Author's note: Hello! Here comes another chapter. Unfortunately, this will be the last one for a while. With obligations piling up, I'll use August to clean up a few things and catch up a little with the various ideas that are swirling in my head on what to write next. With this chapter, we are leaving the introductory part of this story. After this chapter, the spreading of the SGA outward into the universe will soon begin and I have to think how exactly to write it all in order to be as concise as possible - I'm not planning to write about their expansion for another 100 chapters, that's for sure - yet, more importantly, for this to continue to be an entertaining read. Hopefully, September will be the month when I continue with a scheduled posting of new, exciting, chapters.
On another note, here is something that I used myself in order to not make errors when calculating time travel of various ships that have different hyperdrives and to remember a few things that otherwise I might have forgotten. Some readers might be interested, so...
A little of explaining first
A ship's or signal's speed is determined by the hyperspace or subspace band they travel respectively.
While a signal through subspace always travels at the speed of light, subspace band relative, ships can travel at any lower speed,
ranging from being stationary to moving near the speed of light relative to the hyperspace band they travel through.
Hyperspace is filled with a low concentration of exotic particles, created and destroyed in a chaotic and unpredictable fashion.
Faster a ship travels, higher the kinetic energy released when hit by those same particles. This has a dual effect.
First, it damages the hull or, if shielded, it drains the shields.
Second, it provides resistance which slows down the ship, much like air inside an atmosphere does, just at a much, much weaker rate, which allows higher velocities than those in the atmosphere.
The higher the hyperspace band, the higher the concentration of particles, which result in increased drain on shields or damage to an unshielded hull,
and slows down the ship which taxes the hyperdrive further.
Reaching the mu band, the density is so high that opening a hyperspace window is suicidal.
Subspace begins at the Pi band where exotic particles cannot form anymore, but also where no hyperspace window can cross the mu-omicron barrier. Only energy transfer is possible.
The Pi band is best for sensors to listen to the noise, the echo, transferred from the lower bands. Both hyperspace and our regular space-time.
Ship example.
A Daedalus ship travels for 25 days at 43% of the speed of light, hyperspace relative, in the Theta band.
Theta band top speed, vt = 100,000,000 light-years/year
relative velocity to the speed of light, v0 = 0.43c
travel time, t = 25 days
distance = vt * v0 * t/365 = 100,000,000 * 0.43 * 25/365 = 2,945,205 light-years (distance to the Pegasus galaxy)
if the same ship is capable of using its shield in the Iota band and travel at the same 43% of the speed of light (not likely), his travel time would be ten times faster, which means 2.5 days
Hyperspace and Subspace Bands
0 None 1 [spacetime]
1 Alpha 10 [hyperspace, lowest band] [Goa'uld first hyperdrive used until recent (major breakthrough in the last hundred years)]
2 Beta 100 [hyperspace]
3 Gamma 1,000 [hyperspace]
4 Delta 10,000 [hyperspace] [Tollan's previous FTL]
5 Epsilon 100,000 [hyperspace] [Apophis and Skara's attack on Earth, Tollan & Terran commercial interstellar]
6 Zeta 1,000,000 [hyperspace] [Modern Jaffa Ha'tak]
7 Eta 10,000,000 [hyperspace] [Wraith with no shields, limits top speed and hull deterioration]
8 Theta 100,000,000 [hyperspace] [Terran ships]
9 Iota 1,000,000,000 [hyperspace] [Terran ships (ZPM), Asgard ships with no shields (limits top speed due to damage done by exotic particles), Atlantis]
10 Kappa 10,000,000,000 [hyperspace] [Liam's ship; thought impossible until he modified his ship's hyperdrive]
11 Lambda 100,000,000,000 [hyperspace, highest band] [Liam's modifications suggest the possibility to use this band as well. No one knows how, though]
12 Mu [barrier] [unusable]
13 Nu [barrier] [unusable]
14 Xi [barrier] [unusable]
15 Omicron 10^15 [barrier] [unusable? An incident involving SG1 traveling to another galaxy in seconds (star exploding) would suggest otherwise.]
16 Pi 10^16 [subspace, lowest band] [active subspace sensors detecting noises from hyperspace and spacetime; some communication protocols]
17 Rho 10^17 [subspace] [standard communication; less noise, faster band, but needs more power; communication stones]
18 Tau 10^18 [subspace] [used by stargates for initial handshake protocol, correlative update, stargate transfer of dematerialized particle stream]
19 Upsilon 10^19 [subspace]
20 Phi 10^20 [subspace] [ stargate transfer control and correction, data needed for correct reintegration of transferred matter]
21 Chi 10^21 [subspace]
22 Psi 10^22 [subspace] [mcKay's high frequency energy transfer, short range or very high losses as distance rises]
23 Omega 10^23 [subspace, highest band] [30 microseconds for signal to cross the entire observable universe, difficult to use]
inf unity [all-points unification] [0s travel time; everywhere is the same point; unusable, only theoretical]
Thanks to my beta, and hope you'll like this chapter as well
Traveling to the nearby star system, one located only seven hundred light years from Sol, was a breeze for the most advanced ship in the Terran arsenal. It was so close that they didn't even necessitate the use of the Iota band in order to reach it. A lower band would do just fine, consequently giving the crew on the still freshly painted ship time to enjoy their first official voyage. Even while traveling in the Theta band at a low five percent of the speed of light, hyperspace relative, the ship would reach its destination in a little over one hour. Such low speed also precluded the need for using the shield for protection from exotic particles, omnipresent in hyperspace. At that point, the hyperdrive would be working at slightly below five percent of its max output. After all, this was the first Terran ship capable of traveling through the Iota band while also having its shield raised. It allowed the ship to achieve incredible speeds.
Speeds that were sometimes difficult to even fathom, the captain, Amy Donovan, though while sitting in her comfortable captain's chair on the bridge.
"Ma'am, our sensors are detecting a fusion reaction happening nearby. Some fifty light-years distant, almost straight ahead," the officer at the sensors station replied.
She already had a map on her left display that had automatically sprung to life when the event was detected. There was no system present there and something else was also strange. "Am I reading this correctly? Is it moving?"
"It is, ma'am. Difficult to say how fast because of our relative velocity to it, but I'll hazard a guess and say a respectable percentage of the speed of light. Point-two light speed maybe."
"Well, when you see a fusion reaction moving at a noticeable fraction of the speed of light, there's only one thing to do, right?" Amy said knowingly. "Helm, you know what to do."
"Yes, ma'am. Plotting intercept course," the reply from the pilot came. "In order to intercept the vessel, we will have to exit hyperspace ahead of the U.F.O. and then build up our speed to match. It will take some time, ma'am."
"Do what you must. Wait! Did you just call that thing a UFO?"
"Well, ma'am, it is an Unidentified Flying Object."
"True enough."
"Course laid in, ma'am."
"Proceed, ensign."
The ship shifted course, which she immediately noticed on her personal display. The ship was now following a curved path that was taking it in front of the ship, already oriented in the same direction of travel as the unknown vessel. The pilot had informed her, the detour would take twenty minutes through hyperspace and then a few more hours of slowly building up their speed to match that of the unknown vessel.
As predicted, the voyage through hyperspace didn't last long, not as much as the following period of intense acceleration in order to match the other ship's speed. During that time, the unknown vessel had slowly but relentlessly gained on them. They would soon join them, at the same time as when they matched velocities. Since the ship was now close enough while slightly on their starboard side, Amy thought it was about time they saw how it looked.
"Give me an enlarged view of the vessel and as much info on the ship as possible, but no intrusive, active scanning. I don't want to spook them. Whoever they might be," Amy asked the sensors officer standing on her left and slightly in front of her.
The main display changed from showing space ahead to showing the enlarged view of the ship's port side. That is if it could even be said that the ship had a port or starboard side. Amy was stunned about what she was seeing. Even from this angle, she could clearly see that the ship was a triple helix that was connected with many pylons from each of them to the central long strut, the cylinder that went through the entire length of the ship from bow to stern.
"What can you tell me about it," she asked, now very curious about what they had stumbled upon.
"Ma'am, the ship is almost ten kilometers in length and it appears to be rotating around its central cylindrical support beam. My guess is that the triple-helix around it is where they have enough artificial gravity due to its rotation. Although, the current rotation would give the appearance of only a third of our standard one gee gravity in the outermost sections. The central cylindrical structure ends in a massive rear engine. If I am to speculate here, I would say that this ship doesn't have inertial dampeners and the massive engine is probably an ion drive that over a long period of time has built up the speed at which the alien vessel is currently traveling."
"What about that yellow glowing spherical cap at the front?" She was squinting as if that would help her understand what it was. It looked almost completely transparent, yet it was clearly there.
"That ma'am would be the beginning of particle shielding technology. A cannon at the front is firing charged particles that are then trapped by a magnetic field and bent into a spherical cap so that the front of the ship has some protection. It is protecting it against space dust that at these velocities would otherwise harm the ship. It should also help against micro-meteors. The negative side of this kind of shielding is that the particle cannon is providing a constant counter force as it expels its continuous stream of particles, almost in the same way as the rear ion drive is doing. This is why the ship must constantly keep the rear ion drive operational. To provide a constant thrust. I think the ion drive is a low thrust high-efficiency engine that can give maybe zero-point-three gees at best."
"Which means that in order to ramp-up the ship's speed to point-one-two of the speed of light, the speed at which they are currently traveling, it took them a lot of time."
"It would take a minimum of four years of constant burn at point-two-eight gees to achieve their current velocity, ma'am."
"The entire cylinder must be a gigantic fusion reactor and fuel depot. How long did they travel to get here?"
"I'm extrapolating their possible flight path from their current position and direction. It is logical to assume that they have traveled in a straight line," the officer worked in silence for a few more seconds. "There is a planet thirty light years in exactly the opposite direction. If they came from there, then it would have taken them roughly two-hundred-and-fifty years to come here. I must also inform you that the ship's most probable destination is the same as ours since we are less than zero-point-five light years from the system in question and it is the only one with a habitable planet present in it in a fairly large radius around our current position."
"That's something I noticed already. From what I see here, this must be a colony ship. The people onboard are probably later generations of the original crew or they are traveling in suspended animation," Amy said, more to herself than to anyone else on the bridge. The ship would soon begin breaking their velocity and in about five years they would reach their new home. Since the Terrans were the ones who could easily find another planet for colonization, and since for the unknown aliens this was clearly a one-way trip, the decision of leaving the system to be colonized to them was a very easy one.
By now, they were practically side-by-side with the novelty ship, with the rotating triple-helix now in full view. For a ship of ten kilometers, those three helixes could easily hold hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Amy watched the marvelous ship depicted on her display, thinking about the dangerous journey these people have undertaken. Then, she began feeling sad; very sad. It was true that she enjoyed traveling on her ship. The Enterprise was the pinnacle of technological achievements throughout the entire universe. However, she sadly also realized that the Terrans would never feel the joy of traveling to a different star system for the first time, or cherish the sudden news that someone on Earth had flown an FTL craft for the first time, or that humanity has invented artificial gravity that would finally open space for their race. There were so many inventions and accomplishments that the people of Earth have skipped by inheriting the knowledge of other races that she felt robbed somehow. Robbed of a large portion of what it meant to reach the stars with your own two feet. Even by watching the tv show from which her ship had been named after – it was obligatory, as it would be bad for the captain of the Enterprise to miss some reference between the ship and the show spoken by a crewmember - she knew there were imagined people like Cochran and Archer who had been attributed great achievements and who have entered the history books for all times, and it didn't matter at all that it had only happened in a fictional universe.
Who will be mentioned in their history books for having achieved something as spectacular as having traveled out of the Solar system for the first time? Would such a monumental achievement be attributed to... Ernest Littlefield?
"Ma'am, I think we have a problem," the tactical officer, Levi Sommers, noted.
"What is it?" she hadn't been paying attention. Levi must have seen something that she'd missed.
"If you look at their shield, ma'am, I think you'll notice it too, very soon."
He was right. Less than a minute later the crude but effective shield abruptly stopped working. A few seconds later, it restarted with a sudden burp of particles. "That looks like a malfunction, but it doesn't seem a grave one. Soon, they will have to turn their ship around and start burning if they don't want to overshoot their intended target."
"At first, I thought the same way, ma'am, but then I thought about what the purpose of the shield is in the first place. The shield protects the ship from space dust and meteors. If they turn the ship around and spend the next four years breaking velocity like that-"
"I know, I know. Space debris will turn the ship into Swiss cheese," she said, understanding the problem. "Then, how are they going to break if they can't turn the ship around?"
"The particle cannon ma'am. If they shut down their ion drive and increase the power of the particle cannon, the ship should break velocity while still providing the necessary protection. As far as we know, the particle cannon could be even more powerful than the rear engine," Levi added.
It did make sense. The rear engine was meant for efficiency on a very long trip. The particle cannon was built for power. Power to fire enough charged particles to stop everything harmful in front of the colony ship, but maybe also to achieve greater braking than the rear engines ever could. Once the ship was on its last leg, already well in the system and once it had already slowed down considerably, the ship could finally turn and use the ion engine to ease the ship into orbit above the only habitable planet in a twenty light years' radius, but not before. "So, since the ship needs that particle cannon to break, that small glitch might turn into a catastrophic failure that prevents the ship from stopping at their targeted system."
"It is only speculation on my part, ma'am, however, I do think that's the only way for the ship to break velocity. Maybe to our standards, point-one-two the speed of light is nothing special, but hitting even space dust for a ship as fragile as theirs at such a speed, and to keep doing it for years, it would be the end of them, of that I'm certain."
She wouldn't want for her own ship to hit space dust at this speed for the next four years either, she thought gloomily while being completely safe behind the seventh generation shielding system. "So, we fix their problem."
There was the little thing that their government has decided that they should interact only with space-faring races and leave the rest alone, and although this one clearly already traveled through the vastness of space while on their way to their new home, it wasn't at the technological level the Council intended the decree to be applied at. She should call home and ask the Council for instructions, but there was a chance – albeit, a negligible one – that they could decide to leave the aliens to their fate. Unless she had gravely misjudged them, she thought that Jack and Daniel would do everything in their power to save these aliens, with no doubts or second guessing on their part. However, there were those in the Council who were sticklers for the rules - rules they themselves had imposed - not taking into account that maybe, sometimes, there was a gray area where decrees could be broken or at least bent a little for the greater good.
She was also a big believer in asking for forgiveness rather than for permission. It wasn't a policy she liked to employ often, but she did do the same thing when the Rand Protectorate had attacked Caledonia. She hadn't asked for permission then and it paid off. "We'll also board that ship and see how our new neighbors-to-be look like while we download what we find in their databanks about their culture and language. In five or so years, when they establish their colony, we could meet them and it would be a good thing to by then know how to speak to them without offending." It was all an excuse and she knew the bridge crew knew it too. She just wanted to see their ship's interior and maybe take a peek at the aliens themselves.
"Yes, ma'am. I suggest we actively scan the vessel to learn more about its internal layout and about its systems before attempting to repair the damage to their forward particle cannon. After that, and since the ship is spinning, I suggest the use of our transporters in order to board it," the tactical officer replied.
"Good plan. Also, notify the XO to get her butt here. She has a boarding mission to lead," she said. There wouldn't be any Marines or even people in their combat armor for that. Even before getting confirmation, she already knew that everybody on the ship was fast asleep. The rotation of the ship was just too slow. When the crew woke up, she was sure the speed of rotation would increase. Hence, people in their skinsuits and helmets would be more than enough for the job they were tasked to do. She still wanted confirmation from the sensors officer on what was on the ship, though. At least she hoped there was some modicum of breathable atmosphere their skinsuits and helmets could process and filter, and that way give unlimited breathable air to the wearer. "I also want one of the corvettes to launch and trace back to their planet of origin. I want to scout their system to see what's there and why they'd built this ship."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll inform the crew of Corvette One to prep for launch," the tactical officer informed.
As predicted, the scanning showed the ship was filled with hibernation pods, hundreds of thousands of them, packed neatly throughout the three helixes. There were other rooms filled with various machinery and storage rooms that contained what the colonist would need once they reached their new home. On the inner side of the helixes, the side that faced the cylindrical core of the ship, there were scores of dropships attached. The more she looked at the ship and the more she became enamored with its design. To think that a race that didn't have inertial dampeners or artificial gravity could build something capable of surviving for two hundred and fifty years in the cold emptiness of space, it was truly inspiring.
While the Corvette went on her mission to the thirty light years' distant system in the opposite direction, her XO, Commander Natalia Serova and three more members of her crew were beamed on the ship. While two of them went straight for the particle cannon in hope of quickly repairing the glitch the previous scanning had clearly identified, the XO went for one of the many rooms filled with pods. He needed to crouch while passing through the doors. It seemed these aliens were much smaller than humans. No doors were taller than six foot, and Natalia with her helmet was just tall enough to bump her head. Natalia moved towards the closest of the many stasis pods in front of her. They were definitely too small for most humans to lay inside. Amy could see all this through the camera on the XO's helmet. She was now looking down at what was inside the pod.
"It's furry," the XO said, as she watched the creature.
"I can see that," Amy responded to her XO. The creature had a beautiful white fur, maybe an inch and a half long, and there was something definitely feline about her. The ears were catlike and a furry, long tail was there too. However, she didn't have paws like an animal would. Small hands were there with five digits, including an opposable thumb. There were almost no nails either and the legs were certainly meant for walking upright, most of the time at least. Upon better inspection, maybe her estimate that she was a feline was the wrong one. Maybe she was more akin to an arboreal, like an overgrown lemur maybe. If she had the proportions right, she wasn't taller than four feet, maybe just a tad more. That, in no way, meant there weren't any larger specimen in her race laying in some other pod, though.
"She's all fluffy and cute, ma'am. Can I keep her?" Natalia spoke through the comm.
"XO, that very closely sounded like asking for possession of another sentient being. Though I must admit, I wouldn't mind having one scurrying in my house either," Amy replied, still in part thinking of it as a cute furry friend to have as a pet, instead of a sentient being capable of building starships two hundred and fifty years ago when human on Earth were nowhere close such accomplishments. "That's it! We are making sure their ship makes it and I'm placing a sensor array on their path to monitor their progress as well as to inform us if someone unwanted decides to drop by." With their ships now capable of entering the Iota band with the shields powered and capable of protecting the ship from exotic particles, a battlecruiser stationed on the verge of the Solar system's hyper-limit could in a pinch reach the 700 light years distant alien ship in approximately two and a half minute. It would take hours for someone to even match the ship's speed of travel in which time the Terrans would already be upon them, ready to protect the furry little aliens. Too many aliens had died at the hands of the Goa'uld not to care for those remaining. She knew Jack and Daniel would approve. And who knows, if they leave a sensor drone to follow the ship, maybe people could start using the broadcast as a screensaver, too. Somehow looking at the triple helix ship while it spins through the vastness of space had a calming and almost hypnotic effect.
The XO was moving toward the room where the performed scans indicated the presence of data storage units. They probably contained everything about their race. Their history, culture, and accomplishment. Amy turned because one of the holo-displays in front of here abruptly displayed something else. There was a beeping sound that had accompanied the change and she knew the sound was meant as a warning. She was looking at the screen that was showing space and three orange rectangles almost overlapping. "Luke, any idea what the warning is about?"
"It is still distant, and the only thing of note is that there are energy emissions coming from-" the sensor officer stopped abruptly. "Three ships, ma'am! Two identified as Vargas scout ships… one as a battleship… accelerating steadily at three-hundred-gees… seventeen million kilometers distant. They are doing the same thing as what we did. They are building up speed to match us and the alien colony ship."
Amy took a deep breath. "And we brought them here, didn't we?"
After thinking about it a little, the sensors officer had to agree. "Probably, ma'am. The Vargas must have been monitoring the surrounding space around our homeworld. They must have followed our hyper-wake here and since there is no system present, they probably sent ships to investigate why we were stopping in the middle of nowhere."
"That's more or less my line of thinking, yes." Now the problem was what to do next. The Enterprise was on her first mission, barely pushed out of the shipyard only a week earlier and it barely went through the inauguration ceremony of the new ship's class. Furthermore, the monitor was showing that the Vargas had begun broadcasting a jamming signal that would prevent them from contacting Earth. She sighed, again. There was only one thing to do. She turned to her display and opened the comm. channel to the XO. "Natalia, we are having some unwanted guests. Just a few Vargas ships. If you don't need anything, we are going to intercept them and be back once we are done."
"Good hunting, ma'am. Natalia out."
"All right then. Mr. Sommers, please raise the ship's readiness level to full alert," Amy said.
"Yes, ma'am," the man replied at the same time as the ambient light on the bridge dimmed, now tinted with a slightly red coloration. If it were blue, it would have meant they were under cloak.
Amy knew the new pulse reactors were now powering up to maximum output in order to overcharge the ship's energy reserves, including overcharging the shield generator's capacitors to two hundred percent. Well above their nominal charge. They were getting ready for battle and the ship was obediently preparing itself for the moment when it would be asked to turn the Vargas ships into quickly spreading debris.
"First off, I want those ships unable to escape our grasp or send any kind of data about our ship's capabilities," she stated. So far, the Vargas did not know what the Alliance had crammed out of their R&D department, and she wanted for it to stay that way for as long as possible. This meant jamming any communications and leaving no witnesses to tell the tale.
"Ma'am, they are still too far out for our subspace jamming system to work at a hundred percent. Same with our hyperspace interdiction device to affect them. For that, they would need to be well inside two million kilometers. I suggest launching a tactical drone to trail the Vargas well inside its operational field but still far out of the enemy's weapon systems. I would suggest the drone reaching one-point-seven million kilometers before activating its jamming and interdiction systems."
"Do it," Amy responded promptly. It appeared the Vargas had better jamming than they did. Being able to jam their communication protocols from a distance of 17 million kilometers wasn't a picnic. Amy glanced at the monitor showing the triple helix ship. "Helm set a zero-zero intercept for Bogey One, best speed. We don't want to fight them while next to such a fragile vessel."
Both officers replied in the positive. The ship had a very neat new system for launching large torpedoes or tactical drones that were unable to fit inside the regular launch tubes. Since everything was inside the refurbished Wraith storage system anyway, they had placed several Wraith beaming systems below the ship as the, usually, safest place for anything to suddenly appear.
The tactical drone came into existence below the ship, immediately engaging its very powerful gravitic pulse drive. Since there were no humans onboard, it was much easier to ramp-up its acceleration. Soon, the tactical drone was accelerating at well above 20 kps2 or 2000 gees, in order to get closer to the target where it would power up its jamming and hyper-interdiction systems. The drone was also good for spying and getting some excellent telemetry of distant targets. It also had a state of the art ECM system as well as holo projectors meant to create false targets. However, for now, its task was only to trail the Vargas and prevent them from entering hyperspace or from communicating with their people.
The Enterprise was slowly building up acceleration. In contrast to popular belief, the ship's acceleration couldn't simply jump from 0 to 1000 gees. There was a subcomponent of the inertial dampener called the inertial compensator. That sub-component was very important since its job was to prevent humans from getting splattered all over the rear wall during high accelerations, or sudden changes of the same. The compensator simply needed time in order to sync with the rest of the very complex propulsion system. It meant that it took time to raise the gees, minutes before the acceleration got to its cruise acceleration of 600 gees or rather 6kps2 (kilometers-per-second-squared), as rated for a ship like the Enterprise. The ship could push the engines more, considerably more, but since the Vargas were accelerating at half of that and since the Enterprise had a good 1000 kps (kilometers-per-second) higher velocity already, there was no reason to push it needlessly. There was also the possibility of the Vargas changing speed and vector, so having an adequate reserve was always a good thing.
The speed was slowly building up, and the distance between them and the Vargas was relentlessly trickling away. It was far from instantaneous, it would take around 74 minutes' total in order to reach the Vargas ship with a zero-zero approach, which meant that she had all the time she wanted to stretch her legs while waiting. The tactical drone had reached its destination, now trailing the Vargas ships at the same pace with its jamming and hyperspace disruption system fully deployed. With its ability for higher acceleration, it took the drone a mere four minutes to get there. She wished her ship could do the same. On the other hand, she had a surprise for the Vargas even before they'd meet face to face that she wanted to try out.
Sixty or so minutes after they had begun accelerating, the tactical officer informed her. "Ma'am we are inside the desired three-million-kilometer envelope."
The missiles could fly for much longer. They had been rated for at least 10 million kilometers under their own power. If left ballistic, there was no telling how distant a target could be reached. "Then let's give the Vargas a taste of what we have been up to for the past three years."
"Yes, ma'am. Launching now," the tactical officer replied at the same time as three long-range missiles were beamed beneath the ship. Those had a massive acceleration of 90kps2. More than four times that of the even larger, tactical drone. "Missiles are away. Time to intercept, twenty-five seconds."
Lasers, she thought. Creating strong coherent light on such high levels wasn't an easy task. Sure. Creating communication lasers, or tracking lasers, or even point defense lasers. Those were easy. But a laser that could harm a ship like those created by the Vargas. That, indeed, wasn't easily done.
Except that it was... if you were ready to sacrifice the cannon each time it fired.
A nuclear-pumped laser was a laser pumped with the energy of fission fragments. The lasing medium was enclosed in a tube lined with Naquadah and subjected to high neutron flux created in a nuclear reaction. The fission fragments of the Naquadah created excited plasma with an inverse population of energy levels, which then lased.
In short, what the geeks had done was to detonate a Naquadah bomb inside a strong gravitic field that served as a focusing lens for the released energy directed at eight tubes lined with Naquadah. On the other side, and before it all melted down because of the pumped 20 megatons, each of the tubes fires a lance of destructive coherent light in the X-ray spectrum in excess of 1.4 megatons each. When compared with modern bombs that can reach even outputs measurable in gigatons, 1.4 megatons seem like a very low yield - pitiful even. Yet, such yield in the form of direct, pure electromagnetic energy when focused in a meager twenty centimeter in diameter at the point of impact could have devastating effects. Since no one sane would make a laser cannon that each time used it exploded with the force of 20 megatons, races didn't bother very much configuring their shield for stopping lasers either. They all thought that shields should be tempered to stopping particle beams, plasma, or ionized atoms fired at high speed and subjugated to some phasing to give it a better chance of penetration.
The Terrans were going to show everybody that they were plain wrong in assuming anything when their way of waging war was concerned.
The missile reached 10,000 kilometers from the closest Vargas ship, well outside of its point defenses' reach, it turned in order to point straight toward its target and then, light was born in space. Eight very excited laser beams raced at the only speed they knew how which was at the speed of light. Five missed, while three connected with their intended target. The other two ships were hit with two beams each from the other two missiles.
Amy could swear that she saw the scout ship heave upon impact like some wounded beast as if hurt and in agony. She didn't see the other two ships react the same, though. "Levi?"
"One scout is out. A laser must have hit something vital. The engines are gone, the shields are gone and there's smoke coming out from astern. The other two are still moving, even though all lasers had gone through, ma'am."
"Finally," Amy replied. Even the energy dispersive armor the Vargas used could not disperse 1.4 megatons of pure energy from a meager point-two of a meter in diameter. The armor could simply not disperse the energy faster than the speed of light, which meant the twenty centimeters of hull got hit with 1.4 megatons in an instant. This test had also shown that if hit with enough lasers, something critical inside the ship could get blown. However, it was a game of chance, and not the final weapon that would win the war against the Vargas.
"Oh, I must have spoken too soon, ma'am, the battleship has also slowed down. I would say abruptly so. From 300 gees it fell to 10 gees flat. It is possible that the inertial compensator has failed. If so, I don't think anyone's alive aboard."
"Let's not speculate. The other scout will probably follow soon in order to keep together. Which means until proven of the contrary, we still have to fight two remaining hostiles in about five minutes' time. Activate the Aegis system. As soon as we are in weapons range we are going to hit the scout ships first with our heavy plasma lances. I want those shields down ASAP. QDBs are to follow the moment its shields fail. The plasma lances are then to switch to the other ship. Helm, try to always keep us circling on the outside. I don't want a straight dogfight against two ships only a week after leaving the shipyard. Just keep us inside our weapons range and use our superior maneuverability in relation to their larger battleship," Amy instructed her crew. It was time to see how good these new systems were, especially the Aegis Protection System that should work as a force multiplier against any foe, and especially the Vargas and their accursed weapon.
They entered weapons range and heavy plasma lances exploded forth at an appreciable percentage of the speed of light. As they went, they impacted the shield of the still fully functional scout ship. The shield held. They were facing the Vargas after all and not some third-rate enemy. At one point, there were four lances simultaneously punishing the enemy shield, straining it on different points. The rate of fire and traveling velocity of the new lances was incredible. The duration of four seconds wasn't bad either, and Amy could already see that the sensors were picking signs of the scout's shield buckling under the massive pressure.
The Vargas weren't standing idle, though. Both ships were firing their accursed dark-purple spheres of esoteric energy. However, before impacting her ship's primary defense system - the seventh-generation conformal shield that was wrapping the entire Enterprise in a safe embrace - dark panels, hexagonal in shape and five meters wide, sprung into existence in front of the main shield. More and more joined in that instant, all connecting around the first few and together forming a honeycomb-like flat surface only meters in front of the primary shield. The Vargas bolt hit the gravitational barrier - a barrier that even at twenty percent was so strong that even light couldn't pass through - that simply denied passage to the affronting energy. With the job done, the barrier simply disappeared the next instant, only to reappear elsewhere in order to stop the other bolts that otherwise would have hit the underlying shield and then began their accursed energy draining. With incredible speed, the Aegis was accurately predicting where the fired weapons would hit and it took the gravitational barriers less than a second to form an impenetrable, protective wall.
"I'm not feeling anything," Amy said, curious. Did the people from the R&D department truly do such a good job?
"That's because the Aegis at twenty percent power is more than capable of blocking all incoming fire before it reaches our primary shield. However, the Aegis is using a lot of power to do it. Though, it is still worth it since the energy bolts would otherwise cause our shields to deplete in a matter of minutes," the tactical officer responded, explaining what she already knew. Tactical officers liked explaining things. It was how they were and Amy wasn't about to try to change them.
The Aegis was a power hog, the reason why it was tied directly with the main energy capacitors aboard the ship, those directly being fed by the reactors or, if active, by the ZPMs. If they were to surround the entire ship with the Aegis barrier at full power, the entire ship's energy capacitors would be sucked dry inside a minute flat, and not even an active ZPM could compensate for the massive drain. It was true what they were saying about the Aegis. There were only three scenarios in which the use of the system was worth the massive energy drain. First, when facing the Vargas weapon that would otherwise gradually drain the struck primary shield. Second, when fired at with the relativistic antiparticles beam, or a comparable one, that had a chance of slicing through the primary shield and the ship in one smooth go. Third, it was to defend the ship against a detonating STD bomb that displaced space-time regardless if the primary shield was active or if it wasn't. In all other circumstances, the other shield was deemed more than enough to protect the ship and with much better energy efficiency. Not to mention that it always protected the entire ship from all sides as opposed to the Aegis system. "Just as a curiosity, how long can we keep up like this before our energy capacitors run out of juice?"
"There are only two ships that are firing at us and the Aegis needs to pop out to protect us for only a second for each fired bolt. Since there are no enemy ships with the antiproton beam, we can also keep the Aegis at twenty percent of its full power. Maybe we could even go as low as ten percent if necessary and still be completely safe. The area is also small - the prediction algorithm is doing a great job at pinpointing the exact locus where the weapon will hit. We could go for hours like this, ma'am, and that is without using any additional source of power. If we used the three medium-ZPMs or the gifted central ZPM that as a flagship we've been bestowed with, we could go for weeks like this, no sweat," the tactical officer explained what clearly meant how outclassed the Vargas were in this fight. The Aegis was meant as a force multiplier after all, and it was proving its full worth with each passing second.
"Hours without using any of our ZPMs, you say. That's what I needed to hear," she said at loud, but she was actually thinking about the plan of action.
"Scout Two has lost its shield, ma'am," Levi said.
"Are the QDBs configured for Vargas armor?"
"Yes, ma'am," Levi responded with a smile.
"Then, as soon as you have a good targeting solution, fire away," Amy said.
The Enterprise had just turned and it was now facing the shieldless scout ship, which meant all three QDBs could be fired at the same time. Three dark, purple beams that very much resembled some angry blowtorches that even God would prefer not to touch or be touched by, impacted the hull one next to each other. It was as if the ship's previously impervious armor was quickly being peeled away. At the very center, the armor would simply disappear - annihilated into nothingness - whilst nearby armor would break away from the hull, blown apart in chunks of various sizes, caused by the spreading angry purple energy.
Forty meters wide, a hundred meters long. It was the size of the new hole that was now exposing the interiors of the Vargas ship. The beams were set for the inverse quantum waveform of the affronting ship's armor and armor alone, which meant the beams didn't affect the materials inside the ship whatsoever.
"Fire an antimatter torpedo straight inside that hole the size of a football field. Maximum yield, please," Amy ordered.
The torpedo was pumped with ten pounds of antimatter prior to launch. The relatively small, short-range missile raced from the launch tube and on its way to meet its intended target. The nimble seeker slipped through the newly formed crack the size of a football field, with pinpoint accuracy, smack in the middle.
One hundred and fifty megatons of pure and devastating energy did the rest.
"Scout two has been destroyed, ma'am," Levi reported.
"How's the other ship doing?" Amy asked.
"Under current bombardment with our plasma lances, I estimate less than two minutes before their shield collapses."
"You know the drill, Lieutenant. However, after we nicely open the ship up like a can, this time you'll use drones. I want you to configure them to seek main conduits, the engine, shield generators, armament and even thrusters. I want that ship disabled and dead in space," Amy explained the first part, putting a big smile. "And then you can notify our Marines that they have a mission to perform. We will nuke the ship after they are done retrieving a live specimen."
Sargent Theodore Sharp had watched the battle in space as it unfolded and he had to admit that… it ended pretty anticlimactically. During the entire engagement, they haven't felt even a whiff of a tremor.
Not even a shy shake. Nothing at all.
He couldn't really say that it came as a surprise, though. It was obligatory reading material to learn the capabilities of the ship he was on, as well as the specs of the possible hostiles they were to encounter. Simulations talked about ten Vargas scout ships at a minimum needed in order to force the Aegis system to drain the energy reserves due to the need for creating too many impenetrable walls all around the ship or maybe, due to extreme usage, to burn some emitters, therefore making a portion of the ship more exposed and hence vulnerable to their accursed weapon. It was one of the only two ways they could score a hit on this ship's underlying primary shield anyhow. The other way was when surrounded by scores of ships and possibly with the Vargas dreadnoughts that fired those massive anti-rays of death. Only then would they have something to worry about. If too many weapons were fired at the Enterprise, the Aegis could enter a saturation level that forced it to let some of the fire to pass through.
With the boring display of powerlessness coming from the enemy's side, he was almost ready to get back to watching 'South Park' from his private DVD collection - as the more alluring alternative - when the call came signaling that in short order they were slated to board the Vargas battleship. He very much liked the idea. There weren't many occasions when Marines stationed on capital ships like battlecruisers were to see action. Not for the past three years anyway. He also wanted to meet a Vargas up close and see what the fuss was all about. He wanted to try to punch one while wearing his 600 pounds Power Armor and see how tough they truly were, or in how many pieces his skull would break. However, he knew that the Vargas had that nasty energy weapon they could fire both from a handheld weapon or, if at a closer range, even from their fucking hands! That was why the order was not to risk it and instead to play it safe.
"Okay, listen up!" Sharp shouted for his squad to start paying attention. "The Vargas are supposedly tough son-of-a… damn it! They probably don't have a mother. Anyway, those assholes are supposedly tough and impervious to energy weapons. So, heavy grav rifles with armor piercing rounds and, if possible, do a headshot. Otherwise, flechette minigun on full auto until something unrecognizable is all that's left. You put enough tungsten in them to give them indigestion! You got that?"
"Yes, sir!" a chorus responded.
"Another thing. Use your MDEF at max without worrying about your suit's energy reserves. We know the layout so, we won't be inside that ship for more than an hour. Plenty of energy left in our suits at that point. Our geeks are saying that with an enhancing factor of ten, our armor should be able to stop the energy the Vargas use in their weapons from passing through. If not all of it, then at least enough to keep you alive until you're brought back on our ship and put under the tender care of our onboard doctor," he said, noticing everybody grimacing. Everybody knew their onboard doctor was all but gentle. Does that strayed during training and got injured, knew that very well. "However, if I see any of you testing how good our armor is at stopping their weapons, I will personally make you suffer more than that weapon ever could and for much, much longer. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir!" a chorus responded. They all knew he was a sadistic asshole, so there was a good chance they would listen to what he told them.
"Good, good. Now, our job is to get to the computer core and download as much data as we can. That's all we need to do on this mission. Our geeks are assuring us that our system will, this time around, be able to bypass any security protocol there is, which means it should be a smooth ride. That is as long as we can plug straight into the core instead of some random terminal. However, if we could somehow get a live Vargas specimen to bring back with us for interrogation, that would be a welcoming bonus. There are many people back home that would like to ask these things why they are doing this. On the other hand, there are also those who wouldn't ask it anything and would instead plug some electrodes straight into its head to see what makes it tick. Frankly, I'm fine with both."
"How are we supposed to do that? No weapon can stun those bastards and their hands shoot energy that can kill you. How are we to take it alive and transport it back to the ship?"
The Sergeant smiled, and their instinctual reaction that instantly followed showed how little they liked that smile of his. "Cut both of its hands and constrain it with the force of your powered suit. If it kicks, cut its legs too. We only need the trunk and the head anyway."
"I thought you've said to take it alive, Serge?" the same private asked.
"Oh, that won't kill it, I assure you. I was on Eden and I saw a Vargas missing more than 50 percent of its body and still able of moving and shooting. Don't be fooled into thinking that these things have anything in common with people made of flesh and blood. They are monsters that don't bleed, don't feel pain, and do not negotiate. They are only programmed to kill us all. Therefore, dismemberment is allowed. Any other question?"
Nobody asked anything.
The Marines were beamed in the engine room. It was not the closest to the core, however, it was the only possible place where to beam since only there the armor had been peeled off. No beaming was possible through the Vargas armor.
They quickly regrouped and went for the door that would lead them further into the bowels of the ship. As expected, the door wouldn't open. There was no air here because of the large hole in the ship above them and the hall on the other side was probably pressurized. However, Sharp had to reevaluate his quick assumption after he saw the large hole in the wall indicative that a drone had passed through. It meant there wasn't air on the other side either. Something else was amiss here.
No matter. A private immediately took out a plasma blowtorch and begun burning through the door. It took less than five minutes before a large rectangular hole simply fell. Sharp was the first to go through.
"Son-of-a-bitch!" he shouted. It had been almost as if he was inside the movie Jaws, just instead of a shark, a slowly moving and spinning drone had passed in front of him in the hall as if some kind of watchdog floating on patrol duty through the wide corridors of the ship. Well, a shark was a better way to describe it than a watchdog because the thing was seeking a prey, at which point it would speed at it like a berserker. "I almost got a heart attack for the wrong reason."
"Is there a good reason to get a heart attack, Serge?" a private asked.
The private had a point there. "Not sure. However, I'm sure that getting a heart attack caused by a friendly drone is plain wrong."
He turned and looked at the moving hyper-drone Mark III. The thing was a menace, more than any other model that came before it and in more ways than one. Ever since the hyper-drone, the Mark II, had replaced the five-million-years-old original drone, the geeks had worked on further improving it. The ability to transfer energy to it through McKay's high-frequency subspace energy transfer system had given the drones much in terms of energy reserves, which prompted the additional research in making them more dangerous and durable.
Why not, right?
The new drones were almost double in circumference and around one-point-seven times longer than their predecessor, making them look a little more beefed up in addition to being bigger. This, the increased durability, and increased penetration power – this new model would do short work of large numbers of Leptinian craft or similar opponents, that was for sure - have inspired the addition of two completely new protocols. The first one was retrieval, in which the drone wouldn't explode but instead would return home after having caused mayhem. The second protocol was Seek & Destroy, exactly what the much larger and more intimidating drone in the hall was doing right about now. Its incredible sensors and the artificial intelligence he knew it had were making him doubt if they would find anyone alive on the ship. Although, the Vargas were an elusive bunch. He had to concede them that much. They were undetectable unless in clear line of sight. In the end, even though more power hungry and more difficult to build, the new drones would turn to be cheaper because of their increased durability and ability to return home to be used again at a later time. With this new type of drones, even the Lanteans would have had a shot at winning against the Wraith ten thousand years ago.
"Team Two and Three, take the corridor on the left. Team One is with me. We are taking the corridor the drone came from," Sharp ordered.
The other two teams obeyed, going left, while he and four other Marines in power armor went right. Passing a corner, the sight confirmed his worries. He moved another ten meters before stopping in front of two bodies. One Vargas was missing 90 percent of its chest and abdomen. The hole was so perfectly rounded that there was no mistake on what had happened. The drone simply went through it at berserker speed. The other was missing its head. Same MO there.
Moving further down the hall, they passed several more Vargas; all dead. This was again starting to feel anticlimactic. The others would probably reach the computer core sooner than they would. He knew the layout was such to give the other teams a shorter path, which meant that if he didn't stumble upon at least one Vargas still alive, this would turn into a very boring evening walk and nothing more. However, his opinion on how screwed up this mission was changed abruptly when a side door that he had previously tried and failed to open, suddenly did so on its own accord.
He got the chance to punch a Vargas after all.
Even the Vargas felt the punch from a metallic behemoth of more than six hundred pounds. He punched it square in the head, and then the head hit the wall behind it next. Its face seemed slightly caved in and the beast was disoriented, but amazingly, still very much alive. With the force he put into the punch, the head of someone made of flesh and blood would have simply exploded. "Marks, you follow me inside. Peters and Davis, you prep this one for transport."
He went into the room and immediately noticed another Vargas proffering his hand. It was enough for him to step aside, just as the Vargas fired the strange energy wave from its own hand. He expertly evaded… most of it. However, part of his right shoulder got caught in the blast. He was feeling a tingling sensation and there was some pain starting to creep in, but it appeared the armor with the MDEF active and cranked at full strength was able to stop most of the destructive blast. Even his suit's internal sensors were detecting only minor damage to his muscle tissue and capillaries.
It took him less than a second to point the heavy grav rifle and at full auto to feed the alien too many bullets to count them all. However, he wasn't the one who dispatched of the third and last alien in the room. The 3mm flechette minigun held by Marks spun and shortly afterward it began spitting a steady stream that quickly shredded the affronting third Vargas. During the short burst, five hundred flechettes turned the Vargas into mincemeat. Since there were no more Vargas inside, he went back the way he came, only to see the Vargas still alive now with its arms and legs neatly carved off.
"Easier to carry it back with us this way, Serge," the private who did the deed explained.
He didn't care. The next instant team two was radioing in a simple 'We have the data', which meant the mission was over. It was time to leave this ship before blowing it up with a nice antimatter torpedo.
Sharp could barely believe it. The Enterprise had been slated for a very boring mission of checking a planet for colonization. Instead, they first found a colony ship of an unknown race, then they did the humanitarian thing and saved them by fixing their ship, and then they did the soldier thing by blowing three Vargas ship, gathered valuable intelligence from one, and even got a live specimen for the first time. If this mission wasn't going to get somebody a medal, he didn't know what will. Of course, the captain was the most probable candidate for such an honor. As far as he knew, this was going to be her second one. The other she'd already received was after the Rand Protectorate's incident.
Regrettably, information came back from Corvette One, the ship that went to check the planet from where the aliens had originated and the news wasn't good. It was one of those events that told you how indifferent the universe can be. Their Sun had entered its expansion phase. The first analysis showed that almost immediately upon departure of their colony ship, the expansion has caused their home planet to turn uninhabitable. More than two hundred years later, their planet looked almost like Proclarush Taonas.
Another planet lost in fire.
All members were back in the engine room where they could be beamed. A few drones sped past them out of the ship, those too on their way back to the ship to be retrieved, checked, and then put back into storage to be used at a later time when needed once again.
"Mission complete. Awaiting beam-out," he said on the open channel.
Moments later, they vanished in columns of light.
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