DR: I am SO sorry for the delay people. FF had some kind of fault earlier that prevented me from uploading this. With that, we'll jump right in...
Chapter 13: Shattered Fist
Achilles leaned back in his seat, taking a few microns – minutes, he corrected – to relax. Mal's adventure on the planet had been stressful for them all.
A twinge in his side made him grimace. He had made a fully recovery, but the doctors had warned him that he might experience odd aches from his injuries. Little reminders of how badly he had been hurt. Not that he was likely to forget himself. The event was pretty much engraved into his brain.
Sighing, he pushed that thought aside, favouring instead to not think of anything much, letting his gaze rest on an image of Athena that rested on his desk...
The buzz of the intercom ruined the quiet moment. "Bridge to Colonel Achilles."
Another sigh, this one of exasperation, escaped Achilles lips as he reached over and thumbed the console. "Yes?"
"Sir, long range sensors are picking up a number of large craft moving to intercept our course. Four have been confirmed as Alliance Cruisers."
Instantly Achilles training and experience took over, all annoyance gone. "Sound the alert. I'm coming up."
Even before he stepped out of his quarters the alert siren began its two tone wail. There was a fast paced bustle around him as he strode towards the bridge. Achilles could picture what was going on throughout the mighty ship. Not that removed from such service himself, he knew the pilots would have reacted instantly to the alert, jumping up and running for the launch bays, grabbing jackets and helmets en-route. Crewmen would be leaping up from their bunks, some still asleep even as they reached vertical. The ship itself came alive, as the circuit that triggered the alarm also pre-started the weapon systems, a refinement developed to cut the delay between an alert being called and the ship being combat ready. By now the storage cells would already be humming as they held the enormous charges needed to fire the battlecruiser's deadly weapons. Blast doors would be sliding into place, and the integrated shield generators would start crackling about now, ready to project the wondrous shield bubble that would hold back hostile fire.
The bridge echoed with status reports detailing his ships readiness as he stepped into it. "Situation report." He called as he stepped up to the command podium.
"Sir, nine ships have cut across out path to the target world and have come about to face us head on. Scans suggest seven light cruiser equivalents, plus two frigate equivalents." His XO reported.
Achilles nodded as he sank into his chair, one of the few things he had demanded for his ship, back at the Scorpia Shipyards. A Lifetime ago it seemed. "Form scans?"
"Coming up now sir." The senior sensor operator called. "We have four confirmed Alliance Cruisers, plus three unknown designs." She added.
Achilles turned his attention to the large screen in the bank before him. Outlines of the new ships quickly formed, giving a good look at all three new designs. The first was clearly a warship, a long, thick bar with engines at one end. A ring surrounded the ships waist, from which there were eight large protrusions. Achilles would be very surprised if those weren't weapons.
The second followed a similar design principle to the first, and had elements that tied it with Colonial design. It had a sharp, arrowhead prow that emerged from under a shell of thick armour that covered almost the rest of the ship. The whole design was similar to a short dagger, with the engines forming the grip. It struck Achilles that this was a more modern design than either of the others.
The last craft was the frigate. A narrow, wedge shaped prow led into a thin hull, with long, slightly tapered fins that rose vertically either side of the engines. What really drew Achilles attention was the massive turret that sat on the hull just before those fins. Easily making up a quarter, if not more, of the ships mass, the twin barrels on that turret were almost a third of the length of the ship itself.
After studying the images for a few more moments, Achilles looked up to his crew.
"Helm, bring us up to half speed. Communications, tell Serenity to hang back. No need to risk her in this."
Thunderchild eased forwards, interposing herself between the Alliance ships and Serenity. For the next few minutes, everyone waited, wondering what the Alliance wanted.
They knew soon enough.
"Attention 'Colonial' vessel. You have violated Alliance controlled space, and fired on Alliance shipping. You are to power down and surrender your ship and crew for war crimes. If you do not surrender, we will use deadly force."
"Sir, we're picking up launches from the cruisers. More gunships, plus smaller craft."
"Fighters..." Achilles muttered to himself. "Very well. Stand by to launch fighters. Open a channel." He breathed deeply before speaking again, this time addressing his words to the Alliance captains.
"Alliance ships, this is the Colonial Battlecruiser Thunderchild. We came here on a peaceful mission, but were forced to defend ourselves from your own ship, the Dominator. We will not stand down to your blustering. Surely the Dominator's captain relayed our message?"
There was a long pause from the other end of the channel, while ahead the Alliance fighters and gunships formed a screen ahead of the larger ships.
"We got the message all right. The deaths of over seven hundred Alliance personal, as well as the destruction of the Dominator, are on your heads."
Achilles frowned. "We did not destroy the Dominator, only crippled her..."
"Do not lie!" The unnamed Alliance commander snarled. "Surrender now, or face the consequences!"
Achilles sighed. This was about to get ugly. Cutting the channel, he turned to address his crew.
"Positive shields. Launch fighters... now."
"Energy shields sir?" Before Achilles could answer, another crewman called out.
"Sir, Vega is requesting permission to mobilise."
Achilles allowed a chuckle to escape his calm. "Negative. Tell Vega to tell the Fury that there'll be other battles to fight. That zoid is our Wild Card. I want to keep them a secret as long as we can. As for the energy shields..." He pondered the issue for a moment. "Activate the generators, but hold the shields down for the moment. I want to bring them up as soon as possible, if they're needed." As his orders were relayed, Achilles turned to regard one monitor, showing the Vipers leaping from their tubes.
X-X-X-X-X-X
Starbuck smiled as he led Blue Squadron across space off the Thunderchild's left bow. Boomer took Red in a mirror position on the starboard, and ahead was a screen of Alliance fighter type craft and their 'gunships', though Starbuck was inclined to re-name them 'Missile Lugging Targets'. Clearly designed to operate in an atmosphere, they were poorly set up for space combat. The fighter craft looked more the part, though their formations and deployment were still clearly rooted in atmospheric thinking.
Behind him, Blue Squadron was in attack 'formation', ready to pounce. 'Formation' could only be used loosely, since it was simply that all craft were within a set distance of the lead ship, his. Colonial Warriors were trained first to fight independently, then to work together. In the high speed, darting and totally relative realm of space combat, it was all too easy to loose track of your wingman, and to be picked off while looking for him. So the Colonials took that requirement out of Warrior flying, and the effect had been apparent almost straight away. Kill-to-Loss ratios went up.
Starbuck looked over his right shoulder. Thunderchild seemed to be crouched, ready to be unleashed on the inferior ships that dared challenge her.
Ahead, beyond the screen of fighters and gunships, the Alliance warships were in a nice formation. The four 'Dominator' type cruisers formed a square plane at the rear, with the three other cruiser types in an arrowhead formation just in front, the sleek, modern craft took point. The two smaller ships were on the flanks and already moving up.
He could see individual fighters now, in flights of three each. The 'fighters' were blocky, inelegant craft, with a distinct lack of grace.
Then his sensors started warbling as across the four monolithic cruisers missile plumes erupted all across their surfaces, thin vapour trails tracing the arcs of the warheads as they swung about to bear into towards the Colonial battlecruiser.
It was the sign. "Blue Squadron, launch missiles, then break and engage!" Starbuck ordered as his thumb struck the missile launch button before mashing down on the 'turbo' button on his flight stick. The whine of the trio of ion engines was replaced by a roar as he was pushed back into his seat; the turbo's were so powerful they overwhelmed the force shield that cancelled out gee-forces for a few moments. All around him the other Vipers leapt forwards.
The Alliance pilots were several seconds from firing range when the oncoming fighters released missiles... and leapt forwards right on the missiles heel's. Even as the front flights began to evade, the Colonials opened fire, brilliant red darts lashing out from their wing mounted pulse lasers. Alliance fighters died as their pilots suddenly had to try and avoid incoming missiles, the laser blasts, and the charging Vipers as well. Very few managed all three.
Blue Squadron tore through the front rank in seconds, and continued to burn hard and crashed into the second. Those fighters scattered, their cohesion in tatters after the Colonial assault. Many of the pilots were shocked at the raw speed of the Colonial craft... shock which cost them dearly as they fell prey to the deadly bolts.
Cutting his turbo, Starbuck swung round and settled on the tail of a gunship that had gone wide. The much larger craft swung its nose towards the main fight, but before it could do anything else Starbucks lasers tore into it. The slender fuselage ruptured as the fuel went up.
On the other side of the battle, Red Squadron achieved the same effect, only that Boomer had his squadron lock their missiles onto the larger gunships that trailed behind the fighters. The Alliance pilots, thrown off by the stream of missiles that raced past them – but didn't try to track them – were cut apart by accurate laser fire.
In the middle space lit up with dozens of detonations as the point defence lasers on the Thunderchild swatted missile after missile away. Two larger, faster missiles fired by the lead cruiser type were taken out just as easily as the missiles fired from the other four. The mass of explosions detonated close to a formation of Alliance fighters... too close. Several were consumed by the fireballs before they cleared the larger ships lines of fire. The final two cruiser type craft, which had not launched any missiles, powered forwards. Or rather, began to slowly over take their arrowhead shaped consort. The frigates on the flanks began to cut inwards, clearly aiming to cut across the battlecruisers stern, to strike at her engines.
The Alliance fighters began to recover from the shock, and started to engage. The Vipers were much, much faster and heavily armed, but the Alliance craft had one advantage; they could strafe, flying in one direction with the crafts nose – and thus the weapons – pointed in another.
Tentatively the Alliance pilots began to fire back, bursts of tracer whipping out from their lightweight railguns. However, the speed of the vipers was too great at first, racing in too fast to track. Each time a pilot lined up a shot, the Viper would dart away in a manoeuvre that should have left the pilot nothing more than a red stain in the crafts cockpit.
Finally one of the squadron leaders got into a perfect position, and he cut loose with his guns. The morale of the Alliance pilots was crumbling rapidly, they needed a kill against these strange fighters otherwise the whole force might break and run. Pushing his engines to full, he rocketed after the Viper, cannons hammering.
The rounds streaked across the gap between the two fighters... and then sparked off the energy shield that surrounded the Viper that up till this point had been undetected. Some did get through, but their motion was so retrograded that the effect they had on the Viper was same as thrown dry sponges.
Suddenly, the Viper he was firing on seemed to stop almost completely dead, and the Alliance pilot had to juke upwards to avoid a collision. Realising that the hostile was behind him now, he tried to jink away, but twin red bolts sheared his engines off before the fighter exploded in a bright flare of flame.
Starbuck swooped away from the dying fighter. Despite being back in a Viper, he felt only a little of thrill he got when engaging the Cylons. Looking at the fight, he realised why.
Firstly, the Alliance was so out classed it was not even funny any more. The Colonials weren't fighting these pilots, they were simply slaughtering them. So far not even one Viper had been destroyed, while the Alliance craft were being cut to ribbons.
Secondly, and more profoundly, was the simple fact that the pilots of those craft were human. It was easy to hate the Cylons, unfeeling, near mindless machine drones. But these were human beings just like him. They had hopes, dreams and families of their own. Starbuck had, in the past, been directed to engage pirates and other renegades back home a couple of times, and each time it left a sour taste in his mouth. But this was worse. These pilots weren't criminals, or pirates, but men just following orders.
Then one broke off the battle and raced for the Alliance Cruisers at full burn. Then a wing pair, then another one... then the whole lot were breaking away and fleeing for home. Starbuck sighed in relief. A couple of Vipers turned to follow.
"Let them go guys." Starbuck ordered. "Their no threat to us."
As Blue Squadron formed up, Starbuck called for a status report. As he half expected, not one Viper was lost. A few of the rookie pilots had allowed themselves to get caught in crossfire, with damage inflicted. Nothing serious though.
A bright blue flash caught his eye, and Starbuck turned his head to look. One of the frigates had fired its oversized main gun, and the blue bolt had struck Thunderchild on her port wing, striking one of the square panels that formed the outer hull of the ship there. Small chucks of metal whirled away from the hit...
X-X-X-X-X-X
"Damage report!"
"Direct hit to port wing sir. Thirty-percent damage to armour plate. No breach."
Achilles heaved a slight sigh of relief. He'd wanted to know just what the Alliance weapons could do. So far, the oversized, relatively primitive pulse laser system on the frigates was the most dangerous they had seen.
He glanced at the latest screen to be added around his command chair. One of the zoid based upgrades allowed for a real time, exact display of damage to the ship, regardless of the severity. With it, he could see at a glance where his armour was thinning, were the hull breaches were, even where power systems were shorted.
On the screens, the two block shaped cruisers had closed in, and were beginning to fire their ring mounted guns. Even as their first shots reached out for them, Achilles nodded. "All stations, fire."
The crew had not been idle while they waited for the Alliance to close. They had been scanning the ships, looking for weak points and other places where they could cripple them with destroying them. Now with those targets locked into the firing computers, the weapons opened up.
From the bow a beam lashed out, slicing right through the middle of one of the rear-guard cruisers, separating the two towers. The beam on the other side sliced into the guts of the assault cruiser to starboard, ripping it open like a scalpel. The deadly beam slid along the cruisers belly before boring into the engineering spaces. The cruisers engines sputtered and died as all power failed.
The other cruiser suffered a deluge of medium turbolasers, each blast taking out thrusters, weapons and sensors. In a matter of seconds the cruiser was rendered blind, toothless and with no means of control. Ahead, the sleek ship suffered twin megalaser attacks, each pair of blue-white bolts vaporising the missile bays and gutting the cruisers mid-section. The third dorsal megalaser stabbed off to the side, and with a brilliant flash they disintegrated the turret housing for the frigates main gun. With one strike, the small warship was rendered a non-threat.
The other frigate had been more accurate with its fire, and had annoyed the Colonial crew. That frigate was sliced open from bow to stern by one of the Thunderchild's side mounted beam lasers. The frigates hull peeled back from the deep gash.
The three keel mounted megalasers focused their fire and broke another 'Tower' type cruiser in two, their triple blasts achieving the same result as the beam had on the other ship. Finally, numerous light turbolaser turrets tracked and destroyed several larger fighter type craft, and their escorting gunships, which had been setting up for an attack run on the Colonial warship. The survivors scattered and fled back to their home ships.
Within the space of a minute, the bulk of the Alliance fleet was taking out of the fight.
For a long moment, no shots were fired. The Alliance fighters, greatly reduced in strength and numbers, regrouped around the two remaining active cruisers. Both Viper squadrons gathered on each side of Thunderchild, while from behind her Serenity eased up. Of the other Alliance ships, only the one frigate was capable of moving itself, the rest were adrift.
Achilles waited a few seconds longer, then motioned to his officers to hail the Alliance. "Attention Alliance vessels. Do you yield?"
The same person as before came on, though the view was broken a little by static. The bridge behind him was smoke filled, and over the audio the wailing of alarms could be heard. The man's pose was one of defect. "Colonial vessel... yes, we... surrender."
Achilles smiled. "No, not surrender. Just a ceasefire. We'll leave the field of battle now, and allow you to tend to your wounded and rescue trapped crewmen. Which reminds me, we picked up almost sixty personal from the Dominator, left behind when your ship fled. I'm going to release them into your care. They will confirm what I told you before, that we did not destroy their ship."
On the screen the other man straightened a little. "Thank you. We'll send a transport for them."
Achilles nodded before signing off, least his feelings escaped onto his face. Letting them collect their prisoners was the smart thing to do – it allowed them to salvage some honour, as well as eliminated the risk of them taking a Colonial shuttle – but something didn't feel right...
O'Neill: This isn't going to be good...
McQueen: I'm a Car, and even I could of told you that!
DR: Once again, I apologise for the delay people. I'll try and make it up to you all...