The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Which is why at Steve's suggestion I'm using "Bello vel pace paratus" instead - Ready for Peace or War. Still working on Nemesis and Excalibur, though for the latter I'm leaning towards "She Who Triumphs."

[Eternal_Freedom]

Bad news everyone. While I've got most of a chapter written, I have currently lost all impetus to write any more since my cousin was killed in a car accident yesterday. Add that to my lack of internet access on anything other than my phone and I won't be posting anything here for a couple of weeks.

[Steve]

My condolences for your loss, E_F. Don't worry about the story.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Since writing is a good thing to distract me on a lonely Sunday afternoon, you get not one but two chapters, though the second is closely tied to the first and is mostly for flavour:

Death From Above
Atlantis
Two Hours Later

The city was on high alert. Every sensor available told them the grim situation that faced them at present. Two Wraith Cruisers were still manoeuvring several million kilometres from the planet, each with an escort of fifty Darts. Another hundred Darts had closed in on the Lagrangian point weapon satellite and had, in just thirty minutes, reduced it to a cloud of wreckage. The Dart’s weapons were not designed for anti-shipping attacks, but just like the Colonial Vipers had found over Terra months before, they could make larger targets bleed and die.

What was most troubling was the larger group of Darts, three hundred strong, that was just now entering the planet’s atmosphere on course for Atlantis. The city was as prepared as possible. The shield was raised, the air-defence batteries were manned and ready, all of them tied into the city’s short-range sensors to give them a good data feed and linked together with a common fire-control system. It was the best air-defence system the Terran military could design.

The city’s own weapons were ready as well. Everyone had been disturbed to discover that the City only had a hundred drones left, its vast magazines of the weapons having been depleted during the first Wraith siege and never replenished. Nevertheless, the drone silos were armed, and General O’Neill was ready in the control chair – he was the only one with prior experience of actually firing the weapons, even if he didn’t remember it.

Supplementing this arsenal were the city’s ground troops, carrying every available anti-aircraft weapon they had, plus a large number of heavy machine guns on tripods. These troops were scattered around the city to add to the defences, everyone involved desperately hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

The huge group of darts was now entering the upper atmosphere. To the relief of those in the city, the small craft began to decelerate, clearly intending to attack the city directly rather than continuing at their original speed to ram the Ancient structure. They were already in range of the drones, and Jack released fifty of them in his opening salvo. He was well aware that one full-sized drone had the power reserves to intercept and destroy three or possibly even four darts, so this salvo should trim the number of targets by at least half.

The drones rocketed skyward, moving in three streams from the city’s silos. They approached the dart group from different directions, splitting up into smaller and smaller streams as they went. These drones were, quite simply, the smartest weapon system known to any power in any of the known galaxies. The missiles could selectively phase in and out of realspace, allowing them to bypass both shields and armour before venting some of their stored energy on internal components and were controlled by programming so advanced, it actually approached the level of intelligence of the average dog.

The drones tore into the darts, shredding fighter after fighter before finally exploding inside their last targets. There was a beautiful ribbon of explosions in the upper atmosphere as the Wraith died. The pilots knew they had no defence against these weapons, this group also knew that they were what humans would call “the forlorn hope,” intended to waste themselves upon the city’s defences and weaken them.

The cascade of explosions faded from view, leaving a hundred and twenty surviving targets. The Wraith had no way of knowing Jack had kept back half his arsenal, he wanted a reserve in case Wraith capital ships made it to orbit. The darts continued their rapid descent, shedding speed as they went deeper and deeper into the thickening air. They had no way of knowing they were rapidly approaching the maximum effective range of the Terran air-defence batteries.

The first of the fighters crossed that invisible yet oh-so-important line in the sky. The guns did not speak yet however, they held their fire until all the Wraith darts were committed to the kill zone. Seconds ticked away until the last fighter was within range. In his control cabin at the impromptu airfield, the senior Air Defence Officer spoke.

“All batteries, commence fire!”

Volleys of brilliant red death lanced out from all twenty five gun positions. The front rank of darts had no warning and every one of them exploded into flames as the laser bolts struck. The darts behind them turned away as had as possible to evade. Forty of their number had died in those first few seconds.

The darts were now approaching the range of their own weapons, though they quickly realised it was futile. The city’s shield was raised ten seconds before they could fire and that barrier was designed to withstand the firepower of dozens of Hive ships, never mind darts. They fired anyway though, even as they continued to twist and turn, hoping to avoid the deadly and accurate laser fire.

The fire from the dart’s struck the shield, as expected it caused no visible damage or weakening of the shield’s strength. The darts continued their bobbing and weaving as the gunners on the ground continued to fire. The numbers were slowly being cut down, only seventy remained now. But something was happening in the city’s control room that would radically change the battle.

Rodney was becoming increasingly concerned as he monitored the shield systems. The shield strength was holding, the readings barely flickering as weapons fire struck it. What was a great deal more concerning was the status readings of the emitters themselves. He’d been worried about this possibility before, now he was growing terrified. His frantic tone clearly told everyone present this was deadly serious.

“We can’t keep the shield up much longer!”

Weir, Sheppard and Carter were all dumbstruck. Sheppard spoke first. “What? You can’t really be telling me that a few dozen darts are draining it with a ZPM plugged in.”

Rodney hit the Major with his best (and well-practiced) “you’re an idiot” look. “The shield strength is holding just fine but the emitters are overheating and approaching failure point, if we don’t shut it down soon they’ll burn out and we won’t be able to raise the shield again!”

Weir spoke, confusion evident in her voice. “But the shield held all through the siege and while the city was sunk…” Rodney cut her off.

“That’s exactly the problem, the system was under constant strain for ten thousand or more years without maintenance. We need to shut it down, now!”

Fitzpatrick, who was also present, quickly agreed and grabbed his radio. “All air-defence batteries and Cobra pilots, be warned we have to shut the shield down. Gunners will keep firing as long as possible and be ready for counter-fire. Pilots, I want you scrambled ASAP and engaging. All Marine ready units, stand by for possible intruders!”

With the warning given, Weir nodded at Rodney who deactivated the huge dome shield, not a moment too soon. His initial estimates told him that if they’d kept it up, the emitters would have burned out in another few minutes.

To the Wraith, the shield collapsing was miraculous. Only sixty of them remained now but as one they turned inwards and began race towards the city’s structures, the pilots knowing their best chance was to get in close to prevent the air-defence batteries getting a clear shot. They were greeted with another surprise, as the reserve air-defence weapons opened up, missile trails and streaks of tracer fire began tearing into their numbers.

And then there were the Cobras. Chaser and her squadron flew with a vengeance, they were outnumbered but that didn’t stop any of them. They proved to be not only in more manoeuvrable craft but better pilots too. Streams of laser fire from the arrow-shaped planes began blasting darts into scrap, whilst the ground based gunners continued to add to their tally.

Something else had changed in orbit. The two Wraith Cruisers had begun closing in on the planet, sensing their opportunity. They were approaching weapons range when one of them suddenly evaporated in the brilliant glare of a naquada-enhanced nuclear weapon that the Asgard ship had beamed inside. The fifty darts surrounded the doomed vessel were also incinerated. The Wraith recognised the deadly threat of these weapons and a system they had faced, and more importantly defeated, millennia ago. The remaining cruiser, and the darts still fighting and dying over Atlantis, activated their jamming systems, preventing the Asgard from beaming any more weapons.

To say Tyr was surprised at this would be an understatement. To find that your opponent clearly recognised an attack but also had countermeasures in place was stunning. To his knowledge, the Asgard had never been involved in the Ancient’s war so long ago, they had had their own problems to deal with in the aftermath of the Furling’s departure.

There was a possibility though. A renegade faction of the Asgard had left Ida and fled to pursue their illegal genetic experiments. Had they come to Pegasus and encountered the Wraith? It was the only explanation he could think of.

His pondering did not impede his response to this though. With the Wraith now aware that an Asgard ship was present, he dropped the cloak on the Samantha Carter and opened fire on the hapless surviving cruiser. It did not survive for long.

From the battleship’s bow, ventral hull and flanks came a volley of brilliant blue plasma bolts that tore clean through the Wraith ship’s structure. With a dozen holes blasted through the hull, the ship was already effectively dead before a second volley arrived that shattered the ship into fragments that continued on their ballistic course to the planet’s upper atmosphere. They would burn in and crash into the ocean many hundreds of kilometres from the floating city, presenting no risk.

The air battle of the city was still raging, but something else had occurred. The Wraith darts had, at one point or another, flown low over the city and used their own beaming systems to deposit squads of warriors who would enter the corridors and cause as much havoc as possible.

Barely thirty of their number remained now, though the human forces had taken losses as well. One damaged dart had deliberately crashed into an air-defence battery, wiping out both the gun and its crew. Two of the Cobras had also been downed, with only one pilot able to eject safely. Other darts had strafed several of the balconies, leaving a dozen or more Marines dead.

In the control room, Fitzpatrick was using the city’s internal sensors to direct his quick-response teams to the locations of the intruding Wraith. This battle was just as one-sided as the initial air battle had been; with the Wraith armed only with stunner weapons and the Terran Marines carrying both highly-effective plasma rifles and wearing body armour that resisted those stunners, it was quickly becoming a matter of pest control rather than a serious threat. Some Wraith squads recognised this and, instead of charging forwards and attacking, moved as covertly as possible, hoping to infiltrate the city rather than take it by storm.

In the control room there was a cheer as the last dart was shot down by Chaser; the wreckage fell into the ocean just beyond the west pier. The Cobras began circling the city, the pilots trying to ignore the occasional flash of small arms fire coming from the city’s streets and plazas.

This round was over, and the Wraith had decisively lost. But the city had also taken damage, at least thirty men and women were dead, one of the precious anti-air batteries was gone and two of their protective fighters were downed as well. Most worryingly of all was the shield; whether it could be repaired in time was an open question.

Hours later, many light-years from the planet, the Wraith transports that had withdrawn dropped out of hyperspace and signalled the main fleet with the news. The Hive ships took only minutes to react, they turned and jumped to hyperspace. There would be no more delays or distractions, the fleet would go to Atlantis; they would arrive in two days. Task Force Nemesis was still five days away.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Death from Above:
Different Perspectives
Air Defence Battery Fifteen

“All air-defence batteries and Cobra pilots, be warned we have to shut the shield down. Gunners will keep firing as long as possible and be ready for counter-fire. Pilots, I want you scrambled ASAP and engaging. All Marine ready units, stand by for possible intruders!”

The warning message broadcast over the radio was a most unwelcome distraction for Gunner Miles Bergman. He was having the time of his life – the blood was surging in his veins and his heart pounding loudly in his ear. Adrenalin coursed through him, bringing his senses to an almost preternatural focus.

His existence for the last few minutes had been a string of personal victories against the enemy. The central fire-control system was working like a dream, assigning his gun targets in real time and painting them on his holographic heads-up display, complete with lead markers. All he had to do was train the crosshairs on those markers and fire, and the twin streams of red laser bolts would fly out and swat the target from the skies.

One of his gun crew was keeping a tally of their kills and the whole thing felt like a game. There was no declared competition, but everyone involved knew full well that kill tallies would be compared in the mess afterwards, and the losing gun crew would be buying the next round.

Part of Mile’s brain, the civilised, reasonable part, rebelled at this slaughter and the joking nature of he and his gun crew’s actions. This was something that any rational, sober man or woman would see as a horrible thing. That they were treating this as a game, as a competition, to see who could kill the most sentient beings, only made that part of his brain scream louder.

Most of his brain though was not listening. This was not a place for civility, or rationality, or reason. He had given himself over fully to the violent, primal instincts, the voice that said ”there are monsters out there, kill them all!”

The single thing that had made it so easy to see it as a game was the presence of the huge, domed city shield that rendered he and his fellow gunners invulnerable. The Wraith could spend all day venting their impotent fury against this technological marvel and achieve nothing. Miles felt like Zeus Himself, hurling thunderbolts at those who angered him.

The shield coming down brought two full seconds of raw primal terror. This was not a training exercise, nor was it a one-sided shooting contest. Now those monsters could reach out and snuff out his life. He shook away the terror, or rather it’s temporary hold on him, and returned to his aiming and firing.

The fear was still there, mixing with the adrenaline in his veins to produce a heady mixture indeed. This was definitely not a game anymore. The enemy came closer and closer, and their fire began slamming into the city structure around his position.

All sense of time vanished. The minutes passed by without notice, all his focus was on laying the gun on target, killing it and then moving on to another of the ever-dwindling number of targets. His peripheral vision noticed a dart strafing a pair of balconies that were spewing tracer fire and missiles at the Wraith attackers. The brilliant explosions caused by Wraith weapons fire left him in no doubt that there were no survivors there.

He swung his gun around again, the fire-control system having fortuitously assigned that very dart as his next target. He had almost got it lined up when a passing Cobra fired, the laser fire clipping the dart and sending it wildly out of control.

One of his gun crew let out a brief cheer, before he, Miles and the rest realised in horror that the dart was crashing straight at them. He frantically tried to get the dart in his sights while naked terror turned his blood to ice.

The last thing Miles Bergman ever saw was the angry face of the Wraith pilot through his gunsights before the dart slammed into the battery, obliterating it and the entire gun crew. Mile’s last thought was to wonder if this was the face of the Devil, and whether he’d be seeing it again in the next life.

Cobra Seven-Eight-Three-Five
Lt. Peter Jorgunsson, callsign Preacher

“All air-defence batteries and Cobra pilots, be warned we have to shut the shield down. Gunners will keep firing as long as possible and be ready for counter-fire. Pilots, I want you scrambled ASAP and engaging. All Marine ready units, stand by for possible intruders!”

Preacher was having a hell of a day. They had expected to have to engage the Wraith at some point, but this was a decidedly inopportune moment. He and his fellow pilots had been sat in their cockpits ready to go just in case and all of them slammed their canopies down and took off as quickly as they could.

As a group they rocketed up into the sky before tipping over and diving back down onto the darts from a position of maximum advantage. This also meant they’d be flying into their own anti-aircraft fire, and unlike the recent exercises these were full-power shots that would kill the Cobras just as easily as the darts.

He let loose a laser burst, blasting one particular dart into scrap before hauling his fighter around on the tail of another. The Wraith pilot was good, but he was better, he was a veteran of Terra and had racked up no less than twenty-three kills against the Cylons. He was hoping to make it thirty by the end of the day.

While most of the Terran population was not particularly religious, the Jorgunsson family were true believers. Peter’s distant ancestor, Eric Jorgunsson, had been one of the Thirteen, a man who had won the Star of Kobol for his actions in finding a cure for a particularly virulent and lethal disease that had swept the planet seven centuries ago. Ever since, one of every generation at the very least had served the Commonwealth, usually many more.

Peter was especially pleased to have been chosen for this mission. The Book of the Word spoke of Atlantis, the lost City of the Gods, older even than Kobol. It had also spoken of the Devil that had arisen in Paradise and laid siege, driving the Lords to flee to another galaxy. As Peter fired again, downing the dart in his sights, his thoughts turned, as they often did, to the passages near the end of the Book that gave both a warning and a final command to the children of the Lords:

”And thus the Lords were driven from Paradise, but one day it will be reclaimed. It is the duty of every Child of Kobol to work to this end, when the Thirteen Tribes will stand united once again and face the darkness. It will be a time of trials and suffering, but the Tribes will emerge triumphant, for this cause is both just and righteous.”

Peter was here, in the City, fighting the Devils from scripture. And he was winning. He flew like an avenging angel, his scythe cutting down another dart before he heard a call on the radio:

”I got one on my tail, can’t shake him!” The voice belonged to Striker, Peter’s roommate at the temporary airbase. He looked around briefly and saw the offending Devil. He turned to engage, flying head on at the other Cobra.

“Striker, Preacher, break left now now NOW!”

The other Cobra pulled away as hard as the pilot could handle, leaving Peter with a clear shot. His burst of fire struck dead-centre, shattering the dart and leaving nothing behind.

”Thanks Preacher, I owe you a drink.”

“The Righteous need no thanks.” Peter spoke without thinking. His fellow pilots knew about his beliefs and his proclivity to preach, hence his callsign, most of them were quite happy to let him as long as he could fly and fight.

Peter saw another flash in his peripheral vision, a dart had just strafed a pair of balconies, killing everyone present. By pure chance, he was in position for a shot at the offending enemy, though his aim was slightly off. His burst of laser fire only clipped it, sending it spinning downwards.

Preacher’s yell of triumph died in his throat as he saw the dart slam into an air-defence battery and obliterate it. This proved a fatal distraction for him. Yet another dart had snuck up on him and hammered his fighter with plasma bolts. The shields held against the first volley, and the second, but the third got through, wrecking two of his engines and blowing off his port wing.

He wrestled with the controls, knowing full well his fighter was doomed. His thought was to point it out over the ocean and eject, hoping to avoid another disaster like the one he had just caused. The fighter was in no fit state to be piloted though, and fought him bitterly. He finally got the nose pointed into the water between two piers, he figured that would have to do.

“I’m hit, two engines out, no control, ejecting!”

He pressed his head back and pulled the handles with all his might. The canopy blew clear as intended, but the ejector seat failed. He pulled again, his eyes fixed on the rapidly approaching water, but to no avail. He ripped at the quick-release on his flight harness, intending to leap clear, but he was too late.

Cobra Seven-Eight-Three-Five slammed into the water, skipping a few times before the fuel tanks ruptured and burst into flames. Preacher died in moments, his last thoughts a desperate plea to his Gods, letting them know their Child was returning to them.

[LadyTevar]

Fantastic. Especially the followup chapter -- that really took me into the heat of battle, and experience the loss.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Thanks, originally the followup chapter wasn't planned, but I was walking back from a late-night MacDonald's run last night and it sort of wrote itself in my head.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The story continues:

The Oncoming Storm
Atlantis

Some fires were still burning, even an hour or more after the Wraith attack. The strafed balconies in particular had proven difficult to extinguish, the fires had spread to a number of other rooms on the levels above and below the site where twenty-three Terran Marines had died in a heartbeat. The wreckage of the air-defence battery and the Dart that destroyed it were also still smouldering.

Perhaps more important than the still-burning areas or the dead soldiers was the terrible blow to the troop’s morale, which had been sky-high since arriving on Atlantis. This was how hard-fought a battle against a small swarm of darts had been, never mind the bulk of the Wraith fleet. A fleet which, in its Hive ships alone, carried ten times as many darts as the group that attacked them.

Most of the troops knew, however, that the real deciding factor would not be the number of attackers but rather whether the mighty shield could be reactivated. If it could, then they could simply turn turtle and hold out until the massed batteries of Task Force Nemesis arrived to obliterate the enemy fleet. If it could not be raised, they were in real trouble.

Just how much trouble they were in was being revealed in real-time in the city’s main briefing room. Weir, Sheppard, O’Neill, Carter, Jackson, Fitzpatrick, Tyr and Johnson were listening as Rodney explained the damage the shield emitters had taken. It could be repaired, with help from the Asgard, but it would take nearly two days. It was at this supremely inopportune moment that Zelenka entered with a grimmer expression than usual.

“The deep space sensors have confirmed the Wraith fleet has changed course. They’ll be here in forty-nine hours.”

Weir and O’Neill shared a look before the doctor spoke. “Rodney, whatever it takes, you get that shield repaired. You need men, you got them. You need equipment, take or scavenge whatever you need. You need something to keep your teams awake, I’ll tell Carson to give you everything he’s got. You don’t get that shield up and we all die.”

There it was, boldly stated and out in the open. With the Wraith having three days to attack the city with only a single Asgard battleship to oppose them, the shield was the critical factor. Rodney grimaced, it was a measure of how serious things were and how much he wanted to live that he didn’t give his usual spiel about how impossible it was. Of course, he’d just told them it could be done, so such protestations would have fallen rather flat. Taking Weir’s words as a dismissal, he immediately finished his coffee in one gulp then raced out of the room, heading straight to work.

O’Neill looked over at the small Asgard captain. “If you can spare any of your engineers to help, we’d appreciate it. What I’d like more though is some way to strike back at the Wraith and weaken them before they arrive. You brought a whole bunch of nukes with you, can we beam them aboard the other Wraith ships?”

Tyr pondered this. “The second Wraith cruiser had activated a jamming system that prevented beaming the warheads as soon as the first cruiser exploded. However, with no Wraith transports left behind to act as runners, it is possible that the main Wraith fleet is unaware of both my presence and this immediate threat. It is however highly likely we would only be able to eliminate one ship using this method.”

O’Neill thought about this. He also pondered the known abilities of the Asgard battleships that bore his name. “So we run in at full speed, beam a nuke into one Hive ship and open up on as many cruisers as we pass on the way out. Damaged or crippled is as good as a kill for us.”

Sheppard in particular looked very pleased at this idea. “Even eliminating one Hive ship would be a big help.”

Tyr made a few quick calculations and his voice turned grim. “Unfortunately, the Wraith fleet are close enough to make the trip in one hyperspace jump. They will not be dropping back to realspace until they arrive in system.”

Sheppard though was not to be denied. “Can you work out where they’ll drop out?”

The Asgard nodded. Sheppard smiled before continuing. “So we wait for them, cloaked, and hit them as soon as they come out of hyperspace.”

There was general agreement to that plan. The meeting broke up, with Weir and O’Neill moving to the control room to update Jellicoe about both the attack and their other news. The Admiral’s hologram showed sorrow at the loss of lives, and regret that he simply couldn’t get there any sooner, or release the second Asgard battleship to help. He could only agree with their plan and try to keep his crews rested and ready for the fight to come.

Two Days Later

Rodney, Zelenka and their teams hadn’t slept in two days. They were running on caffeine and stimulants and were becoming increasingly irritable, or in Rodney’s case, more irritable than usual. Their efforts had paid off though. With barely minutes to spare before the Wraith arrived, the mighty city shield was raised again, the emitters having been repaired and in some cases replaced by scavenged components. The shield would hold, Rodney and the others had quite literally bet their lives on it.

Fifty thousand kilometres above the planet, a host of hyperspace portals opened, ejecting nine cruisers and the three enormous Hive ships. Each one was a rounded wedge, two and a half kilometres long, packed with a thousand darts, thousands more warriors, and bristling with anti-ship guns.

Before the hyperspace portals had even closed, the Samantha Carter decloaked. She was just within beaming range of the nearest Hive ship, the estimates being slightly off. Immediately a boosted warhead was beamed into its target, and one Hive ship was shattered in the harsh brilliance of a nuclear detonation. The blast stunned the biological systems used as sensors, acting much as a flash-bang grenade would on a human eye. Before the blast had faded though, the other Wraith ships had activated their jamming systems. There would only be one Hive lost to this weapons system.

This was not the only thing that happened before the flash faded however. The Asgard ship fired its main engines, quickly ramping up to a very high relative speed. The ship’s guns opened up, bolts of plasma delivering powerful punches to a pair of cruisers. One bolt immolated the starboard dart bay on the nearer of the two targets, setting off a series of devastating secondary explosions that consumed the helpless ship.

With one cruiser dead and another crippled, plus the obliterated Hive ship, this would be considered a major success. That is, until the two remaining Wraith heavy ships recovered from the nuclear flash and opened fire.

The guns were powerful weapons and while they were not accurate enough to reliably hit the speeding Asgard ship, there were enough of those guns that they could simply blanket an area in a manner eerily reminiscent of flak, albeit on a far larger and deadlier scale.

The Asgard battleship displayed it’s impressive agility, dodging many shots whilst it’s equally impressive shields took the hits from many more. The ship, despite being called a battleship, was not designed for sustained combat of this nature however. They’d been built to gang up on individual Replicator vessels, or intimidate Goa’uld into retreating. Never before had they been pitted in battle against an enemy that, with strength of numbers, actually held the advantage.

Tyr continued to dodge and spin his ship while being forced to divert more and more power to the shields from the weapons, reducing the rate of fire and reducing the damage inflicted on the enemy. He was deliberately switching targets from cruiser to cruiser, knowing that the Hive ships were simply too big to suffer critical damage from so few hits, especially since the Hive ships had shut down their engines and devoted all their available power to hull regeneration, making them even sturdier than usual. He knew he would have to withdraw before his ship suffered critical damage of its own.

Then came the darts. Whilst the Samantha Carter was distracted, the Hive ships launched their swarms, deliberately launching from the bays on the unengaged side first, then rolling the ships to shield the second set of darts as they launched. The Wraith were far from stupid when it came to warfare, and unlike Tyr, they had fought this enemy before.

In the central chamber on the Hive carrying the fleet’s Queen, the female in question was calmly directing the battle. The losses were heavy, but ultimately acceptable. Surely if the humans had more forces available they would have all deployed to ambush them. This Asgard ship was the only obstacle between them and Atlantis, and from there, a new rich feeding ground in the Milky Way.

The Queen, and her closest advisors, were acutely aware that this was their only chance for survival. The Wraith had woken early from their slumber; there simply was not enough food. With scarce resources would inevitably come conflict and all-out war between different factions. Her faction was small in comparison to others, and had the advantage of having been the first to awaken, and the first to seize the opportunity. They would not survive an all-out civil war, this was their last, best chance.

All this made for an extremely motivated opponent, from the Queen down to the lowest warrior. The thousands of darts swarmed the much larger Asgard ship, knowing that even if it possessed effective anti-fighter weaponry, there were so many of them that the losses would be…acceptable.

Tyr was increasingly concerned. His ship was standing up to the punishing barrage as well as could be expected but the shields would soon fail and then his elegant ship would be nothing but scrap metal. He broke off the battle, pushing his engines as hard as possible as the Samantha Carter raced away to the far side of the planet. She had managed to inflict moderately severe damage on another two cruisers, and light damage on three more, but this battle was done.

There was now only the city-shield in the Wraith’s way. They knew it would hold up to a long bombardment, but they had time. The Hive ships settled into orbit and opened fire on the city far below.

=======

Yes, Asgard ships are powerful. But we know they are far from invulnerable. At the battle of the Supergate at the end of season 9, one Asgard O'Neill is present and apparently destroyed by the Ori ships, so it stands to reason that when exposed to fire from two superior vessels they would be forced to retreat. The Wraith ships now have three days to fire ont he city before Nemesis shows up.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'm feeling kind, and I've got my motivation back, so here we go again:

Interlude: Events on Terra
The Admiralty, New Delphi

It was a measure of how close a relationship the Presidency and the Admiralty shared that their respective buildings were so close. In fact the President’s office, called Government House, sat on one side of the city’s central plaza. Across from it was the equally-new Quorum House which also doubled as a City Hall and general government office for the growing population to access. Between them, on the eastern side of the square, was Admiralty House, the headquarters of a revitalised Colonial Fleet. On the final side of the square, facing the rising sun, was the Temple of Aurora, the Goddess of the Dawn. It had been decided by the priests that she was the most fitting member of the pantheon to devote the new temple to. The four pillars of Colonial society were thus placed within walking distance of each other, a strong symbol of unity.

While it was only right and proper that the President and the Admiral of the Fleet met regularly to keep up to date on what was going on, protocol did not quite require daily meetings. That was purely down to Laura and Bill wanting to spend time with each other. It was an open secret in the city that the two shared dinner every evening as well, though that was strictly personal while the morning meetings were work.

Today the meeting was in Bill’s office. He had salvaged as much as he could from his quarters on the old Galactica, luckily most of his precious books had survived, as had that framed photograph of him and his boys in front of his Viper that Tyrol and his crew had presented to him so long ago. A few other family mementos were scattered here and there, and in a display case behind the desk and between the obligatory flags (one for the Twelve Colonies and one for the Fleet) was Bill’s collection of medals and awards, now expanded to include the Colonial Cross and Star of Kobol.

Laura smirked seeing those medals. She knew it was not vanity that made Bill display them (she had her own Star of Kobol on display in her office after all) but rather a reminder of the price paid to earn those awards. And they did have a strong effect on anyone coming to visit the Admiral’s inner sanctum.

Whilst the desk and display case were old-world reassurance, the rest of the office was a curious mix of sentimental and modern, starkly utilitarian features. One wall was occupied by a huge display screen that could show virtually any information Bill wished, at the moment it showed the orbital space around Terra.

Another wall held a huge framed painting that one of the refugees had done as a gift for the Admiral; it was a masterpiece and showed the Galactica at the Battle of Terra, her hull intact and her weapons blazing in defiance at the enemy.

Today’s meeting was an update on the influx of new recruits the Fleet had received. With almost all of the population now living on the planet, the host of ships that had carried them here were no longer needed. Certainly some of them were still in use – the mining ships, tankers and refinery ship were all in use supporting Tartarus Base out in the asteroid belt, but the rest were left floating in close orbit with nothing to do. Those that were able to had been landed in an area outside the city and left as monuments, but this left the crews with nothing to do.

Most of them had signed up with the Colonial Fleet, that being the best place to use their existing and valuable skills. This gave Bill some headaches – while many of the crews were either former Fleet personnel or reserves, they lacked the discipline that one gained form serving on a Battlestar every day. He and a cadre of officers and enlisted who had remained behind were slowly breaking them back into those old habits. He was optimistic, between those old hands and the raw recruits from the children who were now old enough, he had enough to crew an entire new Battlestar.

This was good news for Roslin as well, and solved one of her major problems, namely unemployment. The Terrans had bent over backwards to help them, providing a ready-made city, food, water, medical supplies, education, the works. What the people needed now was jobs, something to do beyond sitting in their new apartments. With so many volunteering to join the Fleet, that solved one major problem. The fact that a number of Terran corporations had spotted this opportunity also allayed her concerns, she had a meeting with three such company leaders that afternoon to discuss plans for building several new factories and offices in the city. All of this would provide money and wages, which would bring taxes which would allow the government to pay the new recruits, and provide back-pay to the thousands who had served during the Exodus from the Colonies. That amount that was owed was quite staggering.

Again though, the Terrans had come through for them. They had floated the Colonial government with a substantial loan with exceptionally favourable terms to allow them to get their society up and running properly again. It would be a heavy debt to repay eventually, but with no interest being charged and the two governments working so closely, Laura did not see it being a problem long-term.

Between that loan, the new jobs opening up, the now-growing Colonial Fleet, the reformed Alliance with Earth and the Asgard and the imminent population boom that had been precipitated (and it many cases, conceived) by their arrival on Terra, Laura was fiercely optimistic that Colonial society would not merely survive and endure, but prosper.

Bill had just finished his discussion about the new recruits and the promise they showed and was now talking about where the ship for them to crew would come from.

“Alistair and I have tentatively agreed that one of the next batch of five Lionhearts will be transferred to the Colonial Fleet when their completed in three months’ time. That will give us a total strength of four Battlestars, with another eight on the Terran side. With the twenty-four destroyers and the Nemesis, that’s pretty much all we can sustain long-term. It’s certainly a powerful force, equivalent to at least three times as many non-upgraded Battlestars.”

Laura nodded, surprised with herself that she followed his reasoning on the ships, something that would have been unthinkable a year before. A thought occurred to her that she decided to voice.

“Who have you found to command this new ship? And what are we calling her?”

Bill smiled at her, his little proud smile that he used only for Lee, Kara, Saul and now her. Illustrious company she thought to herself. The Admiral answered before her thoughts wandered too far.

“I’m leaning towards calling her Atlantia but I’m open to suggestions. As for a Commander, we lucked out on that. One of the people recused by Warspite from Libran was a recently-retired Commander Mikhail Kirov, he’d been leading a large group of survivors in an eight-month guerrilla campaign, now he’s back in uniform and helping whip the recruits into shape.”

“Mikhail Kirov? I know that name. I remember President Adar complaining bitterly about him after a Cabinet meeting once.”

Bill nodded. “Yes, he caused quite the stir. He resigned in protest at Adar’s military cutbacks, stating very publicly that it would leave the Fleet too thin to defend the Colonies if the Cylons returned. He was a brilliant officer and simply devoted to the Fleet, seeing it cut back so much was a step too far, never mind the plans for networked computers.”

Laura smirked at him. “Another old warhorse that’s afraid of computers?”

Bill chuckled at that reminder of their first meeting. “More or less Madame President, more or less. He’s the best choice available. I would have called him back to the colours before now, but it took him a long time to come to terms with the war being over and his people being safe. It’s rather telling that the entire group of people he led on Libran joined up with him, all four hundred and seventy of them.”

“So I’ve got yet another Battlestar Commander with a loyal and devoted crew? Oh goodie, that’s worked so well in the past” Laura deadpanned. Bill looked at her with a serious expression on his face before both broke out laughing.

They were still laughing a minute later when the intercom buzzed. Adama reached over and pressed it.

“Yes?”

”Sir, Admiral Lethbridge-Stewart is here asking to see you and the President urgently.”

Bill frowned, knowing this was probably bad news. “Send him in.”

The Terran Admiral entered, his duty uniform a lighter shade of blue than Adama’s, and the bright silver rings on his sleeve and stars on his colour showing his rank. He moved to the other chair in front of Bill’s desk before setting down a briefcase and sitting. He nodded the mirth on Laura’s face and the serious look on Bill’s before speaking.

“Am I interrupting something funny?”

For some reason that set Laura off laughing again, and even Adama cracked a smile before he answered.

“Nothing to worry about Alistair, just reminiscing about old times. What’s gone wrong?”

Alistair smiled at his counterpart. “Actually, I have rather good news for you both. You know we’ve had our Endeavour class explorers surveying the Twelve Colonies looking for anything salvageable?”

Bill nodded. “Yes, as I recall the most useful thing so far was that buried cache of Vipers on Geminon, everything else has been too heavily damaged to be anything more than scrap.”

Alistair smiled again. “Yes, until this morning that is. The scout ship Enterprise jumped back to Terra with the news. May I?” He asked, pointing at the display screen. Bill nodded in agreement, so Alistair pulled out a tablet from his case and sent a set of images to the screen. What they showed had both Bill and Laura audibly gasp in surprise.

That the screen showed a Battlestar was not a great surprise. That the same Battlestar was surrounded by cold, dead Vipers and Raptors was again expected. The Battlestar was a big one, larger even than the Pegasus or Warspite, but that still wasn’t surprising.

What was shocking was that she was intact. She appeared totally undamaged. Bill reached out and
selected a different image, one that showed the flight pods and the ship’s name.

“Eridanus…” he breathed. “She was brand-new, second ship of the Constellation class. She was on her first patrol. What happened?”

Alistair spoke up. “She was found on a ballistic course heading out of the system into deep space. As best we can tell the Cylon virus was totally effective, it shut down every system and opened every compartment to space. We found the wreckage of a single Raider on a similar trajectory, it appeared to have been destroyed by a chance meteoroid impact. We think the Raider disabled the ship but was destroyed before it could fire off any nukes to finish the job. With no power the Battlestar continued on her course out of the system.”

Bill pulled his eyes away from the image of another intact Battlestar to answer. “That makes sense. As far as the Cylons knew she was dead in space, so why bother sending more ships to finish her off when they had Atlantia’s force over Virgon to deal with, and us rallying survivors at Ragnar. This is a hell of a find Alistair, if we can get her refitted she’ll be a powerful ship.”

The Terran nodded in agreement. “She looks pretty damn powerful now Bill, what can you tell me about this class?”

“The Constellations were the first of the “heavy” Battlestars, bigger than the Mercurys but not as powerful or expensive as the old Warstars. After President Adar slashed the budget and mothballed a third of the Fleet, the Admiralty argued that if we were going to have fewer Battlestars they needed to be more powerful individually, hence the Constellation design.”

Lethbridge-Stewart was stunned at that. “He mothballed a third of your Fleet?”

“Yes. Sixty Battlestars were retired or scrapped in one fell swoop about four years ago. Tellingly it was the older ships that went, those who didn’t have the new computer networks or couldn’t be upgraded with them.”

The Terran Admiral narrowed his eyes. “In other words, the ships most able to resist the Cylon attack.”

Bill nodded. “I didn’t think of it like that until recently, but yes. It’s a damn shame, with sixty Battlestars and their escorts able to fight, we might actually have been able to hold the line. That’s history now though.”

Alistair nodded. “What is she capable of exactly?”

“The Constellations are basically scaled-up Mercurys with more guns and more Vipers, though more of an emphasis on the guns than the planes. They’re 2,200 metres long, carry 280 Vipers and 40 Raptors, mount six heavy KEWs in the bow and sixty twin mount KEWs elsewhere. With heavy use of networked systems and automation they don’t need any more crew than a Mercury does. Which is good news for us as we’ve got a full crew ready to go, and a Commander as well.”

A half-remembered detail of Kirov’s service history floated to the forefront of his mind.

“In fact, Commander Kirov was part of the design committee for the Heavy Battlestar program, he knows the design better than anyone else we’ve got. Can we get the Eridanus back to Terra Alistair?”

The Terran pondered this before answering. “It should be doable. We’ll send the scout ships back out to her with engineering teams. They’ll board and see if they can get the main reactors up and running, then program in a jump to Terra. Then we’ll get her into the spare berth at Olympus Base and get started.”

Laura decided to re-enter the conversation at this point. “Spare berth? I thought all six were full Admiral?”

Alistair smiled at her. “Well right now they are, but it will probably be at least a week before we get the Eridanus back here, and the yard chief assures me that by then the old Galactica can be moved to one of the normal docking ports rather than a drydock berth. Her hull is intact again so the remaining fitting-out as a museum ship can be done there rather than tied alongside.”

Another thought occurred to him that brought a wry smile to his face. “You both realise the problem this causes me don’t you? I’ve now got a find fifth name for the next batch of Lionhearts now that you’ll have the Eridanus instead of the Atlantia.”

Both his companions started laughing at that. Laura followed that up with another realisation. “That means we’ll have thirteen Battlestars in total, you know our new friends on Earth think that’s an unlucky number?”

Bill nodded. “I think it’s fitting. Thirteen Colonies, thirteen Battlestars. I know it’s only eleven in the morning, but I think news like this is cause for a drink.” The other Admiral and the President nodded in agreement. Glasses were filled and raised in celebration. It felt so good to be toasting good news rather than bad.

=======

Yup, a new, powerful Battlestar. And the Eridanus' motto is "We shall flow a river forth to thee." A cookie to whoever gets the reference, beyond to the constellation itself.

Commander Mikhail Kirov is a nod to masterarminas' truly excellent BattleTech story, Scorpio Ascendant, evailable elsewhere in User Fiction. And yes, Kirov will be a native of Scorpia, because why the hell not

The next five Terran Battlestars are slated to be the Vanguard, Indomitable, Ark Royal, Intrepid and Temeraire. Yup, carrier and battleship names, but RN ships, because the names are cooler, so there. And Alistair finally gets to name a ship Temeraire, so he's happy.

[fnord]

Awesome to see that you've got your groove back enough to write.

So a stock Constellation hull is a super-Mercury - does that hold post-upgrade relative to a Warspite ? In TVTropic terms, it sounds like another class of type 2 - carrier with big bang bangs - battlestar.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah pretty much, Eridanus is gonna be more powerful than anything short of Nemesis once she's done with refits. But that's gonna take a while, this is just for flavour.

Yeah Type 2 is a good fit - while it still carries more Vipers (280 to 200) than a Mercury, she carries nearly twice as many main battery turrets and 50% more spinal weapons, plus 48 heavy anti-ship missile tubes. Maybe some other tricks as well, haven't decided yet.

[fnord]

Did the pre-Fall Colonial Fleet ever have a direct Lionheart analogue? A battlestar class/variant that would be expected to stand in the main line of battle while taking (and dishing out) more of a pounding than a Mercury hull or the like.

Or did the broader territory to defend (compared to the Terran Commonwealth) swing things away from type 1s?

[Eternal_Freedom]

In my head-canon for this story, the Colonial Fleet was always focused on defensive designs - they had twelve worlds to defend against an enemy that could appear at will, with no known home base to attack in return. Hence the heavy armour and absurd point-defence armament, and the later focus on Vipers rather than guns (though still carrying respectable batteries). The Connies, and to some extent the Mercurys, were a move away from this, recognising that an offensive punch was needed. With the Mercurys the thinking was to allow the surplus of older ships to stand on the defensive while the new ships would be acting offensively against Cylon fleets.

Then the big budget axe drops and suddenly, they don't have those older ships, so the Connies (and later follow-on classes) are conceived as ships that can do either role equally well.

That's not to say that the Mercurys can't do defensive, or that they and other classes can't stand in the line and slug it out, they're built for exactly that. Just the Connies could do it better. Think of the Connies as, oh, the RN's Orion class "super-dreadnoughts," the next step up in size and hitting power.

I mean, the Colonial Fleet could have built a pure battleship/dreadnought - take a Mercury and replace the flight pods with more weapon mounts and armour. But when you have a good, balanced Battlestar design, you go for incremental improvements rather than a complete change in thinking. The Battlestar design, in-universe at least, works, very effectively. So there's no need for separate battleships and carriers when you can do both in one hull.

[Sky Captain]

Asgard battleship clearly has superior acceleration than Wraith ships. What's stopping it from disengaging to regenerate shields and then making another attack run on Wraith. As long as it disengages before shield failure there should be no permanent damage to systems.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Probably the simple fact that the Asgard ship simply can't inflict enough damage on the Wraith Hive Ships before it's driven off by blanket mass fire again, and the fact that the Wraith are now expecting such an attack. I may have to write in some damage sustained - typical SG shields, especially Asgard shields, clearly don't stop everything - see how often Daedalus takes substantial internal damage while her shields are still up for instance.

In fact, the only example of what I'd term a "barrier" shield (that is, one that stops all damage until shield is depleted) that we see is the Atlantis city-shield. And before anyone asks, Terran shields are derived from Ancient tech, so have the same properties...mostly.

[Eternal_Freedom]

A tad over three thousand words this time, I've been busy this afternoon:

The Storm Breaks
Atlantis

It was strangely beautiful. The huge dome of the city shield was backlit with flashes of blue and orange as Wraith plasma fire rained down from orbit. The bolts impacted, venting their pent-up fury, the plasma spreading, cooling from a brilliant blue through the spectrum to a dull red before fading from view. The shield showed no signs of failure, the power reserves were being drained but at an acceptable rate, with only two Hive ships firing the shield could hold for months at least. Certainly it would hold long enough.

The leaders had gathered, but on the balcony outside the control room rather than the briefing room, the sight above them too captivating to be ignored. Weir, Sheppard and O’Neill were there for the expedition and Earth (McKay, Zelenka and Carter were all currently in a medically-induced deep sleep, recovering from the serious exhaustion they had incurred in repairing the shield), Fitzpatrick and Johnson were there for the Kobolian forces and to one side were the holograms of Jellicoe, Tyr and Thor, the Task Force still making steady headway, only three days off now.

Tyr was reporting on the damage the Samantha Carter had taken in his lightning assault on the Wraith fleet not an hour ago.

“While the shields did not fail, substantial damage was sustained within the ship. The shield emitters and generators have been weakened and will require at least three days for the repair systems to restore them. The sublight engines are similarly affected, as are the main generators. At present my ship is at approximately fifty percent combat effectiveness; my estimates indicate that I would not survive another attack run until repairs are completed.”

His tone indicated annoyance at the situation, and it was justified. Asgard technology was far in advance of the Wraith, and yet the Wraith had managed to out-match the Asgard’s most powerful class of vessel through sheer brute force. Thor’s hologram spoke, addressing the issue.

”It is a weakness inherent in the ship’s design. They were created to fight the Replicators, action which required an immediate, powerful strike before they could adapt before making a rapid withdrawal. They are not designed to “stand in the line of battle” as you humans would say. They are more analogous to your historical battlecruisers than battleships.”

Privately, O’Neill wondered where exactly Thor had found the time to study Earth’s naval history enough to use the terms correctly. Before he could finish the thought, Jellicoe spoke.

”You are certain the shield will hold for the next three days?”

Weir answered. “Yes Admiral, it will hold. This is going to be a long three days.” Everyone physically present agreed, and unconsciously glanced upwards at the flares of plasma impacts above them.

”We’ll be there in three days, we’re spinning up for jump 116 now. I’ve no doubt we can smash this force, but what happens when more Wraith forces head this way? There’s, what, 60 Hives in the galaxy?”

Sheppard nodded. “At least sixty. Our deep-space sensors don’t cover the entire galaxy, only about two thirds. They’re concentrated in groups of varying sizes, so there could be twenty or more others we can’t see yet.”

Jellicoe nodded grimly. ”I hope you all understand that no matter how powerful my Task Force is, we only have eleven ships, only seven of which are powerful enough to go head-to-head with a Hive ship. We can’t take them all on; eleven to one odds are not remotely survivable. Even if they come in waves, we are going to lose ships, they can grind us down and then we’re screwed.”

There was no argument with that. It was an unpleasant thought but reality often was. They couldn’t hold out forever, nor could they possibly commit to anything more defending Atlantis; other worlds, no matter how populous, would be on their own for the most part. You couldn’t fight a galaxy-wide war with only eleven warships, no matter how powerful they are or how motivated their crews.

In the background of Jellicoe’s hologram a klaxon sounded. The Admiral turned slightly, nodded and then looked back.

”We’re jumping now. We’ll be there in 72 hours, call us again if anything changes.” His hologram faded from view.

Sheppard and O’Neill shared a look. The General spoke. “Are we absolutely sure we can’t launch some kind of attack? We still have fifty drones in the silos.”

Thor answered. ”Drones we will need in future General, using them now will do little good. The Task Force will be able to destroy this Wraith force well before they substantially weaken the city’s shields. Using those drones now would be a waste.”

Jack subsided, knowing his friend was right but annoyed and antsy nonetheless. He was a pilot and a commando after all, the idea of sitting still while being shot at went against everything he had been trained for.

Weir spoke, after another furtive glance upwards at the shield. “Nothing we can do now but wait. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to see Carson for something to help me sleep, I doubt I’ll be able to otherwise.”

The others nodded in agreement. The doctor was definitely right about one thing: it would be a long three days.

Task Force Nemesis arrival: -39 hours

If you went by the clock it was the middle of the night, but the light shining down from the continual plasma fire on the shield rendered any idea of darkness moot. At some point or another, every single person in the city had found themselves staring at the scene, mesmerised. It would have been beautiful if one could forget what it represented.

That in orbit above them, the devils in the dark were hammering on the gates.

This time, on the balcony outside the control room, it was Doctor Weir’s turn to stare wistfully at the shield, the flashes and sparkles prompting memories from her childhood, of fireworks and bonfires crackling in the night, the steady reassurance of her father’s presence, the supportive love of her mother. All that was long gone now, the childhood faded, her parents dead and buried. Only the memories remained.

She sighed. Exactly as she had predicted sleep had not come. She felt drained; physically exhausted but her knowledge of the reality of their situation kept her from succumbing to sleep’s comforting embrace. A part of her considered that merciful, she had no desire to find out what nightmares her subconscious would generate for her now.

She had been given tablets by Carson that would, he promised, knock her out for at least eight hours, but she had not taken them yet, giving in to a stubborn streak that John, Rodney, Carson, Radek and the rest would recognise in an instant. She envied them right now, they had things to keep them busy.

Carson was kept on his feet by the need to care for the patients in his medical centre, the slightly and the severely wounded from the days battles, and the usual activity of sickness and accidents that continued, even now when the Wraith were on their doorstep.

Rodney and Radek were sleeping off their two day marathon of repairs, but even when they awoke there would be things for them to do, repairs to be overseen, systems to patch. John was tied up with O’Neill, Fitzpatrick and Johnson, going over endless contingency plans, whilst Teyla and the recently-arrived Ronon Dex were out hunting down the last few Wraith who had beamed into the city during their moment’s weakness. Even three days afterwards, some small pockets of resistance held out, though thankfully only in the unoccupied portions of the city, far away from personnel or vital equipment.

But she…she had nothing to do. The base and the expedition were at war and effectively under military control, something she had never wanted to see even if she accepted the necessity. There was simply no place for a civilian administrator or diplomat, no matter how skilled she was at either field.

So she was standing there on the balcony, close by in case something happened in the control room and she might be needed. She couldn’t fault O’Neill or the new Terran leaders, they had done all they could to accommodate her presence and respect her opinions and views, but this was battle and she was no soldier.

Two more days, she reminded herself, they only had to wait two more days. Then this vast and powerful armada would show up and annihilate the Wraith. Well, this group of Wraith at least. As Jellicoe had told them the day before, they could win this battle and many others, but there was no way to win the war. She shivered reflexively, wondering if this is how the Ancients had felt ten thousand years prior.

The Next Day – Task Force Nemesis arrival: -18 hours
An Unknown Place

The place was white, featureless and empty. It contained nothing at all, save for two beings. They looked human but this was merely an affectation, a fondness for the forms they had had thousands of years ago. One being appeared male, the other, female. They stood and spoke, an infinite distance apart and yet close enough to reach out a reassuring hand. This place was not real as scientists of the lower planes would understand it, but it was real for these two.

“Janus, do you think they will finally break the cycle?” The woman, once known as Ganos Lal and later as Morgan le Fay asked her companion, The former genius and High Council member on Atlantis, their long-gone home. He too was known by many names, the most recent being Merlin and Prometheus.

“I think they have a better chance than any generation before them.”

It was easy for the mortal beings in the lower realms to imagine the Ascended to be all-knowing. For all intents and purposes they were, but even they could not see the future, the twists and turns of Fate as the mortals stumbled along the timeline.

This cycle was one that had proceeded for a hundred thousand years or more; a cycle of hubris and of destruction wrought by their own creations: their own race, driven from Avalon by a plague of their own creation as they sought to eliminate disease; then the war with the Wraith and the emergence of the Replicators, which had almost destroyed their old allies the Asgard and done terrible damage to their beloved Avalon; the Exodus from Kobol, when their thirteen chosen tribes had had to flee from a devastating war.

The emergence of the Cylons and their rebellion was an odd case. It fitted the cycle but it had been directly caused by another force, the manipulations of Ba’al rather than the Colonies’ own mistakes. That was what gave Janus hope that this time, maybe, hopefully, their children would break the cycle and those words of Pythia would never be repeated.

All of this had happened before….but it did not have to happen again.

With a thought, Janus and Morgan moved to look down on the Wraith fleet as they fired on the city shield. Both knew that the Terran fleet would arrive soon and both had a sense that this battle would be where the cycle broke, they could pursue their own destiny.

Morgan looked at her friend, ally and sometime rival. “Do you think the Others will ever find Avalon?”

Janus shook his head. “No. They know as much as we do, but we and those who Ascended with us are keeping Avalon, Ida and Pegasus hidden from them. Unless someone does something stupid it will be hidden for eternity, the Other’s evil will never touch this galactic cluster.”

He appeared to frown before asking a question of his own. “Morgan, you have travelled further and seen more than any of us, did you ever find what had become of the Furlings?”

She likewise shook her head. “No. I searched for them for many centuries, charting hundreds of galaxies. I could find no trace of them beyond their beacon in the core of Avalon. I do not think they are dead, but they are far enough away to be hidden even from us.”

The two returned to a companionable silence, watching as events below them unfolded.

Task Force Nemesis arrival: -10 minutes

The long journey was finally over. The Task Force was assembled, hiding in the Oort cloud at the edge of the system that was home to Atlantis. A live sensor feed showed the exact positions of the Wraith ship and the nav computers were even now plotting the precise jumps.

Jellicoe stood in his Fleet Operations Centre, looking every inch the calm, collected Admiral despite his weariness, the continuing nightmares, the endless thinking of plans and assessing them. His back was straight, his shoulders square and his jaw set, his uniform perfect.

His senior officers gathered around, in person thanks to the beaming systems on the Asgard vessels. Captain Davies of the Nemesis, Captain Pendragon of the Excalibur, Captain Stewart of the Victorious, Captain Garrett of the Republic, Commander Adama of the Pegasus, Commander Beatty of the Warspite, Commander Tigh of the Galactica, Colonel Caldwell of the Daedalus, Thor and Baldr, the Asgard who commanded the Teal’c of Chu’lak.

“This is the final briefing before we jump into position over Atlantis. We’ve had to modify the original plan considerably, I now feel there is no point in holding back. Everything we have is going in with guns blazing. The six Battlestars will jump into positions here” he indicated a hexagon pattern between the Wraith and the planet “and hold the line. Your primary targets are the darts and the cruisers. Kill them all.” He shuffled slightly.

“The three Asgard vessels will drop out of hyperspace here, behind the Wraith fleet and cut off any attempt at retreat. You’re free to manoeuvre as needed, but you must stop any runners getting away.” Thor, Baldr and the hologram of Tyr nodded in agreement.

“Colonel Caldwell, your ship is the only one we have that is able to enter the atmosphere and carries a strong anti-fighter armament. As such, I want your ship hovering directly over Atlantis to supplement her air-defence batteries in case they try swarming the city with darts again.”

Caldwell didn’t look too happy at being left out of the main fleet battle but next to the Hive ships, the Battlestars and the Asgard ships his own battlecruiser was a tiny gnat in a battlefield of lions. He had his task and he would do it.

“The Nemesis herself will jump in here.” He indicated a point right in the middle of the Wraith fleet. Before anyone could protest he continued. “We will be aligned with one Hive ship and the superlaser is charging now, it will be ready to fire as soon as we jump. We’ll also be at minimum safe distance for the anti-ship missiles, we will salvo-fire all tubes at the second Hive immediately. The secondary batteries are free to engage the cruisers and the darts.”

There was a round of approving nods and looks at this idea, the huge Warstar was strong enough to easily survive such a close engagement and in any case could quick-charge her FTL drives in under a minute if necessary. Jellicoe had one final point.

“This is going to be a fight for the big guns. The point-defence systems are going to be saturated with targets and we can’t afford to waste seconds distinguishing friend from foe. All ships will keep their fighters aboard unless I directly order a launch. You can have them ready in the tubes but they take off only with my order, understood?” Once again the Captains nodded, some more reluctantly than others. They could see the logic in the order even if it didn’t appeal, especially to Lee, David and Saul, former pilots all, who knew their own pilots would feel slighted at being held back.

“This should also be a short fight. Thanks to the efforts of Tyr, we have two Hive ships and eight cruisers, only two of which are at full strength. We decisively outclass them and we cannot afford any losses, so for frak’s sake don’t hold back. Any questions?”

There were none. Everyone knew their jobs and the timings of their deployments. Jellicoe looked each of them in the eye before nodding.

“Then return to your ships. I will make a general broadcast to all crews before we jump. Dismissed.”

They saluted before being beamed away to their own CIC’s, apart from Davies who simply walked across the corridor. Jellicoe nodded at his Chief of Staff. “Alan, is the comm channel ready?”

“Yes sir, all ships, all stations. Jump in three minutes sir.”

He nodded his thanks before picking up the handset. He took a breath and began to speak.

“Attention men and women of Task Force Nemesis, this is Admiral Jellicoe. In three minutes we jump to Atlantis and to battle, a battle that our Lords and ancestors waged and lost millennia ago. Now, we are here to take up their quarrel with the foe and finish their fight.” Jellicoe wasn’t a religious man, but he knew full well how powerful such an appeal would be. He felt it himself, deep down in his heart.

“The Sacred Scrolls and the Book of the Word spoke of this day, of the day when the Devils who drove the Lords from Paradise would be faced and driven back. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be here, now, with you all driving them back. We are the avenging angels, we fight the Devils themselves. And we will win!”

“We outnumber them, we outgun them and we outclass them at every turn. We will annihilate this force and any others we come across, for they are the Devils and we are the Angels. So say we all!” He could see approving looks from the flag staff as they took up the chant, one that echoed through the hulls of the Warstar and her smaller sisters.

”SO SAY WE ALL!”

Jellicoe let it continue for a few moments, until the jump clock clicked past thirty-five seconds.

“All ships, all hands, Action Stations. Combat jump in thirty seconds. Good hunting!”

There was a final cheer as the klaxons sounded. That last part was purely psychological of course, the ships were already at Condition One and all stations manned. It made for a powerful ending to the seemingly required pre-battle pep talk.

There was nothing to do but wait and watch as the clock ticked away. It was out of his hands now, and he suddenly knew exactly how Adama and Lethbridge-Stewart had felt over Terra. He had planned well, trusted his Captains and Commanders to play their parts, but the battle was in their hands now, not his. He was an observer, nothing more.

The clock reached zero. The combat jump began.

================

This was originally going to be shorter, but I decided I needed something to fill in the three-day gap, and Weir seemed a good choice for a short character bit. The Janos/Morgan part as well is an idea I borrowed from A Change of Fate/The Ori War, a sadly unfinished pair of SG/Halo crossovers.

Now, The Task Force will arrive over Atlantis and the Wraith will witness the firepower of a fully armed and operational Warstar!

[fnord]

Give 'em jingle-jangle, cobber!

A cliffhanger. I really shouldn't be surprised.

Feels like it's gonna go full Henderson, but for whom? "Found out what they're vulnerable to." "Whazzat, Henderson?" "Point-blank annihilation."

[Eternal_Freedom]

This section title is self-explanatory I think.

Extermination
In Orbit over Atlantis

For the Wraith Queen in command of the fleet, the current situation provided a near-perfect mix of heady delight and mild impatience. She had been present millennia ago when the massed ranks of the Wraith had driven the Ancients from their home far below. That had been a long and gruelling siege, and countless Hives had been shredded by drone salvos before the enemy finally succumbed, submerged their city, and fled.

Now she was back. Her force was but a fraction of that mighty fleet and she was fully aware it would take weeks or more to batter down the cursed city shield, but she had those weeks. The summary annihilation of her small reconnaissance force had been disappointing, but it had weakened the enemy, first by eliminating the last weapons platform and second by forcing the humans occupying the city to use the last of their drones.

The appearance of that Asgard ship and it’s brutally quick obliteration of one of her Hives had been surprising, but her two remaining ships had driven it off and it had not been seen for days. Her cruisers were damaged but they were devoting all their power to regenerating their systems, their meagre firepower would have added little to the bombardment anyway so it was no great loss.

She was riding high on the feelings of triumph and glory and the thought that her insatiable hunger would soon be satisfied; billions of delicious humans awaited on the other side of the portal at the city’s heart. This was where the impatience came in; she knew it would take time but the hunger gnawed at her even still, despite the feeding she had indulged in not days ago.

She had no way of knowing that she had precisely fifteen seconds left to enjoy her feelings of course.

The first event to pull her attention into sharper focus was a flash of light between her ships and the planet. The flash faded to reveal the imposing bulk of the Battlestar Warspite, though she, naturally, had no idea of the ship’s name or class.

Commander Beatty had indulged both his own desire to get at the enemy and the ship’s motto as well. Any spacer will tell you that ships have souls, that they talk and embody their names and reputations. Warspite’s motto was “First in Harm’s Way,” and Beatty ensured the ship continued to earn that motto. He had deliberately jumped a second early, to be sure the mighty ship would indeed be first into battle.

Her shields were already raised, her guns already tracking targets, even as the stream of Wraith plasma fire she had jumped into finished splattering harmlessly against her forward shields. The Wraith Queen had only moments to decide that, powerful as this ship appeared to be, it was only one ship.

Warspite was not alone however. She was never alone.

Another five flashes of light announced the arrival of the other Battlestars, their shields strong, their formation perfect, and their hulls moving not an inch as they absorbed their own salvos of plasma from the Hive ships above them. They found themselves in the same position as the old Galactica over Lemuria, their backs to a planet and a host of innocents, their bows and guns towards the heavens. They would face the foe and never waver, they would hold the line. As one, their guns spoke, streams of laser fire reaching out to swat darts from the sky, volleys of turbolaser bolts racing forth to tear into the hulls and systems of Wraith cruisers.

The Queen felt a momentary feeling of fear at the sight of these six powerful warships, knowing immediately she was outmatched. Then hyperspace portals opened, throwing out a trio of Asgard ships, one of them being the ship that had attacked them days ago, another of the same class, and a third, smaller vessel, but one that was no doubt still deadly in its own right. The three Asgard ships took up position above the Wraith, relative to the planet, clearly intending to block any retreat.

The fourth portal disgorged a much smaller but very fast and nimble ship that looked decidedly crude in comparison to the Asgard ships and the six unknown warships. It dropped out of hyperspace in the upper atmosphere, below the six unknowns, and raced down to assume a defensive position over the city.
The Queen knew she was trapped and outmatched, but she was confident she could make a fighting withdrawal. She would have to summon additional Hives from other factions, denying her sole access to Earth and its billions, but still achieving the overall goal. Her thoughts were arrested completely by the eleventh and final arrival.

This flash of light was bigger than any other, and revealed a monstrously-sized vessel, half again as large as her own Hives, and right in the middle of their attenuated formation. The Queen had perhaps half a second to ponder at the time and resources needed to build such a vessel before the monster in their midst also opened fire.

From turrets along the dorsal and ventral hull, eight beams of red death lanced out, spearing four of her cruisers and blasting them to rubble in a moment. From her bow section, a swarm of eighty missiles erupted from concealed launchers and raced towards her ship. Before she could even begin to order defensive actions, she realised it would be far too late.

And then the massive ship fired her primary weapon. The energy had built and built, electric-blue light shining from between the four talon-like structures at the bow before it shot forth as a thick, blue beam. The beam briefly connected the huge ship with the other Hive, before the Hive was vaporised.

The Queen blinked. Not even the Ancient satellite weapons were this powerful. They could certainly kill Hives in one shot, but to outright vaporise an entire Hive ship? Her mind boggled at the energy requirements, or the mind-set and martial skill that would compel the design of such weapons and such a ship.

Those proved to be her last thought. The salvo of missiles the Nemesis had fired had crossed the distance to her ship, some of them had been shot down or otherwise intercepted but fifty-eight got through the Wraith defences to detonate on or near the Hive ship’s hull.

Fifty-eight artificial suns blazed into existence in space. The combined force of the warheads, each of which had yielded five hundred megatons of energy, crushed the Hive completely, reducing it to nothing but vapour and ash. The energy that did not crush the Hive reached further out, evaporating hundreds of darts in the process and causing crippling damage to two cruisers that had been too close to survive. One of them had been turning towards the huge monster when the energy struck; the burned wreck continued its turn only for the inertia involved to break the ravaged hull in two.

For the Wraith, the surprise and shock was total. In seconds two Hives and five cruisers had been obliterated, and one of the three survivors was crippled. Seconds later that crippled ship also succumbed to death, the battered vessel received the full fury of the forward turbolaser batteries of the Victorious, Republic and Excalibur.

Nor had the three Colonial ships been silent. Their own guns were firing as fast as they could, turbolaser bolts ripping into the two remaining cruisers. Seconds passed as the damage mounted, far too fast to even be contained let alone repaired. Salvo after salvo crashed out, in truth far more than was necessary but effective nevertheless. The two cruisers rapidly became burning wrecks, and then equally quickly expanding clouds of vapour and dust.

The battle had lasted a mere thirty-seven seconds and the Alliance victory was total. Even the darts had not been spared; four thousand had been flying in and around the Wraith formation when the Alliance jumped in. Fifteen hundred had been incinerated by the searing blasts of nuclear fire that killed the Queen’s ship, another two thousand had died in seconds to the massed banks of point-defence mounts on the Warstar. The remaining five hundred had been too stunned to react, their sensors blinded by the nuclear flashes, their pilots reeling from the psychic death scream of so many Wraith. They had quickly been slaughtered by the lighter weapons on the Battlestars.

In the Fleet Operations Centre on the Nemesis, Admiral Jellicoe let out the breath he’d been holding. That’s how long the battle had lasted, one long, deep breath. He blinked a few times then lifted the comm handset.

“All ships, this is Iron Duke. Skies clear, report status.” After a few moments pause, the responses came in.

”This is Abraxas, all systems green.” Stephen Garret of the Republic, calm and professional.

“This is Bad Wolf, all systems green, all clear Iron Duke.” Kate Stewart of the Victorious, just like her father, calm under fire.

“This is Apollo, all clear, no damage” Lee Adama of the Pegasus, another calm level tone.

“This is White Knight, everything’s green.” Arthur Pendragon of the Excalibur, a hint of humour as was his habit.

“This is Heavyweight, all clear, didn’t even scratch the paint.” David Beatty of the Warspite, irreverent as usual.

“This is Greaser, we’re fine and the frakkers are all dead. Any more?” Saul Tigh of the Galactica, the fire and drive of an old warhorse given a new lease of life.

”This is Thor for the Asgard; we are undamaged. My congratulations Admiral Jellicoe.” An alien tone, but warm and supportive nevertheless.

”This is the Daedalus, all clear, didn’t even clear our guns.” A hint of a challenge and a complaint in the Earth Colonel’s voice, and one Jellicoe could understand; Caldwell had flown three and a half million light-years to save his fellow Earthmen and hadn’t been needed at all.

Jellicoe shook the thought from his head and opened a different channel.

“Atlantis Base, this is Vice-Admiral Jellicoe, Commander, Task Force Nemesis. The Wraith fleet has been completely destroyed…” a smirk passed his features “…anything else you’d like us to clean up?”

His only response on the open channel to the surface was cheering and applause.

==========

So, yeah, Nemesis is a big badass warship. This should not be a surprise.

Before anyone comments or complains that this was too easy, of course it was. This is six capital ships plus Nemesis, which probably counts as at least another four on her own, against two capital ships and escorts. Five to one odds, tactical and strategic surprise, all guns blazing, and known positions of the enemy so they could position themselves for maximum effect.

Of course it was a slaughter, it was always going to be a slaughter. This is but a fraction of total Wraith strength however. Approximately one-hundred Hive Ships remain in the galaxy, this force is all the Alliance have. It's back to being "against improbable odds" to quote one of Steve's old TGG fics.

And in case anyone is wondering how the other Wraith will know about this, well, tens of thousands of Wraith, all with some degree of psychic connection to the wider species, just screamed and died in seconds. Someone is going to notice.

[Sky Captain]

Now that was some carnage.

It will take some time for Wraith to realize what exactly happened and gather their fleets together. Atlantis sensors cover large part of the galaxy and probably could be used to guide task force Nemesis against other groups of Hiveships. As long as Hives are in groups no bigger than maybe 7 it would be similary one sided engagements.

If you think about Ancients and how they lost they clearly were unprepeared for Wraith attack. They had total technological superiority. Shields that hold as long as power source lasts, ZPM's, powerful energy weapons, drones. Their tactics and designs were probably shitty like sattellite weapon with no defense against fighters, Atlantis with only drones and no built in energy weapons. Think about what kind of monster warships could be built combining Atlantis shield tech with ZPM's, sattellite weapons and drones.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ancient shield tech, energy weapons and super-power-sources...is basically the Nemesis. You are right though, the Ancients were never really warriors. Their only known warship class, the Auroras, were certainly powerful, but if you ran out of drones they were stuffed. And that I think is why, as Sheppard said "they could win every battle but saw no way to win the war." They didn't have the right mindset.

Certainly jumping in and ambushing groups of Hives is a viable tactic and one I will explore. Jellicoe is certainly going to have to revise his grim "we can't kill all of them" prediction.

The Wraith will definitely be gathering their forces. Even if they don't know exactly what went down, they know several Hives went kaboom, can feel roughly where...and Atlantis is the only place in the area with technology able to do that. It's an easy conclusion to reach.

Stay tuned!

[fnord]

Well, that certainly kicked their backdoor in. And O'Neill got to see some big honking space guns let rip.

Will it ultimately be a case of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished? As you said, in reaction to the wtfpwnage dished out, the Wraith step their game up - like the Cylons did earlier.

I'm not sure if it's SG fanon or canon, but are you running with the idea of the Tau'ri/Terran/Colonial perspective on putting boot to ass is warped - it's not less that everyone else in SG verse sucks at it, but we're that good because we were designed that way, combined with a lot of experience? (cue Weir rolling on the Table of Sproing).

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'm going with my own interpretation, which may or may not reflect fanon.

The Ancients and the Asgard are basically scientists not warriors. Their solution to a military threat, which IIRC Thor mentioned once in connection to the Replicators, was to build a more advanced ship, a fancier weapon. This is fine if you're facing comparatively weak enemies.

But in both cases, they had millennia of peace with the only peer species being allies. This bites them hard when faced with the Replicators, as they just consume and adapt Asgard tech, or the Wraith, who can swamp them with numbers.

A similar case can be made for the Goa'uld, they had 8000+ years of being Galactic Top Dog with only medieval-level enemies to fight. Hence why then can get away with "weapons of terror" other than "weapons of war" to quote O'Neill.

Us poor humans on the other hand have spend thousands of years devising new and better ways to kill each other. This is certainly true for the Earth/SGC groups, and also true for the Colonials - the united government was only instituted at the start of the Cylon War, there were definitely inter-colony wars prior to that. So they know how to fight. The Terrans are a mixed bag, but they have Adama, Tigh, Jellicoe and Lee teaching them to fight. They killed one genocidal enemy, now they know how to fight another.

It's not that we're designed for it, it's just that no other race is designed to be better. Consider the Wraith - they're basically cattle farmers on a sick scale, not fighters. Hence why their weapons stun, not kill. We humans however, we don't go for farming, or keeping slave populations to serve us inefficiently (anymore). We see an enemy and find the quickest, most effective way to kill it, then move on.

[fnord]

That makes sense.

Waitaminit... you sure Ancients/Wraith/Asgard et al aren't simply copping future shock (thanks to a few billion ugly bags of mostly water, one of them being A. Toffler) on a massive scale? Things are almost stationary for yonks, then along comes a bunch whose only acceptable speed is "faster", only acceptable distance is either "further away" or "even closer", only acceptable rate of progress is "faster", and are forever in search of Enuff Dakka - thus the wheels fall off for everyone else.

Said bags of mostly water have been subject to selection pressures (physical, memetic, social, to name three types) operating on the above timescale (frinstance, SG Earth going from manned spaceflight in 1961 to intergalactic flight by 2008(?) at latest - possibly an extreme case even among humaniti).

The perspective on applying boot to ass is still warped (waay out on the right tail of distribution), but not by design per se - perspectives that everyone else would consider less warped simply didn't survive.

Yeah, the combined Fleet did put the skids on the plans of Genocidicles The Merciful. When's he lobbing again?

[Eternal_Freedom]

That might be part of it as well, I hadn't thought of things from that perspective.

[Sky Captain]

Thinking about possible tactics how to fight numerically superior enemy first thing that come to my mind is surprise is a huge force multiplier in SG verse. Hyperdrive and especially jump drive equipped ships can appear without warning, Atlantis have sensors that can detect ships using hyperdrive, not sure about Wraith if they have similar capability. Jump drive by its nature being nearly instantaneous point to point jump should be undetectable. This heavily favors offense vs defense. Defending side has to be on full battle readiness alert at all times if it expects a bolt from the blue attack, If human forces can find groups of Hives that are not ready to fight immediately those are easy targets to ambush.