Discontinuity: Indefatigable
by chaos_eternus
A month later.
When Picard walked onto his bridge, it took Ewing mere moments to realise there had been another raid. The expression on the Starfleet Captains face truly said it all.
"How bad?"
"We lost half the San Francisco Fleet Yards."
"Fuck," Ewing replied, grimacing. Then, his eyes widened, "aren't they in Earth orbit?"
"Quite," Picard replied wearily, "seven docks completely destroyed, five more severely damaged plus the ships that were in them. The orbital office complex was…"
Picard shook his head and needed to say or do no more, "how many?"
"Too many," came the grim reply, "mainly civilians. The two Ha'taks, both originals not new construction were manoeuvring to commence a surface bombardment of San Francisco when the fleet arrived, having used Earth's bulk to hide their approach from the asteroid belt. The Goa'uld were driven off, but not before destroying three more ships and crippling another seven."
"That's not sustainable," Ewing replied grimly.
"Indeed not," Picard replied, "the only bright spot is that the one Ha'tak was crippled and had to be assisted into hyperspace. The Akagi appears to have gotten a lucky hit in the region of her launch bays."
"We need an edge,"
"We may have one,"
"Oh?" Ewing asked, curious.
"When the Ha'tak's arrived, they dropped straight into a training squadron of Peregrines from the academy. Two thirds of the squadron was destroyed, the rest jumped straight to warp and managed to escape however post-battle analysis suggests one of the destroyed Peregrines fired a probe into the hyperspace portal as it opened."
"Damn," he considered this for a moment, "not likely to help much. It's possible the entire length of the hyperspace tunnel was still open but unlikely, not because it's wasteful of energy but because that's not the way the Goa'uld tend to do things and they can be quite set in their ways. If it was open all the way, if the Goa'uld ships jumped straight from Osiris's base, if we can pick up the signal from the probe…"
"Then we may have a location for Osiris's base,"
"We may also have an ambush,"
"True," Picard replied, conceding the point, "that is always a risk. There are certainly ways to mitigate or reduce that risk especially as we have Romulan and Klingon support and both use cloaks."
"Osiris can pick up cloaks," Ewing noted then nodded, "but they still reduce the range at which the cloaked ship can be detected, with a canny Captain willing to use the environment to its fullest…"
"Indeed,"
"It's not much of a chance,"
"No, it's not," he conceded, "but we do have another. It's just not as much of an advantage as it could be."
Ewing frowned at Picard's direct look, " Indefatigable…"
"Quite, the truth of the matter is that while your weapons are far more capable of damaging the Goa'uld shields and your shields are stronger against Goa'uld weapons, in sub-light you are out-paced, out-accelerated and straight out-manoeuvred by the sheer bulk of the ships of the Federation and allied fleets."
This was considered for a moment then a tight smile crept onto Ewing 's face, "oh?"
"The replacement of Indefatigable's existing STL drives with Impulse drives has been authorised directly by the Federation President as well as a few other modifications. It won't take you up to the full capabilities of a Federation ship in slower then light, I'm afraid the Dauntless class isn't designed for the stresses that would place upon the frame but it will bring you closer to parity.
"Should be interesting," he conceded with a wry grin.
She wanted to scream, to curse, to kill the Jaffa who had failed her.
She couldn't afford to. She couldn't replace them, there were no more Jaffa , and for all they had failed in their main objective of punishing Earth itself for the continued interference of the humans and their lackeys, they had damaged the enemy's ability to rebuild and maintain their fleets.
Thousands had still been killed and whilst one of her Ha'taks would need many resources to repair, no ship had been lost. That in itself was critical, as much as it pained her to admit, they had made the correct choice in fleeing as soon as the one ship was crippled, it was too vital for her future objectives that all her modern, more capable ships remained available to her.
They had failed… but not entirely.
They would have to be punished, but they could not be killed.
It was maddening. The only truly appropriate punishment for failure was death but she couldn't afford to carry out that punishment. She was too… weak to afford it.
Weak.
This was no state for a God to be in!
Yet, this was how it was and it was it the first time for her either. She couldn't afford to be attacked right now and with only three of her original ships still operational plus just one she had built in this universe…
Defending her base and maintaining her raids was tricky.
She could use more Al-kesh but those required crews that were more skilled then the main even though fewer were required.
Then again, if she wasn't in a position to attack, perhaps there were others who were.
Her eyes narrowed, then widened and she allowed an evil smirk to cross her face as she turned her attention to the reports from her spies. A group as corrupt as the Federation had to have some enemies she could use…
What they asked, it was a lot.
What they offered, was it enough to make it worthwhile?
It wasn't as if he had any love for the Federation or their puppets, but they could be dangerous when aroused. In time, they would certainly realize his involvement and then his little empire would be in jeopardy.
But would they get that time?
They were already weakened, the Borg, the Dominion War, and this new threat… this potential new windfall.
Big risk but gloriously rich reward.
He would have to risk his tools within the ranks of the Federation and tools such as these would be difficult to replace if this should not work out, plus there was always the risk that they weren't truly his tools.
Risk.
Reward.
He would meet them again, learn more. Discuss this 'Nish'ta' they were offering to demonstrate as well. If it was truly as they described, it could indeed be quite valuable to him.
Otherwise… well, it would be no skin of his noses if they failed to survive the meeting.