A/N: More action!
Reviews are welcome!
Chapter 15 – Ground Battle part 1
The Asgard fleet dropped out of hyperspace in orbit of the Replicator home planet.
"Reading multiple replicator fleets coming our way!" said Thor.
"How many?" asked Minos.
"Too many. Over five thousand ships alone."
"Damn. We must hurry. Bring us down to the surface."
As Thor brought his ship through the dense atmosphere of the planet, the rest of the Asgard fleet stood in the formation Minos had thought. Not that it would have much effect with the amount of replicators in this system, and the ones coming.
The Solar system where the replicator homeworld was localised, had once had over eighteen planets, from which five gas planets with moons, and several asteroid belts. The replicators had absorbed all that mass in their own. Only on the outer edges of the solar system was one planet-sized object partially made of rock. It was slowly being absorbed and transformed into new replicator blocks.
Half of that planet, an icy ball of rock and stone nearly ten billion miles from the star away, was already Replicator. It was quite a sight, the surface of the planet being scarred by trillions upon trillions of replicators, spreading out in large patterns.
Most of the replicators in the solar system, however, had positioned themselves around the planet on which the chair was located. A massive ball of replicators had formed there, nearly ten times as big as Earth. The replicators that did not form part of the planet, had made an incredibly large structure around the planet.
The structure itself was sphere-like, but there were several large holes in it. It looked like a huge, circular spider web, only with much thicker threads. There was also a structure around the sun, made of two broad rings around the star. They were, presumably, for energy, though the replicators wouldn't really need that.
While Thor's new ship, from which he did not know the name, descended down into the atmosphere of the planet, the remainder of the Asgard fleet stood in a large wig-like formation. They fired at will at every piece of replicator they could find, which wasn't really hard in this solar system. There were billions of smaller lumps of replicators flying around the solar system. They probably once were comets or smaller asteroids which were absorbed by the replicators.
The Asgard ship Thor piloted broke through the clouds on the replicator homeworld.
"Holy shit!" O'Neill exclaimed.
"That is amazing!" said Carter
"It is indeed sacred manure we are in, O'Neill. This planet had completely been absorbed by the replicators. There are so many of them, it is nearly overloading my sensors. There is but one object on the entire planet not made of replicators, and that is the chair." Said Thor.
"Can you transport us there?" asked Minos.
"Almost, in twenty seconds."
"Everybody, stand ready to engage in immediate ground combat with countless replicators. We must reach the chair as soon as possible. It will be a sprint of a mile long." Minos said to the team.
"Everybody ready?" he said.
"YES!" the team said.
"Good luck." Thor said, as he transported the team away.
The team was transported to the planet. The formed a circle, each covering the others backs. They were in a completely flat environment. The ground was made of pure replicators, covered by a layer of dust. There was only a plain flatness of replicators as far as the eye could reach.
"Come on!" Minos said, as he started to make a run for the chair.
The others followed, and Minos slowed his tempo a little bit so everybody could keep up. They travelled nearly one-hundred metres before they saw the first replicator form come to life. It was one of the smaller replicators, used for scouting. It was about the size of a large tarantula. It came almost 'growing' out of the ground, being formed by replicator blocks that awoke from their dormant state.
"Wait. Don't shoot it yet. Keep running!" Minos said as he saw O'Neill and Jacob raise their guns to shoot the newly-created replicator form. "As soon as you damage it, the whole planet is gonna come to life."
The group kept running, but the replicator quickly caught up with them, increasing speed as it walked. It was weird to see the replicator adapting itself for aerodynamics as it walked. The group managed to run another hundred metres before the first replicator scout caught up with them.
"Shoot it!" Minos said.
O'Neill and Jacob both took a shot at the replicator form, and two bullets later the thing was destroyed. The kinetic energy of the bullets was enough to permanently shatter the connections between the blocks, and to damage them.
Though the first replicator form was now dead, it was not long before more started forming. Piles of replicator blocks came from under the ground, in various sizes, to form various replicator forms. Most were the smaller spiders like the first one, others were larger spiders, almost one meter in length and some, further away, were the huge replicator motherbugs, several metres high.
"RUN!" screamed Minos.
Everybody started running for their lives. They still had twelve-hundred metres to run before they would reach the location of the chair. The only problem was, there was no chair visible.
"It must be underground." Said Minos softly to himself.
After two hundred metres the first wave of replicators had finally caught up with them. Hundreds of smaller spider-like replicators came charging at the team.
"Fire at will!" O'Neill yelled as he turned around to shoot several of the replicator spiders.
"Keep running!" screamed Minos.
"Fire while running! It won't matter what you hit, it's either replicator or air." Screamed O'Neill.
The team managed to run another one-hundred and fifty metres before the replicator flow became too much. The smallest spiders could be killed with only one shot, but the larger ones needed more than ten bullets to go down permanently.
Minos saw that the team wasn't going to make it. There was still eight-hundred and fifty metres left to cover, and he had to give the team more time. He could make it, but the team couldn't.
"Everybody! Keep running! I'll hold them off!" screamed Minos, as he stopped running.
"But what..." Carter started.
"GO!" he screamed.
The team turned around, firing at the occasional spider that wasn't interested in Minos at the moment. Minos waited patiently for the Replicators to come, running in a mild jog behind SG-1. The replicators were drawn to him, he made sure of that. And soon, they would meet Durandal and Excalibur.
The first spiders caught up with Minos, and they jumped right at him. He flashed his one of his swords, which were actually twins, and the Replicator form exploded into pieces. He jogged backwards, taking care that no replicator could jump him from behind.
Many smaller spiders lunged at him from the front, and he killed them all with quick slashes from his swords. Then the larger spiders came.
The first one came charging straight to Minos, front legs raised to stab Minos down.
"Wrong choice, buddy." Said Minos, as he dismembered both legs with quick flashes from his swords.
The replicator hissed in anger, and charged forward with the intention of 'biting' Minos.
Minos had seen the attack coming, and he stabbed both of his swords forward, straight through the 'face' of the replicator. The replicator exploded into a large frenzy of flying blocks that shot the two charging smaller spider straight out of their jump. Minos swung both of his swords, and the smaller replicators fell apart.
Meanwhile the team had almost covered three-hundred metres, and they were now being assaulted by another army of replicators that had circled around Minos.
"Minos!" screamed Daniel.
Minos turned around mid-swing, decapitating two more larger spiders, and saw that the team was in trouble. One of those mammoth replicator mother-bugs had almost reached them. Bullets did not really do any damage to it, they only angered it more.
Minos knew that he had to do something about that. He charged forward, both swords swinging wildly around him, killing any replicators that came into his path. Ten seconds later he reached the Replicator mother bug.
The bug did not see him coming, nor did she expect that Minos would stab both swords in her as far as his momentum would allow. The Mother-bug let out a terrifying howl-like sound as she went down. Minos jumped from the pile of loose replicator-bricks, and saw the team standing.
"RUN!" he yelled.
The team immediately started to run to the location of the chair, and Minos joined them, covering their backs. He instinctively lashed out behind his back with one of the swords, cutting down one of the smaller replicator spiders that came a little too close. The death of a mother-bug had apparently made an impression on the replicators, because they mostly kept their distance.
Daniel screamed "Guys! Look in front of us!"
Minos turned around and saw what was there. Two-hundred metres in front of him, where the location of the chair was supposed to be, where about five replicator mother bugs, surrounded by thousands of larger spiders and millions of smaller ones.
"Fire at will!" Minos screamed.
The continuous firing slowed their progress forwards, but the streams of bullets from the machine guns ate away all the smaller replicators, and damaged the large ones. Minos ran to the front of the team when they almost reached the barricade of Mother-bugs. He charged forwards.
Minos's swords seem to hack and slash everywhere, being everywhere at the same time and changing direction halfway through blows. He took out a hundred of the larger spiders before he reached the first mother-bug.
Minos charged head first to the Mother-bug, but he only barely managed to avoid the sharp spike that shot out of it, aimed right for his head. He swung Excalibur around to cut the spike off, and it worked. With Durandal he hacked straight into the face of the mother bug. It screamed out in anger, because it couldn't feel pain, and stabbed at Minos again with another spike. He dodged this one too, and he swung both swords around to stab the mother-bug into the face again.
This seemed to do the trick, because the mother-bug vaporized into a pile of loose replicator-bricks. Minos saw that now left and right of him were mother-bugs, while SG-1 kept firing at the everlasting armies of smaller bugs.
He mused that if this trick worked, the replicators were exceptionally stupid. He jumped up, right between both replicator mother-bugs. As he'd expected, both shot out the large 'spike' that had surprised him earlier.
But this time, instead of stabbing each other with it like he had hoped, the Mother-bugs spikes seemed to stick to the other. Two bridges of spikes were formed, and immediately four more spikes came charging out of the backs of the mother-bugs. Minos quickly saw what was happening, and he couldn't handle one mutated-super-mother-bug made of replicators.
He quickly cut the connecting spikes between the mother-bugs. They kept shooting spikes at Minos, and he kept dodging them and severing the connections between the mother-bugs. Though he kept severing them, the mother bugs did not seem harmed by the continuous loss of limbs. Minos had to do something.
He quickly found the answer in focussing on one of the mother bugs. The other would try to charge him, but he could evade their blows for a while. He jumped on the back of the replicator mother bug, and he slashed and hacked away pieces of replicators as fast as he could. With a series of quick slashes, the mother-bug was down. The other mother-bug went down just as fast.
Minos looked up to see how much he had to do. There were still five mother-bugs around the chair, forming a tight barricade. On his other side, he kept hearing gunfire, and he saw SG-1 standing in a complete circle firing everything they'd got at the oncoming charge of replicators. But Minos looked further, and he saw that there was no stopping. Massive armies of Replicators were being awakened, flooding the plains around them with replicators. Large mother bugs, the tanks of their armies, were surrounded by hundreds of large spiders, which in turn almost walked on a carpet of smaller spiders. There was no stopping this army.
Minos heard a strange sound, and he looked around. The five remaining mother-bugs had fused together with each other and several thousands of other spiders to form a gargantuan super-bug. It towered over one-hundred metres tall.
"Fuck" was all that Minos managed to say at that time.