Ace In The Hole
Chapter 32
"Dropping us out of hyperspace in 3, 2, 1" The city exits hyperspace cleanly and slows to a crawl within seconds.
"The Adaris is right where we expected her to be Colonel we are preparing to beam damage control teams aboard right away to begin repairs" Rodney says over the com.
"Rodney we may not have time for that, the Wraith fleet are already on route I believe we may only have a matter of..." Alex is cut off mid sentence by Mitchell still concentrating hard in the control chair.
"Guy's... it's too late" Three hives and their attending cruisers drop out of hyperspace relatively close to the city, immediately darts begin pouring out in huge numbers, Atlantis pivots gracefully putting itself directly above the stricken Earth vessel in an attempt to protect its unshielded form "Sheppard you have a go"
"Acknowledged... Jumper flight taking up defensive positions" Waves of Jumpers leave the tower and take up position around the edge of the city in an attempt to stop any darts getting past. In the control room Woolsey is watching McKaye in confusion as he continues to tap away on the keyboard in front of him.
"I still don't understand why the ship can't get through the cities shields when the Jumpers obviously can"
"The Jumpers hull is polarized at a specific oscillating frequency that allows it to slip through the field... ordinarily the Adaris could just adjust her shields to match that field which would allow her to just slip through... but... the Adaris has not got the power to do that... we can't drop our shields... so..." Rodney glances at Woolsey.
"Sir I have beamed most of the Adaris crew to safety but Colonel Grainger and a couple others are staying aboard" Chuck says with a grimace, before Woolsey has a chance to respond the city begins to take heavy weapons fire.
"Damn it" Mitchell's brow creases in concentration as he sees the Wraith open fire, suddenly he sense's that he is no longer alone, a warm presence in his mind begins to take over the more basic tasks of arming drones, opening the silo door's, balancing power fluctuations in the shields, he knows that he and Atlantis are now one on an almost spiritual level, he can feel every sensor output every ounce of strength and power the city has is at the control of his merest thoughts.
In his minds eye he can see every single Wraith vessel in front of him laid out as if they were almost standing still, the merest glance of a ship brings up all relevant information on each target, life signs, power out put, hull composition and strength, weak points in armour, projected courses all are displayed in a fraction of mere seconds and Cam wonders to himself if they are in some sort of time dilation field.
Quickly he begins to pick his targets choosing to engage the swift and deadly cruisers first, if any ships were to get around them into a position where they could threaten the Adaris it would be them, no soon is the decision is made he feels waves of drones powering up in their plexiglass honeycombs.
Slowly the ships in front of him begin to speed up and he hears a slight chuckle in his head.
'Primary targets locked Colonel' Alex's voice says calmly and clearly in his head.
"This is weird" Mitchell can't help the smile that he feels appearing on his face "Fire!"
Exactly twenty-seven drones leave each of the three silos at the edges of the city they streak across the space between the city and Wraith fleet at break neck speed, the deadly glowing weapons nimbly dance in and out of the approaching darts heading towards their targets, the cruisers pull into tight formation expecting the hives to be the main target, but less than 100 feet from the 3 hives hulls the column of drones break into deadly groups of nine each and veer sharply for the cruisers now nearby.
Six of the cruisers are struck dead centre and erupt into huge fireballs almost immediately, the seventh has its engines sheared clean off as it tries to turn desperately realising its fate to late, small explosions erupt throughout the rear of the ship progressing further and further forward until the ship merely splits in half and explodes, debris is blasted upwards into the First hive directly above causing the huge ship to lurch violently.
The Eighth cruiser is stuck directly on the prow it merely slows to a dead stop lifelessly as the vast majority of the crew are sucked out into the vacuum of space through the gaping hole that is clearly visible prow to stern.
The ninth and final cruiser being the furthest out of range due to the fact it was above its hive rather than below tried valiantly to escape its fate, the nine drones that were tasked with taking it out turn sharply upwards flying though the hull of the Second Hive itself they punch a hole through its bottom and quickly burst out of the top, small explosions began to shake the hive but the drones continued upwards, a glancing blow to the engine of the cruiser is all it takes, the explosion is just enough force to throw the rear up violently whilst causing the nose too dive down.
The Hive below desperately tries too turn but the cruisers increased speed is now to great, it slams down into the top of the hive and both the cruiser and hive erupt in a huge explosion as dozens of darts are vaporised in the blast wave.
The remaining undamaged hive transmits a powerful distress signal before its hyper-drive engages and it jumps away to safety, the remaining damaged Hive sensing it has nothing to loose begins to accelerate towards the city whilst raining down fire.
"Lady... you do not wanna play chicken with me" Cam chuckles.
'You can't seriously be considering' Mitchell can hear the shock in Alex's voice and his smile begins too change slowly to a grin.
The cities main Stardrive releases a massive burst of power propelling the city upwards directly towards the hive at incredible speed.
[Sheppard to Mitchell] Cam hears the concern in Sheppard's voice.
"I'm a little busy now!" Cam chuckles.
[Are you about to do what I think you are about to do?]
"Alex put me on city wide"
'You're on Colonel' Alex says in his head.
"Brace for impact!"
[You crazy son of a bitch!]
The Wraith Queen on board the remaining Hive had lived throughout the entire conflict with the Lanteans, she had watched as her people had viscously and systematically destroyed their will and capability to fight, she like many of her sisters had fought and destroyed even the powerful city ships, but in all her battles and conflicts she had never once seen the sight that was in front of her now, though every instinct in her body was urging her into action she still stood paralysed staring at the screen.
"They are on a direct heading!" The Commander next to her implores trying desperately to break the spell she is under "I think they mean to..."
The cities shields flare explosively as the top of the dome strikes the prow of the hive head on at tremendous speed, the cities drives pour on even more power forcing it onwards like a never ending force of nature, section after section of the stricken hive explodes upon the surface of the impassable shield and within less than a couple of seconds its all over the cities shield flare in a huge explosion as the huge hive is merely torn apart as Mitchell ram's the city into the Hive head on.
"I can not believe that you used the city as a battering ram" Sheppard grins at Mitchell as he steps out of the jumper.
"You already told me the cities shields were impenetrable... besides I didn't want too waste any ammo" Mitchell smirks back. "Thanks for taking care of the rest of those darts out there"
"Just doing my job" Sheppard smiles as he starts walking to the transporter "Now if you don't mind I believe I am still on leave... I'm sure you can handle things from here" Sheppard smirks at Cam as the door to the transporter closes.
[McKaye to Mitchell] Cam sighs deeply before replying.
"What's up now?"
[Nothing is up as such... I just thought you may want to know that we have managed to bring the Adaris inside the shield] Mitchell can almost hear the self satisfied grin in Rodney's voice.
"I thought that was not possible?"
[I said it was unlikely... but I am a genius after all] Mitchell just shakes his head open mouthed but decides its not worth the effort.
"I'm on my way back to the chair... lets go home"
Less than four hours later, people watch in wonder as the city slowly lowers to the ground with the Adaris resting on the broad flat end section of the South East pier, cheers erupt from the traveller fleet and a new found sense of optimism sweeps through the crowd, Atlantis had ventured out saved the Adaris and returned with no loss of life, maybe for once the future was looking bright.
"How long are the repairs going to take?" Lorne says to Sheppard whilst he stands frowning at the painting in front of him.
"Rodney said he and Cairns should have the power grid back online in a few days..." Lorne just glances at him and nods before turning his attention back to the canvas in front of him as Sheppard stretches and walks over to the huge panoramic windows in their room, glancing at the ocean in the distance. Off to his left he can see that the repairs to the Ark Royals hull are almost complete as she sits in slipway two in front of the Yun Zhou to his right he can see two of the travellers ships sitting behind the Odyssey in slipway three he idly yawns before glancing back at Evan, Evan a small frown forms on his brow as he ponders that particular stray thought, exactly when did he start thinking about his XO as Evan and not Lorne.
Feelings were something that John Sheppard just didn't understand not normally, they just messed with his head and just confused matters no end, but the close proximity to another person, someone around to ask how your day went, someone who was there for him who just listened to him vent his frustrations without judging... he knew full well he was playing a dangerous game.
Sheppard had been attracted to a lot of men and women over the years, but the strictness of his conservative upbringing had made acting on those attractions a no go, after joining the Air force he had been forced to put aside that part of himself for good or so he thought, somehow in all his imaginings on what his future might hold he had never once imagined he would be living with his male XO and their children, a smile slowly forms on his face as he wonders how he would explain that one to his brother.
"What you smiling at?" Evan says glancing up at him with a beaming smile of his own.
"Nothing important" Sheppard drops down on the sofa with a sigh. "Back to work tomorrow"
"We could always ask for another week" Evan says with a cheeky grin before he disappears up the stairs.
SG1 and the Atlantis command staff stand in the gate room watching the stargate spin, Mitchell turns to Sheppard.
"Colonel" he shakes Sheppard's hand with a smile before pulling him into a hug.
"Try to stay out of trouble guys" Sheppard says as he returns the hug somewhat stiffly whilst smiling warmly to Daniel, Vala and Teal'c over Cam's shoulder.
"It's not us you have to tell" Vala says with a smile pointing to both Daniel and Mitchell.
"Now that I can believe" Sheppard grins slapping Mitchell on the back spurring him into action.
"SG1... time to go home" Cam nods before leading his team through the gate back to Earth.