Chapter 14: The ones forgotten about
Jenny Revell and John Andrews, both Thunderbolt pilots and squadron commanders for the extra-dimensional battlefortress ZSMF Archangel, where relaxing in one of the officers lounges looking at the only photo's they had of happier times back in flight school which showed their son Wyatt and smiled. In the image he was smiling while floating in a swimming pool, he had his mother's deep green hair but his father's sly grin, and Andrews couldn't help but feel a small tug of pride swell in his chest. "He has your hair."
"I know, but he also has your attitude." Revell said half sarcastically as she shook her head, "I can't get him to take anything seriously."
"Well he is only four," Andrews replied with a smirk, "he'll have plenty of time to get serious about things."
Jenny sighed heavily as she turned to face Andrews. "You see? This is exactly why I was reluctant to tell you about him, he should be thinking about his future and you act like it means nothing when he doesn't." She said her voice filling with venom.
Andrews starred at her for a moment, as the Archangel travelled through hyper-space the asteroid field in the Lantea system, before bursting out laughing. "Keelah, you're serious aren't you?" He said as he realized she was completely serious. "Geez Jen, the boy is only four years old! Let him be a kid for fracks sake!"
"Like you were?" Revell shot back defensively, completely forgetting their current situation, "I don't know if you understand this captain Andrews, but life is a whole lot different outside of Neo Macross city. Growing up on an orbiting mining station didn't leave a lot of time for fun and play, we didn't have all the money and luxuries that you and your friends had growing up, we had to work hard from the time that we could use a hydro-spanner."
Andrews shook his head, "Look," he said, "I understand…"
"No you don't!" Revell interrupted, practically shouting at her ex-fiancé, "How could you? Your parents were rich corporate executives who could afford to let you do whatever you wanted. NO, we had to get by with what we could make from the scrap which we could salvage or what we could dig up from the mines, and even then it was barely enough to put food on the table at times! There was no running off to the movies to see the latest films out of New Alexandria for us! No we had to work HARD every day just to make ends meet."
Revell paused for a moment to get her emotions under control before turning an icy glare on Andrews, with tear filled eyes. "I swore that I wasn't going to live my life doing what my family had done for the last few generations. I wasn't going to get stuck processing Trilithium and the other alloys needed for day to day life. That's why I worked so hard to get into the academy back home. That's why I worked so hard in flight school."
Andrews nodded, remembering how hard she had worked during basic flight-school. "I know you worked your butt off Jenny, I saw you do it, but every single one of us worked just as hard." He said calmly as the mighty battlefortress exited hyper-space and slowed as it entered into orbit of the asteroid sized moon of one of the gas-giants of the Lantea system.
"Not everyone," Revell said shaking her head in disbelief, "people from the Lagrange points, orbital colonies, Luna cities and Earth had it a whole lot easier than the rest of us."
"That's not true!" He spat defensively.
"Oh!" Revell said knowing. "How many people from our graduating class where from Eden Prime, Mars, Babylon Quintus or any of the frontier colonies? Well, how many?"
Andrews made to answer but she held up a hand to forestall him. "Just eight." She said, "Just the eight of us from a class of a hundred! The remaining ninety-two cadets were from the L-points, Orbitals, Luna and Earth."
Andrews held up his hands in surrender knowing how this was a sore subject with his ex. "Look I get it, I do and why you feel this way, but I'd hate to get back home to find that our son had lived like that."
"He's not our son!" Revell snapped defensively, "You weren't there for his birth and you sure as hell haven't been there all these years. What the hell makes you think that you can just waltz in when we make it home and dictate terms?"
This time Andrews stood, his own anger beginning to overwhelm him. "I am not dictating anything," He said clenching his fists. "and as for me not being there, well you made damn sure of that didn't you?" saying that he spun on his heal and stormed out of the lounge leaving Revell alone at the table that they had been using.
After a few minutes in which she downed the rest of her drink, she realized how she was wrong to have said what she had to him, but she couldn't help it. In her mind he had grown up a spoilt little rich kid who knew nothing of hard work or living hand to mouth, and she didn't want that for her son.
In fact she was willing to do anything to make sure that it didn't happen. Gathering the few PADD's and the small holo-displayer she had stealing herself as she stood and headed back to her cabin just down the hall from the officers lounge so she could be alone with her thoughts. Making sure that she had locked the hatch she sat on her bunk throwing the PADD's and holo-displayer on her desk before she curled up and began to cry.
-{[]}-
As Revell slowly started to cry in the safety of her quarters, the Archangel moved on the asteroid sized moon, descending into a low orbit before hovering over a very large crater at the edge of a mountain range with impact craters on its northern most boarder.
Suddenly green beams of light began to shoot out from the lower hull of the type two battlefortress, dancing across the base of the mountain range and a part of the crater, removing entire building sized sections of the surface, disintegrating them in an instant. This process continued for several hours until the beams changed over to a blueish white colour and began replacing the things that they had removed.
The moon now had a long hole, two kilometers wide by fifteen kilometers long. The beams began to place walls and floors in the hole. Soon the whole crevice was completely covered again, with a layer of rock and dirt thrown on top of it for camouflage and protection. The large hole at the base of the mountain that had been made to serve as a hanger for the Archangel, its destroid detachment and its veritech air wing. Here they could be repaired and possibly upgraded during their stay in this universe.
Once their base had been finished, the Archangel slowly landed in the new hanger that has just been created to act as a dry-dock while the vast majority of the MACO's and crew began to disembark and enter the main living habitat section deeper in the base built under the mountain range on the moon. It was here that they began to fill up the various rooms with equipment and personal items. They had a number of training rooms, several weapons rangers that included ship and urban combat training simulators, science and astrometric labs, even a replica of 'Pops Bar' from the famous Macross island. Over all the layout and feel was similar to that of any star base within the Earth Sphere Unified Nation back home with the exception that all of the signage on the base was in Zentron to maintain their cover.
They even managed to make a weapons plant so that they could finally replenish their depleted stocks of Korinthos photon torpedo's and Neidhart quantum battle station buster missiles, but it would be unable to make the newer trans-phasic drones since they were missing a key element Kironide with which to energize the phase shifting components of the weapon. Outside the base were several surface to orbit Gottfried cannons, similar to those gifted to the Tau'ri for their ships only more powerful, ready to defend the base from any possible threat.
Within the spacious main briefing room, which overlooked the docking bay for the Archangel, the members of the senior staff were currently sat around the table which was a copy of the one in the main briefing room of the ship.
"Great work Murdoch, it looks just like star base 002 back home." Hudson said giving the Trojan engineer praise.
"Well it was not hard sir." He replied, "I and executor Granger just tweaked the plans for a standard base which was in the main computer with what we required and the additions we were making and the system did the rest." Murdoch said in his typical Trojan completeness as he gave a small nod to the man that a year ago would have had gladly scrubbing the plasm manifolds with a tooth brush.
"So let's hear about what's new in the base." Dvorak asked generally wanting to know what the two men had created, since she hadn't looked over the final plans.
Granger nodded and stood up, activating one of the rooms holo-projectors, another of the improvements that had been made that allowed them to project holo-screens anywhere within the base and allow Doctor Smiths program access to the whole facility, as well as the Archangel while docked. "Well for starters, the base has the protection of the asteroid and the mountain range, but we've also installed several regenerative shield systems and pin-point barrier systems that are tied into the sub-space cores and proto-culture generators, so it should be able to with stand a fair bit of damage. We have also set up several surface-to-orbit SMAC and Gottfried cannons of Imperial design. They are actually the same ones used on Imperial planetary defense stations, as well as a class three grand cannon array." He said as he explained the defensive capabilities of the base. "There are also several thousand living quarters, several training and weapons rangers spaced through each level, two dedicated medical and hospital sectors, a number of science labs and three full gyms with a swimming pool." He concluded eliciting a chuckle from the room.
"To provide main power we've installed several neutrino ion reflex reactors, two sub-space cores and a small proto-culture generation complex, as well as numerous class 6 anti-proton reactors for emergency power."
"It sounds like you think that we could be here for a while then?" Asked O'Neill, taking a sip of her hynerian tea, warily.
Cochrane sighed. "It was my idea ma'am. I have no theories' as to how this happened and I've stated several times I doubt that we have what we need to get home."
O'Neill nodded, not entirely happy with the explanation but knowing that Cochrane, and even some of hers and Sisko's people, had been working around the clock to look for any explanation as to how their dimensional jump had happened before they could even begin to look for a way home.
Murdoch continued to explain the details of the new base's layout and overall design, in essence the base had been designed and built from the ground up to be nearly impenetrable, by having all of the advantages that both the Macross Fleet and Imperial Star Forces had in their other star bases but none of the weaknesses.
"The hanger where we've docked the Archangel is designed so that it is similar to that of the main dry-dock outside of Neo Macross city, although it has several major modifications." Murdoch said as the hologram enlarged to show the hanger area. "The main feature is that we have replaced the traditional robotic style manipulation arms with Imperial tractor beam systems and ship style transporters so we can carry out a full level one repair, which we have been putting off since we arrived, as the small amount of damage which we have taken from the Goa'uld. It also has a manufacturing plant that uses the same system as those of the MACO repair bay, for the creation of spare parts and other equipment should we need them." He explained.
"So we might be able to make a Saber class scout if we needed to?" Asked Hudson remembering the suggestion from one of the first staff meeting following the jump.
Murdoch shook his head as he regretted making a mention of it in that last staff meeting with the late admiral so long ago. "In theory yes, but I'm afraid that the massive amounts of both power and materials needed would drain the reserves and other sources a fair amount. While the synthesizers can create the raw materials out of energy from the generators, but in order to do so it requires a lot of energy, however if we feed them ram materials into it then it can repurpose them and materialize it into what we need, so we will not lose that much energy." He said before looking down at the table. "However there is a problem, sir."
Hudson groaned, having a feeling he knew where this was heading. "Oh, what is it?" He asked praying that for once his gut was wrong.
"While there is Trinium and other key elements we would need to make a new ship, we have detected no amounts of Tiberian, Kironide and Ununhexium 292 based on the scans we've taken of the Tau'ri, Goa'uld and Asgard ships, so we won't be able to make a lot of things which are required for the construction of the FTL system and barrier arrays. Fortunately we do have a few supplies of them on the ship, but most of those will be used in repairing the damage already present, and they will only last so long." He explained.
And that was the problem, especially if they lose more of their remaining Ghost and Thunderbolts. He had hoped that they might be able to have been able to build a smaller class such as the Saber class tactical scout or a Charon class light assault ship, but those hopes had just been thrown out the airlock at hyper speed as Murdoch finished his report on their supply situation, before he pulled up a schematic of a weapon from the aliens that had jumped them when they had been en-route back to Lantea. "This is one of the weapons that we took from those aliens that forced us from FTL. Using the ships computers and the information that has been provided by the Asgard. My team and I have been able to figure out that it works by using an element with an atomic mass of zero to propel small needle size piece of metal to almost FTL speed by altering their mass. Surprisingly the concept of this type of weapon is very simple, but very effective."
"Deculture! A gun that fires at the speed of light, that's something I'd like to get my hands on." Sisko commented.
"This element is also what allowed them to travel at FTL in their attack and force us from FTL back into real space. I believe that with enough of this element and some minor modifications our weapons will be able to do the same."
"How about those personal shields that they used. Could we recreate them as well?" Asked Sisko with a hopeful look on his face.
Murdoch shook his head. "I am afraid not as we were unable to recover any of their shield systems, which only negate the kinetic energy, but even then they can only with stand up to so much based on our engagement with the unknown ship."
Cochrane then changed the image of the weapons recovered to that of a Thunderbolt's standard 40mm Shinsei Industry five barrel gunpod used by the Archangel's air wing and CIWS arrays.
"This brings me to the idea that ensign Rockwell and crewman Charger brought to me. We've learnt from our engagements that the shields of a Goa'uld ship can with stand a decent amount of damage from our gunpod's and CIWS. So in order to give them more of a bigger punch, they have proposed that we modify the CIWS, gunpod's, asynchronous linear-induction motors, or Gauss cannons, and Valliant linear plasma cannons to be in essence larger scale versions of the previous hand held weapons."
"And this helps us how?" Asked Newman slightly board of all the weaponese.
"Well basically, that ship uses a very large mass accelerator cannon to propel slugs the size of a DL-88 centipede to 1% the speed of light, which either shattered or squished up on impact, at a rate of one every ten seconds. Of course they couldn't keep it up forever due to major heat issues arising."
Pretty much everybody nodded along, except for Newman who was losing interest due to all of the technobabble.
"By using this element to modify our weapons, and by placing a block of for example Trinium inside, we would be able to fire much more powerful shots since the slugs would be propelled both magnetically and through the use of this element, meaning we wouldn't run out of munitions as often as we would normally since the rounds would be shaved off of the block would be smaller, but fired at a much higher rate of fire and with a greater velocity." Cochrane finished.
"What about those overheating issues that you talked about lieutenant. Won't we have to deal with them as well." Asked Welsh as she began to design some upgrades for her specter grade weapons for when she needed to deploy with the rest of devil squad.
"Well thanks to the materials which are used in the construction of the aforementioned weapons systems we don't need to worry about it that much, and the gatling style of the gunpod's and CIWS will help keep the excess amount of heat in check, now while these shots won't be as powerful as the one fired from that ship, but since these are far more Gauss cannons and railguns I have no doubt that once they are upgraded we would be able to punch through the hull of a Promethean ship with enough time." Cochrane explained.
"Didn't Macross fleet command provide the Archangel with new weapons before it left for the defense of Lantea? It was my belief that these weapons are almost as powerful as the main gun." Dvorak asked having read through the logs of the previous XO colonel Wildhorse.
Welsh and Newman nodded in agreement, having been involved with the refit. "Yep, I'm with the XO on this sir, I'd like to see those new trans-phased plasma cannons in action sir." Welsh exclaimed since they hadn't entered into the firing arcs for them with anyone in this universe yet.
Hudson smiled at the obviousness of the gun-bunny that was also the ships only Lacadaemoniis corps member and spec-ops commander. "Well so would I, but at the moment only those of us in the command crew know about them, so I was hoping to keep them in reserve just in case we needed them."
They could all see the logic in that, even if the resident gun-bunny lieutenant Welsh still wanted to see the new trans-phased plasma cannons lived to their design specs.
Hudson gave Cochrane the go ahead, and soon Cochrane, Murdoch and the vast majority of the engineering personal began to upgrade the CIWS, Gauss cannons, Valliant linear plasma cannons, Thunderbolt and Durandal gunpod's and the heavy cannons on the small number of Vickers Chrauler MBR-06 Mk IX Tomahawk main battle robot's and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries siege class mobile weapon HWR-00 Mk VIII monster long-range robot, luckily they had found a rather large amount of the strange element when they had disabled the unknown ship, but when they had boarded it they had discovered that the crew had committed mass suicide rather than face capture, but if they were to explore any further applications they would need more of it.
Several hours later the lights in what was jokingly being called star base Archangel, switched down to a low light setting signaling that it was the start of the first official third watch on the subterranean asteroid base, allowing the command crew to get their first decent night's sleep in over two long years.
-{[]}-
It had been several weeks since the crew of the Archangel had established their base and began their long overdue refit and upgrade of the ships weapons as well as their personal weapons to use the element that the unknown ship had used. This was no easy task since none of them really had any experience with this element, but the science and engineering teams had scanned the weapons that they had recovered and had begun to reverse engineer them and it was predicted that the upgrades to the weapons, which would turn them into rapid firing mass accelerators cannons and allow them to hold back on their still limited number of Korinthos photons and Neidhart battle station busters, would be complete within six weeks as well as the full restoration of the ships shield, pin-point barriers and ablative armor systems and would mean that they wouldn't have to expose anymore of the advanced robotechnology on the ship.
The crew had spent the rest of their time making some minor improvements to base, such as the personalization of their quarters or using the ships synthesizers to create a hydroponics lab and garden spaces to allow them to relax as well as grow food, and while they wouldn't be ready for a while, but once they where they would allow them to operate more independently without having to rely on the locals, and give them a past time with which to occupy themselves outside of constant training.
In one of the many training rooms that they had built for the crew, Hudson and Dvorak were sparing using wooden training staffs. Hudson took a deep and steadying breath, feeling the heat from his muscles begin to radiate away from him, as he raised his wooden staff up into a guard position and nodded to his opponent, across from him, dressed in the same type of protective clothing that he wore stood sub-commander Dvorak, her own wooden staff over her head ready for a slashing attack.
Moving with a speed and grace that belied her size and stature, Dvorak brought her own staff down in a powerful slashing motion, but halfway through she stopped and turned the attack into one aimed to take off his head.
Hudson, having been trained since birth in the most common and lesser known forms of staff combat, which coupled with his genetic enhancements, wasn't fooled by her attempted ploy, keeping his staff upright he shifted his stance and moved his staff to easily deflect the XO's blow.
Seeing that his opponent was off balance for a moment, Hudson stepped forward into the reverse arc and slipped so that he was behind her, all the while positioning his own training staff up so that it was resting on her shoulder right next to her neck.
"Quarter." She grumbled as some sweat ran into her eyes.
"Given." Hudson replied, tapping her on the head as she removed her own protective head gear.
With the match over, Hudson collected her training staff and walked over to the equipment locker which rested along the wall of the training room and opened it to hang up the two training staffs on the rack and began to remove his own head gear and protective padding that he was wearing while he had been sparing.
"Thanks for the work out amica mea." He said as he toweled of the worst of the sweat from his face.
"No problem," She replied as she began to remove the rest of her own protective gear, "but next time do me a favor, pick on Granger." She playfully said.
"No promises Karina," Hudson chuckled, "but it's kind of hard not to kick his ass, and it's kind of hard to find someone who actually knows any of the combat techniques I know much less someone who is rated anywhere near my level."
"Isn't colonel Sisko and gunnery-sergeant Forge rated as third degree masters with the bacukum telo, if I remember the personal records correctly."
"They should be," Hudson said tossing her a sports bottle with water in, "I trained them both and tested them."
"You trained both Sisko and Forge?" she asked shocked catching the tossed bottle.
"They were my first two students. It was just after I had finished competing in my first omnes capiae contrahantar olympias." Hudson smiled as Dvorak, the woman who he had given his heart to during the war, and who prided herself on knowing the details of everything which was going on around her, was floored by this news.
"You… you competed in an omnes capiae contrahantar olympias for the Macross fleet?"
"Three actually." Hudson said pulling on his old spec-ops leather training jacket, "won a silver in my last just before the war."
Dvorak looked as if she was ready to ask another question when the voice of lieutenant Welsh came through the main public address system. "Pass the word, commodore Hudson contact station operations."
Pulling the zip up on his jacket, Hudson walked over to the comm.-panel in the wall of the training room and keyed in the code for station operations. "This is Hudson."
""Sir," Replied the gruff voice of colonel Sisko through the small speaker above the comm.-panel, "We found something you should see."
-{[]}-
"Report." Hudson ordered as he strode into the stations command center which was the control room for the whole base.
"Sir as you know we've been upgrading the ships Thunderbolt and Durandal's gunpod's and other weapons, and so far all of the upgrades to the gunpod's are 95% complete. So far it seems that there are complications with the introduction of this element, and it hasn't interfered with any of the fighters systems, all we need to do is test them under combat conditions." Said Sisko.
"But that's not why you called me is it colonel?" asked Hudson.
"No sir, but we've found out what the name of the race that attacked us was, and how that Alteran station back in Sol has been tracking us."
"How and who?"
"The race is call the Ta-tanen, highly trained Jaffa loyal to the Goa'uld Ptah, and it seems that they attempted to take over the Earth's stargate command a few years ago, but they never discovered why."
"Ok, that answers the 'who', now to the how."
"Actually sir, it's been tracking the tracer signal that we've been broadcasting." Lieutenant Welsh said.
Hudson's face took on a new shade of colour as the implications of what Welsh reported began to strike home. The navigational system is an automated signal that the Archangel's navigational computer sent out on a specialized and encrypted low band frequency. It was used by the navigational computers to constantly update its position against the navigational drift calculations as well as letting other Macross Fleet ships and stations know its position with ships that were in communications range.
"How… how did you find it?"
"I noticed that there was a glitch whenever we were within range of any planet that has a stargate on." Welsh said. "It seemed to be taking twice as long to update and the information storage buffer seemed to be storing an excess amount of information. As soon as I noticed it I let the good colonel here know and began a line-by-line code diagnostic on the program."
"In short sir, our little gun-bunny here found a code attached to the update subroutine." Sisko said, "which means…"
Hudson nodded his head in understanding as he felt his stomach tighten with the implication. "It would seem that we have a stow-away on board."
"Not quite sir. It seems that when we docked at Anoke station it uploaded a simple mining VI, but there is another reason why I called you for this briefing. As you know, we took several key pieces of equipment from the Ta-tanen, including one of their personal digital controls that they call an omni-computer form an officer. I managed to crack the encryption on it and discovered the location of where they come from."
Hudson looked confused. "Aaannndd this is important because…" he wondered.
"I managed to sift through the data on the thing, and I found a list of … servas that they are keeping right now!" Spat Welsh, her Mardook heritage threatening to overtake her emotional control.
The whole of ops went silent, everyone quietly waiting to see what the commodore was going to do, but surprisingly it wasn't Hudson who spoke first.
"We need to go to that planet." Was all granger said from one of the lower levels, the steel and conviction evident in his voice.
Hudson, despite sharing the same view and beliefs as Granger on this topic, spoke in a level headed tone. "Executor I understand how you feel, but as much as I'd like too, we can't just charge in there cannons firing. They attacked us and we defended ourselves, but this is different, we're talking about launching a raid on a heavily fortified base, we at least need to try and negotiate for the release of the prisoners first."
Granger nodded as he stood and walked over to them. "Ok, I'll tell the crew to prep the ship, and have all of the upgraded systems ready to go and have them plot a course out to the asteroid field to take some pots shots for calibrations."
"And than we'll decide what to do."
"What about contacting the SGC?" Sisko suggested.
Welsh shook her head. "From what we've been able to learn from the SGC's files, they won't typically go after them and would rather open up talks, unless they can confirm that it involves their personal, and it seems that they are too little of a threat for the Goa'uld so they ignore them."
"Look, I think we can work that out after we have tested the upgrades to the Archangel's weapons." Hudson said, wanting to grab a quick shower before watching the new guns in action. Personally, he would have liked nothing more than to head to this servas base, extract all of the prisoners, and fire the main cannon at the base vaporizing the spawns of Khyron from existence, but ever since he became a commodore he started to see things in a different light. He supposed that it came with the job of being in charge, as well as stomach ulcer, not that he would ever admit it.
-{[]}-
A few hours later the Archangel was sitting in orbit of the asteroid moon. While the crew was going over some final checks to make sure everything was in working order with the upgrades. Murdoch was in engineering making sure that by doing these upgrades the other systems wouldn't be affected. Luckily the fully repaired reflex and sub-space drive core where working perfectly.
The battlefortress cruised slowly towards one of the two asteroid belts in the system at sub-light speed, since it was only a few hours out there so was no need to use the fold system, allowing the pilots to get to know how to use their upgraded gunpod's. After about half way to the belt O'Neill recalled the fighters so she could be on the bridge to see how the upgrades to the ships weapons had been worth the effort like that of the gunpod's and Monster and Tomahawk class destroid's.
"Alright lieutenant, commence test pattern sigma 37 omega." Hudson ordered.
"Yes sir." Welsh replied as she targeted a number of the larger asteroids, each around two kilometers in diameter, with the upgraded CIWS, Valliant linear plasma cannons and Gauss cannons. Almost instantly hundreds of thousands of rounds shot out from the Archangel, slamming into the asteroids that were targeted at two and half percent the speed of light, turning the two kilometer long iron and Trinium asteroids into debris in under three seconds.
"Impressive…" Commented Granger, the rest of bridge crew agreeing with him.
The Archangel spent the next three hours testing all of the new weapons as well as letting the Monsters and Tomahawks to test their systems. Following the successful test and a level two diagnostic of the upgraded systems the command crew moved to the bridge level observation to discuss there next step. The group was sitting around the table debating on whether or not to launch a raid on the base that was used by Ptah's forces.
"We can't just simply sit by and wait while these people are facing these people to be enslaved, more so since it seems that they have some Zentron prisoners." Granger stated.
"What if we tried to barter for them?" Suggested Campbell hoping that they wouldn't need to resort to the plan to blow them to hell.
"These Ta-tanen, especially slavers, see that they are above all others. The information we recovered has suggested that they hate humans, and will probably attempt to come after us and to take the ship the moment we open communications with them." Dvorak said explaining the situation.
"Alright then, we go with Welsh's plan, go in under full stealth from the edge of the system do a final recon of the planet, and then deploy devil squad to take out any slavers and secure any and all prisoners as well as any useful intel." Sisko suggested, much to his annoyance.
Hudson nodded his head, "Sorry Meer, but I agree with the executor on this one. If we were back home command would send in a black star team to deal with them."
"What if we encounter those shielded troops again, we can't afford to have any team get bogged down with a fire fight, since we only have so many personal and I for one don't think we can lose anybody else." Campbell asked, realizing that she may as well help out with the planning.
"This is going to be of the essence here boss, so I say we keep this brief," Suggested Newman, speaking for the first time in this meeting. "but didn't that last recon flight note two cruiser class ships docked to the orbital tether and several heavy lift type shuttles parked on the surface outside the complex's walls? In addition to all this, they intercepted several transmissions to and from the both the complex and tether to a small fleet of twenty Ha'tak class vessels a few jumps away. In short sir, I'd say that Ptah knows we are coming."
This announcement elicited a small groan from everyone in the observation lounge and Hudson knew why. Most of the ships MACO's that where assigned to the Archangel before the battle of Lantea where specialist in repelling boarders. It would be down to them to use the small contingent of MACO's that were used to planetary assaults.
"Okay people, stow it!" Campbell finally shouted, shocking the rest of the senior staff with the outburst, "We've been in worse situations since we've arrived in this dimension and we've stood up and done our sanguinam officium. We will do it again!"
"Meer's right." Hudson said from the head of the table while nodding to the woman who was like a little sister to him. "We've all been through an awful lot since the incident, some more than most. Every one of you has risen to the challenges making this one crew not two and in truth, I couldn't be more proud. Were the situation any different, I'd just let a black star team deal with this whole thing. You all know that the slavery is wrong and Ptah is the Goa'uld that is the most creative of all of them so who knows what he is having the slaves do. Still if any of you wish to not take part, I'll let you bow out with no dishonor or marks on your record."
Hudson paused as he looked over the senior staff, and where there had been fear and apprehension in the eyes of those who were his subordinates, there was only a steely resolve. Hudson nodded. "Good, now this is how we do it." He said activating the view screen to show a detailed scan of the Jaffa base and the nearby airfield.
"The Archangel will engage the cruisers in orbit and pull them out of the gravitation well to prevent them dropping reinforcement's groundside. Marauder will be the acting CAG, April your stay here to run the base, and his task will be to keep the enemy fighters occupied up here so that they can't interfere down there."
The commander pointed to a mountain range not for from the Jaffa base. "Here is where one of the two Daedalus II's will make planet fall. We'll drop first platoon with a hard drop to secure a landing zone via drop pods."
"They'll be awfully out in the open sir. Will they have any heavy weapons support?" Asked Sisko worried about his men.
"We're going to be deploying all of the Monster and Tomahawk destroid forces for this mission. They will have plenty of firepower to back them up." Hudson said with a small predatory smile. "Once the dropship has landed, we'll load up all of the MACO's on the Laser RAT's, Rail Gunners and Missile Foxes, as well as the full complement of FS3-Starsaber fighters for close air support, and move out for the base. Once there, we will blow in the front gate and make our way to the prisoners quarters and form a perimeter around it and get everyone out on those shuttles."
"What about those big guns on those automated defense arrays, sir?" Asked Cochrane.
"That's where lieutenant Welsh and her devil squad come in." Hudson replied as he gestured for welsh to take over. "Lieutenant if you would please."
"Sir." Welsh acknowledged Hudson's lead, "Devil squad will do a night time para-drop eight hours before the main force. We'll move in along this ridge line," she said pointing out the terrain feature on the map, "and enter the compound through this canyon. We will then make our way to the controls for the defense grid and destroy them, rendering the grids turrets inoperative."
"How long will it take you?" Asked Dvorak.
"We plan to have them down about five to ten minutes before the attack, ma'am."
"That's cutting it a bit close, lieutenant."
"Any earlier and we risk them getting the grid online again before we manage to get everyone out of there."
Dvorak nodded accepting Welsh's logic. "This is going to be tight then."
"Yes," Hudson replied gravely, "and we are probably going to lose a few people."
The commodore let this thought sink into the heads of his senior staff for a moment. It would be a very dangerous mission and he was sure that the next time that he saw some of their faces they would be from within a torpedo case.
"Okay, get with your section heads for more specific details and commence mission rehearsals immediately. The more we train now, the less we will bleed when the fighting starts."
"Sir, when do we go?"
"We jump in forty-eight hours. That's not much time so let's get to it."
-{[]}-
Kutukan, head of the Ptah's Ta-tanen for this base, smiled as he entered the small room which had been converted into an interrogation chamber. In the center of the room, shackled to a steel table lay the Tok'ra Kanan covered only by a set of half destroyed clothes. The temperature in the room was only a few degrees above the level for inducing hypothermia and the former slave was stretched out in a spread eagle fashion which didn't allow him to conserve any of his body heat. Of course, this wasn't the first time Kanan had been in this situation.
Since the fall of Anubis and Kanan's capture, Kutukan had found a perverse pleasure in torturing and humiliating the Tok'ra operative following his capture by his master Ptah. Officially, he put it down to wanting to break the Tok'ra spy in order to learn more of the Tok'ra's secrets.
In reality he despised the Tok'ra with every fiber of his being.
"Morning shol'va." Kutukan said with scorn dripping from his voice like venom. "Did you have a good sleep last night?"
On the table Kanan's fought to remain conscious and clear headed but it was difficult. He had gone six cycles with almost no sleep and he was shivering uncontrollably. His body ached from the repeated strikes it had received from the pain stick and he didn't have the strength to lift his head.
"That's okay, rest while you can. We have a long day ahead of us." He said raising his kara kesh to be begin the day's torturer.
-{[]}-
Several hours later the man, Kyle Rogers, that SG1 had meet a few years ago when he was being trained to impersonate a member of the SGC by Apophis, laid the badly beaten Tok'ra back against the softest material that he had been able to find in the ramshackle room that he and several other prisoners shared in the slave quarters.
"Easy now Kanan," Rogers said as Kanan whimpered in pain, "Everything is fine now, you're back with friends."
Kanan made no attempt to reply as he passed out again from the pain.
Rogers shook his head sadly, every seven cycles Kutukan would come and take Kanan away, sometimes for several cycles at a time. He would torture him to within an inch of his life then send him back along with food and some Tau'ri style medical packs for Rogers to patch him up. Then just as Kanan would start to regain some of his strength, Kutukan would come with two Jaffa and take him again.
Rogers had tendered to the Tok'ra's wounds and had done everything he could to try and keep the other man strong, but with every session the man and his symbiote grew weaker. Though he wouldn't admit it to anyone else but his prayers to the Ancients to give the pair strength, to allow them to pass on from this world so that wouldn't suffer anymore.
"We can't keep this up much longer." Said one of the other slaves named S'Kar as he attended to the cut's on the Tok'ra operatives chest. "This man won't survive another session."
Rogers nodded. "I know that S'Kar, but I'm sure that the Tau'ri or the Tok'ra are looking for him."
"Right." S'Kar said having faced the Tau'ri on multiple occasions. "The Tau'ri are probable dead thanks to Anubis, and what are they going to do without a Chappa'ai to get here."
Rogers smiled. "You would be surprised at what the Tau'ri can do with their small teams, remind me to tell you about the time SG1 helped me prove to a full planet of people being trained to attack the SGC that the Goa'uld are not gods."
"More history young one?" S'Kar asked with a smirk on his face. "Believe in the gate builders and all that."
"See even in your old age you are still teach an old Jaffa new tricks." Rogers joked to the older Jaffa warrior.
A voice from the shadows chuckled and Rogers turned to see the only woman in their section of the slave quarters, her face badly bruised and framed by dirty blue hair. "Maybe," said the woman who was known as Motoko Kusanagi of the PMC group Sandline Galactic Eternal class ship Quarter, "but if I know the crew of the ZSMF Archangel they will come to rescue us, but they had better get a move on or their won't be anyone left to rescue."
-{[]}-
"Battlestations! Battlestations! Set level one throughout the ship and prepare for a combat fold. Set for a level one combat fold and begin fold prep."
Marauder looked up from the picture of his cousin Motoko Kusanagi that he held as he bowed on one knee and sent a silent prayer to the gods for her protection of her soul within the ready room for ARMD one. Taking one last look, before he placed the picture of his cousin back in his locker hoping that she was safe back in that other dimension they called home.
It had been nearly two years since the battle of Lantea and the pain was still raw now as it had been when the announcement had been made. More and more he found himself wishing that his cousin was here, even if it was just to argue with her. Only in the cockpit was he able to put the pain from his mind. While he was there he allowed this pain to morph into something useful… anger, and from there that he was able to do one thing that made him feel a little better.
Every time he destroyed a ship which was trying to sink the Archangel, it was a small measure of revenge which soothed his soul. Of course, when he landed on the deck again he had to face the cold walls of his cabin, both on the ship and the newly built star base, and the pain came back to him with a vengeance.
"Lords, her my prayer," he muttered, "bless my hands so that they may war upon my enemies. Bless my mind so that I might protect my loved ones, bless my heart and give me piece so that I may hurt no more. Bless my cousin and let her know safety and your love forever."
"Ahem…"
Closing his eyes for a moment to regain his composure again, before he stood up and placed the picture of him and his cousin outside of fleet headquarters back home, back inside of the armored pouch on his right arm of his flight suit. Only then did he turn to find his counterpart from Dragon squadron, Snips, standing behind him in the hatchway with his own armored flight suit with his helmet under his arm in the ready room.
"What's up kiddo?" He asked as he pulled his own helmet out of his locker.
"Thought that I'd tag along with you to hanger deck." Snips replied with a small smile.
Marauder nodded, "Well then, let's go." He said lading the younger man to the lift leading down to the hanger deck.
"So, how you feeling?" Snips asked as the lift starts to descend.
"Frosty and sharp." Marauder replied, "You?"
"Frosty and sharp!" Snips replied, "Frosty and sharp!"
The two men continued the ride in silence until it stopped at the flight deck. As the doors opened, the unmistakable smell of proto-culture fuel cells, lubricants, ammunition and missiles filled their nostrils. In front of them, red clad hanger crew technicians moving around quickly preparing to launch the various Mk VII Thunderbolts, a few VF-27SP super Lucifer's, VF-29 Durandal and ghost drones.
"This is my floor." Snips joked.
"Me two," Marauder replied, with the same dry wit, as they began to walk over to his personal black and red Durandal fighter. "Good hunting and god speed, kid."
"Hay old man," Snips called out, causing the other pilot to turn around, "don't go trying to win this one on your own, I doubt that the CAG, XO or the commodore would let you rest in the fields of Elysium if…"
Marauder considered his words for a moment then nodded wordlessly in understanding, before he continued on his way to his fighter. He'd be coming back alright…when every single one of these slavers had been blown from the sky.
-{[]}-
"Two minutes!" Announced Revell, call sign Angel, from the cockpit of the stealth assault ship.
From her place in the troop bay, lieutenant Welsh gave Angel a thumbs up in response before polarizing her helmets visor on her Mk III exo-frame with the recon variant of the fire force assault weapons system, basically the same as the one the Rockwell was wearing without the chest mounted plasma gatling cannon but had additional subspace comm-unit. She then stood up and gestured for the rest of the squads attention by holding up her arms out in front of her, palms outwards.
The rest of the squad responded by mimicking the gesture.
"Stand up!" She commanded and immediately the team stood up in a single file with Newman taking position at the rear and McCloud at the front. Seeing that everyone was up and ready she simply nodded.
"One minute to atmospheric entry interface." Angel called out.
Immediately everyone jumped into their orbital insertion pods which ran along the outer edge of the stealth ship. "Devil squad the light is green."
Suddenly welsh felt the sickly twist in her stomach as the ship made the transition from FTL to sub-light within the upper atmosphere of the target planet, instantly the ship began to shake as it was buffeted as a result of the atmospheric entry. Underneath the teams drop pods the hull retracted and the flashing red light went to a steady green followed by the mag-clamp and thrusters firing.
"Go! Go! Go!" Welsh shouted as the teams single occupant exo-atmospheric insertion vehicles fired away from the ship, seeing the that the pod containing Newman fire away from the ship she followed suit and within a second found her pod falling through the sky, the sound of the air muffled by the sound dampening equipment which was built into her helmet.
-{[]}-
"All stations report level one set sir." Cochran reported from his temporary station at the tactical station on the bridge of the Archangel. "Fold system is powered up and ready to deploy."
"Very well then set the clock and set it for five minutes." Commodore Hudson replied as he turned to face Dvorak, "XO, copy Archangel station and get another ETA from the drop ship."
"Aye sir." Dvorak replied as she activated her headset. "Attention drop one and Archangel station fold clock is running at T-minus five minutes, three, two, one. MARK!"
"Copy Archangel. See you on the flip side." Came the calm voice of major O'Neill from Archangel station on the surface of the moon.
"Cochrane, get me Marauder on the horn and patch it through to my headset." Hudson commanded.
Cochrane nodded as he touched a control on the panel in front of him. "Marauder, Archangel. The commodore wants to speak to you." He said pointing over at Hudson. "You're on sir."
-{[]}-
Inside the cockpit of his Durandal fighter on the flight deck of ARMD 1 Marauder flipped a switch and activated the comm.-system. "Marauder here sir, go ahead."
There was a pause on the line before Hudson's deep rich voice came over the line exuding confidence. "Be ready to provide escort for those heavy lifters as they are coming up, I have a feeling that Ptah isn't going to make this easy on us and his forces will be on us rather quickly."
"Sounds like you're expecting this to be a trap sir?" Marauder asked as he made a fist to stretch his gloves to sit right.
"I am. Be ready."
"Aye sir, and don't worry, we'll get everyone out of that base, even if I have to blast every single one of their fighters out of the sky with my side arm."
-{[]}-
Sitting in his command chair on the bridge Hudson arched an eyebrow, there was something off about the way Marauder had replied that didn't seem right.
"Secure this channel." He commanded.
Cochrane nodded as he did as ordered. "Aye sir, channel secure."
"Marauder," Hudson began, "Focus on your mission son, I know your upset but you can't win this one on your own and I'm sure that Motoko wouldn't want you to die senselessly."
"Sir, it's…"
Hudson cut him off, "I know what you and your cousin went through John. Your family will think your dead, don't make it a reality."
-{[]}-
Marauder sat quietly in his cockpit as the soft yet powerful words from the commodore hit him with the force of a macronized member of the crew. Images of Motoko floated through his mind and he could clearly see them both sitting with a group of their friends and Fuchikoma multiped tanks in a cherry blossom grove somewhere on earth.
It stirred his anger, the pain and absolute rage that he felt over their dimensional displacement.
"You have to let it all go." He heard Hudson say. All of his memories came boiling up inside of him like a star that was ready to go supper nova. The burning painful rage that had been fueling him for just over a year threatened him with tears. Closing his eyes he inhaled deeply and help it for a few seconds, before with an agonizing exhale… he let it go.
"I… I understand sir." Marauder replied after a few moments. "I'll see you on the flip side."
"I look forward to it, captain." Hudson replied adding "God speed."
-{[]}-
Lord Kur took a moment to carefully re-read the report that had been handed to him by one of his more loyal Jaffa. It read that one of Lord Ptah's scout ships had spotted what was believed to be a Tau'ri ship a few jumps away from lord Ptah's slave and re-education planets.
Looking at the low resolution recon image, he smiled as he realized that his long shot was actually coming to fruition. Against all conventional wisdom, the Tau'ri was going to try and rescue them without access to a chappa'ai.
"My lord." Asked A'Noth as he approached his commanding officer.
"It would appear the Tau'ri are growing bold."
Kur nodded. "Indeed they are."
A'Noth moved back towards the controls at the front of the pel'tac. "It would seem that everything is going as you planned, My lord."
Kur made no effort to hide his pride. "Yes it is, and if our plan works then we will be the ones to gain the credit as the ones who stopped the rise of the Tau'ri. If it fails, then we will use it as fuel against those old fools that make the system lords."
A'Noth chuckled at that. "My lord remind me never to play stratagem against you, you think far too many moves ahead for me."
Kur nodded but said nothing. 'That's all right my loyal Jaffa, remember who it is that is the military brains behind this operation, remember whom it is that is indispensable to your plans.' He thought.
-{[]}-
Barron Ldias yawed stretching and for the thousandth time, as he laminated on his bad luck and political misfortune that had handed him the worst assignment in the universe.
On paper, commanding Lord Ptah's premier re-education and research center was a great honor, but for a man like Ldias, who had spent his whole life since taking a host clawing his way to the to the top so that he could one day take up the rank of system lord, it was the ultimate disgrace.
And why was he here? It was simple because he had expressed Tok'ra feelings to his lord while he was at a meeting with his lord. How could he have known that one of his Jaffa was a spy for Anubis? How could he know that he would tell his master about his plans to retake the Draco system from Anubis?
So just like that, Ldias dreams of taking up a seat next to his lord as an equal. Now he was here in the arm pit of the universe, commanding a slave camp where the chances for earning glory were virtually none existent.
Shaking his head in self-pity, he took a bottle from the shelves behind his desk and opened it, taking a long pull of the dark brown liqueur, savoring the burning contents inside.
Click.
What was that? Ldias thought to himself, setting the bottle down on the corner of his desk.
Click. Click.
Now he was irritated, one of the Jaffa was probably outside his office doing some sort of routine maintenance, but he had gave strict orders that no one was disturb him. With an angry snarl on his lips, Ldias stood and stormed to the door. This time the shol'va would learn the hard way that when I give an order it is to be obeyed! The angry thoughts in his mind that dwelled on brutalizing whoever it was that was offending him died when his door opened to reveal several heavily armed troops all pointing some type of weapons at him. Before he could speak or activate the shield on his kara kesh the leader hit him in the gut with a brutal blow that drove the air from him. Unable to even scream for help, Ldias fell backwards tripping on his robes onto his office floor as the heavily armored troops flowed into the room like they were water.
Looking down, Welsh smiled behind her polarized visor at the damage that Rockwell had done to the spawn of Khyron. "Pick. That. Up." She ordered as she pointed to the Goa'uld stultus who was laying on the floor.
Quickly Rockwell manhandled Ldias to his feet the barrel of his feet and held him there with his Gottfried next to his eye line, while Welsh moved closer, almost face to face with him.
"Hello Barron. This is how it's going to be, I ask you a question and you will give me the answers."
"Go to Netu!" Ldias gasped.
"Oh you will, but first you tell me everything that I want to know."
"What makes you think I will tell you anything?"
Welsh chuckled as Rockwell produced a pair of very nasty looking slip jointed bone scissors, "Because each time that you lie to me, each time that you don't tell me something I want to know my friend here will remove something dear to you and he won't be quick about it."
Ldias face paled as the image of these masked and armored troops removing parts of his body became real in his mind. "You are Tau'ri though," he said mustering as much courage as he could. "What about your vaulted sense of conscience and morality?"
Again Welsh laughed in a low and menacing way that made Ldias' blood run cold. "We are devil squad. They didn't issue us with any form of conscience."
-{[]}-
"Fold complete sir." Sub-commander Dvorak reported as she turned from the sensor station to face Hudson in his command chair.
"Launch fighters and report all contacts." Hudson ordered as he looked out the blast shielded view port on the bridge.
"Aye sir." Dvorak replied activating her head set, "XO to flight ops. Bring the Thunder, I say again Bring the Thunder." She nodded as she received the acknowledgment through her head set. "Thunderbolts, Lucifer's, Durandal's and Ghost launching now sir."
"Sir, I have three contacts on screen." Cochrane reported from his post at tactical. "Engine signatures confirmed two Ha'tak class ships disengaging from the tether."
"Any gliders?" Dvorak asked as the bridge escorts formed up for protection.
"Not yet sir… no, wait one…" Cochrane flipped a switch and focused in on one of the two Ha'tak's. "Confirmed sir. Ha'tak two is launching gliders and the tether Al'kesh class bombers."
Hudson nodded as he studied the tactical display that had activated on the forward view screen. "Contact colonel Sisko and tell him to commence drop operations."
"Aye sir." Cochrane said.
"What about those fighters and Al'kesh?" Dvorak asked.
"Tell Marauder to close with and destroy. All modes authorized."
"Yes sir." Dvorak said with a smile.
"Weapons." Hudson said turning to face the Archangel's weapons control center where the ships other resident gun bunny crewman Hayama was. "What's our range to target?"
"Sir, range is sixteen thousand and closing." Hayama replied. "At current speed we will be in range of Gottfried's and Korinthos torpedoes in three minutes."
"Recalculate for flank speed."
"Aye sir." Hayama said as he worked the math on his targeting computer. "At flank speed we will be in range in one minute fifty sir."
"All ahead flank, hold intercept course." Hudson said as he turned to face Campbell at the helm.
"All ahead flank, hold course aye." Campbell replied as she accelerated the ship to point three of the speed of light.
"Sir, targeted vessel is now seven thousand clicks and is beginning to maneuver." Cochrane reported.
"Target their engines with Korinthos torpedoes and stand-by with Gottfried's and Valliant's. We need to make this quick before they can call for reinforcements."
"Anything on comm's." Dvorak asked.
"Negative." Replied Hill from the main comm-scan station, "in fact, I'm not getting anything but a beta pattern on the low bands."
A mall smile crossed Hudson's face. "Looks like devil squad made it after all."
The Archangel plowed through space like a demon on the warpath. Her bow mounted Gauss cannons and missile and torpedo tubes were wide open, giving the impression that she was a beast whose teeth were bared for combat. In front of her, her entire complement of Ghost drones and veritech fighters, over a thousand fighters made a direct course towards the enemy death gliders.
-{[]}-
In his cockpit, Marauder gritted his teeth and allowed a warm hatred to come over him like he had never felt before, his eyes narrowed and he began to target ships he intended to kill.
"Okay here they come." He announced into his helmet mic. "Pick your targets, and don't leave your wingman behind and don't let these spawns of Khyron any slack, Snips take two flights and hold back to protect the ship. If they get past us then they are all yours."
"Snips two six two seven, roger that. Dragon Alpha and Beta flights, fall back to rally-point constitution." Said snips.
Marauder, satisfied with his arrangements, flipped over a switch to activate his targeting scanners. Inside his helmet his breath was hot and steady, his heartbeat was fast and strong as the thrill of combat came over him. This was his element, this was where he was at his best and this would be the place where he would exact his revenge.
"All fighters," He snarled, "weapons and modes free. Lets. Bring. The. Thunder!"
-{[]}-
On the bridge, Hudson watched the tactical display as his Thunderbolts clashed with the gliders that had been launched from the station and Ha'tak's. He smiled as the gliders began to wink out as multiple missiles and tracers rounds impacted them.
"Sir, target vessel is now within range of the Gauss cannons and Korinthos torpedoes are locked onto their engineering sections." Cochrane reported from the tactical station behind him.
Hudson nodded. This was it, his blood was boiling now. There were slaves down on the planet waiting for a rescue which might never come… and heaven help anyone who got in his way. "Open fire."
-{[]}-
Kusanagi looked out the window of her cell into the night sky, she didn't know why, but she had awakened with the felling that something big was going on and she couldn't shake the feeling that something big was going on and she couldn't shake it no matter what she did. Suddenly, she saw several streaks of light shoot across the night sky in a straight line, then a flash of light. Smiling, she moved quickly to where S'Kar, Kanan and Rogers side and gently tapped the trio on the shoulders. "Hay gents, wake up."
"Huh?" The injured Tok'ra agent asked. "Wh… wats going on?"
"We need to get ready."
"What, why?" Asked S'Kar as he moved closer.
Kusanagi couldn't hide her excitement any longer. "Because I think someone is attacking this place."
-{[]}-
Welsh looked at the now bloody and exhausted form of Barron Ldias and smiled, "See now that wasn't so hard was it?" she said as she wiped the blood off of the set of tension wire cutters that she was holding in her hand.
Ldias, now missing his entire left hand, hung his head in defeat. "If you have any mercy, you will kill me now."
Welsh cocked her head to the side as if in thought and then brought her masked face down to eye-level with the captured man. "You're right, if I had any mercy, but the truth is, I never had any to begin with and even if I had any, what you have done to these people would be more than enough to forget it."
Snapping her fingers, she ushered the rest of devil squad out of the office. "I think I'll let your vaunted and highly skilled Ashrak have a go at you… a little pay back for the hell you have put these people through."
Welsh walked out the door, leaving Ldias to ponder just how agonizing the next few days of his drastically shortened life were going to be.
-{[]}-
Peaceful silence, like he was floating on a clam day in the crater lakes on Epoc. That what crossed Marauders mind as he drifted in his life pod one hour after the de-fold of the Archangel in the vast coldness of space as the vicious fighter battle played out in orbit before his eyes.
He felt pissed even though there was no real reason for him to be, he'd personally managed to take out two dozen of Ptah's advanced gliders and Al'kesh bombers before a Ghost drone had exploded due to a lucky shot from the orbital tether's defenses, destroying his flight and transformation controls. It didn't matter though, he had wanted to finish this fight in his cockpit and taking down the enemy, he wanted to be the last thing that these Jaffa heavens saw before they were turned into fireballs.
But instead he was floating here in space like a piece of junk with a pair of broken legs.
It had been hard, but he had managed to put the pressure seals on and bacta-gel before the auto-ejection system he punched him out of his disintegrating Durandal. Thank lords he had otherwise it would have been a race to see if he would of bleed out or died due to lack of air first.
Part of him wished he had gone up in a fireball, as he had seen so many rookies, the short lived explosion caused by his reactor going wildfire and igniting his fuel and oxygen reserves. "Better to burn out than to fade away." He muttered the line from his favorite singer, but he had done that, he wouldn't have been able to cause the damage which he had before punching out, and that was a thought which brought a smile to his face.
After his controls had been destroyed he had seen that his engines were stuck open at full throttle in fighter mode, and that the station he had just been strafing only moments before was still in sight. It had been difficult, trying to guide his stricken fighter with just his foot controls as he placed the pressure wraps on his injuries, but it had been worth it. Just seconds before the impact he had punched out and rocketed away from his dying fighter, smiling as it impacted right where the docking controls for one of the docking bays was.
He even saw as two Jaffa got sucked out through the hole in armor that his fast pack equipped fighter had created. If they weren't dead from the impact and explosion, then their last few moments of life would have been extremely painful as their blood boiled and sought a way to escape while their lungs froze solid. It wasn't the nicest way to go, but Marauder didn't give a frack, they all deserved it if they were going to drop so low as to use slave labor.
These bastards where using slaves to build their tech and infrastructure. What's worse the people they were here to rescue had been working and living in peace before they had been captured like they were nothing more than cattle, now all he wanted to do was to send these people back to their home's. He had to survive, he had a son in his own dimension that he needed to return to. A little boy who would need him in the coming years as he began to ask questions like 'Why didn't mummy tell me about you?' or 'Why didn't you look for me?'
It was up to him to try and answer those questions. He had already shied away from love once because of his pride, and he would be damned if he would do it again. Looking down, Marauder noticed something that immediately made him take notice, one of the pressure seals on his left leg had started leaking, and the small blood that had escaped had frozen instantly as they crept from the edge of the bacta-gel wrap along with wisps of vapor which he knew to be his oxygen supply. First he had blacked out from the ejection sequence, now he had awakened to find himself slowly dying.
"Well isn't this just a wonderful end to a totally fracked up day."
-{[]}-
His name was baron Ldias, and until a few moments ago he had been the undisputed master of Ptah's re-education center, research and naquadah mines. Now as several Jaffa cut him free from the chair that he had been bound in, he realized that he was nothing more than a dead man walking. The main in front of him wore the blood red armor of a Ta-tanen warrior. Under his cowl, the face of Kutukan was one of scorn and disgust.
"You gave them the codes to gain control of the orbital defense network." Kutukan snarled, "How else have you managed to betray us and our Lord Ptah you filthy Shol'va?"
Ldias stood upright, his bandaged right arm still dripping with blood from where his hand had been severed. "I am still in command of this base remember that. You will show me the proper respect." He said his anger making his eyes glow.
"You are weak! You broke under the most trivial of pain and as one of lord Ptah's Ta-tanen. I am fully authorized to take command and have you executed for your failure here."
"Then do it." Ldias snarled back.
Kutukan was momentarily taken aback by his sudden show of defiance. The man knew he had screwed up but he was unafraid. He was ready to face his fate for what he had done and it almost made Kutukan admire him. Almost.
"No, I won't kill you yet. Orbital defense controls have been destroyed and we have reports of Tau'ri forces landing nearby. You are still the only reasonably competent one that we have here so you will have to be here so you will have a chance to redeem yourself, Barron."
Ldias was thunderstruck but it didn't take him long to recover his wit's. "Good. Now get the hell out of my way I have a battle to win."
Kutukan watched him as he left. "Yes, you do."
-{[]}-
Colonel Heero Sisko braced himself as the Daedalus II sat down on her four massive landing legs.
"Report." He commanded after the ship had stopped vibrating.
"Sir, landing operations are complete. All four landing legs are secure and deployment ramp is extending now." Reported lieutenant Yau from the operations station.
"Understood, have Duo begin deployment and have ship based weapons commenced over watch."
"Yes sir."
"And have captain Satori get the star saber fighters air born and let Delta one know our status."
On the hanger deck, captain Duo Maxwell III and his destroid counterpart, captain Athran Lal, was leaning against the leg of his command type Tomahawk mark XI destroid.
"Sir, you are go for deployment." Said the voice of lieutenant Hail through the comm.-links.
"Copy." He replied as Lal throw his toothpick away. "Ok people it's time. Mount Up!"
On command, the five hundred MACO's who were gathered in the forward deployment area of the hanger began to climb into their Laser RATs, M-9 rail gunner's and missile fox MLRS which had risen from the storage deck on the launch elevators only moments ago.
Climbing into the specially designed command and control Laser RAT, he secured himself in a chair that was surrounded by display screens, each of which gave him a piece of the overall tactical pitcure which he had to co-ordinate.
"Five seconds until the ramp is down boss."
"Very well," He responded as he flipped over to the general command channel. "Five seconds until deployment, stay in your teams and for Earth's sake keep an eye on everyone. We're not leaving anyone here. Understood!"
"Oorah!" The MACO's responded as the vehicle he was in vibrated as the forward deployment ramp touched down on the solid surface of the plant and Maxwell went into action. "Driver move out. All vehicles and destroids move out!"
From the bridge of the landing ship, colonel Sisko watched on his monitors as the assault bays and on to the desert plain of the planet. It would be morning soon so they had to move quickly. Devil Squad had done its work, or so it had been reported. Which meant that, for the moment the assault force wouldn't be expecting any resistance that would be worth anything, at least not straight away. At times like these that Sisko was reminded of something that his father had told him before he went off to basic training, 'no plan no matter how well planned ever survives contact', and over the years he had found that saying to be true almost every time, even when he had been dating his late wife. This time, however, he prayed that it would be one of the time when his old CO was wrong.
-{[]}-
De-fold plus five minutes.
"Sir. Marauder reports that several flights of enemy bombers have broken through the main line." Cochrane reported from the tactical station as another impact caused the mighty Archangel to shudder under his feet.
"Contact Snips and tell him to take them out." Sub-commander Dvorak ordered.
"Sir, Ha'tak two is coming broadside to us." Said the weapons controller from the lower level.
"Trying to hide her damage from that last salvo." Hudson said.
"They must be hurt bad to risk exposing their flight decks to us like that." Hill replied from the flight operations station. "I'd say that we have an opportunity to take her out of the fight for good."
Hudson nodded in agreement. "I agree, tactical lock Gottfried's one and two on to Ha'tak two hanger deck and fire."
"Aye sir." Cochrane replied as he began target the requested location, "Locking on. Firing."
The main starboard weapons lit up with the massive firepower that they contained. The phased energy plasma cannons, commonly known as Gottfried's, hurled two emerald beams of plasma in straight lines that streaked towards the exposed flanks of the Ha'tak controlled by Ptah's forces.
Marauder was in awe momentarily as he saw the salvo slam into the Ha'tak. The plasma plowed into the side of the ship sending brief plumes of fire out from decompressing areas of the hull and shards of armor and debris spinning away in lazy circles.
Then it happened.
As technologically advanced as the Archangel was, the truth is that there is no way to guide a plasma round to its target. Unlike a missile or torpedo, once a round from a Gottfried is fired, it was going to go in whichever way it was pointed until it reached the maximum range and the laws of Sir Isaac Newton, so no corrections were allowed.
Therefore, when Cochrane had said he had a lock, it wasn't necessarily a lock on the flight decks themselves, it was in fact a lock on the general area of the vessels since the ships where both moving, but one lucky beam did just fire as it sailed into the open flight deck and landed just behind the fuel cells for the advanced gliders that where being employed by Ptah.
The detonation was indescribable.
Marauder watched with mixed emotions of horror, anger and pride as the Ha'tak's fuel cells erupted first into the empty hanger deck and then through it vaporizing the lower half of the ship. Smaller sympathetic explosions began erupting all over the ship as her reactors containment failed and she slowly began a slow spiral of death towards the planet away from both the tether and its base complex.
On the bridge of the Archangel, cheers erupted as the first ship began to fall to her death. Hudson allowed it for a moment as the crew needed it. These were the people that had been brutalized at the hands of the enemy who were spiraling to their deaths, in front of them, it might have been morbid, but it was justified.
"Sir!" Called out one of the sensor tech's at a lower comm-scan station.
Hudson looked but couldn't see who it was that was calling out over the noise and raised hands. "Quiet down."
Nobody heard him except for Granger who took it upon himself to get things back in order. "Shut the Stercore up!" He shouted after whistling loudly bringing the celebration to a screeching halt. "We're still in the middle of a good darn fight, so get back to your stations and heads back in the game."
Quickly and quietly the crew returned to their work and soon the hum of the battle returned.
"Sir, I have three new contacts." The sensor tech announced.
"Confirmed." Cochrane added. "Two more of Ptah's Ha'tak and a cruiser have just jumped in."
"What are they doing?" Asked Dvorak as she moved over next to Cochrane.
"The upgraded Ha'tak's are making a bee line directly for us, sir. The cruiser is breaking off and moving into a defensive blockade around the tether." Cochrane reported.
"Looks like they are going to try and block the dropship and heavy shuttles, as they return to the ship." Hudson said. "Contact Sisko and tell him to brace for orbital strikes but keep those shields active as long as possible."
-{[]}-
De-fold plus seven minutes.
Welsh moved swiftly and silently keep her team close as they made their way through the darkened area of the prisoner encampment. Stopping quickly, she held up her hand and flattened against the wall and activated her active camouflage unit in her exo-suit, her squad doing likewise as a couple of Jaffa passed by them.
Looking up, Welsh could see the battle in space was beginning to heat up judging by the flashes of light that where illuminating the night sky. Part of her wished that she was up there as she had gotten quite comfortable as the operations officer on the Archangel.
'I am the nightmare in the dark,' she thought to herself as she motioned for Newman and Rockwell to take out the Jaffa that had just passed, 'others rest peacefully in their beds because I stand ready to do violence on their behalf. I am the nightmare in the dark and the reason that the unjust don't sleep at night. I am the righteous justified vengeance, the great equalizer. I don't seek fame. I do it for myself, my home and the ZSUN. I never leave anyone behind. I am a quiet professional and person of honor, for I am Lacadaemoniis.' As she finished mentally reciting the creed of the highly classified Lacadaemoniis corps to herself to help her focus, as it usually did when she recited those words that she had first spoken it almost ten years earlier when she had graduated from the Robotech special warfare operations training school by the Utopia Planitia area of Mars. During the ceremony, general Miriya Parina, the commandant of the training school had told them that no matter what happened in the future, no matter what assignment they took on as a cover, they must never forget that their missions in Lacadaemoniis corps came first. Miriya had been a mentor, even a mother like figure, to Welsh during those nine hellishly long months at the school and so she took special note of the women's words.
She had hit it right on the lead.
"Alright, the assault force should be on their way by now, we need to wire the barracks and armory's to blow before they get here so let's get on it." Welsh ordered.
"What about those sentry towers?" Newman asked retuning his combat knife to it sheath that was mounted recon style on his armor as he returned from killing his Jaffa target.
"I'll handle those Crystal." Said ensign Max Ray.
"Okay," Welsh agreed, "but do it quietly. We don't want to start this party before we have to."
"Well we've already took care of the orbital defense grid, tower grids, interstellar communications and the alarm systems so their response time should protinus as inferos." Said Rockwell.
"Yeah, but when Sea starts making things go boom, it won't take them long to work out what's going on and spread the work." Said McCloud.
"Ohh Sky, you're giving me a hard on over here talking about things going boom." Ray replied with a smirk in his voice.
"Save it for the demo job Sea." Welsh said checking her timer on her suits tac-pad one last time. "Okay, Sea you take your med-kit and track down those Zentron life signs, it's your job to get them out ok, land I want you to cover him."
"Who's going to cover you Crystal?" Newman asked.
Welsh smiled behind her helmet. "I'm with boom boom over her. We are going to play a game of how many slavers can we turn into instant mulch."
"Ten gets you twenty that I win." Newman said with an evil smirk behind his helmet's mask.
"Ok ma'am but watch him," Rockwell said pointing over towards Ray, "he tends to get a little too excited around explosives, if you know what I mean."
"Funny land, but I brought plenty of tissues to clean up with this time." Ray replied.
They all chuckled briefly while making snide comments about how sick Ray was, even some disparaging remarks about how he is the inbreed result of a Zentron and Vajra. Finally the squad became quiet as the importance of the moment became real to them.
"God speed guys." Welsh said breaking the silence. "Let's go get some."
-{[]}-
De-fold plus thirteen mins.
"Sir, comm-scan reports that contact Ha'tak one is vectoring for planet fall." Granger reported as he examined the various reports and dispatches from the various sections as well as the Daedalus II landing ship.
"Deculture, they're catching on fast." Cochrane commented as he coordinated the fight from his temporary post at tactical. "I don't get it, the assault ship has her stealth system active and optical camouflage active. They should look like a big nothing on sensors."
They have to have eyes out there somewhere." Hudson said.
"But how? I don't detect any ships out there." Cochrane replied.
"Then it has to be something passive, something that isn't using a lot of power." Dvorak said.
"Like a powered down or cloaked ship?" Asked Campbell from the helm as she maneuvered the ship to avoid fire from the high orbital station for the tether.
"No, it would be to close, beside colonel Sisko deck teams would've spotted it." Cochrane replied.
Hudson stroked his chin in a manner which, if he had a beard would have looked like he was stroking it in a thoughtful manner, and told both Dvorak and Campbell the he was thinking hard about the problem. Finally he shook his head. "There has to be a tracking device on the ship."
"Wouldn't the stealth system jam it?" Cochrane asked.
"No, the Sterling stealth field only blocks the emissions from the ship that it has been programed to detect. If there is a tracking device on it, then it is putting out a signal that most of the signal is being blocked by the S.S.F. so they wouldn't be able to get a solid lock on it." Cochrane explained.
"But once they do get close enough they wouldn't need a solid lock on it." Hudson stated flatly as he activated his headset. "Landing actual, this is Archangel actual, change of mission follows."
After a few seconds of static, the comm-line opened and the voice of colonel Sisko replied. "Archangel actual, this is landing actual. Change of mission acknowledge, standing by for orders."
"Landing, Archangel, stand down from stealth mode and go to full fortress mode. We believe that you have been marked with a tracker. Use whatever means you deem necessary to defend yourself."
Hudson heard Sisko cuss out in a mix of Zentron and Tarskian, he knew that the hard as nails MACO colonel would be angry about someone getting a bug on his lander. "Understood actual committing now."
"God speed. Archangel out." Hudson said as he turned to face Hill at the flight operations station. "Flight ops contact the CAG and have him dispatch a flight of Thunderbolts and some VB-9 Konig Monsters to assist the landing team."
"Just two flights sir?"
"The main fight is here, they'll want to keep their birds where the main fight is." Hudson remarked, "One flight of Thunderbolts and a force of VB-9's will be more than enough to keep that second Ha'tak from becoming much of a problem."
In his cockpit, Marauder listened to the instructions from the Archangel and looked at his tactical display. All if the Archangels fighters were involved in a nasty scrap occurring off the bow of the second Ha'tak, but not all of them were actively engaged. Touching his flight suits integrated tactical pad he called up captain Graves, the CO of the 86th fighter squadron. "Gold six, CAG. I need you to send a flight to cover Quantum force to help out the landing force."
"Copy that," Graves replied, "I'll send enterprise flight since all they're doing is strafing runs on that tether's defense cannons."
"That works CAG out." Flipping the screen back to the feed from the ESINTs, Marauder saw that the other new Ha'tak and cruiser where launching fresh gliders and that they were speeding directly at his own forces. Thinking quickly he activated his comm-link over ride for the fighters. "Red, Green and Blue squadrons form up and move to intercept those incoming fighters. Gold, Pink Peckers and Cosmo Tiger squadrons, I want you to keep those fighters contained and prevent them from linking up. Above all else I want them contained and away from the barn."
Getting acknowledgements, marauder turned his Durandal towards the new threat and accelerated at full speed, eager to start the hunt anew.
-{[]}-
De-fold plus seventeen minutes.
Welsh made a quick check of her mission timer and look over her shoulder at ensign Max Ray, who was just completing the wiring job on the explosives which he had placed on the building next to them.
"Step on it sea. We've already at plus seventeen. The MACO's assault force will be here any minute." Welsh whispered into her throat mic.
"One more second sir," Ray replied as he placed the last wire in. "and set."
That was when a horn sounded like an alarm.
Suddenly all around the two special operations operatives a number of touches lit up and light sprang on and the sound of the horn woke the sleeping Jaffa alerting them to the impending danger.
"Deculture! The gigs up! Execute your missions NOW!" Welsh commanded as she hefted her Plasma motor attached to her backpack down into firing position as she started running for the prison complex. "Sea blow it as soon as we're clear!"
Welsh and Ray died behind a low dirt wall just as two Jaffa exited the building that they had just been taking cover behind and leveled his rifle version of a staff weapon at them.
"Now!" Welsh shouted.
As Ray slammed his hand down on the detonator button on his mark two-s exo-frames tac-pad, that building and several others around the base evaporated in a shower of plasma and debris as the c-38 plasma demolition charges that they had set erupted in fiery blue and purple death blossoms. Above them, shots rang out as the other members of the infiltration team went into action taking out their assigned targets.
"Devil squad sound off!" Welsh commanded as she took in the sudden chaotic situation.
"Sky here, I found the Zentron life signs but she has company. Going to need to clean house a bit before I can carry out the extraction." McCloud answered over the comm's. "Hold one."
The sounds of breathing followed by the sound of micro-missiles firing carried through over the comm-link that McCloud had opened. Welsh smiled as she listened to her subordinate work.
"Ok, guards are down but there's a lot of activity over here." He reported.
"I know, someone had activated the alarms manually." Welsh replied. "Get to that Zentron life signs and get them to the extraction point."
"Roger." McCloud replied activating his flight unit to dodge a pair of staff blasts.
"All devils, start finding the slaves and getting them to the extraction point." Welsh commanded as she began to hear the sound Tomahawk's firing their Gauss cannons in the distance. "Sounds like the MACO's are here for some fun."
-{[]}-
De-fold plus twenty minutes.
"All hands brace for impact." Dvorak shouted as she watched another salvo of heavy plasma bolts streaked toward the ship from the tether.
"What's the enemy count now?" Hudson asked preparing himself for the impact.
"Sir, I have five Ha'tak type and three cruiser analogs still active in the fight," Cochrane reported as several fighters took out the tethers last weapons, "and Ha'tak two is still in a low decaying orbit away from the prison and landing craft."
"Fighters?" Dvorak pressed as the deck heaved under them from the weapons fire.
"Impact on the number three dorsal power regulator!" Reported a crewmember from the lower level of the bridge. "Rerouting through the auxiliary system."
"Make sure you keep the power flow stable in those sectors," Murdoch said as he looked at the bridge's damage control board, "the last thing we need at the moment is to have the reactors on ARMD 2 "brown out."
"Commodore, we have a problem here." Campbell shouted from the helms main seat.
"See to it." Hudson said to Dvorak as he turned to face the tactical station, "Zee, target Ha'tak two and remove her from my sky."
"If I do that sir, I'll have to divert fire from the cruisers three and four, and they are burning hard for us." Cochrane replied.
Hudson nodded his understanding. "I know that but they are still at range and easier to deal with."
"Aye sir, diverting fire now."
"Kira, we have a slightly serious problem here." Dvorak said from the helm next to Campbell.
"What now XO?" Hudson replied as he moved over to her side at the helm.
"Sir, we are in a port ventral spin moving at five degrees a minute." Dvorak reported to him without turning to face him.
"I assume that this isn't your doing Meer?" Hudson asked raising and eyebrow as he looked at her.
"One time." She mumbled. "In fact we are having to fight her to keep her level and it's getting harder."
"Murdoch, what's going on with the bow maneuvering thrusters?" Hudson asked the chief engineer.
"All forward RCS thrusters are green sir. No damage reported." Murdoch said looking at the damage control board,
"Then what's causing this spin?" Dvorak asked, knowing that had just finished a full ship wide repair and overhaul.
Murdoch looked to be deep in thought for a second and then raised his eyebrows in surprise as the answer dawned on him. "Sir, I need some to do an over flight of the engineering sector to see if there is any damage."
"Wouldn't the DC board show it?" Dvorak asked.
"Not necessarily, since the jump and even after the overhaul, we've been having some trouble with the external sensors aft of section two three nine alpha which we haven't been able to pin point."
Hudson nodded and activated his comm-link. "CAG this is actual."
"Go for CAG." Marauder replied, his voice muffled slightly due to his flight helmet over the comm-link.
"Marauder, can you spare someone to do a damage control over flight of the aft section of the ship."
"Yeah, I can spare me I'm not tied up at the minute." Marauder replied. "Give me sixty seconds and I'll report back."
"Understand, standing by."
In his fighter, Marauder activated the frequency to his four squadron commanders. "All six elements, I am going off net. Actual wants eyes on the engines. Snips you're in charge until I get back."
"Copy that." Snips replied.
Transforming his fighter from battleoid to fighter, he flipped his fighter 180 and extended his throttle well to the wall. It only took a few seconds before he was approaching the aft section the ship, but even at range he could see that something was wrong, very wrong."
"Archangel… Marauder. I think I found your problem," He said as he opened a channel, "about halfway down the bottom number three thruster you have a burn through in the shielding. You're venting drive plasma, port side ventral."
"Roger Marauder. Thanks for the assist."
"No problem Archangel, returning to the… Frack!" Marauder said before suddenly lurching back as his cockpit seemed to explode around him. "Ahhhgh! Damnant quad deorum!" He yelled as his cockpit slowly began to fill with smoke while every system started to flash red or blare an alarm.
"Marauder… Archangel. What's wrong?" Asked the concerned voice of Maria Hill.
"Ghost two just exploded directly under me." He replied as the smoke in the cockpit began to vent from the cracks in the canopy. "Shit, I've got shrapnel in my legs."
"Punch out. We can have a search and rescue Argo over to you in a few minutes." Hill replied, practically pleading with him.
"Negative, I can handle it," He said ignoring her pleas since he was patching things up with Revell. "just give me a second to put the pressure wrap and batcha-gel on my legs."
Inside, Hill waited anxiously as she listened to the battle going on outside. "Fuck, I should be out there." She muttered to herself.
"Flight, he's accelerating away from the Archangel." One of the comm-scan techs shouted up from the lower bridge level.
"Marauder… Hill. Comm-scan shows your accelerating away from the ship."
"Yeah, my throttle is jammed fully open." Marauder responded.
"Ok that's it punch out!" Hill said almost ordering it remotely.
"Sorry Maria, can't just yet I've got an idea that your, great, great, great grandfather would love." Marauder replied as he tightened the last of the pressure straps on his dressings. "But get that rescue ship out, I'm going to need a lift in a minute or two."
-{[]}-
Captain Maxwell checked his map screen again as the sound of the Tomahawks firing their Gauss cannons came from outside his Laser RAT.
"Sit rep." He commanded as he opened up a general comm-link to the ground forces.
"Contact with enemy on the left flank sir. Alphas five, seven and nine along with second squad are moving to engage now." Came the voice of one of the platoon leaders.
"Very well, secure that flank a.s.a.p." Maxwell said as he looked out of the periscope at the rapidly approaching tether base and prison complex. "I make out several silhouettes along the south wall Athran. What do you see?"
"The same, no signs of weapons fire or search lights though, if I had to guess, ten would get you a hundred that our friends have taken care of their side of the mission." The gruff voice of captain Athran 'Red Demon' Lal replied from his command Tomahawk Mk XI which was at the head of the destroid column.
"Agreed, we'll proceed as planned." Maxwell replied, "Bravo six this is Alpha six, you are go to assault the gate. Charlie six, Alpha six, I see several targets about three clicks up on the tether. Close with and eliminate."
Maxwell received his acknowledgements from both the destroids and the small number of FS3 – Star saber fighters, he activated the link to his Laser RAT's driver. "Flank speed to the gate."
The massive wave of Laser RAT, Rail gunner's, Missile Fox's, tomahawk destroids and Star Sabers surged forward as they rounded the final dunes and closed in on the front of the tether complex.
"All units, commence Macross ATTACK! Close in and eliminate any resistance. Once inside form a perimeter as planned and dispatch your teams. We'll have twenty minutes on the ground until we pull out, so be quick about getting those prisoners on those transports or be dead."
-{[]}-
De-fold plus twenty-nine minutes.
"Come on you ugly fracked up beast!" Marauder growled as he attempted to keep his Durandal fighter level and on course using just the foot pedals, his legs where screaming in pain, but the bacta-gel was keeping the worst of it away so he could focus in on his target. "Whoa!" He shouted as he slammed his foot down on the left pedal causing the fighter to roll sharply to avoid a stream of anti-air plasma from the tether, "Damn these folks are getting more accurate."
Having been forced to use his foot pedals to try and steer his ship due to the damage caused by the explosion of a ghost drone underneath him that had nearly shredded his cockpit as well as his transformation and avionics controls. Now he was speed at full thrust towards the outer docking arms of the tether orbital station and doing his best to stay on course. Naturally, the station wasn't exactly a small target so it wasn't as difficult as one might think, the hardest part was avoiding the constant stream of plasma fire aimed his way. "Just a few more minutes and your ass is going to be mine."
-{[]}-
"Hello!"
The voice was unfamiliar but it had been proceeded by three quick shots, which had dropped their guards like wet sack of meat, so Motoko Kusanagi decided to take a chance and respond.
"Over here!" She shouted, "We've got wounded. We need to get him out of here."
Kusanagi almost jumped back at the sight of an armored and masked man yanked the door open using the key card that he had removed from one of the Jaffa while another who looked like a walking tank covered them. "Lieutenant Kusanagi?" he asked his voice masked by his helmet's voice modulator, but sounding confused.
"Yeah, let me guess you didn't expect any Sand Personal here."
The two walking arsenals nodded, before stuttering, "Well… yeah." In English before saying in Zentron "this isn't exactly home if you catch my drift."
"Imagine that," She said as she rolled her eyes, but catching their meaning, "there is a Tok'ra agent over here that need's a medic."
"I'm a medic ma'am." The one who had what looked like a mini-veritech on said as he handed her a FN-P117 from his back. "Can you help Land cover the door? I'll check him out."
"Give your sidearm to S'Kar there." Kusanagi said as she took the now unfolded rifle and trained it out the door.
Looking up McCloud saw the former first prime of Ja'din emerged from the shadows of the cell with a large Iron bar as if it was a Ma'tok staff. "Apologies but I had to be sure that you were the Tau'ri." S'Kar as he dropped the improvised staff.
"No problem," McCloud said passing the Jaffa his type two linear beam pistol.
"Nice weapon." S'Kar commented as he examined the small hand-gun, before flicking the safety off and moving to take a flanking position next to Kusanagi. "Do you have a name warrior?"
"We're devil squad, no names."
"What do we call you two then?" Kusanagi asked from the doorway.
"I'm Air, and the walking destroid there is Land." McCloud replied as he began to scan Kanan before giving him something for the pain before treating his wounds with bacta-gel. "I'll have him stabilized in a few minutes. Get ready to move."
"Never been more ready in my life." Kusanagi replied scanning out the doorway. "Tell me is there a captain Andrews on this mission?" Noting the small word Archangel on the rifle and remembering that her cousin had been assigned to it just before the Prometheans had attempted to invade and her ship had been thrown into a different universe.
"Negative ma'am he's acting CAG right now."
Kusanagi smirked, John was a natural pilot and an excellent leader despite his macronized ego, so she knew that the fighter battle over head was in good hands. She couldn't wait to see him and tell him…
No, that could wait until later.
-{[]}-
De-fold plus thirty-one minutes.
"Marauder! Marauder!" Hill implored over her comm-lines head set. "I've lost him sir."
"Keep tracking him on sensors, Maria, and have the search and rescue Argo launched." Hudson said as he turned to face Dvorak. "Get with Murdoch and handle that burn through."
"Aye sir." The pair replied at once.
Hudson studied the sensor readout on his chair's holo-display for a second, then turned back to face Hill. "Isolate Marauders signal and pipe his details down here."
"Aye sir." Hill replied as she used a light pen on the comm-scan display for Marauders Durandal and transferred it over to the commodore's tactical readout, where he studied the zoomed in section of the battle giving it his full and careful attention trying to make out the younger pilots intent. "Widen the range of the scan by two thousand clicks flight." He said as he furrowed his bow in concentration.
"Done sir." She replied as the deck beneath them vibrated as the two Monster class destroids near the bridge opened fire.
"Sir, we just lost the starboard side bow sensor grid." Murdoch calmly announced.
"They most likely hit the computer hub in that section. Have a damage control team get down there and get it back online yesterday." Hudson replied quickly. "Helm come right thirty degrees and give me ten degrees negative pitch on the bow planes."
"Aye sir." Campbell replied quickly.
And then it hit Hudson what Marauder was planning to do. "Hill, locate the upper station of the tether."
Hill checked her readouts quickly and found what she was looking for. "It's at one twenty orange seventy five blue, range twelve thousand."
"That's it then." Hudson said as he turned to face Cochrane at tactical. "Lieutenant, give me a fire lane down Marauders axis and do your best not to hit his plane."
"Yes sir."
"Sir, we've shut down thruster number one and stopped the burn through, it is going to play hell with the ships navigation though." Dvorak reported from the damage control board.
"It will have to do till we can get her back in the dock to repair it." Hudson replied. "Granger send a signal to colonel Sisko and tell him to get a move on."
-{[]}-
De-fold plus thirty-five minutes.
Kutukan studied the map hologram and saw that the situation was indeed grave. While the Jaffa stationed in the command center had been able to restore power to the alarms, the heavy auto staffs and point defense array which was mounted on the perimeter of the tether complex were still unresponsive along with the shield and anti-air grids.
"How many Jaffa have been lost?" Ldias demanded from behind him, sitting in his throne with two Jaffa as his personal guard.
"Milord we have lost seventy five percent of the Jaffa stationed here when the sleeping quarters exploded." One of the Jaffa replied.
"It would seem as though the Tau'ri have thought this attack out to the last detail," Kutukan remarked casually. "no doubt they had information about this complex and its defenses before they attacked."
"No doubt." Ldias replied as he turned to one of the Jaffa.
"Send the remaining Jaffa of the third force to the walls and have whatever Jaffa we have left post to the slave quarters."
"Yes milord."
"Milord, our scouts report that a large number of Tau'ri vehicles are moving on the complex." A young Jaffa said from one of the many Goa'uld style communication stations in the command center.
"Numbers." Ldias asked his eyes glowing.
"At least a full battle cohorts worth milord." The Jaffa replied.
"At least fifty transports." Kutukan said, having spent some time on the first would before the Tau'ri has started to make an appearance on the galactic scene. "Without the anti-personal and anti-vehicle weapons on the perimeter we won't have a chance of repelling them, yes it would seem that the Tau'ri have planned this out quite well."
"I still have a few surprises left for them." Ldias said with a small predatory smile. "Has the third force reached the wall yet?"
"No milord."
"Good, tell them to equip themselves with Lord Ptah's latest weapons and prepare to remove the Tau'ri from this universe."
"At once milord."
"Jaffa with staff cannons won't be able to stop an assault force of this size."
"Then we shall have to reduce their numbers to something more favorable then?" Ldias relied with an evil smile and a flash of his eyes. "Jaffa Kree! Contact the Ha'tal and tell its commander to target anything in front of the main gates."
"Yes Milord." A Jaffa replied.
Kutukan arched his eyebrow in curiosity. "Something that lord Ptah needs to be made aware of?"
Ldias chuckled. "No," he replied as he folded his arms across his chest. "No we have an older model of Ha'tak half buried with the lower heavy weapons transferred to the upper hull in the mountains to the west of the complex just in case of such a heavy frontal attack, the transfer was only finished the other day. I kept it isolated from the main system so that we could fall back on them in case the automated defense systems failed."
"And why didn't you inform Lord Ptah of this?" Kutukan asked.
"Not to worry, I was going to inform him at my weekly update tomorrow."
Kutukan nodded approvingly. "You might find yourself in the care of Tevok after all, Baron. I might even forget to tell his excellency the fact that you broke under duress."
Ldias prideful sneer was wiped clean by the words of the Ta-tanen, such was the power of Ptah's elite guard. Even a Goa'uld could fall at their hands.
"Now shall me the view of the Tok'ra's cell." Kutukan ordered. His lips tightened and eyes narrowed as the scene on the screen changed from the main entrance to an open cell door with three Jaffa who were stationed there and no one inside of it.
"It would appear that even your elite Mars Vigilante have run afoul of an SG team." Ldias said with a barely cancelled smile.
Kutukan didn't respond to the dig from the minor Goa'uld, though Ldias knew that the Ta-tanen was shaking with a rage. "Contact the rest of Mars vigilante and have them meet me at corridor duo babylonis!" he snapped as he whirled around and stormed out of the command center.
Ldias smiled and tossed a half-hearted wave at the back of retreating form of Kutukan. "As you wish."
-{[]}-
De-fold plus forty minutes.
"Alpha six! Alpha six! This is platoon two six! We are under fire! I say again we are under heavy fire!"
Maxwell turned in his seat and flipped the switch to activate his radio mic. "Platoon two six, this is Alpha six. Give me a sit-rep over."
"Alpha six, we started to place the demo charges on the gate when we came under heavy in direct fire sir! We're falling back right now but we have no cover and enemy infantry on the wall have heavy plasma weapons."
"Deculture!" Maxwell breathed, "Any casualties?"
"One Rail gunner and two missile equipped cyclone troopers."
"Spawn of…!" Maxwell snarled. "Alright, fall back to mobile position alpha." Thinking quickly, he activated the comm-link to the Archangel.
On the bridge of the Archangel Cochrane listened to the call from Maxwell and relayed the ground situation. "Stand-by Alpha six." He replied turning to sub-commander Dvorak, "Ma'am, I have a class theta request from Alpha six for an orbital fire request. He says that they are pinned down by heavy indirect fire."
"Does he have a fix on the source of the fire?" Hudson asked calmly before Dvorak could answer.
"Yes sir." Cochrane replied as he walked over to the two senior officers and pointed to the mountain range west of the tether base station on the map of the surface. "He reports that the source is a half-buried Ha'tak style mothership and that his weapons fire and destroids are ineffective against their shields and fortifications. We will have to shift orbit to a lower altitude to get into a decent firing position sir."
"It's also danger close." Dvorak added from besides the zooming in tactical map.
"Can you hit it without killing anyone in the compound?" Hudson asked, knowing it would be a very trick shoot.
"It's too close for either the main gun or an alpha strike, maybe the upgraded Valliant's in the ventral array, if you can get someone to tag it with a tagging laser. I'll be able to send the rounds down their barrels if you'd like." Cochrane said with an almost predatory smile.
Hudson smiled as he fought the urge to laugh at how Cochrane was starting to sound more like Granger. "Do it, communications get me on the horn with Devil six and have them paint those guns."
"Aye sir." The two officers replied.
"Campbell, bring us into a low orbit for a fire support mission from the ventral Valliant cannons." Dvorak said in a commanding tone.
"Aye ma'am." Campbell replied as she took in the information that was now on her helm controls. "Altitude z-minus ten thousand meters, direction come left ten degrees, roll right thirty degrees."
All around the bridge crew sprang into action as Campbell moved the ship into the right position. Hudson watched satisfied by the crews performance and smiled knowing that the fight planet side was about to take a turn for the worse for these slavers.
-{[]}-
De-fold plus forty-two minutes.
"Copy Archangel. Give me sixty seconds to set up." Said Welsh as she acknowledged Hudson orders. "Land, break out your tagging laser and get to the highest point you can find and locate where that artillery fire is coming from. You have forty-five seconds."
"On it Crystal." Rockwell answered using Welsh's codename.
"Air, sit rep."
"I've located the Zentron prisoners plus three with me. The Zentron personal are Sandline from the Quarter. I'm one minute from the evacuation point." McCloud replied.
"Good. Over-watch."
"Lights are out. Standing by for some target practice." Newman replied with a slight giggle to his voice.
"Okay. Have fun and start head hunting, Land find a spot and hole-up until Sea or I signal you, then contact the Archangel and tell them target is painted."
"Roger Crystal." Rockwell replied, "What are you going to be doing?"
Welsh laughed a little at that innocent question. "Me, I'm going to go with Sea and pick a fight."
-{[]}-
Colonel Sisko paced the bridge of the Daedalus II landing craft while he kept his eyes glued to the comm-scan display. "He's still on us." He growled.
"Sir, if he gets much closer, he'll be inside of the minimum firing range." Said Yau the drop ship's XO.
"I'm tired of this shit anyways. Full power to weapons and shields, lock on for a full alpha strike." Sisko commanded with an almost predatory tone to his voice.
"With pleasure." Yau responded with a smile on her face. "Weapons warming up now sir."
"Enemy vessel has increased speed and is closing sir." One of the bridge crew reported.
"Open missile ports alpha one through bravo ten and lock Lohengrin's." Sisko ordered.
Yau flipped a switch on the weapons control panel. "Ports open and cannons locked sir, forty-five seconds till they breach minimum firing range."
"Target their bridge." Sisko said, "If they want to come at us straight on I'll give them a reason to rethink it."
"Incoming!"
"Shields to max." Sisko ordered, "XO How long until we have a firing solution?"
"Three seconds sir." Yau replied as she worked feverishly to get a lock on the descending Ha'tak.
"Ten seconds until impact."
Sisko watched as the seconds counted down to the impact from the Goa'uld's bombardment.
"Yau…"
"Got it sir!"
"Then by all means. Fire!"
All ten Star Lancer anti-ship defense missiles launched out in a straight line following the beams of the Lohengrin anti-matter cannons, and targeting lasers that the dropship in fortress mode was painting the cruisers suspected command center with. Both sets of weapons passed each other as the sped past on their way to their targets.
"All hands brace for contact!"
Everyone on the bridge of the dropship grabbed hold of something as the plasma raced towards them. Then they hit. The ship quaked and heaved beneath them as the plasma bombardment hit the shield and surrounding plateau, over loading the relatively weak, compared to the Archangel, shield of the drop ship and damaging the port side of the forward assault deck. Alarms bleared and sparks flew as several systems shorted out and died.
"Hull Breach!" Someone shouted as a new alarm began to scream.
"Portside assault deck." Another voice shouted. "Sealing it off!"
The ship continued to heave on its landing struts for a few more moments and then it finally stopped as an eerie silence came across the bridge.
"Damage report!" Sisko commanded.
"Hull breaches on the port side assault deck, all forward of frame six." Yau reported, "They are completely open to atmosphere in sections two alpha through twenty-three delta as well as… oh deculture!"
"What is it?" Sisko demanded.
Lieutenant Yau sighed. "The spawns hit the main power line for the anti-grav's, power is fluctuating in all systems forward of frame twenty-nine."
Outside the sky suddenly brightened so much that the viewport automatically polarized to black blocking out the brilliant glow which attracted everyone's attention.
"What the hell was that?" Sisko asked, blinking away the spots from his eyes.
"That sir was the enemy Ha'tak. Looks like I got a lucky shot sir." Yau replied with a slight shrug.
"That's a comfort." Joked Sisko as he pulled out a cigar, just as the blast shutters dropped and the bridge lost all power. "That's not."
-{[]}-
De-fold plus forty-four minutes.
Ensign Jake Rockwell perched himself on top of a roof vent near the base of the tether where it met the command building with a clear view of the Ha'tak class as he activated his shoulder mounted tactical targeting system as he peered through the targeting display on the inside of his visor on his helmet. "Target is green." He announced as he adjusted the settings on his tac-pad so that he could record the upcoming fireworks. "Crystal send the signal."
Down below, Welsh was hidden behind a small building which smelled an awful lot like a refuse, she paid it no mind, though she was determined to take an extra-long shower in addition to standard decon, as the message from Rockwell came through. "Copy Land, message away." She replied as relayed the message, via her suits built in sub-space comm-unit, to the Archangel in low orbit.
On the bridge, Cochrane received the coded text message and turned to Hudson. "Sir encoded message from Devil one. It reads, target is green, bring the rain."
Hudson gave a nod after studying his own tactical display. "Got it. Feeding the coordinates into the ventral cannons." He said as he finished imputing his command code to allow for planetary assaults. "System is ready to fire sir."
"Fire." Hudson ordered.
On the surface Welsh received a simple one word message, which was clear as day. 'DUCK!'
"Rounds incoming. Land." Welsh warned Rockwell.
Rockwell smiled behind his helmets breather, this was the part he liked. Above him he watched as the three groups of three magnetically accelerated plasma came flying down from orbit at near relativistic speed. He could almost imagine the looks on the faces of the slavers working for the Goa'uld manning the guns of the buried Ha'tak class as they realized that their lives were about to end in one flaming and painless moment.
Rockwell couldn't help but smile as the half-buried ship seemed to flower open with blue petals of flame as the rounds from the Valliant plasma linear cannon impacted the reactor of the ship come base. Rocks spewed forth and the area which the ship in was in seemed to sag and then collapse as the structural integrality of the pyramid style ship were blown away.
"Scrub one! Target destroyed!" Rockwell reported a little two happily.
Inside the turret of his Laser RAT, Maxwell whooped as he saw the guns on the mountain sized ship disappear in a ball of plasma induced fire and rock. "That's it folks! Blow the gate and get those prisoners out of there people!"
-{[]}-
De-fold plus forty-eight minutes.
Above in space, Marauder had been fighting to keep his critically damaged craft on course for the last several minutes when his proximity alert finally began to scream at him. In front of him, point defense cannons were blazing away as he streaked towards his goal.
"That's right you Khyron spawn! You can scream all you want but this bitch is still going to go down your throat!"
The fighter began to vibrate more as the engines threatened to overload from the strain of going at max burn for so long. Of course, it didn't help that he kept taking the occasional round of energized plasma too. Seeing the bright lights and people ahead Marauder made his decision. "Alright, Archangel its time to go!" he said into the radio as he grasped the ejection system handle between his legs and yanked, hard, but nothing happened.
"Oh come on!" He complained as he heard the computer announcement.
"EJECTION SYSTEM ERROR! USE ALTERNATE SYSTEM!"
"Deculture!" He moaned as he reached behind his head to grab the backup ejection handle. Looking forward he saw that he was close to make out the two Jaffa in the docking bay's control room he was about to ram. "Time to go!"
Pulling the handle with all his might and hoping that the manual system still worked, he activated the ejection system and found himself rocketing away from the orbital tethers docking ring, as he tumbled over and over he was able to catch a glimpse of his disentergrating fighter hit as powerful as an old sledge-hammer anti-ship missile.
It was then that he blacked out but he did so with a satisfied smile on his face.
-{[]}-
De-fold plus one hour, fifteen minutes.
Kanan opened his eyes as the bright lights of the secondary landing bay of ARMD 1 washed over him, looking up he was able to see the human that went by the Tau'ri name of Kyle Rogers and the rebel Jaffa S'Kar both looking down at him.
"Don't worry Kanan, you're going to be fine, we are among friends." Rogers said as a medic loaded him onto a stretched and began to move him towards one of the ships secondary infirmaries.
"It is good that they are allied with the Tau'ri." S'Kar said as he grasped the Tok'ra's shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. "You are a hero to many this day."
Kanan shook his head weakly. "No… hero." He whispered.
"I would disagree." Hudson said from behind of him.
Looking up the Tok'ra agent saw Hudson for the first time standing there with a big smile on his face. "Every single one of the prisoners we have rescued from down there all say the same thing that you are of the Tok'ra and are brave and noble, a being that did everything you could to ensure their wellbeing. I would say that makes you a hero."
Kanan tried to respond, but was chocked up as tears came to his eyes. Seeing this S'Kar wiped them away from the man who was much a brother as Rogers was. Hudson nodded. "We will talk later sir. Right now I think you need some rest." He said turning to face the medic with the trio. "Keep me informed."
-{[]}-
Kusanagi stepped out of the troop compartment of the Argo transport, which she had hitched a ride on, to find herself in a familiar environment, one that she honestly thought that she wouldn't ever see again. "Motoko?"
She turned to see the astonished face of captain Jenny 'Angel' Revell, standing in front of her, instinctively she and the dozen other Sandline Galactic behind her, snapped to attention and saluted.
Angel ignored the salute, and in an uncharacteristic move pulled her into a bear like embrace. "We saw the Quarter go up over Lantea. We thought everyone was killed." She said.
"So did we." She replied, "I don't even remember getting into the escape pod. I just woke up from a comma several weeks later down in that prison camp."
Angel released the younger woman, who was wore a tactical officers uniform for the PMC group, and wiped away the single tear which had formed in his eye. "Well I for one am glad to have your crew here, no matter how, but I think I know someone who will be even happier."
"John? Where is he?" Kusanagi asked, almost too anxiously, much to the surprise of her small surviving crew members.
"He's on the SAR Argo which just landed. He took a bad hit apparently, but he should be ok."
Kusanagi didn't even bother to say anything as she broke away at a full on sprint to where the rescue Argo was slowly being pulled in, leaping onto the rear ramp and she pressed the hatch release and jumped inside to fine her cousin laid out on a stretcher, his legs bleeding despite the bacta-gel and his lips where a light shade of blue.
"What happened?" She demanded as she took a hold of his limp hand.
"He punched out," The flight medic replied, "he has multiple shrapnel wounds in his legs and is suffering the early stages of hypoxia from a leak in his suit. If we had been just thirty seconds…"
"John wake up!" Kusanagi said as she squeezed his hand.
Marauder slowly opened his eyes to the blinding light and the face of his cousin. He smiled upon seeing her. "I knew that I would find you here." He said, his voice a bare whisper. "I missed you… so… much."
Kusanagi smiled as teams began to flow down her face freely. "Your alive… you miserable Zentron jar head, we're both alive." Punching him gently in the arm.
"A… A… Alive?" Marauder stuttered out in shock.
"Yes slug head. We are on the Archangel."
"But… how?"
"Ma'am, we need to get him to sickbay as quickly as we can. He's still in danger."
Kusanagi nodded to the medic as she moved back a bit. "Don't worry about that now, just get some rest. We can talk later."
"Don't… leave." Marauder said as he passed out from the medication that he was on kicked in and the medic's loaded him on a stretcher for transport to the main sickbay.
"Don't worry." Kusanagi replied as they carried him out of the transport. "I am never letting you go."
-{[]}-
As the Archangel was finishing up with its rescue mission at Ptah's slave and research compound, the Minerva class Minerva and her two Acidalium class escorts, Voyager and Acidalium, were holding station above a planet which fell under the protected planets treaty which had fell under the protected planets treaty which had originally been signed by the Asgard Federation and the Goa'uld Empire, but since the defeat of Anubis nine months ago, they had taken up the slack, which was caused by the Replicators war against the Asgard, and while they were rebuilding their civilization, of patrolling the planets. It also helped that the ten Eternal Vigilance class surveillance ships, which had been found in the Charon shipyard, could effectively scan a ten thousand light year area with its long-range scanners, needed only a small crew of ten.
The planets which fell under the treaty were all within thirty thousand lightyears of Earth in the Orion Arm of the galaxy, compared to the vast majority of Goa'uld space which covered the rest of the galaxy. Ba'al, who was currently fighting against the combined might of the remaining seven system lords, led by Yu, and was winning thanks to his use of technology salvaged from the shipyards used by Anubis he had decided to test the threat that the rising star of the Tau'ri posed by sending an attack force of several of his Anubis class Ha'tak's against their forces to see how strong their defenses truly were, and his target was the agrarian would of K'Tau.
"Hyperspace window opening at orange twenty-seven, ma'am." Major Arthur Trine reported as five large purplish blue tinted hyperspace windows appeared in space ahead of the patrol group. "Reading ten Anubis class Ha'tak motherships and four Al'kesh emerging from hyperspace."
"Alright here we go," Colonel Talia Gladys said as the bridge lowered into its armored bunker. "Raise shields, activate all weapons and set level one battlestations throughout the ship. Flash our escorts then open up a channel."
"Channel open ma'am." Trine said after moving to the forward weapons control station.
"This is colonel Talia Gladys of the Tau'ri defense force patrol group vessel Minerva to Goa'uld craft, you are violating the space of a protected planet. Withdraw now or face the consequences." Gladys said imagining that she was dealing with favorite fictional race, the Klingons, not that she would ever admit to anyone that she was a Trekkie.
"No response ma'am." Trine said after a minute. "They are locking weapons on us." He added, returning the favor.
"Helm, take us right at them, military thrust." Gladys ordered, "Arthur lock Tannhäuser on the lead mothership and fire a spread of the new sledge hammers at the Al'kesh."
The Minerva shot forward, its size half that of the Ha'tak's, and opened her missile lunch tubes while here escorts opened fire at long with their own positron cannons. The Ha'tak's fired first, throwing bolts of plasma at the approaching battle-carrier and her destroyer escorts. The bolts struck the Minerva's forward shields and a second later four emerald green beams from her twin barreled XM47 'Tristan' type Gottfried's and a dark purplish red beam from her single bow QZX-1 'Tannhäuser' class positron cannon lanced out from her gun ports.
The green beams quickly slammed into the shields of the Ha'tak's to the side of the lead one, before hitting their power cores, just as the three positron cannons hit the lead one and end ones of the formation bright orange shields before they died, though there appeared to be very damage to their hulls. A second later six large sledge hammer anti-ship missiles from the battle-carriers ventral missile launch tubes. The missiles soon struck the Al'kesh and destroyed them in massive fire balls which were snuffed out quickly in the vacuum of space.
"Enemy ships are intensifying their fire." Trine reported, as the ship started to shake from the impact of so many weapons.
"Fire the upgraded Isolde at the ship at green thirty-two point five delta and launch a spread of the class three Dispar's at the rest. Let's just hope that these Asgard designed shields are as good as they say." Gladys ordered as a hit near the bridge caused her to almost fall out of her chair.
Plasma bolts splashed across the Minerva's shields almost every second, not even giving it a chance to recharge even as the M10 Isolde 50cm triple railgun angled to hit the designated ship, after a second, the neck mounted weapon fired a salvo of the new Lucifer rounds a significant amount of the speed of light and blew through the targeted ship and into the one behind, tearing both into small suns a moment later.
Just as this happened, the remaining four Ha'tak's weapons fire started to bleed through the Minerva's shields and strike her composite laminated armored hull. The small battle-carrier angled slightly and fired a full spread of eight Wombat anti-ship missiles at them. The missiles quickly sped through space and slammed against the orange shields of the four motherships, destroying them and their generators with one volley.
"The Ha'tak's shields are gone." Trine reported as his console started to spark.
"Fire all weapons." Gladys said as she grabbed the fire extinguisher from under her chair to put out the fir that had sprung up by the rear plot table.
The Minerva unlashed a miniature version of a missile massacre and beam halo at the unshielded Ha'tak's. the motherships attempted to shot down the missiles but were unable to due to their size and number, and several hit each of the motherships. The naquadah enhanced weapons slammed into the hulls and engulfed the four ships in potassium and reflex fire.
"Targets have been neutralized ma'am." Trine reported as a medic came on to the bridge to see to an injured helmsman.
"Secure from level one battlestations." Gladys said sitting back in her command chair, "Contact Homeworld command. Tel them we've intercepted and destroyed ten Ha'tak and four Al'kesh in the K'Tau system, then get me a damage report."
"Message sent ma'am." Reported the comm-officer Meyrin Hawke as the bridge returned to its normal location.
"What do we do now colonel?" Trine asked as the two destroyers destroyed the last of the gliders that had prevented them from helping against the Ha'tak's.
"We were lucky that it was only ten Ha'tak's Arthur." Gladys said shaking her head. "Have the marines put together a few boarding parties, and get them looking over those ships to find out which one keia o na snakeheads that collectively call themselves the 'System Lords' these junk heaps belonged to."
"Yes ma'am." Trine responded, knowing that the colonel was beyond pissed due to her slipping into her native Hawaiian.
-{[]}-
"Incoming wormhole!" Harriman's voice announced over the SGC's base wide intercom, as the gate activated with its characteristic kawoosh of unstable energy before settling down into the stable event horizon.
"Walter?" O'Neill asked as he came down the stairs from the briefing room above the control room with Hudson, who had arrived with a massive battle-station, which doubled as a dry dock for the Archangel that was currently docked and under repair from some damage that she had received somehow, to stand behind Harriman at the controls.
"We're receiving an IDC sirs." He said as the bases computer decoded the coded signal. "It's the Tok'ra."
"The Tok'ra? I wonder what they want." O'Neill said as he rolled his eyes from multiple headaches that they had given him, and SG1, even as he gave his go ahead to open the iris making a note to grab some aspirin from the base infirmary later. A few seconds later Selmak/ Carter and a woman stepped through the event horizon before the gate shut down. Seeing that there was no danger O'Neill and Hudson walked down the side stairwell and into the embarkation room.
"Jack?" Selmak/ Carter grinned as he stepped off the ramp that lead to the gate's event horizon section. "Where's George? I thought that he was in charge around here last time I checked in."
"He's in command of the home fleet from the Command station in orbit." O'Neill replied with a smirk. "The president personally gave him command of the Prometheus and her task force when Anubis' fleet attacked nine months ago."
"Home… home fleet, so the rumors are true after all." The woman next to them spoke in the normal double flange voice of both the Tok'ra and the Goa'uld as she stepped off the end of the ramp. "The Tau'ri do indeed possess the ability to manufacture space capable battleships and orbital battlestations of their own now?"
"I'm sorry but you are?" O'Neill asked, almost certain that he had never met this lady before.
"Jaydin of the Tok'ra high council." The woman responded with a slight bow of her head.
"Well in that case… welcome to Earth, but I'm guessing that this isn't a social call." Hudson said having dealt with Selmak/ Carter several times over the last eight-teen months.
"Yes and no." Selmak/ Carter said answering the Zentron commodore just as the stargate began to activate once more.
"Unscheduled off world activation." Harriman once more announced over the public address system, as the iris reclosed over the gate half a second after it activated. "We're receiving Bra'tac's IDC." He said a moment later.
"Open the iris." O'Neill ordered and the first line of defense for attack through the gate retracted for the second time in as many minutes, and it didn't take a genius to work out that something major was going on out in the universe. "Any ideas what this could be about?" He asked the other three just as Bra'tac stepped through the gate with Teal'c. "Welcome back to Earth Bra'tac, T."
"O'Neill." Teal'c said bowing his head slightly in respect for the man who was his battle brother.
"Hammond of Texas hasn't returned yet O'Neill?" Bra'tac inquired, causing Selmak, O'Neill and Hudson to smirk, as he stepped off the embarkation ramp.
"He currently commands a battle station and the home fleet." O'Neill replied just as he had a few moments ago to Selmak and Jaydin. "Now is someone going to tell me what's going on that it has brought the lot of you here, before I have a headache."
Jaydin was the first to speak. "I am afraid that it concern the state of the Goa'uld Empire."
"I shouldn't be surprised that the Tok'ra know." Bra'tac said nodding in agreement. "I'm afraid that I must once again be the conveyor of bad news, our allies in the Jaffa resistance have learned that Ba'al has defeated the forces of the remaining System Lords, he now has his sights on destroying the Tau'ri and all of those that stand with them."
O'Neill simply stared for a few seconds, pinching the bridge of his nose, sub-concisely muttering in Alteran without realizing, before he came out of his stupor. "I think we need to take this to the briefing room."
-{[]}-
"We knew that this was going to happen." O'Neill said as he and Hudson sat in his office, after several hours of talking with both Bra'tac and the Tok'ra about the size of Ba'al's forces now that he had effectively taken on the title of 'Supreme System Lord,' to the comm-unit on his desk to his friend and mentor. "It's not like this unexpected gen… George, I mean not after the Minerva defended the K'Tau system two days ago we all know that it was Ba'al who ordered the raid."
"Very well, send them up to the command station and I'll talk with them up here. I've got a meeting with the president in a few minutes so I'll have Davis give them a tour of the station and meet with them later." Hammond said over the link sounding tired.
"Alright I'll send them up on the next transport from Peterson, by the way care to tell me how you did you put up with all this?" O'Neill asked leaving out about SG1 and SG3 antic's and the less said about SG5's improvisation skills with explosives the better.
"One day at a time Jack, one day at a time." Hammond replied with a chuckle before the line went dead as the connection was cut. As O'Neill and Hudson regained their wits at the comments from the former commander of the SGC and first commander of the newly created Homeworld Command, the pair begin to head off to the mess hall on level twenty-two when Harriman's voice sounded again.
As the pair turn to head back from the lift they see the defense teams rushing into embarkation room to man the fixed weapons in the room. In the control room Carter is sitting next to Harriman as the last chevron locked in and the gate activated behind the iris, before shutting down seconds later, seeing that they had received a compressed data file she begins to un-compress it.
"Who's it from?" Harriman asks, refraining from leaning over to have a look for himself.
"Atlantis." Carter says in complete surprise and shocking the senior non-com. There had been no word from the mission to the Pegasus galaxy nine months ago when they had left. Carter quickly transfers the file to an iPad and almost runs up the stairs to O'Neill's office after reading only the first page of the file, as she leaves the control room Harriman leans over to take a look at the file, before beginning to make call to his counterpart up on the Command station to begin getting ready for a heavy transfer of equipment soon.
When she reaches the top of the stairs, she hears O'Neill talking with Hudson about the upgrades that the Archangel had done as well why they had rescued the prisoners from that planet, and what plans they had to upgrade the entire Minerva and Drake classes of the fleet. There were plans to expand the fleet of Minerva class and increase the amount of firepower that the class carried. The new ones, Minerva, Athena and Orion, all carried advanced Asgard technology which was coupled with Zentradi and Tau'ri systems. They even included Zentradi style food synthesizers in the mess hall and a pair of industrial size ones in the hanger deck, which could make anything from a full replacement weapons back to hull plating.
Even Carter was impressed by how deadly lieutenant Cochrane's computer simulations had been when it showed how powerful their already powerful 'Tristan' class Gottfried beam cannons would be when powered by the newer Vibranium/ naquadah arc reactors. As well as the limited amount of, though still old by the standards of the Archangel's crew, newer Robotech hardware, like the ADR-03-MkIII Cheyenne class destroid, which had helped upgrade the computer systems, life support and sensor systems to allow for more detailed spatial readings.
"Carter?" O'Neill said, his voice breaking through the fog of her thoughts and snapping her back to reality.
"It was Atlantis sir." Carter said using her thumb to point down at the now inactive gate.
"Well what did it say?" O'Neill asks as Hudson raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
"I don't know sirs." She admitted as she hands over the iPad to O'Neill.
"You don't know?" O'Neill asks dumbfounded that Carter would even admit that.
"Well, it is a compressed file. It's got hours of videos and thousands of pages of text within it." Carter explains as O'Neill begins to reach for the aspirin in his BDU's top pocket.
"It must have a cover sheet or contents page to get you to run up the stairs like that colonel?" Hudson says as O'Neill's face begins to drain of its colour from what he is reading.
"They are in trouble sirs." Carter says nodding to the iPad in O'Neill's hands.
It took them another hour to brief Hudson and come up with a solution to the problem. The last ships that where slated to join 'Taskforce Atlantis' were still under construction in the construction slips around the world, meaning that only three of the ships where ready. The Archangel, after completing repairs would tow the Minerva and her two sisters, Daedalus and Orion, to Pegasus within the next few days, their holds all filled to bursting with supplies for the mission, while the Orion would carry two dozen of the Tau'ri built Cheyenne class anti-air destroids that had been built by Chrysler Defense, while the other two carried her compliment of Starmax and Star wolf's.
While the four ships raced across space, a multi-national military contingent and an elite team from the Archangels MACO's and devil Squad, plus a force of fifty combat engineers would gate to Atlantis, using the ZPM's from the a dig in Egypt, to begin installing various weapons banks and other defensive technology to Atlantis. The city would be the best defended that the extra galactic city complex could be.
The rescue operation would be launched as soon as all of the supplies and other necessary resources from bases and store warehouses across the planet and Charon station could be loaded up ready for transport.
