Author's note: Here comes the second part of the introductory chapter of the third and final book. Here I only need to mention one thing about the weapon the Vargas used and that a reader noticed something wrong with it. Maybe it is a little misleading to call the weapon a singularity missile since I never thought of it as capable of creating a black hole. The device is capable of creating a strong gravitational sinkhole, but never to levels that would create a true singularity or black hole. This would have devastated the entire planet. The problem was that I didn't know of any better name on how to call it, yet I forgot to better explain what it does. For now, this explanation will have to do, but next time the Vargas use it, I'm planning on doing a better job at explaining.

Thanks to my beta, and I hope this chapter too will be to your liking.

Captain Johnathan O'Neill, better known as Jack Junior or by most people simply called J.J. in order to distinguish him from the other two, older, Jack O'Neills present in this universe, watched through the frontal view of his ship the live feed of Quiril, the planet that all thought of as a gigantic trouble magnet. Not just the Ori, but also the Vargas had decided to visit this human world with ill intentions and devastating consequences for its population. The Quirilians had somehow survived the Ori, mostly through sheer luck and with a little help from the Terrans. The devastation had been great, but they'd somehow been able to rebuild their world after the Ori had been driven away just to be attacked again and this time by a many times worse enemy. An enemy that didn't want to enslave them or convert them to some bogus religion, but instead, wanted nothing else than to exterminate them.

J.J. didn't know how many Quirilians were still alive on the planet's surface, or in what exact conditions, but he was certain it must be only a fraction of what their population once had been, before the Vargas came. The Vargas had come with hundreds of their ships and no one had any doubt on the reason why they were here. Upon reaching orbit, they had immediately begun their relentless bombardment. They'd quickly leveled out any and all military infrastructure like military bases, depots, airfields, ships like carriers and destroyers, and then they'd destroyed all of the power plants on the planet. By doing so, they had effectively tossed Quiril back into the Middle Ages. It was almost as if they knew exactly what to hit on the planet for maximum impact. What had remained were people starving in the streets with no power and no weapons capable of defending them from an enemy such as the Vargas. Then, the Vargas began sending transport ships on the planet's surface filled with those crab-like aliens. Their task was to seek their prey, eat them and multiply until nothing remained. And their prey were the humans and the animals needed by humans to survive.

With more than a hundred ships in orbit, there hadn't been much the Terrans or anyone else could have done to save those people, especially since when they'd found out what had transpired, it was already far too late. The devastation was almost complete, and if it wasn't for the little fact that one of their council members was on the planet when it all went down, he wouldn't even be here in the system, now under cloak, watching and waiting for the right moment to sneak in and find a way to get their people back. It was really bad timing for Daniel to be on the planet in the process of persuading the Quirilians that using the gifted device to disrupt subspace in their system was a good thing. The Quirilians were among the last worlds in the Milky Way galaxy to agree to activate the device.

But now it appeared though that providence was once again on their side as the Vargas had, after two months, decided that it was time to leave for greener pastures. It was a very good thing too because J.J. was almost a hundred percent certain that if they didn't go save their people soon - as in, today kind of soon - a certain person that was at the moment pacing up and down the small bridge would begin murdering people. It was enough to see her golden eyes burning to know in what mood she was in.

"Adria, can you please stop pacing on my bridge?" J.J. asked, fed up. There was a good chance of him being the first one to die.

Adria stopped moving before she gave him a look that made his blood freeze. She was a terrifying woman. "When?"

"Soon," J.J. replied, before waving at the display showing the system. "See, when those red dots there are gone, we are going in."

"How long?"

"Not long." He actually didn't know how much it was going to take for the Vargas to leave. Yes, they were very close to the threshold and once reached, they could easily open a hyperspace window and disappear. However, there was a chance of the Vargas deciding to linger for a while longer at the outskirts of the system.

"And what about the ship they have left behind?"

"We will have to take care of the Hunter's ship ourselves," J.J. responded. It was true the Hunter's ship was almost three times what the Defiant was in length alone, but he was certain they could take it out in short order. The third generation of the Defiant was something the Edenians had worked in conjunction with the Terrans, taking full advantage of the knowledge from both the experience they have accumulated in the past five years and from whatever they were able to get from the Clava Thessara Infinitas and Argos in such a short time. The new Defiant was 152.4 meters in length, almost double its predecessor, and it was meant to replace all other ships of a similar class. It was to become the toughest little ship in the galaxy, and the only one without an intergalactic hyperdrive in the Terran arsenal, since it was too small to have one in the first place. Because of it, and because of the Wraith technology that allowed to store matter inside a matrix that didn't use up much space and that had previously been successfully tested aboard the heavy cruiser Damocles, a ship of a hundred and fifty meters wasn't small at all; or weak for that matter. It was also a class of ships that was created with an enemy as tough as the Vargas in mind. Of course, a defiant class ship could not go toe to toe with even the smallest of the Vargas ships, but if there were several of them, they could give pause even to the Vargas.

In order to battle the Vargas weapon capable of destabilizing their shields and drain them over time, the Defiant had two separate shield generators onboard. Usually, they were both in sync, that way creating a more powerful shield, but when the ship was to fight the Vargas, they used one generator until the shield was depleted, then they activated the other one while the first one was purged of the harmful energy the Vargas weapon left behind. Then it was charged again, hopefully before the other shield generator failed. The Terrans were unable to come up with a definitive solution to the Vargas weapon. It was frustrating that the Edinians, Terrans, Asgard, Nox and even with the help of Adria and the Priors could not come up with a solution to combat their energy draining weapon. They were able to create a system capable of purging their shield generators while still charged, effectively cleaning it of the harmful residual energy, but the cost of using such feature was high, sometimes even too high. If the generator was purged more than two or maybe three times at the most, the entire system would burn out and be in need of a complete overhaul. That was the reason why all ships now had more than one shield generator, so that they could swap them once one failed without risking a purge that risked permanent damage to the entire system.

The new Defiant was also the first ship to use a different type of weapon. A weapon that wasn't based on just brute force to get the job done. Since the Vargas had generously left a few intact ships behind after the battle in the Eden system had ended, the allies had taken the opportunity to go through them and try to understand their technology. Of course, the ships were intact only because they were hit by a space-time displacement torpedo, with devastating results for anything living as well as for delicate control crystals aboard the ship. However, the weapon system remained intact, which gave the allies the opportunity to reverse engineer it, at least in part. They were able to create a weapon of their own, capable of draining shields just as the Vargas weapon did, and with the same ability to leave a residual energy that worked over time. However, this was only a secondary function of the newly developed weapon. Through the use of some knowledge Argos had given them, they managed to add another, more important component to the weapon. Loosely based on the same wave energy weapon form as the one created by the weapon on Dakara, a similar energy form was created that was capable of disrupting the bonds between matters - or maybe better to say, matter's underlying energy state - on a quantum level. The weapon could also be modulated for different types of targets. Depending on the modulation, it worked great against both shields and different types of armor, all being disrupted on a quantum level. Simply put, the weapon was much more effective against the Vargas energy dispersive armor since it worked on a quantum level, a level in which the type of material used meant little to nothing. At such levels, everything was simply one or another form of an energy state.

The Defiant was given four forward pulse quantum disruptors capable of variable yield and modulation. They could be set to only drain a ship's shield, or they could be set to disrupt even the toughest armors and shields and if the composition of the enemy ship's shields and armor were well known, the disruptor's energy waveform could further be tuned to increase its devastating effects. J.J. didn't know exactly how powerful it was going to be, but he knew that, together with the Edenians and Asgard, the people in the R&D department were working tirelessly in order to create a quantum disruptor beam (QDB) weapon that would be placed on larger ships, as a much stronger variant. It was planned to replace the heavy plasma beams, as the new weapon's size wasn't small by any standards. Yet, the project was already months behind schedule because the scientists were unable to find a way to create a containment field capable of creating a sufficiently narrow beam. The damn weapon fired like a cone, quickly dispersing and worsening its efficiency.

It was also the reason why the allies were still not going on a full offensive.

In addition, the Defiant had two omnidirectional plasma beams on the top and bottom of the ship, giving the ship complete coverage and the ability to fire even when it wasn't facing the enemy directly. Those were also the next generation of plasma beam weapons that now expelled some strange artificial particle J.J. never heard of before or knew why it was better than the particles they used before. The weapon also had some ability to phase modulate the beam. He was sure it was something simple to understand, but had to have some weird name so that scientists could sound smarter.

He was sure of it.

The important thing to him though was to know that the weapon was showing better results against both shields and armor even with less raw power pumped into it, which was especially useful for smaller ships like the Defiant with limited amounts of power and space at their disposal. If he could channel more power to the shields or engines because the weapons needed less, he was all for it. The changes and the need for less power with the same or higher destructive power also allowed for the weapon to have a much greater rate of fire, since the weapon didn't overheat as much. Both, this new type of plasma beam weapon and the quantum disruptors were the basis for the new generation of energy weapons that were going to replace the old ones on the larger capital ships as soon as fully developed and properly tested.

The ship was also fully stocked with a new type of antimatter torpedoes. Since Argos had graciously spent five million years creating antimatter in the pocket universe, there was no real reason why they wouldn't use the substance rather than Naquadria.

But that wasn't all. The new torpedoes were much better than their predecessor. With the newly acquired knowledge of creating strong gravitational forces, the allies were able to create directional blasts even in the megatons range. At the moment of impact, the torpedo first generated a near singularity level strong gravitational force that worked as a focusing lens, allowing for the exploding mater-antimatter reaction in the form of hard radiation to only go forward in a narrow cone instead of the usual way older torpedoes worked which was to simply explode and spread the destructive force in all directions. This way, even a torpedo of only a few megatons was capable of hitting its intended target harder than a hundred megatons torpedo of the older type that would spend most of its destructive power needlessly to the vacuum of space. The antimatter torpedoes were also better because they could easily be tweaked on how powerful the blast was going to be by simply changing the amount of antimatter injected into them prior to launch.

As antimatter went, the Defiant also came with a modified reactor in which the usual Naquadah/Naquadria reaction could be boosted considerably by bombarding the rods with additional antiparticles. In the future, all reactors based on Naquadah/Naquadria will have the ability to boost their nuclear reaction by bombarding the rods with additional antimatter in time of greater need for power.

"Can we?" Adria asked.

J.J. snapped back from his deep thoughts. "What?"

"Can we take care of that ship? I know that this is the best ship to get near the Vargas unnoticed, but maybe we should have brought one of the heavier ships instead. You know, like a battlecruiser maybe?"

It was true that the Defiant was the weakest class of ships the allies had at their disposal, but the ship was also the first with a working next generation stealth generator installed onboard. A gift from the Senari who had been able to create a stealth system even the Vargas were unable to beat. "Maybe those ships are more powerful, but until we can make the Senari stealth system work on them, the same way as we managed to do with the Defiant, it is too risky to bring them. If the Vargas detected any of our ships in the vicinity, they would never leave. Don't worry. This ship can take that Hunter's ship any day."

"I hope you're right," Adria replied, uncertain of his statement.

"Sir, the Vargas ships have crossed the threshold and entered hyperspace," the sensor officer notified her captain.

"Nice!" J.J. smiled. "Helm, set a new course for the Hunter's ship. Engage engines under stealth conditions."

"Course laid in, sir. Engaging engines at one-quarter under stealth conditions as instructed," the helm replied.

"How long will it take us to get there?" They were relatively close to the planet Quiril, but still, distances in space were vast and they couldn't push the engines to their maximum if they wanted to remain undetected under stealth.

"Fifty minutes for a zero-zero approach, sir."

J.J turned towards Adria. "Well, one more hours and the wait is over."

Adria said nothing and J.J. thought he knew why.

Only one more hour and they would finally know if Daniel and Vala were still alive.

"Ah, the joy of spending the last seven hours walking. I can barely feel my feet!" Vala said, not all too happy.

"You simply couldn't have waited for another ten minutes, could you?" Daniel retorted.

"No, Daniel, I couldn't. I managed to say nothing for the last mile or so, just as you've asked me to, but I simply cannot take another step without saying something. Something about this trip of ours. I am now fully convinced that this was a really bad idea and that we should have gone to Bowna," Vala replied. She could see the town ahead, and she was sure she already saw something moving in it. Clear sign how bad the idea to come here had been. They won't be able to make ten meters inside it before being eaten alive, she was certain of it.

"It was your idea, remember?"

"You didn't have to listen, Daniel. Actually, I'm blaming you for this. Why didn't you say that it was a horrible idea to come here and that only a completely insane person would ever decide to go walking for seven hours just to be eaten alive?" Vala replied, frustrated and frightened, while checking her rifle for the umpteenth time.

"Vala, you need to stop with this or you'll start hyperventilating. And you know how difficult it is to run from those monsters while you're hyperventilating."

"It's not funny, Daniel. I'm telling you, we should turn around and go back," Vala said, turning around ready to go back.

Daniel stopped her by grabbing her by her shoulders and with a swift motion turning her back around to face Anais once more. "And then what? We walk for seven more hours back to the cave where there's nothing left to eat? Have you forgotten there's no coffee left?"

There was some logic to what Daniel was saying, but she wasn't fully convinced. "I can do without coffee."

"No, you can't," Daniel replied, without any doubt in his voice. "Also, I was looking toward the town this whole time and I haven't seen anything moving. You're just imagining that there's something there when there's probably nothing to worry. Three days ago there was a lot of them near Velar and they are moving east, so they shouldn't even be here."

Daniel was pushing her from behind with a lot of force in order to move her in the general direction where the town Anais was, which was actually kind of nice since her feet hurt and she was really tired from all the walking. She would have to give an earful to somebody about how long those batteries in these combat suits worked. It wasn't a picnic walking in them when there was no help whatsoever from the suit. They had to disconnect the exoskeletons muscular system that was under normal conditions aiding the wearer, and now they had to carry suits that weighed fifty pound or maybe even more for an unknown amount of protection. As far as she knew, those crab-like aliens, with their pincers, could chop off one of their limbs even while they were wearing their armor. Maybe the only positive side was that the armor would make it more difficult for the aliens to eat them. Or maybe this would make it worse by making it last longer. She wasn't sure what sounded worse.

Vala sighed. While she was thinking of different ways she was going to die today, Daniel had slowly pushed her closer to the town.

"You know what we need to do once we get inside the town," Daniel said and there was no joking in his voice. He was dead serious. "We find a way to get inside some building and then we proceed to the roof. We then wait for a while to see if we can spot anything moving and if possible we move from roof to roof without going down in the street."

The plan was simple and it hinged on the aliens' inability to open doors or enter buildings with ease. They were grunts, fast on the ground and deadly in close combat against soft-skinned creatures like humans, but they had never been made with anything more than that in mind. There were others though that were very good at those other kind of things.

"What about the Hunters? What if there are not just those Crabs there, but Hunters too?" Vala asked.

"Well, if that's the case our luck has finally run out," Daniel deadpanned.

Vala understood. There was no point in sugarcoating it. She knew about the Hunters as much as he did and if he tried to downplay it, as if they were facing something not as dangerous as those aliens really were, she would know he was doing it only for her benefit. That was the reason why she was quickly turning back, only to be stopped again by Daniel. "Oh come on!"

"We are here, Vala. No point in going back now."

Vala sighed, again. She was so tired that even if she tried to go back to their cave, she would barely make it half a mile before dropping to the ground, completely exhausted. Anais was just up ahead and whatever was inside, waiting for them, they would find out very soon because there was no turning back now. The Crabs and the Hunters. She didn't know which alien race she liked less. The Crabs were disgusting and, well, they were there with the only purpose of eating you alive, which was a bad prospect. The Hunters on the other hand were there to hunt prey the Crabs missed, those the hunters deemed worthy of being hunted. With their heightened senses of sight, hearing and smell – and also believed to have some kind of sixth sense - it was almost impossible to hide from them. Running away from them was also a bad idea. The Hunters looked like some kind of lycanthropes from some horror movie. Capable of moving on all fours if necessary with incredible speed and agility, while also capable of standing on two legs and using their hands to wield weapons. The only positive thing she could think of was that, for some unknown reason, they didn't use ranged weapons. Probably because they needed to prove themselves as capable hunters even against the toughest opponents, and killing somebody with a rifle proved no such thing. Most of the Hunters the Terrans had encountered thus far used something in between a curved knife and an axe capable of cutting through almost anything. They always went hunting with two of them in both hands. The Hunters weren't as tough as the Crabs - they didn't have a tough exoskeleton to protect them - but their speed and agility was such that hitting them with any kind of weapon has been proven time and time again to be incredibly difficult. Before you even knew they were in the vicinity, they were already on top of you and you were about to die horribly.

And that is why Daniel said what he said. "Yeah, you're right. If there are Hunters there, we are as good as dead," Vala replied, resigned. In a strange way, realizing that had helped her calm down.

They entered Anais through one of the main roads that led straight for the center of the medium-size town. There was no reason in trying to reach their destination by moving through smaller streets or alleys. The same probability of stumbling upon one of those Crabs was everywhere. They were not humans and they didn't choose places like humans did on where to wait for probable targets. The Crabs would just wonder around a town until some signal told the entire herd to move on to the next place.

Thus far, no aliens were in sight. Vala had to admit though that the surroundings were incredibly similar to what she once saw in some kind of post-apocalyptic game the big guy Teal'c was playing while sequestered inside Cheyenne Mountain. She couldn't remember the name of the game though, only that it had something to do with Vegas, as she immediately recognized that name as a place on Earth where you can have a lot of fun. The scenery was very similar except that here there were no people around, which was actually a good sign. The lack of any humans roaming the streets easily meant the Crabs had already passed through this place. The presence of humans would have denied such a scenario.

The road took the two of them closer to the center of town. As she looked in one of the side streets, Vala thought they'd finally found what they were looking for. The street was filled with various stores that, if not having been raided by others, could contain food and other things that could be of great help to them. The street also had a few four or five story high buildings. If they could enter one of them and get to the rooftop, they would have a good vantage point to spot any possible hostiles.

As per plan, they tried every door until they found one that was unlocked. They got inside the building without the need to break in. Loud noises were not a good thing right now. There were stairs the two of them took, all the way up until they came in front of a metallic door that led directly to the roof. The door wasn't closed shut, as she had already dreaded. Daniel opened it and walked first onto the rooftop. Walking further, they quickly neared one of the edges.

"Well, from here we can see both the street we came through, the adjacent one and with the binoculars we can monitor that plaza over there with all those buildings around it. So far so good," Daniel said while looking down.

"Yes, Daniel. So far, we still haven't been eaten," Vala replied. Her cheerful disposition wasn't going to change any time soon.

Daniel apparently had decided not to engage her in yet another discussion on how lucky they were. "We should remain here for at least an hour, resting while watching around for any possible hostiles. If we don't see anything moving by then, we go back down and walk to that big store over there."

"You think there will still be something worth taking in there?" Vala asked. She thought it was a valid point. The store Daniel was pointing at was the biggest in the vicinity, which meant others would have targeted the same store as well.

"It's worth checking it out. If there's nothing there, I've seen a few more places where there could be some food."

Food was what they wanted the most, and food was usually the most difficult to find. In a society where refrigeration was something normal to have, only a small portion of food survived more than a couple of days when the ability to cool things suddenly disappeared together with electricity. Cans mostly and other similar products with a longer expiration date even without the need to keep them refrigerated or frozen were what they were after.

Vala slumped on the ground, leaning on the low wall of the roof's ledge. "You watch, I'll rest."

"Yeah, for half an hour. Then it's your turn to watch for any movement."

"Daniel, I'm too tired. You seem more refreshed. You don't need the rest as much as I do."

"That's true, I don't. And I'm not planning on resting."

"What are you planning then?"

"Since we haven't spotted any cars that weren't in pieces, it means that we will have to go back to the cave on foot. That in turn means that, since you're already so tired, we will have to spend the night here. I was thinking on going down inside the building and check the apartments for some accommodations," Daniel explained.

Vala barely heard Daniel as he spoke of his plan. Her consciousness was already slipping away, as exhaustion took hold of her. Daniel would have to do whatever he was planning to do without her, for the next half hour at least or maybe even a little longer.

Watching through the frontal display at the magnified image of the Hunter's vessel, J.J. could feel the excitement, the rush for the combat that was about to ensue. The enemy ship was bigger. It was more than five hundred meters in length alone, which would put him in the heavy hitters' category. Nonetheless, he thought the Defiant could take it down with ease, or at least he hoped it could. There was the fact that this was a brand new ship with less than two months of service, which had - for the most part - been spent waiting near Quiril for the Vargas to finally be gone while doing little to nothing. It meant that his ship, if he didn't count the initial shakedown trials, had never fired its weapons or had sustained any hits from a real enemy even once. Still, the small crew was good and they had kept the ship in top shape. He was confident there was nothing wrong with the ship and that it would perform admirably when the time finally came.

The Hunter's ship was also an unknown. There hadn't been many instances where the Terrans or any other member of the Alliance had the chance to witness the true strength of their ships. In fact, a real battle against that type of ship occurred only once and it was a very short one. One of the new Terran battlecruisers, a beast near a thousand meters long and with too many weapons to count them all, just exited hyperspace and found itself in front of a Hunter ship. The captain simply ordered to open fire and six lances from the six main heavy plasma beams vaporized the unfortunate offender that at the time had its shields down. It wasn't much to get a clear picture of how strong the Hunter's ship truly was. Still, it was enough for J.J. to know that the ship wasn't made from the same material as those utilized by the Vargas. The Vargas ships would have survived such an attack, probably with very little to no damage to their hull. It was the reason why they were rushing the research of the QDBs, in order to replace the not very effective heavy plasma beams, those currently installed on all Terran capital ships as their primary weapon.

As far as he knew, the ship they were about to face shouldn't be impossible to beat. He would be happier if he knew what kind of weapons it had though. He certainly was going to find that out eventually.

In about ten or so minutes.

"What are you planning to do?" Adria asked.

She was making her presence known, and J.J. didn't like it. The bridge crew was steadying themselves for what was to follow shortly, and she was clearly the interloper here. If it were anyone else instead of her, J.J. would have them removed from the bridge a long time ago. However, telling Adria to leave the bridge wasn't among the healthiest things to do, which meant that she was staying. "I'm planning to hit that ship until there's nothing but a cloud of debris in its stead."

"And what of Daniel and Vala? What if they are on that ship?" Adria asked.

The chances of that being the case were so small that J.J. was about to blatantly call it straight out impossible. Yet, the situation was tricky. If they destroyed the ship and later were unable to locate their people, dead or alive, the doubt would linger for the rest of his life. He was also certain that said doubt wouldn't be the only thing that would stay and linger near him for the rest of his life. Adria's expression was enough to convey that fact. "So, no blasting of the alien ship then?"

"I would prefer if you didn't."

It wasn't an order, but denying her request wasn't a very good idea under the best of circumstances. When she was in such a mood, as the one she was right now… "It means that we will have to first disable the ship, and then board it. Easy peasy. There's nothing to it."

"You can do the first, and I can do the second," Adria replied, with her eyes flaring bright.

'Poor bastards,' J.J. thought, thinking of the savage, bloodthirsty creatures on that ship. They didn't have a clue what was coming.

"We can talk about who's going to board that ship and who's going on the planet's surface later. Let's disable it first."

His job suddenly became more difficult. Yet, at the same time, he was sure that it became more interesting as well. "Okay people! We are going for a hit and run tactic. We get in weapons range, we de-cloak, we hit them with the energy-draining weapon and then we cloak back again. We quickly change course to evade any possible return fire and then we come back at them again and again. When their shields are down, we hit their engines and weapons until they are dead in space. Is that understood?"

J.J. heard his bridge crew reply promptly with many yeses. He could already see his tactical officer working on the console. He knew he was reconfiguring the pulse quantum disruptors to energy draining mode only. He also saw his pilot smiling while getting more comfortable in the driver's seat. Since this wasn't going to be a frontal assault, the pilot would have more opportunity to show what he was capable of. The Defiant was also the ship most pilots wanted to be assigned to. With his maneuverability ten times better than that of larger, capital ships, every pilot put requests for such a position.

Time was slowly passing by, and soon the display would not even need to magnify the image of the enemy ship since they were now less than a thousand miles from it. J.J. turned to his tactical officer. "Get ready. Don't wait for my order. You know what to do and when it's best to do it better than I do anyway."

"Yes sir," the tactical officer replied calmly.

The Defiant finally entered optimal weapons range while at a relative speed to its target of 78 km/s and steadily decelerating. The ship de-cloaked, the pulse quantum disruptors began barking some strange purple-glowing orbs in quick succession, four at a time. The pulse weapons were showering the aft side of the Hunter's ship, making its shields flare brightly. It took three seconds for the Defiant to pass the enemy ship, with its shield switching to cloak almost at the same time as when the pilot rolled the ship by ninety degrees anticlockwise before pitching upward as fast as possible. It was strange to notice that the enemy had indeed managed to fire, even without having any forewarning or their attack, and it was only because of the pilot who had made such a sharp course change that the enemy's energy bolts went wide.

They were now making as tight a turn as the nimble Defiant could make it. Even with the inertial dampeners on maximum, J.J. was still feeling several gees. He could not imagine what would happen if the inertial dampeners made even a short hiccup during this strenuous operation.

As the ship steadied, the frontal view now showed again the enemy ship in front of them. Still its aft section, but this time from its starboard side. They were going at it from a completely different angle and from the looks of it, this time the ship was going to pass below it.

He was right. The ship switched from cloak to shields and once again began its relentless bombardment, with purple orbs hitting the enemy ship's shield in quick succession. The Defiant passed below the ship as he had predicted. It cloaked again and then it pitched upward, hard, this time without rolling first. Now the defiant was going high above the hostile ship. This was probably the third vector the pilot was going to choose for their attack, coming straight from above. The energy orbs the enemy ship had fired had this time come even closer. Maybe there was something to it when people talked about the Hunters having some kind of sixth sense. At least it seemed that way from the way the hostile vessel was able to zero-in on them.

The Defiant made its third pass, once more showering the enemy ship before quickly disappearing again. J.J. turned toward the sensors officer. "How are their shields faring?"

"Badly. Even after the second pass, their shields have steadily been draining. The third pass has sealed their fate and it is only a matter of time before they drop completely."

"Predictions?" J.J. asked.

"They are at 47 percent strength right now. I believe that in two more minutes their shields will collapse. That of course only if the enemy doesn't divert some backup energy reserves," the sensors officer replied.

It was unlikely. It also didn't matter since it would only prolong the inevitable, even if they did. "Stop with the attack. We are now going to wait until their shields are completely drained," J.J. said before turning to his tactical officer. "Nickolas, reconfigure the PQDs. Standard disruptive modulation at 350 kHz, .1 spread, low yield, fast firing mode. The idea is now to disable the engines instead of blowing everything up."

"Yes sir," Nickolas replied. "Setting weapon to omega pattern three."

The tactical officer already had most of the standard settings of the very complex weapon predefined with macro commands he could activate with a simple push of a button. One day he would have to spend some time with the officer so he could tell him what those are exactly so they could communicate faster. He knew he had gotten a memo from him about it already, but it was more than ten pages long, and after the second page he fell asleep. It wasn't very interesting reading and it appeared that, somehow, while asleep, he had pushed the delete button on the memo.

He really didn't know how that had happened.

The time when the shields of the enemy ship failed had finally come and the crew of the Defiant wasn't about to wait for the enemy to restore them. The ship lurched forth, quickly gaining on the slowly moving ship. It de-cloaked and brought its shields back up before letting loose of a hail of purple pulses, this time with the intent of causing destruction. The purple pulses peppered the rear engines, with explosions blowing up unit after unit. The last thing he saw before they passed the enemy ship was that all but one engine unit were disabled.

He then felt the impact of the enemy weapons on their shields. The tactical officer had smartly decided that now that the enemy had been able to zero-in on them with their weapons, that it wasn't the best time to switch to cloak.

"Status of our shields?" J.J. asked.

"Holding steady," Nickolas replied.

"Would you agree then that it is better to keep them up instead of risking to get hit while under cloak?" The enemy was showing an uncanny ability to predict where they would be once they de-cloaked. With that in mind, it was maybe better to have their shields do their intended job, rather than risk serious damage with the cloak.

"I agree. The risk is greater if we take a direct hit while cloaked."

"Good, let's then keep the shields up. And let's get that last engine unit destroyed, shall we?"

The Defiant made another turn. Now that the little ship was visible to the enemy, the enemy was clearly trying to turn the ship in order to protect its engine section, the little that remained of it. However, that was an exercise in futility as it should have been clear to everyone, even the aliens, that the Defiant's maneuverability far, far exceeded that of the other ship. With little trouble, the pilot put them on the right vector that allowed the ship a clear shot at the last unit. With one more explosion, the engines were now fully disabled. However, this time the Defiant sustained several hits in quick succession.

"Several hits on our shields. Shields at 92%, no damage to the hull," Nickolas replied now that they were once again out of weapons range.

"Let's do another pass. Same configuration, but this time we are targeting their weapons," J. J. ordered.

The Defiant went in again, leaving destruction in its wake.

"We were able to take several cannons on this pass," the Tactical officer reported.

J.J. turned towards Nickolas, puzzled. There was something in the way the man said the last sentence that was making him wonder. "Spill it, Nickolas?"

"Well, sir, our shields are now at 86% and the enemy ship has several dozen weapon emplacements still fully operational. I am certain that we can destroy all of them even without incurring damage to our ship, but the sensor officer also relayed to me that there's a dampening field in place preventing us from beaming our people aboard their ship. Sir, even if we manage to destroy all of their weapons, we still have the problem of having to board their ship."

"Okay, I hear ya. This could be a problem, and if I can minimize the number of times this ship is hit, I'm all for it. So do you have any bright ideas on how to accomplish that?"

"Well, yes. While in the pocket universe I heard a few of the scientists who worked on our primary weapons talking about something, and I think that it could help us in our situation. The theory behind it is somewhat complex, but the gist of it is-"

"You told me enough. It's science I don't want to know. But I do trust you. Therefore, however you're planning to use our weapons, just do it. The worst that can happen is that we waste a flyby anyhow," J.J. explained. If his officer started talking like Carter usually did, he would start feeling really depressed, and he would probably still be clueless of what the man wanted to do.

"Umm, yes sir. Setting weapons to maximum yield…"

'Maximum yield? Is he trying to blow half of the enemy ship off?' J.J. thought.

"Setting modulation to pattern gamma at 210 GHz…"

'Okaaay, I didn't know our weapons could even go this high. Besides, if I remember correctly what modulation pattern gamma is, then the ship's armor won't be affected at all. Hmm, very peculiar.'

"Setting spread to maximum…"

'Spread to maximum? It meant that the energy waveform won't be focused at all and that once it hits it will wash over the ship, usually in a harmless way.'

"I'm all set up sir," Nickolas replied.

"Not sure what it will do, but let's hope at least it doesn't blow up the ship," J.J. answered.

"That's my hope as well sir," Nickolas replied.

J.J. was of the opinion that Nickolas wasn't as certain of what this would do, if anything, but, what the hell, right? What did they have to lose? Then he turned and saw the meaningful look Adria gave him, conveying her thoughts on what would follow if the ship was blown to pieces. He knew it wouldn't be pretty. She really was a terrifying woman.

"Let's do this then."

The pilot turned the ship, pushing it at max trust, straight for the enemy ship. They were nearing the ship, with the pilot skillfully evading the energy bolts coming their way by making small but meaningful course corrections. This time they were going for a frontal assault. One bolt hit them, another missed, but the important thing now was that they were in optimal weapons range. Four much more powerful pulses erupted from the pulse weapons on a straight course for the affronting ship. The purple pulses hit the front of the ship, with the energy form spreading on the ship's hull, but with no visible damage. In the meantime, the Defiant fired once more. The pulses hit the ship somewhere in the top-middle section, again with the same energy spreading in all directions. The third time the ship was hit somewhere in the rear section, just as the Defiant flew above it.

From what he could see, J.J. was of the opinion that the weird setting the tactical officer had used had accomplished exactly nothing.

"Umm, sir," the sensors officer said, with a puzzling voice. "The enemy ship has begun drifting. From this readings I'm also confident that the ship has lost all power."

"What?" J.J. asked, not knowing to whom to address the question first, the sensor officer who informed him of this unexpected development, or the tactical officer who did the deed.

"I don't know how sir," the sensors officer replied.

"You there!" J.J. said pointing at Nickolas. "Explain!"

"Well, as I tried to explain before, two scientists were talking in the mess hall that if the quantum disruptors were set in between 200 and 220 GHz, the energy waveform would have similar properties to the energy of a zat discharge, since indeed the weapon works in that frequency range. With the spreading set to maximum, they theorized that the weapon should possibly reach some of the energy conduits onboard an enemy vessel, most probably through the shield emitters that are placed on the exterior hull and that, through the shield generator, are connected to the power distribution system. Their theory was that, the same way as it sometime happens with the zat cannons, the weapon could cause a cascade overload capable of frying the ship's entire power distribution system, or at the very least blow some fuses."

"Huh, I really didn't know that. Yet, it is something very useful to know, for any captain," J.J. stated.

"As far as I know, sir, we are the first who had actually tried it," Nickolas replied. The quantum disruptor was a new type of weapon anyway.

"Maybe we'll get a medal for it, I don't know, but for now, I think that we have some other business to attend to," J.J. said, turning to the sensor officer.

"With the loss of power, their dampening field is down. We can beam aboard," the sensor officer informed promptly.

J.J. wasn't able to say anything before Adria butted in. "Give me a team of your marines in power armors and a lot of ammo, and I'm going to clean that ship for you from top to bottom."

She wasn't kidding. She was going to vent the frustration she had accumulated in these last two months on those poor, savage and murderous creatures aboard that ship. Even they didn't deserve what was coming. Well, better for them and their ship, than for him and his ship to be the target of Adria's ire. "You have a go. You know where the marines are. You go meet them while I'll inform them of the mission."

Adria was already on her way. J.J. gave a nod to the communication officer to notify the marines of what was expected of them and who was going to join them. He wasn't sure how Adria was going to clear that entire ship, but he didn't doubt for a second that she would succeed. All those aboard that ship had suddenly become prey. The Hunters were now the prey, and the true hunter was a woman on a warpath and somebody nobody should ever have on her bad side.

Time slowly passed by, then the signal came from the marines. They were ready and always willing to wreak havoc. They were beamed on the alien ship. Now it was time for the rest of the crew to do something useful.

"Right, so, I think it is time for us to go and find if Daniel and Vala are maybe on the planet's surface. How are we going to do that?" J.J. asked, yet no response came. "Come on people! There must be a way to find them. What about our sensors?"

"Sir, the sensors won't be of much help to us. The Asgard sensors are heavily reliant on subspace in order to pinpoint life signs. Their subcutaneous transponders also work by broadcasting a subspace signal and as you know subspace has been disrupted in the entire inner system," the sensors officer explained.

Sometimes things simply backfire on you. Not only the device that disrupted subspace and prevented people from traveling through hyperspace didn't help the people of Quiril from being slaughtered, but it was now preventing them from finding their people as well. "What about our ship's radar, LIDAR or optics maybe? We have very good optics capable of taking detailed images of the ground, and we know they must have been near the gate in the capital when the attack began. They couldn't have gone too far, right?"

"Yes, sir. That would have been a good idea if, well…" the sensors officer began.

Nobody liked giving bad news to the captain, but he still needed to know what the problem was. "Spill it, lieutenant!"

"Clouds sir."

"What?"

"Well, all around the location where the gate is, it's all full of dense clouds."

"Typical bad luck," now even the weather was against them. "Wait! What about our two raptors? They could fly bellow the clouds and take images. The computer onboard this ship could then receive those images and work on them for any clue where our peoples are."

"That should work sir. It will take longer since the optics on the raptors are inferior to those of the Defiant, but there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to canvas the whole area if given enough time."

"Good, good. Send both of them immediately," J.J. answered. He wanted to find them and he wanted this excruciatingly long and stressful mission to be finally over.

With the raptors on their way and with nothing else to do, he gave the tactical officer command of the ship while he was going to take a stroll and maybe even get something to eat in the small and regrettably badly stocked mess hall. There were meals that had been prepared and then put into stasis that were edible or, if not that, there were the protein bars they would get from the protein re-sequencer. They were very healthy and all, but had the downside of being disgusting, even with all the flavoring added to them. He just hoped he would be able to find one of the already prepared meals that didn't contain meatloaf. He had those for five straight days. He was sure there must be a few meals that contained other types of meat in them, like a steak even, or, if not, it meant somebody was grabbing the good ones for himself.

He would have to go and see.

- to be continued -

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