Hello there!
And we are onto the fourth chapter in this story.
This is the chapter where things really start getting interesting.
And with that out of the way, onto the story!
Chapter Four: First Strike
Time: January 21, 2005. Location: Lantea.
It has been four months since Rick Hunter joined the ADF and a lot has changed since then.
Rick has just finally completed his four months of training and was officially a member of the ADF Veritech forces and was assigned to Skull Squadron, Roy's command.
Rick completed training as the best pilot in his class, surprising no one who knew him really well. He had toughened up both on the ground, in the sky and in space. He was still a little nervous about his first combat, but then, everyone who goes into combat for the first time is.
Also, the two Plato Stealth Assault Frigates had finally been completed, much to the joy of all the ADF personal. The two frigates had taken on their crews and had been put their places on their shakedown cruises to try and find any flaws in the systems, but thankfully the two ships preformed flawlessly, even their interstellar Hyperspace Fold generators had preformed flawlessly. That little miracle had been thanks to Zor, who had shown the ADF what they had done wrong when they had designed the SDF-1's FTL navigational computer.
Shields, weapons, communications, sensors, life support and dozens of other systems had preformed far above what they had expected of the ships and that gave those in command hope that the class would prove to be an invaluable asset. If these two preformed well, six more of these frigates would be ordered to be created.
The two Plato Class Frigates had been given the names Archangel and Dominion.
The Archangel and Dominion were going to be the home to the 24 Veritechs of Skull Squadron for the time being, with 12 Veritech's per each warship.
Maneuvers and training exercises had been done ever since the two frigates had been finished. Word was this was all preparation for the first attack against the Wraith, which according to the rumors was going to be soon.
The Alpha site was nearing completion with most of her frame built and a lot of her amenities had been completed. Once she had been able to, the base had built a steady stream of construction drones which had been assigned to build the Alpha site, while the 1,000 construction drones had steadily returned to Atlantis to aid in all the construction projects.
The SDF-1 was coming along very nicely, her hull was being replaced with a much tougher blend designed by Zor, Lang and Rodney.
Speaking of Lang, he had finished the boosters for the shields using fold energy. He called these devices, Fold Shield Boosters. He was almost as bad at naming things as Ford was. However, despite their rather lackluster names, they were anything but lackluster.
The Fold Shield Boosters increased the shield strength by a whopping 700% and Dr. Lang said that there was still room for improvement.
Project Pendragon however was lagging behind. The Puddle Jumpers had a large number of crystals that each had to be studied extensively and the thought interface system that allowed a Jumper to react to a pilots thoughts rather then their actions wasn't even in the design phase. However, progress on the system was happening, just at a slow rate. Various small upgrades were given to all the Valkyries currently in service to improve their overall performance.
A small AI was given to each Valkyrie to improve the accuracy and response time of a Valkyrie by pairing a AI with a human. By combining the processing power of a AI with the ability to adapt and change of a human, the combat performance of all Valkyries improved by 35% at the lowest and 75% at the greatest. This only increased Gloval's expectations of Project Pendragon and so he added more resources to try and move the project along.
Right now, the Archangel and the Dominion where being loaded up with her detachment of marines, plus her supply of the new Stargazer class interceptor missiles which were being loaded into her supply of missile tubes, while the newly designed Protoculture/Naquada enhanced fusion torpedoes were being placed into her torpedo tubes.
The Protoculture/Naquada enhanced fusion torpedoes were a marvel. Thanks to the efforts of Rodney, Lang and Zor, the three had sat down and had taken apart several of the Reflex missiles the SDF-1 had in her supply bays and they had taken the lessons learned from designing and building the Protoculture/Naquada Reflex Furnaces and had turned that knowledge into upgrading the Reflex missiles into much more powerful and deadly weapons. The result was a warhead that can vaporize anything within 100 miles of the initial blast. This however is not the warheads ultimate explosive yield, as the ADF is using ineffective methods of extracting Protoculture and using it as an explosive device, the same thing applies to the Naquada. Given time and better refining methods, the Reflex Torpedoes of the ADF can become one of their most powerful weapons ever constructed.
Additionally, a small AI is also placed in each torpedo so that the AI can calculate which action taken will lead to the greatest chance of successfully striking the target. Just before the torpedo hits, the AI will transfer themselves back to their home warship and get placed into a new torpedo so that they can then lead another torpedo into their unfortunate target's hull. Also, small Ion thrusters were added to each torpedo, allowing them to accelerate to unbelievable velocities. Coupled with an AI's insane reaction time and this makes striking and destroying the torpedoes nigh impossible before they hit their targets.
Future plans for the Reflex Torpedoes call for them being equipped with the same engine type that the jumpers use when such technology is actually developed. These engines are much faster then Ion Engines they currently are using. Additionally, energy shields are to be placed onto the torpedoes, increasing their ability to hit their targets and do maximum damage. A few minor upgrades that increase destructive power and accuracy are also planned, but they are minor things.
The Stargazer interceptor missiles are much like the torpedoes, only with a drastically reduced explosive yield. Much like their more powerful counterparts, each Stargazer has a small shield generator, plus an AI manning the missiles engines to drastically increase their ability to strike small, nimble fighter craft.
Each Valkyrie has also been modified to fire these new small missiles. Each Valkyrie can carry a total of 12 Stargazers, three missiles per hard point on the individual Valkyrie.
Right now, Rick was walking through the hallways of the SDF-1, thinking about what he had just been told by Roy.
He was nervous for the rumors going around about the first strike against the Wraith was true, however it was happening a lot sooner then what was currently being said. In fact, the strike was going to happen in less then 24 hours.
When John and AR-1 snuck onto a Wraith Hive with some help from the Genii, they had managed to find out there was at least large Wraith warships called Hives operational in the Pegasus galaxy with who knows how many more on the way. They also found out there was currently a single Hive with two Wraith cruisers as her escorts above a small uninhabitable planet about halfway across Pegasus from Lantea.
It was decided by the ADF to strike this lone Hive and her escorts. It would provide a good chance to determine the abilities of the Plato class, as well as provide some much needed combat experience fighting the Wraith. As it stands, only the ground troops like the marines and the off world teams had any experience fighting the Wraith and their space forces needed to learn how to fight.
So, the Archangel and Dominion were assigned to go and attack the three Wraith ships. Complete destruction of the three enemy vessels was the acceptable, but if possible capturing a single Wraith ship was to be the strike groups top priority. The ADF needed intel on the Wraith and the best way was to capture a Wraith vessel, the best choice being a Hive.
To help with intelligence gathering, Rodney had met with Zor and the two had worked to create a new device.
The device was a small, slightly blocky forearm mounted interface system. The device had a small AI inside of it and was designed to infiltrate Wraith computer systems and hyper compress all the data onto the device, which was called a Infiltrator. Infiltrator was made mandatory for all off-world teams to carry, while only Skull squadron was made to have them as well, due to how limited the number of Infiltrators were.
It was hoped that if the Hive wasn't destroyed, they could use the Infiltrators to gather all the intelligence they would need to know about the Wraith and then begin to plan bigger and more daring operations.
The operation was set to begin at 1000 hours tomorrow morning. The Archangel and Dominion would finish their loading all of their supplies and then the two would set off towards the attack point.
The two Plato class frigates would leave their Fold Spheres well out of sensor range and quickly release their Veritechs. Once their Veritechs were on the field, the ADF forces will then slowly approach the Wraith battle group. Once in range, the two Plato's will open fire with their torpedoes first and would aim for the cruisers, as they are smaller and much more maneuverable then the Hive. Once the torpedoes are fired, the Plato's will then open fire with all of the beam turrets while the Veritechs move in to try and destroy any Wraith Darts before they can get in too close to the Platos. Once the Wraith cruisers are destroyed, all firepower will then be turned against the Hive. Primary targets are life support, hyperdrive, hanger bays and battle bridge. If the Hive is successfully disabled, the Platos will then carefully blow holes into the Hive to open the ship up to space and try to kill the Wraith crew members. Once it is safe, Veritechs will then land on the hive and us their space suits to try and locate the computer core where they shall put their infiltrators to use. Once all useful data is downloaded and the Veritechs leave the Hive, the Hive shall then be blown to smithereens.
Right now, Rick was walking though the halls of the SDF-1 towards the mess hall, troubling thoughts going through his mind.
Rick was madly nervous about tomorrow. He would be intentionally flying towards what very maybe his death against an alien race even worse then the race of giant aliens that attacked Macross Island. At least those aliens gave you a quick death. The Wraith drew out your pain and suffering intentionally as they fed upon you.
Roy came over and said, "Hey Rick. You nervous about tomorrow?"
Rick nodded and said, "It's just so terrifying. Thinking about whats about to happen, but then I think of why I joined the ADF and that helps a little."
"Just remember, you aren't alone up there. You will always have at least one person whose going to watch you back." Roy said as he placed his hand on Rick's left shoulder.
Rick just nodded at Roy as the two of them went to get something to eat. Can't fight a giant space battle with a high probability of death on an empty stomach.
The two entered into the mess hall and got some food and then sat down at one of the tables.
A few minutes later, Lisa Hayes walked in.
Lisa went and got her own food when Roy suddenly shouted over to her, "Hey Lisa! Come over here!"
Lisa walked over and then said, "That would be Commander Hayes to you, Commander Fokker."
Roy just gave her a wide smile as he said, "Yeah, whatever. You remember my brother Rick Hunter?"
Lisa turned to Rick, who quickly snapped her a salute and she said, "At ease. Hm, why do you look familiar?"
Rick stared sweating nervously, remembering his very rude remarks he made to Lisa in their first meeting.
Lisa then gained a looked of realization and said, "Your the loud mouthed civilian you took control of a Veritech trainer, got himself shot down, did immense property damage and then called me an old sourpuss!"
Rick looked abashed and said, "Yeah. I would like to apologize about that incident. It was rude and uncalled for. You may have made me fly and fight aliens when I still a civilian, but it was a rough and pressure filled time. I am truly sorry for calling a old sourpuss.
Lisa looked a little shocked by how sincere he sounded, but then gave soft smile as she said, "Apology accepted. Sorry for nearly getting you killed."
Rick waved it off and said, "All in the past. Let's have a do over. Hi, I am Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker's younger brother and I am one of the newest Veritech pilots in the ADF."
Lisa nodded and said, "I am Commander Lisa Hayes, current second-in-command of the SDF-1."
Rick nodded and the two of them soon fell into a nice and relaxed conversation, the previous source of tension between the two of them quickly forgotten.
Roy gave a sly smile as he watched the two bounce around to different topics as they talked and ate, from how they joined the ADF to what was their favorite things to read. It was like the two of them were on a date.
Roy silently left the two of them alone, knowing that no one likes a third wheel. He quickly ate and then went to go talk with Claudia, he could hardly wait to tell her of what just transpired.
Roy grew an evil smirk on his face as he thought of all the ways Claudia would make Lisa suffer her teasing. This would be Roy's revenge against all the times Lisa had reprimanded him.
Lisa suddenly felt a slight shiver run down her spine, a feeling of dread slightly creeping up into her mind, a feeling she had grown to associate with Claudia when her best friend would begin teasing her relentlessly.
She could only hope and pray her best friend hadn't just found any new embarrassing things about her. It took forever for that women to grow bored once she had begun teasing Lisa.
"Hey commander, you okay? You suddenly just paled." Rick asked, a little concerned about Lisa.
"Oh, it was nothing. I just felt a slight feeling that my best friend is going to be teasing me about something." Lisa said, her past experiences with Claudia teasing teaching her to trust the feeling in her gut.
"You get those too? I got them all the time around Roy when he found something new to tease me about. I can remember all the times he teased me about the barn incident." Rick said as he slightly shivered, the memories of that incident coming back up.
"Oh? This sounds interesting." Lisa said as she leaned slightly across the table, intrigued by the way Rick talked about this barn incident.
"Well, when I was nine years old I found my Pops old lighter and was stupidly playing with it in the barn where we kept our planes and more specifically our plane fuel. I then slightly burned my hand from the flames and dropped the lighter, which then hit some spilled jet fuel. As you can imagine, the fuel caught on fire and started to head towards our stash of jet fuel. I knew I was in danger, so I jumped out of the barns second story and hit the hay bales we had outside the barn. Once I recovered I ran as quick as I could away from the barn when the entire barn nearly exploded in giant fireball. Pop comes running out to see what the heck is going on and he sees the barn on fire with me standing only 70 feet from it. Once he had checked to make sure I was safe, he then called the firefighters. Once the fire was out and everyone left, he just looked at me with the darkest and angriest look I have ever seen on his face. He then proceeded to yell at me for then next 15 minutes, all the while his face grew more purple and red by the second until he nearly passed out. Once he was done yelling at me, he then said how scared he had been that I could have been hurt and said I was grounded for the next month. I accepted without complaint and then Pops sent me to bed. For years Roy held that incident against me, always saying, "Watch out, here comes Rick, the burner of barns." Rick said to Lisa as he started to smile, remembering that incident.
Lisa had her hand against her mouth as she tried to keep from laughing, but even so she was still heard lightly chuckling and giggling as she shook to keep the painful laughs from escaping.
Finally she couldn't help herself and just full on started laugh as she pounded the table with her hands. She was laughing so hard tears were coming from her eyes and she wrapped her arms around her waist to try and alleviate the pain she felt in her sides from laughing so hard.
Eventually Lisa stopped laughing, breathing really hard as she tried to recover from laughing that hard.
"Yeah, it's a really embarrassing memory." Rick said as he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Well, I never thought Roy's younger brother was an arsonist." Lisa said with a smirk.
"Hey, I'm no arsonist. I simply made a single mistake that just so happened to burn our barn to the ground." Rick said, a slight smile on his face as he enjoyed the banter between himself and Lisa.
"Yeah, whatever you say fly boy. Well, this has been fun, but I am afraid I have to go. My next shift starts soon." Lisa said as she stood up and grabbed her tray.
Rick nodded and said, "We should eat lunch together more often. You are a really nice person to talk to."
Lisa's cheeks grew just slightly brighter from that little compliment and she said, "W-well thank you. I did enjoy our lunch together as well. I would greatly enjoy having lunch with you again. Have a good day Mr. Hunter."
Lisa then quickly placed her tray in the dirty dishes section and walked out of the mess hall towards the bridge for her shift.
"What was that about?" Rick asked himself in confusion, not understanding why Lisa just did that.
Man he's an idiot isn't he?
"Hey little brother." Roy said as he walked towards his little brother.
"Oh hey Roy. Where did you go?" Rick as he got up and took his tray to the dirty dishes section.
"I just went to talk to Claudia. So, you and Lisa got along really well." Roy said with a sly smirk on his face.
"She's actually a nice person when she isn't yelling at you." Rick said back, a little on edge from that smirk, he had seen it enough times to send warning bells off in his head.
"Don't try and play dumb with me. You like her." Roy said as he got Rick into a head lock.
"No I don't. I just met her. She seems nice though." Rick said as he tried to wriggle his way out of Roy's arms.
"Keep denying it all you want." Roy said as he was unaffected by Rick's attempts to free himself.
"Alright, let me go Roy. We have to get ready for our shifts." Rick said.
Finally Roy let Rick go and the two of them went and got changed into their pilot outfits and then went to their Veritechs.
The pilot suits had been slightly altered with improvements that Zelenka had made to them. Now each pilot suit was made of interweaving metal plates of Trinium/Naquada with several Tirolian alloys, making each suit only a little bit heavier then usual, but allowing them to take a lot of punishment before the suits are compromised. Also a limited air supply was added, making each suit also a space suit. A helmet interface system had scanners based of the life signs detectors found on-board the jumpers. This allowed the pilots to see targets even from beyond walls and also detect energy signatures and radiation spikes. Inferred, night vision, ultra violet, the suit had it all. Plus the suit is also really quiet when walking, allowing for silent recon by the pilots. Finally, a small M2217 light Laser pistol is mounted on the right hip, while the Infiltrator is on the left forearm.
Rick walked over to his personal Valkyrie, which was a VF-1J model that had been painted mostly white with a few strands of red on the mecha.
Rick ran his hand over her hull, enjoying the feeling of her cool metal against his hands. He then got into the plane and started it up.
Letting the reactor ignite and start up, Rick went through the list of checks he had to do and once he was done, his fighter was taxied over to the flight deck.
Rick closed the canopy and got his harness on as several missiles were placed onto the fighter while the gunpod was latched onto the bottom of the fighter.
Rick then heard a loud noise as two large metal plates where placed behind the fighter while his on-board computer generated a 3D map of the surrounding area.
Rick began to wiggle the ailerons, rudders and the elevators for a few seconds before he moved them into place and began to build up the thrust for his plane.
The flight crew flung his arm down and Rick launched, the massive blasts of hot air flinging itself out of the twin engines on the back of his plane, sending the aircraft flying into the air.
Once he was firmly off the runway, the gears pulled themselves back into the frame of the Veritech and Rick increased the speed of his fighter jet.
He saw Roy about five hundred feet to his right in his own VF-1S custom white with black strips colored Veritech called Skull One.
The two quickly got busy and began their patrol, for a moment losing themselves in the joy of flying.
Time skip...
It was now dark when the two brothers flew back to the hanger area of the SDF-1.
The two pilots expertly caught the ball as they landed, the long cable slowing down the airplanes quickly and efficiently.
Once at a complete stop, the two aircraft where carefully towed into the hanger of the SDF-1, where they would then be sent over to Archangel.
Once at a complete stop, both Rick and Roy got out of their fighter pilots and moved out of the way as the mechanic crews got to work. Pilots may fly the machines, but mechanics made sure the machines didn't break down while in use.
The two brothers quickly made their way down and then out of the SDF-1 and then quickly got over to the Archangel. According to a report given to Roy by a messenger, all of the Veritech's that were assigned to the Archangel were going to be moved there within five hours.
The two brothers then went and got something to eat and then went to their quarters to get some sleep.
Tomorrow was going to be a big day.
Time: January 22, 2004. O730 hours. Location: Lantea.
Right now, dozens of workers are up and about, making final checks to make sure everything was up and running smoothly.
In fifteen minutes, the Archangel and the Dominion are going to be igniting their engines and lifting off to go to the attack site.
Rick and Roy were both in their pilot suits and currently in the mess hall aboard the Archangel. There was two and a half hours left before the designated attack time, so they were getting a meal in before they battle.
Rick was a bundle of nerves, he could hardly eat. His palms were sweaty, his breaths slightly quicker then normal, his muscles were tense, he just looked awful.
"Hey Rick, you didn't get a lot of sleep last night did you?" Roy asked as he looked at his brothers form.
"Not much. I just couldn't get any real sleep. I just went in and out of consciousness all night long." Rick said as he slowly ate his morning breakfast.
"Don't worry too much about it now. Just remember to keep a calm and logical head out there when you go into combat." Roy said as he too ate his morning breakfast.
"Got it Roy." Rick said.
The two sat in silence as they ate until a voice came over the ship wide intercom saying, "This is Captain Murrue Ramius. The Archangel is now lifting off of Lantea and we shall meet the Dominion outside of Lantea's atmosphere. All crew members are to begin preparing for combat. That is all."
"Let's go Rick." Roy said as he stood up.
Rick did the same and the two quickly placed their food trays in the dirty dishes chute and then made their way to the pilot ready room.
They were the two first pilots there, but within a few minutes the room was full of the 12 Veritech pilots that were stationed here on the Archangel.
"Good morning ladies and gents. As you know, today at 1000 hours, the Archangel and the Dominion shall be entering into combat against a single Wraith Hive and two Wraith Cruisers. The Archangel and Dominion will launch a spread of six torpedoes apiece and follow up with long range particle cannon bombardment. Our job is to engage any and all Wraith Darts that will be launching from the Hive and the Cruisers. The mission parameters is to try and steal any intelligence we can gather on the Wraith if possible, but if it impossible, those Wraith ships are to be vaporized. Any questions?" Roy asked.
No one said anything so Roy said, "Very well. Go to your Veritechs and get ready for combat. Dismissed."
The fighter pilots all nodded and started filling out towards the two hanger bays were their mighty Veritech's awaited them.
While the pilots were talking, the bridge crew of the Archangel had started the process for the Archangel to start rising up out of the water.
Meanwhile, the docking clamps that kept the Archangel docked to Atlantis were released as several engines flared up to push the Archangel away from Atlantis.
Once far enough away from Atlantis, the anti-gravity generators engaged, their massive forms spinning as a slight humming noise was heard from those massive monoliths of metal and technology.
The Archangel began to slowly rise into the air in a complete defiance of the laws of physics while the Dominion did the exact same thing.
The forwards sublight engines mounted on the back end of the Archangel suddenly flared up, their massive bulk glowing bright orange at the end of the tips, pushing the massive warship forwards as her bow lifted upwards, heading directly up to the sky.
The Dominion was close behind her sister warship, the two massive ships flying forwards and upwards towards the final frontier.
Up and up the two ships climbed, clouds breaking around the two large metal beasts until finally, the two warships broke out of atmosphere.
The two ships increased their speed further now that they were out of the atmosphere and sped away from the planet.
Once far enough away from the planet that the gravity of Lantea wouldn't interfere with the Hyperspace Fold Jump, the two sister ships engaged their Fold systems.
The fold systems aboard the two warships were an improved model that Zor had provided to the ADF compared to the one found on-board the SDF-1. Even at the time of her construction, the SDF-1's Fold generators were sub-par compared to most of the Fold generators found on-board a number of similarly sized warships the Robotech Masters employed.
The Hyperspace Fold generators on-board the Archangel and Dominion where some of the most technologically advanced Fold generators available to the Robotech masters when Zor was killed, plus thanks to the incredibly massive amount of raw data about the creation of wormholes found on Atlantis and then combine into the Fold space generators, the end result was a new class of Fold generators that vastly outclass anything the Zentraedi had and was on par with some of the Robotech Master's weaker warships.
The two warships were suddenly enveloped in a slightly tinted globe of golden energy that rippled weaved while giant strands of white hot energy coursed around the globe. After a second a massive tear in space appeared before the two warships. The two warships stayed still in their globes of golden energy for a second before the two warships shot off towards the tear so fast they became blurred stands of sight before they entered the tear and then the tear collapsed upon itself within seconds.
Inside the ship, the energy level was intense, each and every crew member was nervous as hell. They were about to launch an attack against an alien race that had managed to defeat the Ancients, a race of beings who made the Robotech Masters look like cavemen before them. They were outnumbered, and outgunned, but they not helpless.
They had surprise on their side, plus they did have a plethora of extremely powerful weapons at their disposal that could turn the tide in a instant of utilized properly.
Time skip...
The Archangel and Dominion where now only a few minutes away from the combat zone. The tension was at it's zenith.
Rick was currently sitting in his cockpit, his white with red striped pilot suit covering his body.
Rick fidgeted slightly, the closer the warships got to the combat zone, the higher his anxiety and nervousness grew.
A few minutes later, the two warships came out of their Hyperspace Fold spheres well out of range of the Wraith sensors.
Immediately, dozens of small devices buried within the ships frame activated, causing a light blue water-like effect to run across the entirety of the ships. As of right now, to the Wraith, the Archangel and the Dominion didn't exist. This was the ADF's newest technological advancement. They had created emitters that created a effect known as a Shadow Field. The Shadow Field was a very powerful sensor scramblers that hide the ships energy emissions so well that even the senors on Atlantis had a hard time seeing the ships while the Shadow Fields were active.
However there was a major drawback to this system. While the Shadow Field was active, the weapons wouldn't be able to fire and the shields would not be capable of being raised. This was due to a number of reasons, chief among them being that the Shadow Field took a lot of energy and so they just didn't have the energy to spare to not only have the Shadow Field active, but also raising the energy draining shields, plus also firing the particle cannons, which took some energy to fire.
So, while the Shadow Fields were active, the Archangel and Dominion were only capable of firing their torpedoes.
"Okay everyone. Let's go do our best. Armand, give me a quarter of maximum thrust and head towards the planet. Miriallia, scan the area around the planet and find the enemy warships." Murrue said to her bridge crew.
"Yes ma'am!" The two said as they got to work.
After a few seconds, Miriallia then said, "Captain, enemy warships about 1,750,000 miles off of our port bow by 35 degrees above the horizontal axis. Placing the data on the main monitor."
A large hologram appeared before Murrue as she serveyed the situation.
Sure enough, there was two enemy warships that were much larger then the Archangel guarding a warship that dwarfed the Archangel by at least twenty times, making it at least 6,700 meters or so. The largest ship could only be a Hive ship, so the smaller two ships must be Cruisers. The small enemy group slowly moving around the planet in an orbit, probably waiting for their 15 hours to be up so they can go to hyperspace.
"Alright. Signal the Dominion. Tell them to match our speed and heading. Arnold, take us in at a tenth maximum sublight. Tolle, signal the Veritechs to start launching and to get into position. Paul, all torpedo tubes are to be loaded with a torpedo and set to launch as soon as soon as we are in range."
"Yes ma'am." The crew members said as they sot off like bullets to accomplish their orders.
The sublight engines of the Archangel flared up as the warship pulled forwards, her sister ship following her lead and moved forwards.
Meanwhile, the two hanger doors on the lower aft port and starboard sides opened up, exposing the hangers to the vacuum of space.
Everything in the hanger became weightless, except nothing moved because everything in the hanger at this point was welded to the floor.
The Veritechs were situated along the sides of the hanger, three on each side. The Veritechs were placed at an odd angle, with Veritech's at 75 degrees below the horizontal axis, while the cockpit was the only thing on the same level of the floor of the hanger, allowing pilots to quickly step into their Veritechs.
Now that it was time to launch, the metal clamps holding the Veritech's released. The Veritech's wobbled slightly in the zero g environment, but then their pilots turned their engines on at the lowest thrust setting they could. The Veritech slowly rose straight forwards from their pits until they were completely free of the pit and then they turned sharply to the side that was towards the hanger exit.
Once angled towards the exit, the Veritechs increased their engine power greatly and swiftly existed their carrier.
One by one, the 24 Veritechs from the Archangel and the Dominion got into position.
"Attention Skull Squadron. All fighters are to activate their Shadow Devices." Roy said through the com channel.
"Roger." Was the response he got and as one, the fighters activated their Shadow Devices.
Just as with the Dominion and the Archangel, the Veritech's out hull started to have wave like energy flow across their entire hull.
"Ma'am. Skull Squadron has activated their Shadow Devices." Miriallia told Murrue.
"Understood. How soon until we are in firing range for the torpedoes?" Murrue asked.
"Ma'am, we will be in firing range in 135 seconds." Paul said.
While they were talking, inside the warship, six torpedoes from the ships magazine were selected and then the torpedoes were taken to the torpedo tubes, where they were locked into the tubes and set to launch.
The outside plating of the Archangel and the Dominion opened in six locations along the port and starboard sides of the tip of the bow. These were the torpedo tubes. If one was too look down one of the tubes, they would see a 10 foot long cylindrical metal tube with a black pointed tip and a blue glowing middle section that had four stabilizing fins at the back.
Slowly, the task force of two Plato class frigates and 24 Valkyries flew towards the unsuspecting Wraith, all the while a timer counted down, the beeps cranking the tension up to eleven.
Once the timer hit zero, the holographic window in front of Murrue showed her that they were now within their maximum striking distance of 400,000 miles for their torpedoes.
"Ma'am. We are within striking distance and we have a positive lock on the two cruisers. Orders?" Paul asked.
"Launch all six torpedoes at the cruiser on the far right. Have the Dominion launch her torpedoes at the cruiser on the far left. Then once we are in range, open fire with the particle cannons. Sai, the moment we are in range, raise our shields to maximum strength." Murrue ordered.
"Yes ma'am." The crew said as they got to work.
Once the Dominion had acknowledged her orders, Paul took aim at the cruiser on the far right and pressed the button that triggered the launching sequence for the torpedoes.
Traveling at unbelievable speeds along miles of interconnected diamond covered computer lines, the command signal reached the computer responsible for launching the torpedoes in the span of 350 milliseconds. Once the computer had received the command, programming took over and the launch sequence began. The computer sent a signal into each torpedoes simultaneously, causing the newly developed ion engines for the torpedoes to activate, causing each torpedo to go from dead stop to over 1 mile per second in the span of 1 second. Accelerating quickly, the torpedoes left the torpedo tubes almost exactly the same time, each torpedo accelerating even faster, reaching speeds in excess of 30 miles per second 5 seconds after leaving their tubes. As the torpedoes grew faster and faster, their on-board AIs made adjustments to their velocity and current flight path that would lead to the most damage done to their targets. The torpedoes had now reached their maximum velocity of over 500 miles per second now after 180 seconds from leaving their tubes and would impact the Cruisers in a little over 10 minutes.
On the bridge the tension grew and grew as the ships stayed at a distance of 400,000 miles away from the Cruisers. A timer on the bridge counted down until the torpedoes struck their target. Since it would take 13 minutes for the torpedoes to go from their tubes to hitting their target, they had 10 minutes left until their torpedoes struck.
Minutes slowly trickled away as the torpedoes grew closer and closer to their target until they reached 1,500 miles away from the target, in which the Wraith finally noticed the torpedoes, but by then it was far too late.
The AI quickly opened a channel back to their home ships and transmitted themselves back onto their home ships after activating the on board computers to ensure the torpedoes hit their target, but considering they were literal seconds away from hitting their targets, it would be hard for the torpedoes to miss.
A few seconds after the AI left their torpedoes and were safely back on-board the Archangel and Dominion, the 12 torpedoes struck their targets with unbelievable amount of force, each torpedo releasing over 12 gigatons of raw destructive force per torpedo into the unfortunate hull of the Wraith Cruisers. Also, the area were the torpedo's struck would just so happen to be the starboard side hanger bay. When the torpedoes struck, it caused unimaginable amounts of damage in literal milliseconds.
The torpedoes struck the hull of the Cruisers, causing massive amounts of secondary explosions to erupt all along the sides of the Cruisers, however the majority of the damage was still to come. Because the first torpedoes struck the hanger bays, it caused massive holes to be torn into the hull of the Cruisers, which allowed the rest of the torpedoes to go though the hanger bay until each torpedo struck the other side of the hanger bay and then they exploded.
Both Cruisers were completely obliterated from the raw power of the torpedoes exploding inside their hulls, killing all of their crew members so fast it was almost instantaneous. The massive explosions caused a literal wave to be formed the destruction of the two Cruisers to radiate outwards, where it struck the Hive ship. The Hive was bathed in radioactive fury, scorching her hull and causing several minor explosions to rupture along the length of her hull.
Meanwhile the Archangel and Dominion were continuing on towards their targets at an increased speed, now they were going a quarter of their maximum sublight and were trying to close the distance between themselves and their target so that they could engage with their particles cannons, which had a maximum range of 310,000 miles.
Since they were going 25,000 miles per second, they were only about 4 seconds away from particle cannon range.
The entire crew was stunned silent as they saw the giant explosions, they had no idea the torpedoes could that much damage. The effectiveness of the torpedoes had been underestimated when put up against the organic hull of Wraith warships.
"Ma'am. Minor damage to Hive due to the Cruisers destruction. I would suggest we focus all our firepower on the back half of the Hive, we need to try and hit their FTL to keep them here." Tolle said.
"Agreed. Paul, tell the Dominion to aim for the back half of the Hive ship. Also, launch some Stargazers at the hangers and let's see if we can't help the Veritechs out. Any Dart's launched yet?" Murrue asked.
"Not yet ma'am." Miriallia reported. "Also, all Veritechs are reporting they have suffered no damage and are ready to go."
Murrue nodded and then said, "Tolle, tell the Veritech's from the Dominion that their priority targets are life support, hyperdrives and weapon systems. The Veritech's from the Archangel are to engage and destroy any and all Dart's that they come across."
Tolle nodded and then relayed the orders to the Veritechs.
Back with the Veritechs, Roy received the orders and said, "Okay, Rick, you take half the squadron and go take out hyperdrive, weapon systems and life support. I will lead the other half in taking down any Darts, got it?"
"Roger. Okay boys, follow me." Rick said as his Veritech along with 11 other accelerated and flew faster towards the Hive, intent on taking down as many critical systems as they could.
By then, the Archangel and Dominion were now in range and so deactivated their Shadow Fields while raising their green-blue-white mixed energy shields. Meanwhile, along the neck of the Archangel and Dominion, their triple barrel and double barrel long range particle cannons activated. The turrets turned and took aim at specific areas on the hive while blueish-white energy was coalescing inside the barrels of the cannons.
Within seconds, the energy grew and grew until it grew to maximum capacity and then the cannons released all that energy in triple or double long beams of blueish-white supercharged particles.
The salvos of supercharged particle beams raced across the void of outer-space within seconds and impacted the Hive's thick organic hull. Although a Hive's hull is thick and can resist much damage, these were no ordinary particle beams the hull has resisting. These were Tirolian designed particles cannons from an Azashar mothership, some of the most terrifying particles weapons ever developed in the Robotech universe and they were slightly upgraded thanks to Zor and the data from the Atlantis.
These cannons were originally capable of firing 6 shots per minute and had a yield of 460 GJ per shot. Zor had managed to make it so that these, the 100 mm beam turret could fire 10 shots per minutes and had a yield of around 500 GJ per shot. These were powerful weapons and so when the salvo struck the organic hull of the hive, the supercharged particles only had a small amount of resistance before they tore through the hull of the hive.
The long beams of supercharged particles tore through the outer hull and sunk deep into the Hive, tearing apart bulkheads, obliterating power-lines, and vaporizing unfortunate Wraith caught in the path of the particles or were sucked out into the void of outer space. The beams then back bursting out the other side of the Hive from where they struck, causing minor secondary explosion in the tail end of the Hive. The Hive's hyperdrive was completely destroyed, stranding the Wraith vessel with no where to run.
They were quickly followed by the weaker, but still powerful 72 mm beam blasts. These beams were weaker, but still managed to cause damage as they still tore through the hull, just they didn't go all the way through like the 100 mm blasts did.
It was around this time that along the neck of the two Plato class frigates, six patches of metal popped open, revealing that each one had ten missile tubs aligned in two rows of five underneath. Each missile tube had a Stargazer missile ready to launch and with click of a button, Paul sent the signal for all of the missiles to launch.
From the Dominion and the Archangel, a total of 120 Stargazers launched themselves skyward from their tubes and then arched forwards towards the Hive and more specifically, towards the hanger.
The Stargazers are a much smaller and weaker ballistic weapon compared to the Reflex torpedoes, but a Stargazer is still capable of obliterating any fighter craft encountered by the Tau'ri and can cause massive damage to the hull of a Goa'uld Ha'tak mothership if the shields aren't activated.
Each Stargazer struck the hanger bay walls, and just like the Reflex torpedoes before them, the Stargazers tore through the organic walls of the outer walls of the hanger bay with ease, and so the Stargazers that came after them continued on until they hit the other side of the hanger bay, where each missile exploded.
The results were horrific. 120 explosions were set off in the hanger bay where the hundreds of Darts were kept. When the Stargazers exploded, they caused a chain reaction that caused all the Darts to explode as well, this resulted in hundreds of minor explosions rippling outwards from the Starboard side hanger bay that continued onwards all across the starboard side of the Hive ship.
Meanwhile, Rick was currently going on an attack run against a large domed structure on the bottom lower part of the Hive.
Rick pressed the button on his control stick and a second later, two Stargazers were launched from the missile hard-points on his Veritech's wings.
The two missiles flew forwards and then struck the domed structure, the missiles piercing the thick wall and causing a massive explosion that didn't take out the domed structure, but it did do a lot of damage.
Rick then heard, "This is Skull five. I see at least fifty enemy Darts coming from the port hanger bay. I think launching a few Stargazers on that side might be helpful."
"This is Skull Two. I read you Skull Five. Skull's 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8, follow me in. Let's take out that hanger." Rick said as he flew over towards the port hanger.
"Roger." he heard through comm as the five other Skulls came and flew along side him and together the six of them flew towards the port side hanger bay.
The hanger bay was open, allowing more dart to fly out, but this would also allow the Veritech's to get inside.
"Okay Skulls, lets do this." Rick said as he ignited his afterburners, flying into the hanger bay.
He was quickly followed by the five other Veritechs and once inside the hanger bay, Rick reached out with his left hand and flicked the B button on his console down and flicked the G button on the console up.
Instantly, a process called Metamorphosis occurred, causing the plane to flip and molded around as the very shape of the aircraft changed. Sections of the plane popped out and formed arms, while the back end of the plane split apart and formed legs with the jet engines as the soles of the feet.
With his Veritech transformed, Rick grabbed the gun pod and aimed it at the parked Darts.
Clicking the trigger, a stream of 55 mm rounds tore from the gun pod and shredded the parked Darts.
Around him, the other Veritechs did the same, as well as fire some of the Stargazer missiles towards the Darts. Soon, a chain reaction was caused as dozens of Darts were exploding around them.
"Skulls, retreat!" Rick shouted as he transformed his Veritech back to fighter and peeled away from destruction, seeing the other Veritechs already leaving the exploding hanger.
Rick quickly followed and soon the flight of six was out of harms way as the Wraith hanger bay exploded behind them.
Suddenly, Murrue's voice came on the radio said, "Attention Skull Squadron. All the Darts have been destroyed and the Hive's life support has been destroyed. It is time for Skull Squadron to go on-board and try to retrieve data from the computer core."
Rick replied with a roger and peeled away with his flight of five to meet up with Roy.
Time skip...
It has been half and hour since Skull Squadron had infiltrated the Hive using the destroyed starboard side hanger bay. The had transformed their Veritech's into Guardian mode and then left their planes and quietly infiltrated the Hive.
They had used their built-in helmet sensors to avoid the Wraith patrols and those that hey had been unable to avoid they had quietly killed using knifes and silenced laser pistols.
Currently, the 20 man team was currently in the computer core, where Rick was using his Infiltrator to download the computer core.
Rodney had done his job well, the AI on the Infiltrator had activated and downloaded nearly everything on the computer core. They were just finishing up when a Wraith Drone entered and saw the ADF members.
Before the ADF could silence the Drone, the Drone sent out a alarm and was then killed by a silenced laser bolt to the forehead.
But the damage was already done as a shrill sounding alarm started blaring out and the ADF knew they had to leave now.
"Rick, is the download done?" Roy asked as he removed his silencer since it was now useless and they needed all the firepower they could get.
"Yep. Disconnecting now." Rick said as he removed the wires from the computer.
"Alright. Let's go!" Roy said as the group of twenty quickly filed out of the computer core and went back towards their Veritechs.
Along the way, they ran into several groups of Wraith Drones, which resulted in a several firefights, but thankfully no one had been stunned just yet.
Currently the members of Skull Squadron were running towards the door way that lead to the hanger bay when one of the members of Skull Squadron was stunned and fell down to the floor.
Rick quickly stopped and turned to go get him when he found himself being fired at by five Wraith Drones.
Roy and some of the other Skull members had stopped and were firing at the Wraith, but with more reinforcements coming, they couldn't afford to wait.
"Rick, we have to go!" Roy shouted over to his younger brother.
"I'm not leaving him!" Rick shouted back as he suddenly broke from cover and fired five precise laser blasts.
The red-orange lances of energy stuck the Wraith Drones in the faces, causing them to die a horrible death.
Rick then grabbed the stunned Skull member and started to haul him back towards the Veritech's while Roy and the other members gave him covering fire.
Once by the others, Rick and Skull team made their way back into the hanger, where they then basted the hanger door closed, preventing them from being swarmed.
Rick placed the stunned Skull team member in his copilot seat and then got into his Veritech.
All the Veritechs transformed and flew out of the hanger, even the Veritech whose pilot had been stunned due to the AI taking control.
Once the Veritechs were far enough away from the Hive, Roy radioed and said, "Archangel, we are clear. Send those bastards to hell."
'Roger that." Came the reply as the Archangel and Dominion charged up their particle cannons.
Within seconds, a number of blue beams went flying into the void and struck the Hive time after time until they finally pierced the power reactor of the Hive, causing the entire massive warship to explode in a massive ball of plasmatic energy, creating shimmering field of blue plasmatic mist.
The Veritechs had already docked at this point, so Murrue said, "Arnold, take us back to Atlantis."
Arnold nodded quickly the two Plato class frigates were covered in a familiar sphere of golden energy for a few second before they went flying into a new tear and disappeared from view, leaving behind nothing but molten flotsam and cooling plasma as the only signs that they had been there.
The two Plato Class Frigates went back home, carrying the pride that they had not only received the first victory in this interstellar war, but also the fact they had all the data they needed to achieve victory.
This was a sign of what was to come. The Wraith-Atlantis Defensive Forces War had just officially started.
And that is it!
Finally the fourth chapter of this story is done and we finally see a battle scene!
I had a lot of fun describing the battle and there is plenty more to come as the story progresses.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter and as always, if you have a comment, criticism or concern, please leave a review or P.M. me, always appreciated.
This is Strikefreedom10, signing off.
PLUS ULTRA!