Title: All The Difference

Author: Knife Hand

Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated

Spoilers: Has references to all Stargate series seasons. Buffy to the end of Season 3

Rating: MA

Disclaimer: Don't own SG1, Buffy or any other character from a recognised series.

Summary: SG1 gets some help from an unexpected source… The future.

" " denotes speech, ' ' denotes thought.

AN: Deviates from just after Learning Curve in season 3 (1999).

********

"All stations report ready for launch, Captain." Lieutenant Harris reported.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Major Sam Carter replied.

It was a surreal experience. Not only was she about to captain one of the first human made interstellar vessels, but it was one that bore her name.

"This is Carter. Ready for launch." She reported into the ship to ship comms.

It did have one advantage.

"This is The Brynhild. Ready for launch." Came Colonel O'Neill's voice over the radio.

"Joan of Arc, Ready." Came the voice of Commander Tom Dodge, who had given her the tour.

There were only a crew of six on each of the Valkyries for this outing, the four bunks for the two dockable 302's empty. Jack and Teal'c were the Captain and XO of the Brynhild, while Daniel was acting as sensors and radio operator on the Joan of Arc, and expert on the Goa'uld under Commander Dodge and his XO, Lieutenant Emily Dodge.

On the Samantha Carter, Xander was her XO, her engineer/weapons was a navy enlisted by the name of Stapanic, who had served with Dodge before in the sub service. The pilot was a gifted young Naval Ensign called Ymi, who with her small stature and delicate Asian features looked more suited to being a dancer than a pilot. Sensor and Radio operator was a large African-American Airman by the name of Williams while the sixth member of the crew was a former SGC Air Force Sergeant, William White, and now a Battle Mage of the Order.

"Let's Launch." Sam said, as the massive hanger doors retracted.

********

The three Valkyrie class ships were joined in space by the Snake Eaters Squadron flying the F302 Mongoose and the Silent Predators squadron in the SA43 Hammerhead. Each squadron consisted of twenty fighters, with the remaining trained pilots being stationed back at the Yard for both final air defence and to train the current batch of trainees.

The Carter was on the left flank of the Valkyries, with ten Silent Predators to her left and the rest on the far right flank guarding the Brynhild. The Snake Eaters were spread to the rear of the flotilla behind the line of Valkyries.

As they passed the orbit of Mars, the planet itself an angry red orb several hundred thousand kilometres away, the Flotilla made contact with the Goa'uld Hatak vessels. The four pyramid ships came steadily on, launching over seventy Death Gliders between them. The Gliders came in on a direct run at the Valkyries, but as they had planned, the anti-fighter ordinance of the three ships was enough to keep the fighters at bay while the SA43's came in from the flanks. As the Predators engaged the Gliders, the glider pilots turned away from the bigger ships, and that is when the Snake Eaters' pounced. Using the limited Hyperdrive capacity of the F302's, they jumped into the gap forming to the centre rear of the Glider's formation, and began hammering into them from the sides and rear. With the glider force effectively split down the middle, the two dogfights tumbled off to the sides of the conflict leaving the Valkyries to face off against the pyramid ships.

Just as the ships were entering weapons range of each other, the Hatak on the far right of the human line opened fire. Not on the Valkyries, but on the Hatak next to it managing to do a significant amount of damage.

"Captain, listen to this." Williams said, piping the audio to the overhead speakers.

"Ontrol of the vessel and have subdued the remaining Jaffa. Repeat, Attention Tauri Vessels, this is Martouf of the Tok'Ra. We have killed the Goa'uld on the Kes'lat, and we now have control of the vessel and subdued or isolated the remaining Jaffa."

"Mark that Hatak as a friendly." Sam ordered.

"Rodger, Captain." Williams said. "The Kes'lat has done significant damage to the other ship. The Brynhild and The Joan of Arc are bracketing the middle enemy vessel. Commodore O'Neill is ordering us to engage the last ship, they will assist when they can."

"Acknowledge Colonel O'Neill." Sam replied.

Sam felt a bit odd with the naval terminology, but that was how the Fleet was being trained.

"Helm, come about to 346 degrees, half a degree up bubble." Lieutenant Harris ordered. "Weapons, load tubes one through five and charge up the Rail Cannons."

"Tubes one through five loaded, Rail Cannons charged." Stapanic replied

"Fire." Sam ordered.

"Fire, Aye." Stapanic replied, firing the weapons.

Five modified missiles with nuclear payloads were launched out of the tubes of the Carter and the Rail Cannons sounded out their deep, slow thuds.

The two Rail Cannons, mounted down the main axis of the ship, operated on the same principal as the close in rail guns on both the Valkyrie and Prometheus Classes, but with one exception. Instead of firing large volumes of small projectiles at rapid speed, the Cannons fired five 120 pound high velocity depleted uranium slugs per minute. The idea was for the heavy hitting slugs to impact the enemy shields and either punch a hole or completely burn out their shield emitters, allowing the missiles to do their work. Of course should a slug hit an enemy with their shield down it had more than enough energy to punch strait through the ship and out the other side.

"Predator Six, break off." Williams yelled into his comms system.

The pilot of the SA43 peeled off from the pursuit of one of the Death Gliders that had broken away from the dogfight on the left edge of the battle. The Glider thought it had made it for a second before it was shredded by one of the Rail Cannon slugs, the slug itself fracturing into hundreds of small shards, most of which impacted harmlessly on the Hatak shield. A few dozen shards also destroyed one of the Carter's missiles. The other Cannon slug impacted the shield at full force but was unable to break through the shield for more than a fraction of a second. Not long enough for any of the remaining missiles to breach the shields but their detonations helped weaken it.

The Hatak fired back, its energy beam slamming into the Cater's shields. Panels overhead sparked.

"Shields down by thirty-five percent." Stapanic reported.

"Evasive." Carter ordered.

"Evasive, aye." Xander repeated. "Helm, Evasive course delta. Weapons, empty the tubes. Fire"

"Evasive course delta, Aye." Ymi replied, jinking the ship out of the main arc of fire of the Hatak.

"Firing, Aye." Stapanic added, as he fired another five missiles.

"White, try and reinforce the shields and hull where you can." Harris added.

"Aye." White replied, and moved off to his small alcove at the back of the bridge and began chanting.

Sam cast a sideways glance at Harris who shrugged. She was still coming to terms with the existence of magic while he had been working closely with the Order for the last eight months and had known about and worked with other magic users for much longer.

Unfortunately the evasive manoeuvres had lost the line of the immobile Rail Cannons on the Hatak, so unlike his previous wide spread Stapanic concentrated this barrage on a single section of the shield.

A massive flash of light off to the right caught everyone's attention for a second.

"Report." Harris snapped.

"Middle Enemy ship has just blown up." Williams reported. "The Joan of Arc is damaged but ok. It's out of the fight. The Kes'lat is heavily damaged and is leaking atmosphere but caused extensive damage to the third ship. The Brynhild is moving to finish off that Hatak."

"Captain. Focused missiles are starting to make a hole in the enemy shields. Our shields are now back up to eighty-seven percent thanks to Battle Mage White." Stapanic reported.

"Helm, bring us around to attack that hole. Weapons, keep up the missile barrage and when we get in position fire the Rail Cannons into the hole." Carter ordered.

"Helm, come left to 346, zero degree bubble. Weapons, full cycle on missiles and prepare to fire the Rail Cannons." Harris repeated

"Left to 346, Aye." Ymi replied.

"Missiles cycling, Rail Cannons charging." Stapanic added.

At they turned the ship shuddered once or twice from close hits where the Goa'uld energy weapons brushed the shield, but all the time, one after another, the Carter's supply of missiles was relentlessly pounding into one small section of the Hatak's shield.

"In position." Ymi reported.

"Fire." Sam ordered.

"Fire." Xander relayed.

"Firing, Aye." Stapanic responded.

The two massive Rail Cannons burst forth their deadly shells, however the final missile to impact the shield prior to their arrival managed to punch through the last of the shield. One of the slugs deviated slightly as it penetrated the hull, making its way through one of the Death Glider bays, setting of a number of secondary explosions, through a storage section and into a corridor where it impacted the head of the ship's Goa'uld who had been fleeing to his personal shuttle, removing not only his head but most of his torso as well, and then out the far hull, sucking the shocked bodyguard into space. The other slug managed to penetrate the hull clearly, went strait through a Jaffa barracks, an armoury and an empty corridor before punching through the engine room and making an abstract art piece of the main reactor, for the few seconds it took for the reactor to go critical and explode.

At the Hatak exploded, the portals on the Carter polarised to preserve the eyesight of the crew.

"Contact the Brynhild. We had destroyed our target. Do they require assistance?" Carter ordered.

"Commodore O'Neill replies no. Their target is disabled. The Tok'Ra have sent a prize crew on board from the Kes'lat. All capital ships have been naturalised." Williams replied. "Predator One and Eater One both report enemy fighters eliminated."

"Rodger. Set a course for home."

"Aye Aye Captain. Helm, set a course for Earth." The XO said.

"Aye Sir. Setting course for Earth." Ymi said.

********

"How were losses on our side?" General Hammond asked, having read SG1's reports.

"No losses on the Carter and the ship is fully operational. Although I would recommend Lieutenant Harris as permanent Captain or XO, assuming he will hand over the rains to the Yard. He worked exceptionally well with the crew." Sam reported, still slightly embarrassed that they had named the ship after her.

"The Joan of Arc sustained a bit of damage. Harris said she would be in dock for at least two to three weeks. She also lost her engineer and pilot in the final hit." Daniel added.

"The Brynhild sustained some minor damage. Two days and she'll be operational. The only casualty was their Order crewmember. She died of a bleed in her brain after taking an entire salvo of Goa'uld fire on her magical barrier after our shields gave out. She gave us enough time to get them back up. I would like to put her in for a posthumous commendation." Jack added.

"I'll talk to the President. What about the Fighters?"

"Well sir. The Silent Predators, who took the bulk of the Glider assault, lost eight birds, six of which managed to eject their cockpits and were rescued, two dead. The Snake Eaters only lost three birds but all six crew of those were KIA." Jack replied.

"Understood."

TBC…