Chapter 32
The Storm Part 5
When Extremes Meet
***Local Cluster (Sol System)***
**Earth (Surface)**
*Stargate Command (Landry's Office)*
Landry was taking Widget's crash course on Furling history and who the Demons were, and, so far, he didn't like what he was hearing. During the use of the Nex's nano-forge, several upgrades had been made to both the SGC and Area 51 including a shield, defensive weapons, and holoprojectors throughout the complexes to allow the AIs to better interact with the personnel. As such, Pac's avatar was now 'sitting in a chair' across from Landry in the General's office glowing faintly but otherwise able to be mistaken as a normal person, especially since the AI had five fingers and appeared mostly Human as a result of being in Human computers. He even 'wore' Human apparel which was a strange notion in Landry's opinion, but Sieon kept saying that the more time Pac spent in Human computers, the more Human he'd become. Having been modified with a scan of Landry's mind didn't exactly help the AI think of itself as Furling either.
"We're being hailed," Walter's voice reported. "It's Atlantis. I'm patching them through."
As Landry got up to head down to the Control Room, a shimmer in the air was all the warning he got before Pac's avatar was joined by another. "I'm back! Or, I should say, I'm reporting back from Atlantis. Sorry, I know it gets confusing," the AI amended. Due to the nature of the computers this one inhabited, he wore the simple robes of the Lantean sect of Ancients and had a distinctive accent that Landry assumed was what a Lantean would sound like in the modern day had any of them lived this long.
"Have you found the schematics yet?" O'Neill asked as a holographic version of him appeared beside the two AIs and Landry immediately knew that his own holographic image was being broadcast back to the Homeworld Command.
"No, the plans were on a physical crystal that was removed from the Core and carried through the Gate into the Milky Way Galaxy during the evacuation of Pegasus. There's no telling where the ZPM designs are now," Atlantis's AI replied.
Jack was about to ask something else, but his words were lost on Landry when, without any warning, the ground shook like an earthquake and the General fell out of his chair as a result. The lights in the base flickered, and, as the ground shook again, although not as bad this time, Landry asked, "What the hell was that?"
Pac's avatar was franticly shifting colors as he received status reports from the Apollo, Odyssey, Cursor, and Nex while simultaneously monitoring the SGC's sensors. "Oh my god!" Pac exclaimed, his eyes going wide as his face twisted into a mask of horror. Looking Landry square in the eye, Pac said, "The Ori jumped three ships directly into the atmosphere! The SGC and Area 51 are under attack, the third ship didn't jump all the way past the shield and was cut in half by the barrier, the wreckage is raining down on the greater Washington DC area, and, just to make matters worse, subspace radiation is flooding into the atmosphere. Stargate Command took a direct hit, but Cheyenne absorbed the bulk of the blow, our defenses are now online, and offensive weaponry is charging as we speak, but I still advise everyone to prepare for a ground assault as it's likely the Ori will try to take this base one way or another." Pac was broadcasting his report across the entire base as well as to Area 51, the Whitehouse, Homeworld Command, the other IOA nations, and the fleet in orbit, as per his orders. Because he was 'present,' the other AI in the room carried the report back to Atlantis and the Daedalus which were still en route.
Landry had just enough time to think to himself that that was the fastest action report he'd ever received as AIs had no need to stop to breathe which made the whole report roll together. The thought crosses his mind, then he was moving. "I want you to send a message to Sieon thanking that overly paranoid pain-in-the-ass for being so paranoid!" Landry said as he ran out of his office and headed towards the Control Room.
"What risk does the subspace radiation pose to the environment?" O'Neill asked the AI over the comms channel that was still active in Landry's earpiece.
"It's an exotic form of radiation from another dimension," Pac replied. "The threat it poses to organic life is absolute. We need to…"
The rest of his explanation was cut off as Landry hit the metal spiral staircase and took them three at a time in a rush to get to where he was needed, the AI's words lost in his own rush. As he ran, more impacts rocked the halls and Landry thought back to Sieon's most recent changes to their defenses. Late last night, Sieon had decided to use Pac's ideas to upgrade the SGC in the time they had left before the Ori showed up. Using some of Carter's new batteries from the Dyson Structure and a few Neutrino Ion Generators, the SGC had been given a shield and several ion cannon batteries for defense of the mountain complex. The Control Room had also been decked out in holographic terminals to better interface the new control systems with the existing ones.
"General," Walter said as Landry ran into the room behind him. "One of the FSRs in the planetary defense shield has already been put into overdrive mode."
"So soon?" Landry asked, clearly worried.
"When the third ship jumped half-way through the shield, it not only destroyed several of the tertiary shield emitter satellites and two of the secondaries, it also put a massive strain on the barrier. Colonel Carter had to put the first generator into overdrive mode to hold back the sheer amount of firepower raining down on the weakened part of the barrier. I'm adjusting the orbital telemetry of the remaining satellites to cover the weakened section and reinforce the more heavily strained areas. Once the shield's power levels are stabilized, we can take the generator out of overdrive mode and flash-cool it," Pac replied, his avatar standing next to Walter.
"You can do that?" Siler asked.
"The tertiary shield emitter satellites were designed to be moveable in case anything like this ever happened," Pac explained as the holographic display that solely represented the planetary defense network shifted, the satellites, represented by small dots, actively moving around and the barrier shifting from flashing red back to a less potent shade of orange.
"The fleet's falling back into orbit, anti-fighter formation," Walter reported as their ground-based sensors detected the ships in orbit launching a massive swarm of fighters. "No help's coming, sir. We have to hold them off ourselves."
"Looks like we're about to disclose the Stargate Program. Bring our cannons online and return fire," Landry ordered.
"Opening weapon hatches now," Pac's voice announced as the AI's avatar finally appeared in the Control Room. "Acquiring target lock… firing."
Sieon had, upon General O'Neill's request, installed a special terminal that showed exactly what Pac was doing twenty-four-seven. If one were to watch this screen now, they would see a schematic of the SGC enclosed in Cheyenne, the base outlined a different color than the rock of the mountain that encased it. As the AI rattled off his action report, Landry could see the hologram shift to show the massive external doors opening. The SGC's ion cannons eased their way out of fourteen of the fifteen openings, the last hatch being an air strip for 302s to be launched from the base's new underground airfield.
"Only twelve of the guns came online," Landry observed.
"Cannon Two's power conduit was hit in the Ori's opening salvo, and Cannon Ten's hatch was cut through by the blast itself and was outright destroyed as a result," Pac replied, highlighting the indicated areas of the base that had been damaged in red. The large chunk of rock now shown to be missing from the mountainside was a rather disturbing sight in Landry's opinion, but the shield now deployed around the mountain made him feel a lot better about their chances of surviving considering that a mountain is literally the perfect immobile target to just sit there and shoot at.
"Hostile fighters inbound. All ground teams prepare for anti-raiding parties. I repeat, the Ori have landed several ring platforms outside of the shield envelope. We've got inbound hostile ground forces!" Walter said into the internal comms.
The base's activity level instantly skyrocketed as the Airmen armed themselves and made for their posts with all the haste in the world as the great blast door outside of the mountain swung closed. So great was the sound of full-body metal armor and heavy boots clunking on the ground and echoing beneath the stone that it drowned out the alarms as the men and women assigned to the SGC rushed to their stations.
*Colorado (Campsite)*
Oscar had decided to take his family camping in the crisp, Colorado air to help bring them closer together. Times had been hard recently, everyone was at each other's throats, and the father found himself looking at his family as it fell apart from the internal stresses caused by the lack of money, the job searches, and the infighting all this created. Their vacation had lasted three days so far and was doing wonders for their attitudes. Already his kids were getting along better and treating their mother with more respect.
What Oscar hadn't anticipated, however, was the majestic form of Cheyenne Mountain to be attacked by a clearly alien spaceship. Actually, what really surprised him about the situation was that the mountain was protected by what had to be an energy shield. Even more stunning then that were the giant guns coming out of the mountainside like some cheap Sci-Fi movie. First the rock separated from the mountain and moved aside, obviously a mechanical door designed to hide the weapon beneath. Then metal slots behind the rock that protected the weapons from damage opened, massive cannons slipping out of the doors. As the cannons that were each easily forty meters long eased out of the rock, the barrels extended with an audible whirr to double their length as the big guns pointed towards the hostile ship.
There was a flash of silver-white light as one of the barrels recoiled so hard it almost completely retracted back into its casing. A split second later a ground-rumbling boom echoed through the mountain range and the ground shook as the first weapon fired followed by a full volley form the others. The trees closest to one of these cannons were uprooted and sent tumbling away like a branch in a hurricane by the force of the shockwave resulting from its firing. As strange as it all was, and as hard as it was to believe, his family vacation had become a front-row seat to a duel between a mountain and an alien spaceship!
"OSCAR!" his wife shouted in panic and fear.
Forcing himself to take his eyes off of the battle before him and follow his wife's line of sight, Oscar watched as a swarm of strange looking, though obviously Human, fighters thundered out of the mountain to intercept fighters launching from the alien ship. Then one of the alien ships flew over their campsite, one of the Human-built fighters hot on its tail. The shockwave and heat of their passing knocked over their tents and blew dirt into the air.
"DAD!" his daughter shouted, her finger pointing at a spot where the grass was turning brown and dying as the trees shed their leaves and did the same.
"GET back to the truck!" Oscar shouted as his family scrambled to get to their four-wheel drive, all-terrain vehicle.
The moment all the doors were all closed, the truck roared to life and Oscar put the petal to the metal, their camping equipment forgotten in their rush to stay ahead of the wave of radiation, though they didn't know it was radiation and wouldn't for a few days, that was killing everything in the area. A few weeks from now, when all was said and done, they would learn that the radiation had killed everything in a two mile radius of the mountain and that their lives were measured in months.
Radiation moves at the speed of light. Their jeep only went one-hundred-twenty miles per hour on flat terrain. There was no outrunning that wave.
**Earth (Orbit)**
*FGN Paciscor of Nex (Combat Information Center)*
The Nex shifted in space to bring her plasma flak cannons to bear once more, the protostars secured in her hull expanding within their containment cells and the plasma harvesters quickly consuming the extra mass. The stars, despite being allowed to expand, were only doing so slightly since the plasma flak cannons required three times the amount of plasma to operate than the pulse cannons did. As the forty-seven Motherships in orbit launched their fighters, Earth's defense fleet launched their own, the F-302s retreating further back towards orbit as the capital ships moved to engage the enemy Motherships.
The Daedalus and Apollo aligned themselves with the Nex's bow and stern, the distance between them designed to optimize their field of coverage. To the Nex's starboard side, which was pointing 'up' in relevance to the planet 'below,' the Cursor and Ares positioned themselves while the Gaia took up position 'below' the Nex running parallel to her z-axis and lining up her broadside. Thusly prepared, the forces of Earth waited.
This time, despite their increased numbers, the Ori fighters wouldn't stand a chance at getting past them. As the swarm approached in force, the newly upgraded fleet let loose. The Nex began their counter assault by pumping space full of golden explosions and the rest followed by sweeping away fighters by the hundreds with their Asgard-designed anti-fighter weapons. Whatever those things did to the fighters, Sieon still wasn't sure, but damn if they weren't the most effective anti-fighter screen he'd ever seen!
The Swarm died in sweeps of white light not even thirty seconds after the fight began, but the Ori were not stupid. The fighters at the rear of the Swarm split off and went wide forcing the Earth ships to move in accordance, but this opened gaps in their AI-operated network of anti-fighter weapons. Using this to their advantage, the Ori slipped past the defense fleet and sent over three-hundred fighters headed for Earth. Once again, they were left to try and get past the PDS, but this time they already knew which IFFs to use… or so they thought.
The VI left to run the PDS had already changed the composition of the barrier and narrowed it down so that only one IFF would allow you to pass through the barrier before the battle began, so the only fighters that made it through were those that passed through with the Motherships attacking the Ori's ground targets, and those were matched by the number of 302s the Ares had carried into the system in its bays then outnumbered by the remaining fighters the rest of the fleet carried. The first stage of the battle, the anti-fighter round, was won, but now the capital ship round was beginning.
And more Motherships were dropping out of hyperspace.
**Earth (Surface)**
*Area 51 (Geothermal Power Slip)*
As the shield around the base flared brightly with each impact of the beam, and shimmered constantly under the barrage of lesser weapons fire, Sam pulled more of the geothermal energy going into the PDS and pumped it into their own shield. As she did, Pac, who was the AI for Area 51, the SGC, and Homeworld Command, managed to get three of their ion cannons operational. The three cannons, not completed by a half, lifted their barrels to the sky and returned fire with thunderous booms of their own. Well, two of them did. The third one exploded as the first round left its firing chamber, the systems not ready to be used causing the generator to meltdown. Thankfully all it did was explode instead of going nuclear. Even then, the two cannons that were still firing were far from enough to challenge an Ori Mothership and the cannons weren't going to last long considering they weren't finished yet. Pac would have to make sure that, when they blew up, they didn't go nuclear either.
Sam was busy redistributing power throughout the base to lessen their dependency on the planetary defense shield's primary source of power when a beep on the sensors console caught her attention. Looking up, she was surprised to see another ship headed right for them in a nosedive through the atmosphere that had the ship streaking across the high-noon sky like a shooting star. Then she realized the design and turned to look up. The roof over their heads had been left retracted to allow the massive amounts of heat coming from the geothermal tunnel that went straight down to the Mantel a more efficient way to be dispersed. Even with the room where the operation of the generators were controlled shielded and cooled by powerful systems, the heat was still stifling. At least it didn't dry out the air and leave the operators too hot to work the systems properly. They'd have to upgrade the geothermal plant later. Now simply wasn't the time.
With the roof open as it was, when she looked up, Sam could see the Mothership over them firing beams back towards the comparatively small structure on the surface of the Earth that hid the true size of the base built beneath the sands of the Nevada desert. The focus of their smaller weapons was the base itself, but the beams? Those were targeting the geothermal slip specifically. Clearly the Ori understood what the facility was used for and were not about to leave it operational if they could help it. As she looked up through the retracted doors, the heat hitting her in full force since she was standing in the slip as opposed to the control booth, Sam could see a column of orange lights descending from the skies above them; a column of light she knew well. The column split into tendrils and those tendrils began cutting through the Ori fighters with ease before curving back up and slamming into the shield of the Ori Mothership from beneath the two ships now above the base.
"Damn it!" Sam cursed as the drones failed to bypass the powerful shields used by the Ori.
Her attitude changed when one of the drones slipped past the shield that was far from collapsing and hit the Mothership square in the main weapon's dish. Breaking off its attack of Area 51, the Mothership turned to face the ship that was still dropping from the skies above them as more drones slipped through the tiny micro-fissures in the Ori shields that only Sieon, with his Furling eyes, and, apparently, Ancient drones could detect. The next three drones to slip through the shield envelope targeted the reactor core and Sam's eyes went wide.
"PAC!" Sam shouted and the AI did what she was about to order before she could finish saying it.
The assembled crowd standing outside of the base's fenced-off area watching the spectacle were outside of the base's shield, but well within the blast radius of a Mothership's reactor core going critical. In a flash of light they were whisked away as the reactor on the ship above them lost much needed stability in its output and the Ori Mothership exploded in a blinding flash of light, an intense wave of heat, immense concussive force, and yet another cloud of exotic radiation. All around the base, sand turned to glass as it was flash-backed by the heat, shrubs shriveled up and died as radiation flooded their DNA, and anything standing outside of the shield envelope was flattened as a sandstorm was spawned by the concussive blast.
Above the self-destructing Mothership, the Ancient Cruiser that would've been Ptah's flagship broke off its rapid decent, its shield aflame with the heat of reentry, and pulled up hard. The ship, being piloted by a small team of specialists who had been given the ATA gene therapy only a few hours ago, made for orbit at full speed to rejoin the fight as the Ares descended behind them at a far more reasonable pace. The Invasion Carrier would be nearly useless against the Ori fleet now that the fighters had been handled, and no one was willing to risk the ship's destruction against an obviously superior force.
**Earth (Orbit)**
*Gaia (Combat Information Center)*
Holding a single defensive formation against the Ori when they were mobilizing in such force would've been impossible, so, instead, they had broken the fleet into battle groups at Sieon's suggestion. The Gaia advanced towards the enemy, her shields shrugging off beam after beam, while the Odyssey and Apollo flanked her on either side, and Colonel McMillan's ship flew along with them just above the CIC of the Gaia under the power of her cloak ready to beam the crew out if the ship was lost seeing as how beaming tech was somehow overlooked when the ship was upgraded by the Nex's nano-forge. Behind them, the Nex, Cursor, and the South Park stood between the split Ori advance and Earth.
"Is everything ready?" Jack asked as he sat in the Control Chair and told the ship to move forward.
"As ready as it can be," Walter replied from his place in the Weapons Chair.
"Then let's kick these bastards out of our system!" Jack ordered venomously. "Unchain the wolves!"
At his command, the Odyssey and Apollo, which had been coasting through space to keep level with the Gaia, punched their engines and shot forward. Their engines carried them into the mass of ships descending down on their planet and Walter fired their own weapons. Linked to his mind through the network the chairs created, Jack shared in the experience. The buildup of power in the ship's conduits sent a rush of adrenaline through his veins. The firing of the beams gave him the excitement of the kill, and the engines pushing ever forward was the thrill of the chase. It was a high like no other to be so in-tune with the weapons of a ship that could, and just did, fire thirty-six standard plasma beam cannons as the Grodin, so named for the man who died firing the original in Atlantis' defense, hummed to life.
The sleek form of the Gaia lit up on her every flank as the blue beams lanced out in every direction but to her rear where there were no enemies to target. The weapons slammed into and depleted the shields of four Motherships before Walter sent drones into the nerve center and power cores of the hostile ships. As those four died in a single volley, the Gaia finished proving itself as lethal as the Nex by firing the Grodin. The beam of green energy slammed full-on into the forward shield of the Ori Mothership advancing on the Gaia's bow. As it did, the Mothership's forward momentum was halted entirely for the two seconds it took for the beam to collapse the barrier. Passing through the armor as if it wasn't even there, a plasma-coated blade cutting through pre-melted butter, the beam shot out the other end of the Mothership and hit the one behind it in its port side.
The beam held for eight more seconds, cutting through another Mothership and collapsing the shields of a third that survived only because the capacitor had been depleted, and O'Neill was left speechless. Seven Motherships outright destroyed in their opening volley, and their shields were still at eighty percent to boot.
"Damn," Jack said, his voice barely audible in the absolute silence that had consumed the CIC, and indeed the ship as a whole.
*USS Odyssey (Bridge)*
Donnelly had been too focused on the battle to notice. Marks was too busy piloting them through a densely packed formation at a high rate of speed. Davidson was too busy giving orders. Melissa, however… she saw what the Gaia had done, and she was practically bouncing off the walls. In the privacy of her mind, of course. There was a time and place for celebrations and the Bridge of a Battlecruiser in the middle of an intergalactic invasion of one's homeworld was neither.
"Watch your three o'clock," Melissa warned from her place at the back of the Bridge. Marks pulled hard on the controls and the Odyssey narrowly avoided a collision with a Mothership that was actively trying to ram them. The Ori probably thought they'd survive the collision, and were probably right, but the fact that they were treating suicide runs against the smallest ships in the system as a valid battle tactic was telling… and useful.
"New orders from General O'Neill," Isis announced over the sounds of combat. "We're to get their shields down and the Gaia will use their drones to finish them off."
"That simplifies things," Davidson mused as he strapped himself into his chair. As he did, anyone else who could, did. Good thing too.
As another ramming attempt saw two Motherships closing in on the small ship, Marks threw the accelerator past the redline, took them beyond their safe top speed, then pulled back on the controls hard. The inertial energies of the maneuver overpowered the inertial dampeners enough that the superstructure of the ship groaned in protest at the abuse it was being put under. Odysseus amped up the power to the external inertial dampeners to take the stress off the hull, but had to reduce the strength of the internal dampeners to get the proper power levels without sacrificing their much needed weapons, shields, and engines.
As they pulled out of the turn, the familiar sensation of an elevator coming to halt was all they felt as the borrowed power was redistributed to its original system. As the hull no longer needed the extra reinforcement and the crew did, the AI redirected his stolen power back to its proper system at the speed of computerized thought. In short, having an AI to run those systems was a major boon!
*South Park (Combat Information Center)*
The South Park and the Cursor had stayed in orbit to help the Nex defend the planet from the large force now taking up positions around the planet. The South Park was, in its CO's opinion, a fine ship. That having been said, Kyle had some issues with its name. When he and his fellow specialists were assigned to the ship, it had been a joke that Kyle Arthur, Stan Dots, Kenny Erikson, and Jimmy Cartman were all on the same ship. Since that ship needed a pronounceable name, one that wasn't Gralfa Zalki T'Pequen (whatever the hell that was supposed to mean), General O'Neill had dubbed it the USS Colorado, but everyone else had started calling it the South Park. Pointing out which name stuck is, by now, pointless. O'Neill had promised to change the name in an official capacity 'when circumstances were less demanding.'
Kyle just hoped they lived to see that day.
They had twenty Motherships bearing down on them, and the Nex was facing off against another seventeen that had moved to destroy the ship the Ori deemed the most lethal to their crusade. O'Neill had already proven their assumption that the Nex was the deadliest ship in the system wrong by firing the Gaia's entire weapons grid in one salvo. That had gotten another thirty ships swarming the Lantean Warship in addition to the ones that were largely ignoring the Apollo and Odyssey in their attempts to destroy the flying beam cannon. And, just because that wasn't enough, the Ori were still dropping reinforcements out of hyperspace, which meant that they were not facing off against fifty Motherships. That initial number was depressing enough without the added reinforcements flooding the system. At least they weren't filling space with fighters anymore, but that was probably because they wanted to take orbit before losing them all to the White Light.
On the surface below them, once their defenses had won out, Stargate Command had turned its weapons orbit-ward. The Ares' surface-to-orbit cannons and Cheyenne's own ion cannons were firing globs of ionic energy at anything daring enough to enter range of their extreme-ranged weapons. The Ares had even taken to flying around under the PDS keeping the Ori from settling into one place for too long. This battle, short as it was currently, had already made it clear that they'd have to install more surface-to-orbit weapons when they had the time.
Kyle, once again, just hoped they lived to see that day.
The Ori had employed a new tactic in this battle. Not only were they sticking to their attempts to get past the PDS to lay waste to the very thing that gave the brave men and women in orbit the will to fight and sticking to their attempts to destroy the more powerful ships in an effort to lessen Earth's defenses, but they were also preventing the Earth fleet from forming any kind of defensive formation. The Ori had pushed their way between the Earth ships and left the Cursor, Nex, and South Park separated from one another. Then the Ori had surrounded the three ships and taken to simply hammering away at them. They were supposed to be a battle group, not three ships separated from one another and surrounded on all sides! This was, needless to say, very, very bad.
Surrounded as they were, it was only a matter of time before their shields failed and there was no way for them to slip past the Ori to escape their encirclement. Sitting in the chair at the station that controlled the weapons, because the South Park didn't have a Weapons Chair, Cartman shifted the focus of their own weapons with the power of thought. Drones stopped targeting the Motherships and started targeting their weapons fire. The small globs of silver energy fired from the Ori's pulse cannons were intercepted by single drones before they could hit the South Park's shields while golden beams were intercepted by entire swarms of drones. As one of the most powerful offensive weapons in the galaxy was used as a means of defense, their beam cannons, which were actively being installed across the ship by a team of repair drones from the Nex and a few technicians from Earth, powered up for the first time and let loose.
As the beams stripped away shields, three drones in a cluster would target the Bridge, power core, and engineering deck of the enemy ship. Using this strategy, the Motherships were taken down one by one until only one was left. As the enemy fell and the drones weren't needed as a defense, they shifted back to offense. When the drones rejoined the assault, the Mothership was torn apart by a ship not much smaller than its inspiring bulk. After all, the so-called Ancient 'Cruiser' measured in at a full kilometer long. A third of the size of the Gaia, the South Park was still roughly four-times larger than the Earth-built 304s, and they had taken on five Ori Motherships with an incomplete, underpowered ship that was being upgraded in the middle of the battle… and they had won.
That said a lot about the Ori's inability to wage war and adapt on the spot, the Ancients ability to build a ship, and the Tau'ri's own skill in warfare.
"Goddamn it, Cartman," Stan said with a shake of his head.
"What?" Cartman asked in a tone of sweetly false innocence.
"You're an asshole," Kenny replied as he piloted the ship towards where the Cursor was surrounded and losing its shields faster than they were defeating the enemy.
*Clausus Cursor (Combat Information Center)*
For the second time in the battle for Earth, the Cursor was surrounded, outgunned, and losing fast. Twelve Ori Motherships had begun the assault on the Cursor. Only seven remained and the Ori had learned the hard way to stay out from in front of the ship where her coaxial ion cannons could, and so effectively did, wreak havoc. The Ori focused their joint fire on the Cursor and the Asgard vessel's shields failed. Three more beams moved to hit the ship, and the South Park, darting into the battle from its own victory, tried to intercept them, but the other ship's own shield could only take one more hit before they were also on the verge of failing.
Time slowed in the eyes of Admiral Ricks as the Cursor shuddered under the power of the lesser weapons striking her powerful armor, some blasts leaving dents in the thick hull, others managing to blast parts of the armor away, but the beams would be certain death. The Cursor tried to run, but no amount of speed the massive Asgard vessel had would be enough. Much like the ship's namesake, the O'Neill-class simply wasn't designed to turn and run.
Admiral Ricks was in the process of ordering the crew to be beamed out when fifteen thinner beams of energy intercepted the larger one a few dozen meters from its impact with the hull. These beams were thin, blue, and coming from the dark void of space where nothing existed. Then their source shimmered back into the visual realm and a Ha'tak, of all things, appeared in orbit of Earth between the Cursor and Death itself. The beams it fired ate away at the energy of the closer of the two Ori beams, the two weapons systems fighting for dominance. In the end, the Ori won.
"Get us out of here!" the Admiral ordered desperately and no one argued.
The heavily depleted beam of now-only-lethal-as-opposed-to-hyper-lethal energy struck the Ha'tak and blew a section of its black structure off of the ship. Then the energy field that had been used to cloak the ship was reverted back into a shield and the next beam hit the barrier harmlessly. Another beam followed that one, followed by another, and another. After only ten hits, the barrier failed and the ship was consumed in a ball of fire by the eleventh shot. In the time the intervention of the Ha'tak bought them, the crew of the Cursor limped the damaged Warship nearly back into orbit of Earth, but not quite fast enough.
The last beam the Ori fired at the departing Asgard Warship struck the rear of the ship where most space vessels would have their engines. One of the vertical spires jutting from the hull was blown off by the blast as the Cursor slipped below the PDS and narrowly avoided another beam aimed at her compromised rear flank.
As members of the CIC crew shouted out damage reports and worked to keep the ship functioning well enough to not plummet into Earth's gravity well, Admiral Ricks heard what he wanted to hear. "The damage from the beam was contained to a non-vital area of the ship; no loss of life."
Only then did the Admiral let his lungs start breathing again.
"Get the shields back up. They need us in orbit…" Ricks began to order.
"Sir," his helmsman interrupted, "we've got reinforcements arriving in system broadcasting friendly IFFs."
"Who the hell is that stupid?" the Admiral asked, his tone full of utter shock. Sure he'd seen the Ha'tak, but only the Asgard could stand against the Ori and they were gone.
*Relentless Carnage (Combat Information Center)*
Their ships were built for speed, yes, but not speed in hyperspace. Their hyperdrives were designed specifically to handle being used for a series of short bursts. This gave the SRs their lethal ability to jump past the shields of their enemies, and an Ori Mothership had plenty of room in its shield envelope thanks the rather impractical design of the things. As such, the Carnage dropped out of hyperspace in orbit of the moon after the battle had already begun and was in full swing. After taking in the situation, they acted accordingly.
The Carnage reentered hyperspace and exited back into normal space within the shield envelope of a Mothership where the large, glowing orb of light backed into the massive gap in the ship where the hull extended out to the sublight engines. Her particle cannons fired in tandem, four beams digging into the armor of her target and breaching the reactor core in a matter of seconds. Another jump into hyperspace and she was in another Mothership's shield bubble even as the first one was still exploding. This time they were flying up the 'face' of the Mothership.
A strafing run across that face with her plasma bombs against the area they knew the Bridge to be in left the next ship crippled and dead in space until a coaxial ion cannon round shattered something important and left the ship dying from secondary explosions. Another jump into hyperspace and this time their recently upgraded main gun tore a gaping hole in the area where the life-support system of the Motherships should be. Instead, the round hit something more important and a series of secondary explosions left the ship floating in pieces. One last burst of energy and the ship was flying in normal space under cloak as her hyperdrive cooled down. Behind her, three Ori Motherships either exploded or burnt as their systems were destroyed by surgical strikes.
This feat was duplicated by the other ships of her class, the Relentless Annoyance joining them as it broke off from its guardian post of the Gaia to do something that was actually useful. One run against the enemy and already the Zeta Fleet had claimed fifteen kills, though they had also lost one of their ships. Still, better to have the Cursor than to have the Savage Annihilation. Only one of those two was actually crewed by living beings.
"Time?" Oliver shouted to the CIC.
"Two minutes!" Gabi yelled back from her place manning the diagnostics station.
"Start the clock," Oliver ordered.
Two minutes.
That's how long they had to wait before their hyperdrive would come back online. Two minutes of watching a battle take place in orbit of Earth against the Ori. Two minutes of being helpless to do anything productive. Two minutes for everyone to go insane watching their friends die. Two minutes to…
His train of thought was broken as his eyes widened in horror at the sight before him. Another Ori Mothership had jumped into Earth's atmosphere, and the Ares wouldn't reach it before the ship attacked a city.
Neither would they.
**Earth (Surface)**
*Russia (Нижневартовск)*
Time is relative.
Sergey Tretyakov never did understand that saying. Then he found himself falling while remaining still. He looked around himself as he fell. He took in the misshapen object floating in the skies above his city. He watched as balls of silver light impacted buildings that had stood for decades and toppled history without regard for the lives within. He watched as a ship from another world fired on his city, killing hundreds if not more.
Time is relative.
He had all of eternity to watch his city burn. All of eternity to see those flames cross a woman's body. All of forever to watch another ball of light impact the base of a building and cause the whole building to collapse. He even had forever to watch as the skies became red with rage. As blood pooled on the ground beneath him where he would, at the end of eternity, land, the skies darkened, reddened, then lit on fire. As the attacking ship descended, glowing orbs of red-orange fire rained down on it from above.
Time is relative.
Sergey watched as those balls of light slammed into the ground beneath the attacking ship when they missed their target. Then he joined them. Eternity, for him, was over. It ended with an impact as his fall from twenty stories ended both suddenly and with force. The only good thought to cross his mind was that his death, while frightening, would be less painful than the woman who was on fire.
Sitting in the pilot's seat of the tiny Stealth Frigate, Derek took the ship into a dive that had its shield burning and its wings bowing under the g-forces of their acceleration into Earth's gravity well. As much as he'd like to think he was above such, in his opinion, petty believes as loyalty to one country when a planet was being invaded, seeing an Ori Mothership attacking his home-nation was something he wouldn't stand for. The only reason he wouldn't be tried for insubordination for taking a ship without orders was because he did this with orders backing his actions.
The five ships that could all fit inside of the same hangar bay of a 304 fired off a barrage of plasma bombs to get the ship that was below them to break off its attack. As the Mothership turned away from the city it had been firing on to focus on them, the SRs pulled out of their dives and scattered as the Mothership turned its main gun on them. They were at a disadvantage here because their hyperdrives were still offline, but they wouldn't turn and run.
Two-hundred-fifty-one-thousand, six-hundred-ninety-four.
That's how many people lived in the city the Mothership had fired on.
Mistaking a nearby passenger liner for a bomber or a larger fighter, the alien ship fired a ball of energy from its weapons system and half of the 747 was consumed in the resulting explosion. The rest of the plane carrying innocent people simply fell out of the sky to burn on the ground below only a few miles from the burning city. Something in those physical fires started a philosophical fire in the hearts and minds of the Russian fighter wing engaging the bastards who had the audacity to so callously murder innocent people. A few weeks from now, when Earth was rallying together in the aftermath of this battle, the Tragedy of Flight Two-Ten would be used to light similar fires in souls across the planet.
If the dogfight between the Russian Air Force and the Ori fighters was an even match before, it was now a vicious, rage-fueled slaughter as the Russian fighters formed into groups and attacked one Ori fighter with a single-minded savagery unbecoming a sentient species. There was a lot to be said about mob mentality amongst trained killers.
Dodging another beam, Derek started to quietly pray. "Come on. Come on!"
"Tone and lock!" Gigi announced, her tones just as tight as his. Derek didn't waste time noting her mood. He just pulled the trigger.
The snow that fell in a flurry around them never breached the plasma shields that burned hot enough to evaporate metal slugs before they could touch the hull beneath. It did, however feel the effects of their guns. When the coaxial ion cannon fired, the blast of kinetic energy that spread out from the nozzle of the cannon as a sphere of concussive force blew the snow away with all the force of a coaxial mounted gun. As the hyperaccelerated ion round flew through the atmosphere, the atmospheric drag burned away thirty percent of its kinetic energy, the snow effectively forming a tunnel around its passage as the ion round flew at damn-near superluminal speeds, and when that round impacted the Mothership's shield, another shockwave expanded out from the impact site and sent another ripple through the air that sent the snow into a flurry.
With five of these weapons going off at once in such a close proximity to one another, the simple snow storm falling over the city became an instant blizzard of unnatural winds swirling the snow through the air with tremendous force. The Mothership, knowing it was under attack by more than just flies buzzing around it, turned to face this new threat completely instead of the pot shots it was taking until now. As it did, twenty particle beams slammed into the broadside of the Mothership as it maneuvered around to face them. They knew it wouldn't be enough to beat an Ori Mothership, but their intent was to buy time, not to claim the glory of the kill, so the small ships scattered in every direction but down when the Ori returned fire again.
The golden beam of Death Incarnate was easily dodged, but the massed fire of their lesser weapons systems wasn't so easy to avoid. Their shields would hold against that lesser threat, yes, but not against the beam. Only the Savage Annihilation had enough power flowing through its veins to survive a hit from that weapon, and it was gone now.
As the SRs closed on the Mothership for the third time, they regrouped into their formation and lined up for a second bombing run. As they passed over the top of the ship, plasma bombs rained down in force, golden balls of lethal plasma harmlessly splashing across shields that could hold back an armada of Ha'tak. Without their hyperdrives, the SRs were significantly less effective against an enemy as powerful as the Ori.
But there were ways around that.
Their bombing run ended as the five ship flew past the Ori at speeds that would make a 302 pilot jealous before they scattered again, each one pulling into a different arch to line up for another attack. This time it was an attack from five directions and coordination was everything. Four of the SRs spiraled out and circled back while the Destruction flew up and flipped. The other four fired their particle beams at whatever part of the ship they were lined up with, but the Destruction's job was different.
With its charge preceded by a pair of missiles, the Destruction dove back towards the Mothership. As it did, the two, Furling-designed dark matter bombs detonated against the powerful shield of the Ori. With all the power of a micro singularity spawned in an instant, the field of reality warping energy pushed, pulled, tore, and stressed the Ori's shields in a localized field. As it did, the energy started to bleed through and parts of the hull were torn off by the rapidly shifting gravity field. That was his cue. Firing all four particle cannons at a single point, Derek used the combined might of the distortion in reality and the particle cannons to open a rift in the Ori Mothership's shield.
A rift he flew their ship through.
The retro-thrusters fired in full force to slow the ship's rapid speed, and the Destruction managed to level out in time to prevent a collision with the far side of the Ori's still active shield. Now they were where the SR was at its most lethal; inside the 'impenetrable' defenses of their enemy. The first thing to go was the main weapon's dish. A barrage of plasma bombs took out the Ori's most lethal weapon, and, just out of spite, the Ori refocused the full force of their small-arms weapons against the city below while sending their entire remaining fighter force into their own shield envelope to attack the Relentless Destruction which was living up to its name.
The Slaughter of Нижневартовск would be a rallying cry for years to come.
The center of the city where the towers were the tallest was hit the hardest by the barrage of weapons fire as the four ships still outside of the shield bubble moved into position to take the blows on their shields. Their efforts stopped a measly twenty-eight percent of the weapons fire from reaching the city, but the percentage that did get through… there was a reason it would be called the Slaughter of Нижневартовск.
This time, when the snow swirled under the force of weapons fire, it was the Ares' surface-to-orbit ion cannons that tore into the broadside of the Mothership. Approaching under the power of massive engines capable of taking the large, though still half the size of the alien Mothership, Invasion Carrier into orbit and beyond, the Ares readied its weapons. Flying low so that the cannons could, as they were designed to, aim up at the enemy, the Ares opened fire on the Mothership attacking Нижневартовск and the Mothership broke off its assault on the city and the now severely depleted shields of the ships in the Impolan Fleet to engage the larger threat.
"Get that thing off of my planet!" General Ervin roared in utter outrage as they approached the Mothership.
His only reply to that demand was a shift in their flight path. Apparently he wasn't the only one pissed the fuck off.
The navigational officer altered their course and took them into a climb that took the Ares up and over the Mothership as one of the Impolan ships inside of the Mothership's shield fired its weapons array into the fighters swarming the small ship. The Ori gave chase as the Ares rose, the Mothership rising to check the Ares' flanking maneuver thusly forcing the Impolan ship to keep up or get crushed by the still-active shield bubble, and the Ares climbed higher still to get above the larger Mothership.
Once they were high enough, the navigational officer turned them towards the tundra and the Mothership followed her, that unfortunate Impolan ship still trapped in the shields of the enemy ship and unable to attack through the fighters swarming it.
As the navigational officer turned the Ares to face their foe, the tactical officer armed their planetary assault weapon and fired. To the people of Нижневартовск, it was a blinding flash of blue-white light that struck down the hostile Mothership. To the crew of the Ares, it was revenge for the fallen, but it wasn't enough to sate that fire in their souls.
The beam slammed into and caused the shield of the enemy vessel to glow under the strain and the Impolan ship, wisely, used the strain on the shields to blast its way out of the envelope. When that white barrier gave out, the blue beam cut through the armor of the Mothership like scissors through tissue paper. The enemy ship went down in flames, its propulsion systems fried and power failing as the primary power conduits were severed by the searing hot beam. Hitting the reactor this close to an inhabited city was too risky, so the power lines themselves were targeted instead. Otherwise, the explosion would have probably leveled Нижневартовск and killed the rest of her populace.
"Taylor, load up as many medical-trained people you have and get down there! Use the Pelicans and Vultures to transport the wounded. I'm leaving you the 302s. Secure that city and get those people help," Ervin ordered, his tones and throat tight enough to make it feel like he was choking.
"ETA: one minute," Taylor replied in a similar tone as the Ares moved through the atmosphere to target another Mothership. On her sides, the hangar bays opened and Pelicans swarmed out of the ship, Vultures behind them and 302s flying patrols above them, and moved to begin evacuating wounded civilians out of a burning city.
**Earth (Orbit)**
*Atlantis (Balcony Overlooking City)*
'Finally!' Weir thought to herself as the city dropped out of hyperspace in orbit of Earth. Then she caught sight of her home system, and, as she stood there, shocked into silence, mouth agape, she took in the battle thus far.
The Cursor, a mighty ship when the Asgard had built her then upgraded beyond that, was cowering in the atmosphere of Earth, her hull torn asunder, leaking atmosphere, chunks of the ship left drifting in orbit, one of the large pillar-like pieces to the ship missing, and at least three areas that were actively burning as the ship hovered in the skies of Earth, the fire fueled by both the ship's life-support system and Earth's own atmosphere. The Gaia, feared by the Wraith for damned good reasons, upgraded into something frightening even to Weir as she stood inside of a shield that was powered by three ZPMs, surrounded and under fire, her shield on the verge of collapse. The Nex, which was reported to be the most lethal ship the people of Earth had seen to date, likewise on the threshold of defeat. The 304s that had been so heavily upgraded they could take on the Wraith without much trouble were strained to the point of breaking. Their fleet was in disarray, their forces were retreating, and the Ori were still dropping reinforcements into the system.
Orbit of Earth was full of activity as more and more Motherships dropped out of hyperspace and joined the fray. As their shields threatened to buckle, the Earth ships fled destruction, but found nowhere to turn to. If they dove below the PDS, the planet would come under attack. If they didn't flee, then they would be destroyed. It would later be told to Weir that if they broke off the engagement for orbit, that the Ori would just jump past the PDS and attack the surface directly.
Then something happened that took Weir by surprise.
Their sensors detected five ships decloaking in orbit of Earth before entering hyperspace. One of them, before they could enter hyperspace, was struck by the feared beam weapons of the Ori. The shield of the tiny ship held for all of a second before that beam broke through and severed one of the wings of the ships Weir knew to be of the same design of the one that had so recently been rescued by Atlantis. The anti-proton thrusters that gave the ship propulsion destabilized and exploded in a brilliantly colored fireball. Using what engines it had left, the ship cloaked again and fled as fast as it dared with a compromised hull.
Another of the small, fast, maneuverable ships barely avoided another beam. The energy of the weapon passed through their shields, but missed the hull of her target by centimeters. That same ship exited hyperspace inside of the shield of a Mothership and the others in the area actually opened fire on their own ship in a bid to destroy their target. The ship entered hyperspace again, leaving behind a Mothership that was gutted by its fellows, and entered another ship's shield bubble before unleashing a hell-storm of plasma bombs that left the ship dying the death of fire and hull breaches. Another hyperspace jump and the ship was targeted again. This time, it did not escape untouched. Damaged too much to continue, this one did the same as the one before and fled under the power of its cloak.
A third of this class of ship, after destroying another two Motherships, was preparing for another run when it was overwhelmed by the lesser weapons fire of the Ori. The ship was torn into with lethal intent and left drifting, its engines dead, towards Earth where it would be destroyed upon impact with the surface. Instead, however, one of the 304s present in the system broke off its assault on the Ori and scooped the small craft into its 302 bay.
A fourth of the small ships destroyed one Mothership before being clipped by a hit that left the ship disabled. It, also, disappeared under a cloak though its flight was more of a tumble. If someone ran the numbers, they'd be able to predict its tumbling course and destroy it.
The last ship of their design took out three Motherships before fleeing under cloak untouched. Though Weir didn't know better, she had assumed that it was a bid to stay alive. Later she would be told that it was actually because their hyperdrive was in need of a cool down before they could jump again and not cloaking was suicide with the Ori so intent on destroying the small ships.
From its place behind the PDS, the Cursor managed to lower the shields of seven Motherships wither her massive cannons. As it did, the Artic Weapons Platform fired a swarm of drones and destroyed six of the seven, the other being taken out by the Cursor's standard ion cannons.
Walking back into the Control Room, Weir asked, "Can we save the Gaia?" with an emptiness in her voice. The sight had drained all the emotion from her mind.
McKay checked something on his terminal before replying. "It's a fifty-fifty shot. Either we'll envelope them in the shield and save them, or we'll ram into them and destroy the ship."
"If we don't do anything, they're dead for sure," Chuck added as the city entered weapons range and Sheppard let loose with everything they had from his place in the Control Chair.
As Weir looked on, using the sensors screen instead of her eyes, she watched as the Gaia managed to destroy another four Motherships, but, as she did, her shield finally gave out. "We have to try," she ordered and Chuck nodded in reply.
Their weapons fire was focused into a cone around the Gaia that forced the Ori to back off, but quickly brought attention to them. A flying city was one thing, but a flying city covered in guns was something else entirely. Four of the Motherships fell to her guns as the Gaia fired her engines in reverse and fled back to their position. The ship, much to Weir's relief, safely passed through their own shield and used it to cover their now defenseless armor. It did not, however, do so without clipping one of the larger towers on the outer pier. The sensors module that made the Aurora-class unsymmetrical crashed through the upper three stories of the building and left debris from both the tower and the ship drifting past them in the gravity-less environment of space as they moved to engage the Ori fully.
From one of Atlantis' outer piers, the Daedalus took off and opened a hyperspace window. Since only Ancient ships could pass through the city's shield barrier, the 304 had to go another route. Joining up with the Odyssey and Apollo, which were making life hell for the Ori by taking out their shields for the Gaia's drones to finish them off, a task which Atlantis was now helping to accomplish much more quickly on both ends, the Daedalus and her sister ships became a single-minded hunting pack and the Ori were made to fear the small ships. Strange who that kept happening in this battle.
Behind them, the Nex was accompanied by an Ancient Cruiser which Weir would later learn was captured from a Goa'uld of all people. The Cruiser used its own drones and beam cannons to add to the chaos that surrounded the largest ship in the system… well, largest until Atlantis arrived. With its weapons assisting the Nex, those two spread death like a wildfire in a water deprived forest that hadn't seen rain in decades while Atlantis pressed towards them.
Still safely tucked away in Atlantis' shield, the Gaia fired her beams with lethal effect. The Grodin fired between the towers of the city, the bright light forcing anyone in the area to cover their eyes, and safely passed through the shield of the city before bringing down the powerful shields of the Ori with a disturbing ease. Two of the ships went down in flames as the beam cut through their shields and armor, but the third in the beam's path rolled over before it shield failed so that the beam passed through the space where there was emptiness in its design. The void in the Mothership between the glowing ball of energy and the engines was the perfect place for the beam to pass through without harming the ship, but that only pissed the ship's commander off so the offending ship received a volley of six standard beam weapons to its vital areas before succumbing to death. After the battle was over and Weir was told it was O'Neill piloting the Gaia, she would understand the ferocity with which the ship attacked.
The next thing Weir noticed was the Nex dispatching the last of the enemies surrounding and pinning her in place before charging the Ori fleet with obvious anger while the Ancient Cruiser dove into the atmosphere. How a ship could have obvious anger was simply explained. It began by jumping into FTL in such close proximity to a Mothership that the opposing vessel was torn in half by the larger ship's artificial singularity, the half left behind succumbing to the whims of a loss of structural integrity. The large ship then reappeared so close to another Mothership that the half of the destroyed ship was merged with the untouched Mothership it had jumped into proximity of. Both of the solid objects trying to inhabit the same place in space caused reality to react in a violent matter as the universe did as was required of it to keep itself from falling apart.
The resulting explosion of matter pushing against matter was monumental and consumed all three ships in its fire, but the beam of black energy that left the fireball was a clear sign that the Nex was still alive and kicking. Using that beam, the Nex cut through an Ori Mothership and left its shield disabled as the larger ship emerged from the rapidly fading ball of fire. Due to the unshielded nature of the ship between her and her target, the Nex simply rammed through the shieldless Mothership. The shields of the larger vessel flared a brilliant blue-black as the Ori Mothership lost its structural integrity and crumbled around the nose of the ship. As it did, another ten focused their fire on it in return.
Shrugging off the blows, the larger ship returned fire in force. Plasma and ion rounds tore through space in such numbers from that one ship that Weir was certain the Nex could beat an entire fleet of Wraith ships into submission on its own and that was a frightening thought to someone who knew how powerful a Wraith ship was. Even then, only another two Motherships fell to her guns before the Nex's shield gave out. As it did, the Ori kept firing. Massive chunks of the larger ship were torn off, blown to pieces, or blasted away from the hull as secondary explosions riddled the ship. So bad was the damage done by the fifteen or so beams that hit the ship that the superstructure could be seen through the armor like the bones of a man who had been clawed by a great beast and had both skin and muscle torn away from the structure that gave his body form. As another twenty or so beams headed for the ship that would surely not survive the onslaught, the Nex disappeared in a flash of light that made Weir think that a Stargate had been activated in orbit.
Their sensors tracked the ship back into Earth's atmosphere where it fell from the skies, its engines no longer able to hold it aloft, and crashed into the oceans of Earth with a colossal splash that was almost visible from orbit. The wave it sent towards the shores would take an hour to reach the nearest beach and would be massive. There the ship rested, its hull smoking, superstructure exposed, systems going critical, and kept aloft only by the mass reduction field which, despite its actual mass, allowed the ship to have less mass than an aircraft carrier… or so it would be explained to Weir at a later date.
With two of Earth's most powerful ships now trapped below the PDS in no condition to continue fighting for fear of their destruction, another of them hiding within Atlantis' own shield, and their allies beaten into submission, the 304s were targeted and fired on by multiple Motherships while the city itself was surrounded. Atlantis did their best to help keep the Ori off the backs of the smaller ships, but one by one the 304s were forced to flee. The commanders of the Earth ships did their best to take as many of the Ori with them as they could, but it wasn't enough.
One of the 304s took a beam to her weakened shields and danced its way through a hail of weapons fire. The shield collapsed and several of the lesser pulse cannons found purchase on the now exposed hull. Sections of the ship's hull were torn open and left venting atmosphere until the automated systems kicked in. Then one of the beams struck the ship and the starboard 302 bay was blown clear off of the ship as the beam of energy passed clear through it to hit the PDS behind the ship in question. All that was left of the fighter bay was a scorch mark on the armor of the ship it had once been attached to.
As this ship was targeted by another Mothership, a beam meant to destroy it was intercepted by a second 304. This one fought off the Ori long enough for the first to flee behind the PDS. As its comrade slipped away unharmed, the ship disappeared from sensors, obviously cloaking, and reappeared only when it, too, was behind the PDS. That took the Apollo out of the fight with a missing 302 bay, sections of the hull cracked and scorched, and the Odyssey with multiple hull breaches as she had had to hold her ground against the incoming fire to allow the Apollo to escape.
That left Atlantis and the Daedalus which, due to being the latest arrivals, had the most shields at this point in the battle. The Daedalus did her best to keep up the pressure, but it only managed to score two kills. The rest were claimed by Atlantis and the surplus of beams on the Gaia as the last sixteen Motherships in orbit turned their attention to the only two ships left fighting that they considered a serious threat.
Atlantis' upgrades had been designed to give the city a three-hundred sixty degree field of fire, so the Ori surrounding the heavily modified city of Atlantis was hardly concerning. In fact, it only hastened their demise as it made more ships targetable at a time.
The Ori opened fire on the city, and Sheppard returned all that they were given with even more. The Gaia used her own guns to remove another two of the Motherships from the picture, but being trapped between Atlantis' towers left the ship no room to maneuver around to line up her guns with the other Motherships. As such, they fired their drones, but it was Atlantis that removed the remaining fourteen from Earth's orbit.
That left only one Mothership left.
It was in the atmosphere over Europe locked in battle with the Ares and the Ancient Cruiser that had joined them in the fight. Weir looked on in awe as the three ships slugged it out. That look of awe then turned to one of horror as she noticed a city on Earth burning as a result of an attack by another Mothership that was still on the surface, smoking in a crater where it had been blasted into. Surrounding that Mothership was an army of pissed off soldiers launched by the Ares and reinforced by the city's surviving military garrison and any civilian pissed off enough to grab a gun and charge an alien Mothership crash-landed on Earth.
Her attention was brought back to the last active hostile ship in the system when the Cruiser was struck by a beam in its broadside. The shield protecting the ship failed and the beam passed through the armored hull, bisecting it right down the middle of its x-axis. The two halves of the now beaten Cruiser plunged down onto the world below from nearly six-thousand feet. The superior design of the Ancient ship held together all the way down until it hit the ground. The fall did more damage to the ship, cracking its hull and straining its superstructure, but it didn't explode. Despite being cut in half, it didn't blow up. That was another point chalked up to the Ancients for knowing how to build a ship.
The death blow for the Ori in what would come to be known as the Battle for Earth came from the Ares as her ion cannons collapsed the shield of the last Mothership and tore the Ori vessel apart one glob of ionic particles at a time. It was finally over. The Battle for Earth had been won.
Barely.