slightly, then nodded. That was all Siobhan needed; control of the Ion Cannon and the defence network had been slaved to her.
Outside the Magnus, the powerful dual-barrelled Ion Cannon mounted dorsally two hundred metres from the bridge fired at the distant alien ship, twin beams of pulsating negatively charged ions opening a window in the enemy ships under-strength shields and stripping away layers of gore, armour and hull plating. The beams punched deep into the ship, nearly half way through the six hundred metre breadth of it, breaching dozens of decks and leaving them open to space.
Suddenly the alien ship changed its priorities; no longer did it play with the human vessels, now it turned its attention to the much bigger threat that the Magnus represented, bringing its shields to full strength and lifting the ban on direct hits that its commander had ordered.
"Energy readings increasing from the alien ship, sir," Mercer reported, frowning at the tactical display. The ship was putting out more power now than a Warhammer-class battlecruiser. The Lt. suddenly hoped they had not bitten off more than they could chew in taking it on.
As the range rapidly decreased, the Magnus' now fully repaired shield systems repelled a trio of powerful energy blasts that set alarms blaring across the stealth cruiser and knocked many people off their feet.
"Missile bays, stand by for an Alpha Strike, full spread across the enemy's shields," Burrows grunted, straightening himself out in his command chair. "Shield status?"
"Another salvo like that and they'll be down, I can't say how well our armour will stand up to whatever those weapons are. With hull integrity still only in the 80 percentile, I wouldn't suggest we let ourselves get into a position to find out," Siobhan dutifully reported, her holographic image flickering as the Magnus' rail guns opened up at their extreme range.
"Agreed," Burrows nodded, then braced himself as another energy round slammed against the dorsal shields barely sixty metres from the bridge. Out at the fore of the ship, seven plumes of smoke flared to a short-lived life, propelling their payloads to a rendezvous with the enemy.
"Missiles away, sir," Mercer reported, a thin trickle of blood making its way down his cheek from his forehead, to pool in the collar of his combat shirt. Although the missiles were by far the longest ranged weapons the Magnus carried, the command staff had no idea the kind of point defences the alien ship might have, so it was decided t close the distance to standard weapons range before firing them.
Across the void, the missiles soared, silently closing in on their target, when suddenly two of them flashed out of existence, their nuclear payloads inert, as the aliens CIWS systems engaged them. Rapid fire, razor thin blades of light sliced through another three missiles before the final two impacted against the cruisers shields, the nuclear flare blinding for a moment.
When the glare finally faded away and the sensor output returned to normal after the interference such a large release of radiation caused, the Magnus' crew was treated to the sight of dozens of tiny objects appearing all around the alien cruiser. It didn't take long Siobhan to identify them.
"Fighter craft, sir. Some are heading towards the human group, some are coming for us," Siobhan stated. "Recommend we launch our Scorpions to run interference for us, tactical defence load outs."
The modular design of the IC-109 Scorpion Interceptor allowed for a variety of tactical load outs; the removal of the shield generator to allow room for anti-ship missiles, replacing the generator of an ACSIS generator, or even switching the twin laser cannons for plasma cannons. A tactical defence load out meant that the fighters would empty one of their missile bays, leaving the craft with six anti-fighter missiles, and put an extra shield generator in place of the other six missiles, thus increasing the protection their shields provided two-fold. Such modifications could be made in under a minute provided there was a skilled and experienced deck crew on hand.
The fighters would also stay close to their mother ship, never venturing beyond the range of the Magnus' Laser Net defence grid.
The grid opened up, the rapid fire laser pulses looking more like a continuous stream of energy, virtue of the sixty-eight thousand round per minute firing rate of each of the cannons, and immediately several of the enemy's bizarre fighters were clipped, one of them destroyed outright.
The enemy fighters looked like some kind of demented cross-breed of an insect and a lizard, with a double-domed cockpit that reminded the crew of the Magnus of a fly's head, and an elongated tail that trailed behind the main body of the craft a good five metres. As they drew in closer, taking few casualties thanks to the surprising manoeuvrability of the awkward looking craft, and the apparently heavy shields and armour each one sported, the reason for the tails became apparent.
The tails swung up and over the craft until the very tip was above the cockpit of each fighter, and from the end of each tail, a glob of superheated gas-from plasma sprang forth, flying across the darkness of space and lighting up the area around the Magnus as her port shields took a handful of hits, the majority of the shots going wide.
The Magnus' fighter wing finally launched, in time to distract the now-passing alien strike craft from making another run on her. As the Scorpions diverted the attention of the bizarre aliens, the Magnus' Ion Cannon fired for a second time, this time in conjunction with a broadside delivered from the port weapons batteries.
The alien cruisers shields gave out under the bombardment, and the hull took a small number of rail gun rounds and laser bursts before the ship returned fire, this time firing a bright orange-red bolt of unidentified energy that completely stripped away the Magnus' shields and scorched the hull plating. Then the ship did something completely unexpected.
The two opposing cruisers were barely three hundred kilometres from one another, practically spitting distance considering the vastness of the space around them, when the alien ship launched several dozen torpedoes, only six or seven of which were shot down before impact. Everyone onboard the smaller human ship held their breath, waiting to be killed in a bright flash of light and brief searing pain.
Only these torpedoes didn't detonate on impact; they burrowed through the Magnus' armour and just sat there for a moment, before the armoured heads of the torpedoes burst open and disgorged six alien creatures apiece. The Magnus had been boarded.
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Lt. Luanne Katraine's Mark II Viper
Lieutenant Luanne "Kat" Katraine was in a state of shock and awe. For centuries, she new, the Colonials had fervently searched the stars for signs of alien life forms. Having found none, it was widely believed that humans were the only intelligent life in the galaxy, Cylons notwithstanding.
Now, however, she was bearing witness to two completely different ships grinding each other to stardust, hurling a mix of missiles, projectiles and something else at one another with great relish. So overawed was she that she very nearly missed the textual orders her Mark IIs online computer received from Galactica Actual.
All Viper squadrons, it read in glowing green letters. Form up into attack wings and support Unknown 2, anti-fighter defence and attack runs on Unknown 1 authorized.
Kat drew in a deep breath, pursed her lips, and blew it out slowly. To say that she was nervous would be an understatement of epic proportions; if the Vipers were to help out the second ship, it meant that the Colonials might actually gain some allies. On the other hand, after the insect-like ship was destroyed, then the one shaped like some kind of sea creature could well turn on them and finish the job the first ship had started.
Even as she thought about it, though, she was forming up into an attack formation with the other tri-winged fighters without even thinking about it, the long, thin noses of just over two dozen Colonial fighters, some more than forty years old and dating back to the First Cylon War, others barely two years old and the peak of Colonial strike craft technology.
Kat goosed the throttle, her Viper near the very front of the charge, and wished not for the first time that Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, ace pilot of the Galactica's fighter wings, had not chosen to colonise New Caprica with her new husband, Samuel Anders, and had instead stayed with the majority of the other pilots. Though Kat would never admit it to anyone, Thrace was the best pilot in the Colonial fleet, not something altogether that difficult to accomplish considering there were only about 30 qualified Viper pilots left in existence.
As she neared the two small ships, Kat noticed that the smaller of the two had finally launched fighters of its own to combat the large, bizarre shapes that the insectoid ship had launched. These fighters were about the same size as a Viper, but had an A frame shape, twin engines at the rear, cockpit roughly centre and what Kat assumed to be weapons right at the front.
She got all that from a spilt second of seeing one, because by the time she was close enough too see them in such detail, she was close enough to begin engaging the much larger, uglier alien craft. Kat grit her teeth as she pulled her Mark II into a sharp 15 gee turn, punishing herself in order to swing in behind one of the surprisingly agile double-cockpit fighters.
Grinning in triumph as she finally got a clean shot, she depressed the firing stud on her control yoke, sending a stream of .50 calibre Kinetic Energy rounds into the flank of the craft. The grin disappeared shortly after, as she watched the golden tracer rounds bounce off of an invisible barrier a metre from impacting on the things hull, and before she knew it, the tables were turned.
She pulled up hard and reversed her throttle, spinning the Viper around so that she was now flying in the opposite direction upside down relative to the ship she was helping to defend, the Ugly behind her wrenching around and sending bolts of coherent plasma energy (not that she knew what it was at the time) streaking after her.
The shots were poorly aimed, but if they came within ten or fifteen metres of her fighter, the DRADIS display flickered from some unknown interference. A bolt blew past her cockpit, and instinctively she ducked and yanked the control yoke in the opposite direction, nearly running into a wall of fire and pulling up just in time to avoid being fried alive.
One of the A-winged fighters flew past her, twin front-mounted cannons stitching fire across the side of another of the Uglies, destroying the larger ship, and then it was out of sight as she swung the Viper around again to try and spook her pursuer off and give herself some time to figure out a decent strategy to deal with the apparently nigh-invincible enemy fighters.
The Ugly that had been chasing her seemed to hang in mid-space, not moving, although it was in fact speeding towards her at considerable speed, when it was speared by a stream of fluorescent green light, the invisible barrier disappearing in a flash of blue light and the ship itself was engulfed in orange flames as it was cut down by what passed for point defences on the smaller alien ship.
It gave her barely a moments respite, though, because almost as soon as the small explosion suffocated, another alien ship took it upon itself to attack her. More than a little intimidated, Kat goosed the throttle, moving away from the rapidly encroaching fighter. After getting a little distance between herself and the Ugly, she spin the Viper around and hit the reverse throttle, pushing the pedal all the way down.
Now travelling backwards at less than half the speed the Mark II was capable of at full forward thrust, Kat pinned her cross-hairs to the Ugly and again depressed the firing stud, this time not content with firing a short burst. Hundreds of KEW round hammered the invisible shield down and chipped away at the Uglies armour, many if them penetrating the twin cockpits and killing the pilots.
Laughing triumphantly at her first kill of the day, Kat twirled her fighter around and began moving away from the thick of the fighter to catch a breather. She didn't see the incoming Ugly until the last moment, and by then it was too late. Pulling violently to the left on the control yoke, Kat cursed as she was blindsided by the alien craft, thanking the Gods that she wasn't hit.
As she tried to manoeuvre herself around to return fire, another of the A-winged fighters-or was it the same one as before?- flashed past her cockpit, a pair of missiles streaking out from its underbelly and striking the Ugly in the side, shearing off its tail and sending it spinning uncontrollably through space.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Kat wiggled her wings in thanks to the other pilot, getting the same in return. Then the other pilot pulled his craft in close to hers and offered a near perfect simile of a standard Colonial salute. That was surprising enough to Kat, but what really made her jaw drop was that, as the craft came closer, she realised she could make out its pilot, and he looked suspiciously human.
One thing and one thing only came to her mind in that instant.
The Thirteenth Tribe! We've found them!
Not entirely true, as it was in fact they who found the Colonials, but it was logical that she would think that these humans were of the fabled Thirteenth Tribe, the final colony of Kobol.
We're saved. All of us, safeā¦
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Magnus Armoury Six-B
Sergeant Major James Allen had not expected to be called into combat aboard the Magnus herself, assuming that the point defences could deal with any would-be boarding parties, unless of course these creatures had teleporting technology like the current bad guys back home did.
That was why, he told himself, he was charging through corridor after corridor headed for the nearest armoury to requisition some armour and a more potent weapon than the plasma pistol normally clipped to his right thigh, now held firmly in his hands.
One of the security drones blew past him, the mechanical voice of the little machine informing him that it was headed to a breach to deal with intruders and requesting assistance, before it noted that he was practically unarmed and was not wearing combat armour, at which point it ignored him and continued on its way, its domed head shining dully in the dim combat lighting of the corridor and its twin anti-personnel plasma cannons tracking around.
With a distracted grunt of acknowledgement for the machines passing, Allen turned the corner, finally coming within sight of the armoury. Grinning triumphantly, he double his pace crossing the sixty or so metres in just over four seconds. He didn't even get a chance to press his palm against the wall mounted reader to confirm his security clearance to the room before two large creatures round the other end of the corridor.
Ducking quickly into the shallow recess the door to the armoury was set into, Allen chewed his lip lightly and prayed to whatever deities might be listening that he hadn't been spotted, as he would likely be no match for them without armour, or a better weapon at least. Judging by the fact that he wasn't being shot at he assumed his prayers had been answered. He slowly edged his head around the corner, exposing only enough of himself to be able to see the aliens.
He grimaced slightly as he took in their appearance. Both were roughly seven or eight feet tall, as far as he could tell, and were almost nauseatingly thin, like people who had not eaten a half way decent meal in months. Their eyes extended from their heads on turret mounts, not unlike a chameleon back on Earth, their bodies covered in what looked like a cross between insect-like chitinous natural armour and more lizard-like scales.
Each carried wicked looking weapons in their clawed hands, some kind of rifle. It didn't seem like a very ergonomic design, with a long barrel and odd, bulbous shapes protruding from both sides of the weapon near the shoulder stock. Of course, ergonomics weren't really his thing, and judging by the radically different physiology between humans and the very human-like Tau, it would make sense that their weapons would seem uncomfortable to him.
The aliens were distracted, chattering away at each other in an odd language that sounded like s cross between a cricket chirping and a frog croaking, with clicks and gurgles here and there for good measure. While they were distracted with each other, Allen moved his hand over the palm-reading access panel to the armoury, eyes still on the aliens, and gently pressed into it.
With a soft ping sound, the door opened and Allen inched his way inside, closing his eyes and breathing a sigh of relief as the door closed again, before leaning back against it and opening his eyes.
"Oh, shit," he breathed, eyes wide incredulously as he took in the room.
Somehow, in all the confusion and the sudden excitement of the creatures appearance, he had ended up in a supply room, on which, if his memory served right, was just four metres down the hall from his destination.
"Why me, Godamnit?"
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The two warriors advanced slowly down the corridor, taking in their alien surroundings and arguing about who's fault it was that they had ended up so far away from the main boarding parties.
As they moved, the taller of the two suddenly hissed a warning at the other and raised his weapon. With a series of clicks and whistles, the larger warrior told the smaller that it had heard something, then the two began licking at the air cautiously.
After a moment or two, they each picked up the familiar - and mouth-watering - scent of food, close by. Hurrying their pace a little, the two now-silent warriors advanced past a strangely shaped door, moving down the corridor several metres, before coming to a stop in front of another of the too-small rectangular doors.
From the other side of the door, their acute hearing picked up food-speak. Both fairly fluent in food-speak - the warrior-caste leaders demanded such, as it mad warriors more effective at combating the food's attempts at tactics and strategy - they understood the words being spoken, although not necessarily the meaning behind them.
"Why me, Godamnit?"
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Seconds after speaking, Allen regretted it, for almost as soon as the words left his mouth, their came a loud thudding sound from the other side of the door.
Where's a security drone when you need one?, he thought to himself as he backed a way from the door, trying to find some kind of cover in the small room. There was none. Without any armour or cover of any kind, Allen would likely be cut down the moment the creatures on the other side found a way to get the door open.
There was a loud chatter from the other side of the door, somewhat muffled by the three inches of Titanium, then pulsing screech and the area around the doors hinges began glowing red hot; they were blowing out the hinges.
With a final screech, the sound stopped, and the room fell silent for the moment. Then the door creaked, and fell away from its hinges, revealing the two aliens that Allen had seen in the corridor, with what appeared to be a triumphant grin on their hideously ugly faces.
Allen stood still, waiting for them to cut him down in a hail of plasma fire - or whatever it was those weapons used for ammunition - but the expected pain never came. Instead, the aliens slung their weapons and began to chatter excitedly among themselves, practically ignoring him.
The aliens were barely four feet away, and seemed to be arguing intently about what to do with him. Seeing his chance, Allen raised his plasma pistol, hoping to kill at least one of the aliens before they would be able to react. The weapon swung up from his side, making it to about chest height, before the closer of the two aliens shrieked, spun to face him and snatched at the pistol.
Although the creature wasn't able to take the weapon from him, Allen still wasn't able to keep a grip on it. The weapon discharged before clattering to the floor, the super-hot plasma splashing into the aliens left knee cap, vaporising it instantly.
With another shriek - this one of pain and surprise - the alien toppled over backwards, cracking its head hard against the melted door jamb behind it. The bottom half of its left leg stayed upright, teetering slightly from side-to-side, before flopping down on its side.
Allen snapped his head up from the now-unconscious alien, staring wide-eyed at the still-standing one, the creature returning his gaze evenly. It was during this short-lived staring match that Allen noticed that the creatures eyes were just as unusual as the rest of it.
Small and turreted, like a lizards, but bulbous and multi-faceted, more like an insects, and for the first time, Allen realised that such a hybrid had to be impossible in nature.
Some kind of super-soldier or something?, he thought. He had no more time to contemplate further, however, because at that moment the alien let out an ear-piercing screech and charged, covering the short distance between itself and the human quickly.
A taloned hand swung at Allen's face, and he pulled his head back fast enough to avoid having it ripped from his shoulders, but not quite fast enough to avoid all of the claws; three of the six talons raked across his face, opening two shallow cuts across his forehead and a much deeper one just below his right eye.
Roaring in pain, Allen staggered back, then, regaining his bearings, he dropped low and lashed out with his right leg, catching the alien behind the knee. Startled, it fell on its back. Screeching again, it kicked out viciously, striking Allen in the shoulder and slamming him back into the shelves at the end of the small room.
As various cleaning agents and hull sealants, among other things, rained down around the dazed Sergeant Major, the alien launched itself off its back at him, claws extended and ready to rip him apart.
Allen raised his hands, catching both of the aliens wrists in a vice grip and just barely stopping the forward momentum by pulling his out to the sides and deflecting the talons away from his face. Heaving with all his augmented might, Allen pushed the creature back slightly, arms shaking with the effort. The creature may have looked half-starved, but it was damn strong.
Hissing gibberish at him, the alien redoubled its efforts, pushing down hard and slowly forcing those taloned hands down at the human again. Allen gasped at the effort he was putting into keeping it at bay, feeling his strength slowly draining away.
Desperately, Allen changed tactics; he wrenched the aliens right wrist violently to the left, twisting hard until he heard a loud pop! Shrieking in agony as its wrist snapped, the creature let up its attack and reared back away from the prone Spectre.
Allen fumbled blindly, his eyes filled with his own blood from the cuts on his forehead, for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. His hand came to rest on what felt like an aerosol can of some kind. Seeing the alien fumbling to get at its wicked-looking energy rifle, Allen raised the can and sprayed, not caring what was in it, just trying to buy himself some more time.
A thin stream of dark grey fluid sprayed from the nozzle, splashing against the creatures left leg and hardening in an instant, the fluids mass increasing ten-fold as it dried. Allen grinned to himself as he realised what he'd grabbed.
It was Instacrete, a substance used to quickly erect barricades and walls when establishing a forward base. A single 600 millilitre can could create a wall two feet thick, four feet high and twenty feet long if used right. It also made a pretty damn good hull sealant, able to temporarily replace armour plating. In fact, most of the Magnus' hull was patched up with it while the Nano-Fabricators worked overtime churning out replacement armour.
The alien clawed at the Instacrete around its leg, trying in vain to loosen the super-strong slab of the substance that its leg was now encased in. Standing slowly, Allen raised the can to level with its face, smirked, and sprayed.
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Lt. Luanne Katraine's Mark II Viper
Shortly after her revelation that the occupants of the smaller, aquatic-like ship were human, Kat felt a bolt of fear shoot down her spine as she realised that this could all be some kind of elaborate hoax set up by the Cylons in an attempt to make the Battlestars flee and leave the Colonials on New Caprica defenceless.
Since that moment, she had been treating the human-looking pilot of the A-framed fighter that had become her unofficial wing-man with considerable suspicion. Never mind the fact that the person had saved her life more times in the last half-hour than anyone in the remaining Colonial Navy ever had.
As far as Kat could tell from the fleeting few seconds she was ever flying in a straight line and not being shot at, it looked as though the fighting was dying down, although she wasn't sure what impact the Vipers had had on the overall outcome of the battle, considering that most of the Colonial pilots had spent more time dodging fire and trying to survive than anything else.
I suppose, she thought as she swung her Viper around to take in the view of the two alien ships sitting perfectly still, side-by-side and no longer firing at each other, that if nothing else, we distracted the Uglies long enough for the other pilots to deal with them.
There were only about a half-dozen Uglies left now, and they were all turning tail - literally, given the bizarre design of the craft - and fleeing for the relative safety of the larger alien ships landing bays. A pulse of blood-red light flashed past her cockpit, getting her attention.
As the Vipers and the pilots of the A-framed fighters had not yet figured the correct radio-frequency with which to communicate with each other - assuming the other pilots even used radios - they had turned to more unorthodox methods of communication.
Her wing-man had her attention now, and he drew in close to her fighter and began making hand signals to her. She didn't understand it all, but she got the gist of it: the pilot was asking for help in maintaining a Combat Space Patrol around his mother ship.
With a curt nod and a waggle of her wings, Kat agreed to the proposition and began moving the Viper in closer to the ship, wondering what was going on inside and knowing that, for now, she had no choice but to trust her erstwhile colleague.
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Magnus Launch Bay Alpha
With a whir of servo-motors and hydraulics, the XBS-87 Battlesuit thundered across the launch bays 'ground' floor, sporadic bursts of enemy fire erupting across its frontal shields in a spectacular display of light, sending ripples across them that looked so much like someone had just tossed a thousand tiny pebbles into a pond.
The lumbering four metre tall battlesuit took it all in stride, easily shrugging off the small arms fire being directed at it - it was, after all, designed to take on anything from infantry, to tanks, to fighter craft - its twin shoulder-mounted rocket launchers firing anti-personnel fragmentation rockets in a slow-but-methodical volley.
The rotary plasma cannon mounted on its right arm attachment squealed its high-pitched whine, throwing out bright green globs of super-hot plasma and cutting a swathe through the bizarre enemy troops.
Within the bulky, man-shaped walking tank, the pilot grinned maniacally as the darker-than-usual launch bay was lit up by the impressive firepower he was bringing to bear on his enemies. One of the odd beings leaped screaming from its cover, what looked like some kind of grenade clenched in its claws, only to be cut in half in mid-air by a spray of plasma from the battle suit.
The bottom half of the alien dropped instantly to the floor, the top half, still clutching the grenade, sailed past the battlesuits shoulder and thumped to the ground several metres away, the grenade going off in a flash of light and sound, vaporising the torso instantly but failing to hurt any of the human defenders.
"Come on, bitches, time to take your medicine!," shouted the crazed battlesuit pilot, his voice amplified over the external speakers of his unit. Off to the suits right, seven Marines were crouched low behind a dolly cart filled with spare armour plates, destined to be a part of the Magnus' new hull. They were carrying a mix of weapons, plasma and laser rifles, rail guns, slug throwers, one even held a flame thrower clenched in his power armours gauntlets.
"Christ on a bike, these fuckers just don't give up!," a Marine Corporal named Markus Brannon cried out as molten globs of metal splashed against his helmet, courtesy of the rapidly disintegrating dolly. Despite the amount of fire being directed their way, the armour plates on the dolly weren't even warm yet.
"Amen to that," Private Jonas Cain grumbled, standing up for a moment to loose of a volley of rail gun rounds, before dropping back behind cover with a loud whoop of joy. "I got one of the bastards!"
He received a pat on the back from several of his friends at that. As he had only been out of Basic for about two months, this was his first taste of real combat, and so far, he had performed well.
Better than expected, in any case, thought Brannon, leaning around the corner of the dolly and sending a plasma burst back at the enemy position, the heat of the weapons discharge felt even through his gauntlets. Plasma guns weren't the most reliable weapons in prolonged engagements, and tended to overheat if they were forced to fire more than eighty or ninety times in one minute, and his had been firing almost non-stop for fifteen minutes straight.
For sheer stopping power, though, they couldn't be beat, as the only real defence against plasma weapons was energy shields, and even they tended not to last overly long.
Just as he was pulling his head back around the corner, however he saw something interesting. The aliens were leaping over whatever cover they had had and were now charging madly towards the Marines position.
"Kamikazes! Fall back!," Brannon shouted, immediately following his own advice and running off in the opposite direction, the rest of the Marines following. They didn't get far before they realised they'd been fool. There were a dozen or so more aliens charging at them from the direction they had been fleeing in, so now they were caught out in the open, with two dozen aliens approaching from behind and another dozen from the front.
Stopping where he stood, Brannon raised his plasma rifle and let loose a burst, the glowing orb of energy vaporising the head of one of the aliens in the frontal pack. Behind him, he heard the other Marines doing the same, some shooting at the pack that Brannon was firing at, the rest going for their original opponents.
Brannon slew two more aliens, another two being shredded by rail gun fire before the smaller group was upon them, and then his world became a dervish of flailing limbs and weapons used as clubs. He took a vicious blow to the head, snapping him around to face the other direction and cracking the rail-resistant visor.
Blurry objects danced in front of his eyes as he toppled sideways under another blow, before brilliant golden light shot out from an unseen place and scoured the still approaching larger group. His vision cleared as he dropped the plasma gun and grabbed the mono-molecular combat knife from its sheath at the base of his spine, and he saw that it was the Marine with the flamer, and he had just killed half the alien group.
Brannon spun about, slashing wide with his blade and cutting a wide gash in the stomach of one of his assailants, dark green ichor pumping from the deep wound, splashing across the front of his armour. He kicked the alien hard in the stomach, hearing a loud crunch as his boot caved in the chitinous carapace that acted as a natural armour for the things, then turned his attention to another.
For the next few minutes - or maybe hours - Brannon's life was all about the blade, about quenching its insatiable thirst for the blood of the evil, about trying to survive against overwhelming odds. It was cut abruptly short, however, when a smaller, but much more bulky version of the aliens he had seen so far smashed a huge fist - knuckles covered in sharp, bony protrusions - into his side, denting an puncturing the armour.
Crying out in pain as his flesh was pulped and pierced, blood squirting out in obscene amounts, Brannon dropped to his knees, tears of terrible pain running sown his cheeks. At twenty-three years old, this was not how he'd expected, or wanted, to die. He'd wanted to be one of those old war-heroes, who died in bed, surrounded by loved ones.
Instead, he was going to be killed by a big, brutish alien aboard a SOCOM stealth ship in the middle of unknown space, and it was highly likely that his family would never even know what happened to him. Even as he made peace with his death, or what peace could, anyway, he closed his eyes and waited for the killing blow. Waited. And waited.
Cracking his eyes open, he was treated to the sight of what was left of his would-be killer being ground to past under the enormous feet of the XBS-87. Grinning weakly at his saviour, the last thing Brannon saw before passing out was another of the aliens being flung several metres across the room by the battlesuit.
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Magnus Bridge
Even as fighting continued all over the Magnus, Commander Burrows was faced with another dilemma. The alien ship appeared to have lost power and was now slowly drifting to wards the planet. Likewise the Magnus was no longer under power, at least not to the engines. Their shields were slowly regenerating and they could still fire weapons, but their main engines had been damaged into the fighting.
A thin haze of smoke drifted across the bridge, before being sucked up by the air recyclers, as Burrows frowned at the display screen. Although the Magnus had undoubtedly saved the other human ships from destruction, she was now even more badly damaged than before and they had lost dozens of crew members and Marines, not counting the end results of the aliens boarding action just yet as they were still being fended off,
And despite the fact that the humans had sent fighters to the Magnus' aid, he had no way to be sure of their intent now that the alien ship was no longer a viable threat, and the Magnus was in no shape to keep fighting. At the very least, it would be another three or four days before they would be hyper-capable again, given the damage to the hull. On the plus side, they could speed up hull repairs considerably now that they had a new source of plating, namely the alien ship.
All they had to do was rid the ship of its grisly trophies and they were good to go.
"Have you figured out a way to contact those ships yet, Siobhan?," Burrows side, wiping sweat off his brow.
"Yes, sir. You're not going to believe this, they actually use slower-than-light radio communications. Incredible to think that a society advanced enough to create such large ships, and, if I understand the sensor readouts correctly, even artificial gravity, would such an ancient, archaic means of communication," Siobhan answered, her oversized intellect coming to the fore as she prattled on about the paradoxical nature of Colonial technology.
"It's only been eighty or so years since we discovered subspace communications, Siobhan. Can you hail them please?," Burrows asked. Siobhan let out a huff, clearly miffed that the Commander would not find such a thing interesting, but nodded and affirmed his request anyway.
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Galactica Combat Information Centre
Aboard the Galactica's version of a bridge, the crew were all ears as a crackly transmission came across their radio frequency. A quick check by Lt. Gaeta told him that the transmission was directed across all frequencies and was being picked up by all of the Colonial ships.
"Attention unknown fleet," a deep, baritone human voice stated in a language so very similar to Colonial Standard that there were virtually no differences, aside from the unknown accent. "This is Commander Albert Burrows of the UNSC SOCOM Stealth Cruiser Magnus, requesting assistance. We have sustained significant damage to all sectors of the ship and are in the process of fighting off hostile boarding parties."
The crew exchanged confused looks, and Adama and Tigh looked each other evenly in the eye. Neither had ever heard of the 'UNSC', but 'SOCOM', assuming it meant the same thing to these people, was the term used to describe Special Operations Command. Not really knowing what to do, neither of them said anything in return to the Magnus' plea for help.
"What should we do?," Adama spoke softly to his Executive Officer. Tigh looked like he'd rather just turn the battlestars guns on the Magnus' and blow it way just to be on the safe side, but given the fact that the much smaller ship had just defeated an enemy vessel that neither of the battlestars had even been able to scratch, and also that it had probably saved the entire Colonial Remnant from destruction in doing so, he kept that opinion to himself.
"Frak it," the man growled, "they pulled our asses out of the fire, I say we return the favour."
Adama stared evenly at his old friend, silent and contemplating. He had, of course, considered the same things that Tigh had, and had also come to the same conclusion.
"Dee," Adama called, the young woman perking up instantly at the sound of her name being called. "Return their hail, give me a direct line to this Burrows character."
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A/N: That's it for now. As you can see, this chapter alone is a good 8000 words long, so if I had added in all the things I said I would at the end of the last chapter, it probably would have been longer than every other chapter combined. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it still would have been pretty damn long.
Don't worry though, all those other things are coming, they'll just be more spread out than I'd originally planned.
The next chapter will deal with the interrogation of Selmak, the scouting party sent to P3Y-737, and (hopefully) should see the first appearance of the Covenant and the Asgard.
As Matthew Reilly, author of some truly phenomenal books, says "Feedback is the lifeblood of any story" and "Never underestimate the power of encouragement", so get crackin' on those reviews, people. J
