The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Actually "exulted" doesn't register as a typo and it's a real word (I'm fairly sure). As for the other typo, thanks, I'll fix that in my master copy.

[fnord]

IIRC, both "exulted" and "exalted" are real words, kinda-sorta homophones (especially in STRAYAN), and not exactly difficult to confuse.

According to https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/exalted, I think the use you were aiming at was #1 - "(of a person or their rank or status) at a high or powerful level." Two presidents, plus two senior flag officers, would certainly count.

Exulted, on other hand, according to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... lish/exult, tacks closer to "to express great pleasure or happiness, especially at someone else's defeat or failure".

If you want to deliberately leave it in on grounds of "Quia ego sic deco" (because I say so - attributed to one H. Vetinari by one T. Pratchett), so be it.

Edit: Worlds, words, same diff, right?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Good point. I'll fix that one too.

[LadyTevar]

Good point. I'll fix that one too.

We fiddled with the board, you SHOULD be able to fix it on this copy as well now. Try it and let Dalton and I know if it works.

[Eternal_Freedom]

And lo, the Final Battle approaches:


Preparing for Armageddon
Atlantis and Nearby Space
Five Days Later

The base was once again a hive of activity as the scientists, soldiers, pilots and spacers prepared for the upcoming assault. Everyone present knew this was it, the ultimate result of the campaign against the Wraith. This battle would either see crushing victory or an ignominious retreat. In orbit, the crews had done their best to shore up the damage to the Battlestars Victorious and Warspite and the Warstar Nemesis. There was little that could be done to replace the destroyed weapon emplacements, but the hulls had been sealed, the damage power feeds repaired, the launch bays brought back into operation. All three ships were not at full strength, but were close enough to handle a battle.

On the surface, things were somewhat different. Atlantis itself was not the centre of activity, but rather a large floating platform a kilometre away from the city. The platform was five hundred metres across and held an apparent hodgepodge of components. The antennae of powerful jammers and hologram emitters mingled with the reinforced dome of the theatre shield generator and it’s dish-like projectors, a smaller building housing the power Asgard power generators and a small central building that housed the final two components; a Earth-built Mk IX Gatebuster nuclear warhead, the rigged ZPM and a Stargate.

The Stargate, which had been liberated from its original location in orbit over a dead world was a recent addition to the plan, intended to add a further touch of verisimilitude. Standard Wraith tactics for planetary assaults included dialling in the target’s Stargate, denying its use as an escape route and allowing warriors and darts to attack from an unexpected direction.

This Stargate would automatically dial out five minutes before the Wraith fleets entered the system and be kept open for the maximum thirty-eight minutes. Then it would shut down, allowing the Wraith to dial in as they expected to, helping (or so it was hoped) to convince them this really was Atlantis. The gate had a heavy metal shield in place to act as a crude iris or gate-shield to prevent any actual Wraith forces from entering the decoy site, a measure further died by having the gate lying flat on the ground; any warriors trying to use it would find gravity acting against them, pulling them back into the wormhole and certain doom.

While Atlantis was not the hub of activity, there were considerable preparations underway here as well. The Asgard had installed the cloaking device as planned, and the Daniel Jackson had returned on schedule with its precious cargo of three charged Zero Point Modules. For the first time in ten thousand years, the city was fully powered, and countless sleeping systems returned to active life. Most important of these were the automated drone production lines, they had immediately began gathering the necessary resources from the ocean the city floated on while others were synthesised in the city’s particle forges. Drones were already rolling off the production line, half went into the city’s armouries while the rest were sent to the decoy platform and it’s single, crude drone silo. The decoy site would be able to fire off a volley of two hundred drones, adding yet more realism to the deception.

Other engineering teams were going over the city’s stardrive with a fine tooth comb, looking for anything that might suggest the engines and inertial dampers were not up to the planned ten thousand light-year flight to the intended destination; an Earth-sized planet with a huge ocean to land the city on, no intelligent life and no Stargate, meaning it was probably unknown to the Wraith.

Back in space, the Task Force’s assembled horde of shuttles were constantly employed ferrying nuclear mines out to pre-planned positions on the estimated Wraith approach routes. This single effort was using up every available warhead in the armouries of both Terra and Earth. In fact, the various governments on Earth that were aware of the Stargate’s existence had publically announced a major strategic nuclear arms reduction as a cover for why so many warheads were being removed from their positions or storage sites and sent for “decommissioning,” which actually meant being shipped to Terra to be enhanced with naquada and then used to replenish the now-emptied Terran arsenals.

The Battlestars, the Warstar, the Scimitar and Raptor squadrons and the Daedalus now all had full loads of warheads, but everything else was being used as part of the vast nuclear minefield. The mines themselves were as simple as possible: an enhanced warhead, a tight-beam encrypted transceiver, and a small cloaking device copied from the puddle jumpers by Asgard beaming systems. They lacked sensors of their own; they would be command-detonated by the Nemesis once the Wraith were committed to the kill zones.

It was hoped that the mines would severely attrite the first waves of Wraith forces. The aim was not so much to kill the Hive ships but to winnow out the nearly four hundred cruisers and almost a quarter-million Darts as it was these, paradoxically given their size, that had so far inflicted the most damage as they could most easily close to kamikaze range. It was fully expected that the initial waves would consist of an overwhelming swarm of darts followed up with a hundred or more cruisers closing in for suicide runs.

The Warstar and the Battlestars would hold the line in orbit, their drives charged and ready for the escape jump, the Captains and Commanders ordered to jump away as soon as shields failed. The three Asgard battleships would wait out of sensor range, ready for another cavalry charge once the mines detonated amidst the first wave of darts and cruisers. They would race in through the disoriented groups of ships, cause as much damage as they could and then retreat into hyperspace. Then they would turn around and do it again. The Daniel Jackson would remain hovering over the decoy city, appearing to transport up the Expedition members before she too would retreat to hyperspace. The Daedalus would join the Scimitar and Raptor squadrons in assaulting the main body, as she was small and nimble enough to evade massed fire long enough to fire her missiles and get away. The small craft would repeat their jump-shoot-jump tactics, doing as much damage as possible.

To a casual observer who had heard the plans involving the rigged ZPM and its destructive potential it would seem strange that so much was being risked and expended to hurt Wraith ships that would be vaporised soon after anyway. Admiral Jellicoe’s plan was based on several reasons. Firstly, they had to give every impression that they really were defending Atlantis and buying time to evacuate the city, lest the Wraith get suspicious and leave as soon as the Task Force did. Secondly, he was still not convinced the ZPM would actually detonate on cue or would be as devastating as Carter and McKay promised. This way, even if the main plan failed and the backup Gatebuster nuke had to be used to destroy the decoy site, he would still have inflicted major losses the Wraith, and every ship they killed here was one less to kill next time, under less favourable conditions.

Eventually, a day and a half before the Wraith would arrive, and while they were still well out of sensor range, both the city and the decoy were ready. The hologram generators were activated and the air above the decoy site shimmered briefly before a perfect replica of Atlantis appeared on the ocean, floating serenely next to the real city. The shields were tested next, a visibly glowing dome appeared to surround the decoy, courtesy of Joseph Bazelgette’s theatre shield. The activation process looked quite different from the Atlantis shield, but the active shield was close enough in appearance as to be indistinguishable.

The jammers activated next, flooding the area with broadband EM and subspace emissions, preventing everything apart from optical telescopes from getting any data on what was within the shield and those optical scanners would merely show exactly what was expected – the floating city. The drone launcher could not be tested – this was not a sophisticated silo like that found in the real city where the drones were directed by someone in the Control Chair; these drones had been programmed in what the assorted humans termed “fire and forget” mode. They would launch on command and seek out the nearest Wraith vessels that were cruiser-sized or larger; they had been carefully programmed to avoid targeting darts as this was deemed a waste of resources.

With every system on the decoy platform operational and tested where possible, it was time to test the other features. The real city promptly cloaked, disappearing in a shimmer of air like a desert mirage before reappearing and activating its own city shield. In the Control Chair Colonel Sheppard waited tensely for the all-clear to come in from the control room. He powered up the inertial dampers to full, hoping to give the Expedition members a smooth ride – or as smooth as possible when you were flying a city.
In the Control Room, Dr. Weir stood before the assembled technicians and a handful of others – O’Neill, Fitzpatrick, Johnson, MacKay and Carter. She was coming to the end of a short but rousing speech that was being carried across the city’s PA system.

“…this world has been our home for these past many months, our place of refuge and sanctuary from the harshness and brutality of this galaxy. But now, when the war has come to our very doorstep, the time has come to find a new haven. Atlantis is leaving this world, never to return. But Atlantis and what it represents to the peoples of the Pegasus Galaxy, the City of the Ancestors, will remain safe from the predations of the Wraith. Colonel Sheppard, take us out.”

That last part had been a kind gesture by Jack O’Neill, a way of making up for all the times she had been side-lined over the past weeks when military necessity trumped civilian administration. But as far as Jack was concerned, this was still her city, and he wanted her to have her moment.

In the Control Chair, Sheppard leaned back and got himself comfortable again. His hands rested in the gel-like substance of the primary interface and his mind seemed to open, to connect with the city on a level he found novel and exhilarating. For a brief time, he felt like his consciousness encompassed the entire city. It was thrilling but also made him feel very small indeed.

Deep within the city structure, the ancient engines roared into life. A low bass rumble began, felt by everyone in the complex. The ocean waters foamed and boiled under the emissions of the stardrive as the city slowly, ever so slowly, began to shrug off the hold of gravity and claw its way into the sky.

After a minute, the last of the structure cleared the ocean surface and the engines increased in power, pushing the city higher and faster. Those inside the buildings still felt that bass rumble but not even a hint of the acceleration as passed on to the living occupants – all that force being absorbed and negated by the huge inertial dampers. Higher and higher the vast machine flew, breaking through the low clouds and then through the sound barrier, leaving a truly spectacular ring of vapour and a sonic boom powerful enough to shatter aircraft in flight. The speed and the altitude continued to build as the air around the shield grew thinner and thinner.

The sky began to fade from its usual glorious blue through paler colours and finally to black. A final push from the engines injected the city into a low but stable orbit relatively close to the assembled Task Force. Even the huge Warstar was dwarfed by the city-ship, the pinnacle of human technology meeting the pinnacle of Ancient technology – and the human side looked small and primitive in comparison.

For a few minutes, the ships and the city flew side by side, just long enough for Atlantis’ orbit to carry it into position to make the jump into hyperspace. Every scanner and camera in the Task Force was trained on the sight; not out of fear or scientific curiosity but merely to witness the scene.

The city rotated in flight, aligning itself with its desired vector. Then, after but a moment’s pause, the stardrive flared again. A truly enormous hyperspace window opened, one that could have swallowed up every other ship present with room to spare and then the Ancient city-ship seemed to leap forward, accelerating to speeds deemed impossible by Einstein and his fellows. There was a brief flash as the city entered hyperspace and then the window closed.

Now all that remained were ships of war and weapons of destruction. Armageddon was coming. And the humans and Asgard were ready for it.

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

Soon, my friends, the Final Battle will commence. And as you will see, there will be many, many giant kabooms. But the Task Force won't get off scott-free either.

Things are coming into place nicely. I have yet to decide whether the rigged ZPM will work as advertised by annihilating all the Wraith, or if I'll leave the Gatebuster to cover the retreat. Could go either way frankly.

[LadyTevar]

Get the civilians out of the way, and let loose the dogs of war.

[fnord]

Nicely done, then, as LadyTevar mentioned, cry havoc.

On to tweaks:

half went into the city’s armouries while the rest were sent to the decoy platform and it’s single, crude drone silo.

That unpacks to "the decoy platform and it is single, crude drone silo". Sure you didn't mean "its"?

The gate had a heavy metal shield in place to act as a crude iris or gate-shield to prevent any actual Wraith forces from entering the decoy site, a measure further died by having the gate lying flat on the ground

Umm....

The aim was not so much to kill the Hive ships but to winnow out the nearly four hundred cruisers

Maybe "Hive ships, but to" ?

[Eternal_Freedom]

The apostrophe one, yes, I always get those confused. The gate-shield thing the same, but since "died" is a real word it doens't show up in spellcheck. The last one is, I think, arguable, so I'll leave it as-is.

[fnord]

The second one does not make sense in context. Is it "A measure further readied by...", "A measure further aided by....", what?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah sorry should have been "aided" or "helped."

[Eternal_Freedom]

Armageddon Begins
Atlantis Orbital Space

The time had come. The vast Wraith armada was now just four minutes away from the system and every ship and man was at full alert. The Stargate on the decoy platform has just completed dialling out to prevent Wraith incursion; in a useful twist the decoy city had connected to the real Atlantis, now safely floating on an ocean ten thousand light years away and cloaked to avoid detection. This would allow the Expedition members to be kept informed of what was going on and provide advice if possible.

In orbit, the Terran and Colonial forces waited. The huge bulk of the Nemesis held pride of place in the formation while the six Battlestars were arrayed around the flagship in a standard hexagon formation. It was virtually the same formation that had been used over Terra months ago against the Cylons. It had worked for them once, it would hopefully work again.

In the Fleet Ops Centre Jellicoe had just finished his expected pre-battle pep talk. He had never understood why so many of his crews and pilots felt the need for such a thing and he had never found them easy to give; but if it helped his crews overcome nerves and fears then it really was the least he could do. He turned to Captain Mace.

“Send the arming code to the mines. Standby for detonation by layers as planned. I don’t want any delays here Alan.”

The man nodded and moved off to give the orders. The mines had been arranged in a series of layers or grids along the four expected Wraith approach routes. They could be detonated in a staggered sequence, to attrite the incoming horde, or they could be detonated all at once when the Wraith were fully committed to the kill zone, hitting them on all sides with nuclear fire.

Jellicoe ruthlessly suppressed any remaining doubts and fears in his own mind. He knew he needed to appear the unflappable Admiral, utterly unfazed by anything that might happen. He had never told anyone, but his own internal motto in such situations was “What would Adama do?” Just as he had told Commander Wallace to do after the last raid, he put on the Mask of Command and stared, unflinching at the display and the countdown timer and sensor picture. The Devil was coming, and it was his job to throw them back.

The countdown timer reached zero and almost immediately a sensor technician called out:

“Contact! Wraith force dropping out of hyperspace at Lantea-Moon L2 point. Initial count is twenty-one Hive ships and one hundred and twenty cruisers. Designate Group One” In rapid succession, other technicians reported similarly-sized Wraith forces emerging at the L3, L4 and L5 points. Jellicoe studied the display again and spoke quietly to Mace.

“Beautifully done. Equidistant from the planet and the first group even has the moon as a natural shield. No doubt they’re hoping we haven’t detected them and will commit to facing the other three groups, letting that group hit us from an unexpected direction. Good thing we plotted their arrival positions from the deep-space sensors. Ok, hold all ships in position, let them come to us.”

The Wraith Flagship, at the Lantea-Moon L2 point

It was indeed a stirring site and a grand feeling, the High Queen mused to herself as her force emerged into the shadow of the hated Enemy moon. It had been decided at the vast Wraith Conclave that a single commander was needed and so she, as the leader of the largest Wraith faction, had become the first-ever High Queen, sole ruler of the Wraith. Now she led the largest Wraith force assembled in ten millennia for a further, final assault on the Enemy’s last fortress and the cursed humans that dared attempt to wield its power.

She smirked at the plan she and her closest advisors had created. Dividing her force went against every instinct the Wraith possessed as warriors; battles against the Ancients were always decided by a single massed strike of overwhelming force. But these humans were not the Ancients, they had their own art of war and it was very deadly. In barely a month these humans and their handful of ships had smashed more than twenty Hive Ships, a fifth of their total fleet for virtually no losses.

So she had split her fleet into four parts, each one large enough to overwhelm the enemy, or so she hoped, but not enough to be a decisive loss if the humans somehow managed to ambush and obliterate them. Her tactics here also showed the inspiration she took from the humans themselves; they were fond of surrounding the enemy and appearing from unexpected directions, and that is what she would do here.

With a mental command, she ordered her plan into motion. All of the cruisers in the three groups visible from the planet fired their engines and headed towards the enemy at full thrust, their dart bays releasing their own hordes of smaller craft, all ready and eager for the fight.

Warstar Nemesis Fleet Operations Centre, Lantea Orbit

“Enemy fleet is changing formation, Wraith cruisers incoming, total count is three hundred and sixty-five. The group at the L2 point has not moved….New contacts! Incoming cruisers launching darts, estimate total number as ninety thousand.”

Jellicoe’s unflappable mask slipped slightly at that. He had known about the expected numbers of course. But to actually hear that you had ninety thousand fighters closing on you? That was another matter entirely. And what was worse was the knowledge that this was barely half the Wraith’s total fighter strength. He looked over at one of his staff.

“Has the moon outpost identified the Wraith Flagship yet?”

This was another thing he had added to the plan; a small, remotely-operated outpost on the moon’s far side, directly underneath the Wraith fleet group that, presumably, held their commander. The outpost contained very powerful passive sensors and communications receivers; the intention being to identify which Hive Ship was being used as the flagship and then trigger the one hundred and fifty drones that had been placed their expressly to kill the Wraith leader.

“Not yet sir. There is a lot of signal traffic going on and a lot of it is psychic in nature which our sensors can barely pick up. They’ve narrowed it down to six possibilities at present.”

Jellicoe nodded and looked back at the display screen. The three huge groups of darts were just now passing the second mine layers while the cruiser formations were passing the first layers. He mentally computed speed and distance and highlighted the desired layers on his tactical display. He called out to the man who controlled the mines.

“Prepare to detonate mine layers Alpha and Bravo Two, Three and Four. Do not detonate Alpha or Bravo One. Detonate on my mark.”

The man nodded in understanding and entered the orders into his console. “Ready to detonate on your command Admiral!”

Jellicoe waited, silently counting to himself, and then: “Three, two, one, detonate!”

Out in space, six grids of nuclear mines activated. Three hundred naquada enhanced warheads detonated within milliseconds of each other into brilliant points of light and energy. The storm of radiation spread out, washing away darts by the thousand and cruisers by the dozen. The small darts simply evaporated, as did the cruisers closest to the blasts, while those cruisers further out died slower deaths; their hulls burned away and their own reactors compromised, they exploded in sympathetic detonations that added to the impressive light show.

At a stroke, Eighty-seven thousand darts and three hundred and thirty cruisers were annihilated. The surviving four thousand darts and thirty-five cruisers were stunned, temporarily blinded by the radiation storm they had barely escaped. But then they remembered their orders, even as the Wraith psychic network shuddered at so much death, the orders were repeated. Close on the enemy and ram them.

Jellicoe blinked. That was all it had taken, the winking of an eye, and a substantial portion of the Wraith fleet, and nearly half its fighters, were gone. He grinned.

“Nice work people, but the main targets are still to come.”

Wraith Flagship, Lantea-Moon L2 point

The High Queen staggered under the force of the psychic death screams of so many Wraith. She shook her head and by sheer force of will silenced the psychic network and hammered home her orders to the survivors of that first wave, what the humans of Earth would term “the forlorn hope.”

She knew the losses were in one sense appalling and in another, more important sense insignificant. Yes, her cruiser force was down to a third of what is had been just minutes ago, and half her fighters were gone, but her main force of eighty-two Hive Ships, and their own fighters was still intact and ready. More importantly, she had cleared out much of the enemy minefield without losing any capital ships. It was…satisfactory.

She sent out other commands, ordering the Hive ships in the other three groups to launch their own Darts and send them forward. The Hives themselves would close in, but slowly. This would hopefully help avoid any further traps and mines, but would add to the sense of impending doom as their death slowly bore down on the humans.

Her orders went out, and far below on the moon’s surface, the remote outpost narrowed down the Wraith Flagship to three possibilities. A few more major commands and they would have it confirmed.

Warstar Nemesis Fleet Operations Centre, Lantea Orbit

“New contacts! Hive Ships in Groups Two, Three and Four are launching darts, estimate count to be sixty thousand. Darts are closing in loose formation. Hive Ships in Groups Two, Three and Four are also closing but at low speed. The survivors of the first wave are still closing, now at one hundred thousand kilometres.”

Jellicoe picked up the intercom and pressed the button for CIC.

”CIC, Fireman here.” Commander Wallace answered.

“Fireman, Iron Duke. Launch Scimitars and Scythes. Scimitars will make ready for jump-shoot-jump against Hive Ships in Group Two, eight bombers per Hive.” He knew that would leave half that group untouched, but he would rather have ten definite kills than twenty wounded. “Scythes to assume defensive formation around the Task Force. All gunships are to have FTL’s spun up and escape jumps plotted, pilots are free to jump away once shields are down. No heroics, I want everyone to come back from this one.”

”Understood Admiral, Scythes launching now.” The line went dead. Jellicoe pressed a different button, this time for the Galactica; the Colonial flagship.

“Iron Duke for Greaser, priority one.”

”Iron Duke, Greaser, go ahead.”

“Your group will launch all Raptors ready for jump-shoot-jump against Group Three. Ten Raptors per Hive.” Again that would leave many Hives unhurt, but he had fewer Raptors than he did Scimitars, and while the Raptors were capable craft they couldn’t carry as many missiles as the heavier Terran bombers. So sixty Raptors would assault six Hive Ships, enough to dent them and hurt them.

”Copy that Iron Duke, readying for launch now. Greaser out.” Jellicoe was amused to note the pleasure in Saul Tigh’s tone. The man really was a determined old warhorse, eager to once again be in the fray.

He looked back at the display, noting that at their current speeds, the surviving darts and cruisers from the first wave would be in the kill zone for the fourth and fifth mine layers right when the second waves of darts reached the third layer. He grinned, the Wraith were being unexpectedly helpful in conniving at their own destruction.

“Prepare to detonate mine layers Charlie, Delta and Echo Two, Three and Four on my command.”

“Yes sir!”

“Now let’s see what other tricks we can pull. Signal all ships, ECM systems to full power. Comms to be by direct laser link from now. Signal the Asgard group and inform them of the same.”

The sensor operator called out. “First wave survivors now entering kill zones for layers Delta and Echo. Second-wave darts will reach Charlie kill zone in two minutes.”

Jellicoe cursed under his breath. The remains of the first wave had sped up so they would have cleared the minefield before the second wave was fully in the kill zone. He could detonate all three layers now and wipe out the first wave but leave most of the second wave intact, or he could wait, letting the four thousand darts and thirty-five cruisers in the first wave past the minefield and vaporise all of the reinforcements. Given the numbers it was an easy choice.

“Change of plans. Detonate Charlie Two, Three and Four once the second wave is fully committed. We’ll just have to deal with the survivors of the first wave ourselves. Signal the decoy platform, have them fire off their drones as soon as the cruisers are in range. All ships stand by for anti-fighter action.”

The two minutes passed and the sixty thousand darts of the second wave reached the kill zone. The command went out, and another one hundred and fifty nuclear mines detonated, immolating the entire reinforcement wave in one fell swoop. The flood of radiation and death combined with the powerful jammers on the human ships to create a sensor dead zone; the Wraith Hive Ships simply could not see what was going on around the planet.

But the humans could see. Four thousand darts and thirty-five cruisers still made for a powerful force, and it was now thirty seconds from maximum engagement range.


========

The battle begins. I promised you a lot of kabooms and I've just delivered, four hundred and fifty high-yield nukes! Ka-blam-o! as Homer might say.

The battle will continue soon.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Eye of the Storm
Task Force Nemesis, Lantea Orbit

A host of darts, four thousand strong, was approaching the Task Force. Ready to meet them were nearly fifteen hundred Vipers and Cobras and eighty Scythe gunships, which were being tested in combat for the first time. The gunships, collectively called Reaper Force and lead by Commander Wilson in Reaper-One, were lined up as outer pickets, ready to catch the first wave of darts and thin them out. They would let the darts through their line, right into the outer point-defence envelope of the Task Force and the waiting jaws of the Viper and Cobra squadrons, waiting in ambush around their home ships, hidden in the flood of powerful jamming. Then the Scythes would push forward to attack the cruiser force.

Wilson triggered his commlink. “All Reaper units, this is Reaper-One. Just like we practiced boys and girls. Turret guns to automatic and arm external missile pods. Charge turbolasers and make ready for strafing runs. Weapons free, cut them down!”

The Scythes were potent anti-fighter weapons. With a nose-mounted turbolaser and six twin laser turrets around the cylindrical hull, they were designed for exactly this situation. For this battle they also mounted a pair of external missile pods, the same as those carried by Scimitar bombers. Each pod contained twenty anti-fighter missiles and could be jettisoned once emptied, reducing the mass and the strain on the engines. They also had potent jamming systems of their own, enough to force the incoming Wraith pilots to attempt to target them visually rather than by sensor locks. The gunship’s own sensors were not impaired, their turret guns would let fly in fully-automatic mode.

“Steady boys, steady….enemy in range, all units, attack!” Wilson yelled over the comm, a note of triumph in his voice. He’d been building and training Reaper Force for months now, they’d show the Admiral what they could do!

Eighty gunships volley-fired their missile pods at once. The missiles were clever weapons and were deployed in fire-and-forget mode; each one picked its target before launch, carefully monitored by the fire control system to avoid doubling up on enemy fighters. Thirty-two hundred missiles spat forth in a huge swarm towards the inbound darts.

Exactly as the humans expected, the Wraith darts began to jink and spin to evade the missiles. The first rank began firing their own light plasma cannons blindly, aiming to destroy some of the missiles with the massed fire. They succeeded admirably, of the thirty-two hundred missiles launched, less than two thousand actually got close enough to detonate, and not all of those managed kills – some darts managed desperately sharp turns that saved them from immediate death but left them damaged, while other missiles failed to detonate properly, instead causing damage though momentum alone.

Now each of the Scythes had just under thirty targets and energy range had been reached. Without prompting, the six laser turrets began tracking darts and firing away as fast as the capacitors could charge. Pairs of laser bolts, equivalent to a Cobra’s armament, began ripping through the Wraith swarm. The darts were bled again, but now they could fire back. Plasma fire began to splash across the shields of the gunships and the pilots began their own evasive twists and turns.

First one, then a second gunship was trapped by dozens of darts and overwhelmed; their shields collapsed and before they could jump away their hulls were pierced and their crews burned. One of the pilots had just enough time to scream in pain and rage over the wireless as half his gunship was ripped away, before the cockpit section slammed into a stray dart, the impact destroying both.

Commander WIlson blinked back the fury in his eyes as he saw his planes die. He knew, intellectually at least, that losses were inevitable in such a fight. But to see a dozen people he’d trained with and lived with for months die so quickly, so randomly, still burned deep inside. He forced that fury back down into his heart; he could mourn later, he had enemies to kill now. He saw a split-second opportunity and triggered a three-round burst from his gunship’s turbolaser, the shots caught two darts and vaporised them completely. He grinned and pulled his ship into a tight turn. They had to stick to the plan.

“All Reaper units, Reaper One. Push forwards to the cruiser force, let the big boys have their fun with this lot.”

The gunships heeded his words and began to push themselves away from the planet and the fleet. They had bigger targets to hit now, but they had done their jobs admirably. Only fifteen hundred darts remained to try and penetrate the fleet’s point-defence screens and the Vipers and Cobras, now with even numbers, had yet to engage.

The gunships were now almost out of range of the darts behind them, though a few rear turrets continued firing right up until they left effective range, scoring a handful of further kills. Reaper Force had two minutes before they hit energy range for the cruisers, and there was much to do.

“Reaper Force, split into squadrons, each squadron will focus fire on one cruiser at a time. We’ll make one pass, then loop around and do it again on the way back to the fleet. Turret guns to automatic, let them strafe the bastards as we go.”

The gunships flew on. But behind them, the Wraith were entering energy range of the Task Force.

Warstar Nemesis

The massive ship was primed and ready. Her forward point defence mounts let fly at maximum range, a veritable hail of laser fire swept out towards the heavily-reduced dart swarm, joined by smaller storms of fire from the six Battlestars. Into this storm of death came fifteen hundred darts. They too opened fire, peppering the larger ships with light plasma fire. It was insignificant, trivial even, but to the Wraith it gave them reassurance that they were actively hitting the enemy.

Everywhere in the Wraith formation fighters died, caught by the red bolts of laser fire and blasted into pieces, torn in half, or simply melted into amorphous blobs of liquid metal that continued on a purely ballistic path. A hundred died in the first volley, a hundred more in the second, but by the third the darts were close enough that massed fire was no longer possible, the darts split up into groups and swarmed around the Battlestars and the Warstar, blazing away with their guns and forcing each ship to rely on her own point-defence mounts.

A dozen darts ramped up to full acceleration and slammed into the forward shields of the Warspite. Another twenty hit the Excalibur. The damage to the shields was minor, the damage to the ship’s fighting potential non-existent, but it confirmed the human’s fears; these really were kamikaze missions.

The Nemesisdid well for herself. Her two thousand point-defence mounts racked up an impressive tally of darts destroyed and no intentional kamikazes got through her screen, though some debris and destroyed darts did manage to glance the shields before being vaporised by the impact. The shields didn’t even glow as they absorbed the trivial amount of energy.

The fight was brutal and one-sided. The humans fought, the Wraith died. But this was just a taste of things to come.

Reaper Force

The gunships, no split up into four groups, were closing rapidly on the cruisers. The Wraith vessels had already been stripped of their darts and were left with only their anti-ship guns to fire back – as the Ancients had never used fighters the Wraith saw no need for point-defence weapons. This would hurt them dearly.

The gunships reached energy range and fired their turbolasers in three-round bursts. With twenty gunships firing on each cruiser, the effect was the same as if that cruiser were facing the flank batteries of a Lionheart-class Battlestar. Bolts impacted Wraith hulls and blew away parts of the armour. A few lucky shots struck and destroyed gun mounts; the resulting damage and secondary explosions causing yet more damage within the cruisers. The gunships continued closing and continued firing, even as Commander Wilson’s target began breaking up, gutted by explosions after a lucky burst touched off the fuel bunkers in the dart bays.

The thirty-one cruisers that weren’t being targeted opened up with a furious cannonade in an attempt to help their fellows, but this scored only a single kill before the gunships were too close and the cruisers had to watch their fire for fear of hitting friend rather than foe. Plasma bolts began striking Wraith hulls rather than gunship shields. One cruiser had manoeuvred unwisely, attempting to get a better shot at the gunships attacking its neighbouring vessel and blundered into a full salvo of plasma fire from a dozen other ships: the unexpected volley ripped into the ventral hull, gutting many compartments and destroying a number of critical components including the sublight drives and a secondary reactor.

The gunship’s original targets were by now all breaking up or burning wrecks and the Scythes had flashed past the formation, leaving five shattered hulks in their wake. The fifth ship was an unexpected bonus, but Wilson was furious. Another of his gunships had been destroyed by a lucky shot as they finished their run, bringing total loses to four ships so far. He led his force further out, in the general direction of the oncoming Hive Ships from Group Two. He briefly considered charging them as well but resisted that impulse. He pulled his gunship into a wide turn, the rest of the force following them. They would run back through the formation and withdraw to Nemesis.

That Task Force

Things were going much better for the big ships. The swarm of darts was an annoyance at best and the number of survivors was quickly dropping. The ships simply had too much experience with gunning down swarms of fighters, from the previous battles with the Wraith and their earlier war with the Cylons. When your enemy happened to be exactly the kind of threat your ships were built to annihilate, battles tended to go quite easily for you.

In Fleet Ops, Jellicoe looked in appreciation at the results of the gunship strike. Five dead cruisers, and another four or so on the return run, he expected. That would reduce that force by a quarter, enough to mitigate the inevitable damage to his ships from kamikaze cruisers. He decided to implement the next phase of his battle plan.

“All ships are free to engage cruisers with megalasers once range is reached. Tactical officers will coordinate to ensure no ship is doubled up.” The officers worked for a minute or so, picking targets. And then the enemy entered megalaser range.

Unfortunately, that was also the range at which hyperspace-ramming became viable.

The seven ships were lined up and as one, thirty-five megalasers opened up on nine targets. Most of the cruisers hit with this attack died instantly, but the one targeted by the Excalibur had just engaged its hyperdrive. This produced a curious and deadly effect.

The beams ripped through the ship right as it was leaping forwards towards the Battlestar. The cruiser was gutted, shredded, reduced to fragments. But those fragments kept moving. Instead of eliminating the threat, the megalaser volley had turned the cruiser into a hypervelocity shotgun round.

The fragments slammed into the forward shields of the Battlestar. The protective barriers held up against most of the impacts but the forward shields failed, letting the last few fragments through. They punched holes deep into the bow section, smashing the main battery and the forward shield generators and slaughtering two hundred men and women. The shock of the impact threw people off their feet throughout the ship and scrambled several key systems, most critically the FTL control systems.

On the flagship, Jellicoe turned at a frantic shout from one of the officers.

“Excalibur is hit! Shields down!”

The Admiral didn’t waste even a second. “Evacuate her, emergency protocol!”

Within the Warstar and the Battlestars, Asgard beaming systems that had been installed for just this purpose swung into action, reaching out to beam away as many of the crew as possible. It was always intended that damaged ships would jump away, but just in case this backup plan had been implemented to save as many of the crew as possible. The programming was very specific and rather heartless. It recognised that not everyone could be saved, so priority was given to the senior officers and senior enlisted, those whose experience was more vital to the Fleet than those who had only recently finished training.

The evacuation had barely begun when things spiraled out of control.

Another pair of cruisers, seeing their chance, likewise engaged their hyperdrives. One struck the already-damaged bow section while the second hit at an oblique angle amidships. The bow of the Battlestar was shattered into a thousand pieces while the second impact cut the ship in half, the entire starboard flight pod was ripped away as well and spiralled off down towards Lantea’s atmosphere. The main reactors tried to initiate an emergency shutdown but didn’t have enough time; they exploded spectacularly, utterly destroying the stern section of the once-proud ship.

Jellicoe looked away from the screen that showed an external camera view of the dying ship. His heart ached at the loss of the ship and so many of her irreplaceable crew. Cries of fury sounded on the wireless channels as the Battlestar’s pilots watched in impotent horror as their home was shattered.

The same officer who only five seconds earlier had announced the Battlestar was damaged spoke again, his voice flat and emotionless, his mind unable to process the situation.

“Excalibur is gone.”

========

Oooooo, cliffhanger. Will White Knight survive? Maybe. I told you this wouldn't be one-sided, and the main Wraith fleet isn't engaged yet!

[Sky Captain]

Yeah, Wraith are out for blood! Unless humans quickly identify a command Hive and destruction of it causes total chaos once the main force of Hives enter range they will have to jump away and hope ZPM blows as expected.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh yes I did promise this wouldn't be one-sided. Luckily the Asgard beaming systems give me the option of killing one or more Battlestars without (necessarily) killing the Captains we've come to know and care about.

The outpost and command Hive will continue to develop, as will the situation with the Task Force. Again, keep in mind that while staggering losses have been inflicted on the Wraith (150,000 darts and 346 cruisers) precisely none of their heavy elements are damaged or even engaged yet. They've still got 82 Hives, 120 cruisers and about 120,000 darts. And the humans just lost one of their twelve ships. Not good. Jellicoe told them a straight-up fight was unwinnable, but did they listen? Well, actually they did

Incidentally, which Battlestar to kill took a lot of pondering. While I may be able to save the Captain/XO/etc, which one to go boom was a difficult choice. Deciding which one died at Terra was easy - Fnord requested that Barham die so his characters could have a glorious last stand. No such luck or request here, so it's down to my own twisted imagining.

Oh, and I still haven't decided if the ZPM bomb will work as advertised. Oh and if anyone is wondering where the ZPM bomb idea came from, and the trap idea, I was inspired by one of NecronLord's old fanfics, The Undiscovered Galaxy, where it was Jim Kirk's idea.

[Sky Captain]

I think best solution to suicide cruiser attack would be to microjump few thousand km to throw off their aim and attack from different position. It would take some time for cruisers to kill off their existing vector, reverse course and again accelerate towards human ships for another attempt.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's a perfectly valid tactic, but it requires jump plotting very rapidly. And right now, they have more immediate things to devote their time too. While I'm trying to make both sides fight smart, neither side is going to get things 100% right, especially int he heat of the moment.

[fnord]

Damn, you're not only fond of a good banger but rough on the Flight I Lionhearts - out of three built, now only the class leader survives. At least White Knight has a (possibly slim) chance of getting out, unlike Breakdance.

Yes, I did ask for my namesake to go down swinging, and E_F made it good.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Like I said, choosing which Battlestar to go down was a tough choice. I didn't want to kill a Colonial ship because they've suffered enough in my story. That made it one of the three Terran Lionhearts, and I have other plans for Victorious and Republic.

Plus this saves me having to finally pick a motto for Excalibur! but her legacy will live on in other ships, and White Knight may survive. Coin toss and it ain't stopped spinning yet.

[fnord]

That's a long way to go to avoid having to pick a motto for the Excalibat.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It wasn't the deciding factor, but it helped.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Aftershocks

Shock.

Utter, absolute shock pervaded Fleet Ops. Dozens of officers and enlisted stood, slack-jawed, at the images on the main displays. The Battlestar Excalibur was gone, her bow section shattered, her stern section blasted into minute fragments by the incredible energies harnessed in her main reactors, her starboard flight pod tumbling down towards the planet and inevitable destruction.

One of the most powerful ships in known space, obliterated in seconds. Most of those present had been at Terra and had seen similar destruction before, but this was worse. When Barham had gone down, it had been part of a valiant last stand and most of her crew had escaped beforehand. When Galactica had fallen into the atmosphere the scene was sweetened by her near-miraculous survival. In both cases, the loss had been one seen at a distance, on sensor displays and scopes.

This was up close. This time there was little hope that most or even some of the crew had been saved. There had been no defiant build-up, no chance for the lost crew to realise their fates and accept it. There was no chance for the thousands of witnesses on the other ships to distance themselves emotionally in advance. This was a proud Battlestar and two and a half thousand crew vanishing in moments, right before their eyes. Some would later claim they had felt the Battlestar’s destruction as their own ship shuddered in sympathy.

Even as the battle staff continued to stare, the computer systems continued with their programming, beaming away as many as possible before the remains of the ship fell into the atmosphere and were ripped apart. A handful had been saved from the main ship before the end, more would be saved from the starboard pod, but the butcher’s bill would still be extreme.

Other systems kept working as well. The displays still showed the remaining cruisers closing in for their own suicide runs. One leaped forward and slammed into the Warstar’s forward shields. They withstood the impact and remained strong, but the impact shook the crew back into focus.

Jellicoe tore his eyes away from the display screen and shouted at his staff to get back to their posts.
They, and the rest of the Task Force, were saved from further damage by something everyone had forgotten about in the last tumultuous minute. The decoy platform below had fired off its massed drone salvo as soon as the cruisers entered range, and the two hundred drones were racing up into the Wraith formation even as Excalibur died and Nemesis was hammered.

The remaining Wraith cruisers were emboldened by the success of their fellows and closed in to press their attack, completely ignoring the incoming drones from the planet. The two hundred Ancient weapons tore into the remaining cruisers, phasing inside their hull, venting some of their destructive energy, then passing outside before looping around to do it again. The cruisers staggered under the damage and one after another they began exploding in rapid succession.

The commander of the last cruiser to die sent a final, desperate plea to his High Queen, still hiding safely out beyond the moon. He and all his fellows would die, but the High Queen would know what they had done.

Wraith Flagship, Lantea-Moon L2 Point

The High Queen smiled in delight as she processed the last images sent by the first wave. Yes the first wave, and the second for that matter, had been annihilated, but they had accomplished something amazing in destroying one of the human ships. It would be enough to stem the doubts that she knew were forming in the minds of some of her warriors, that these human ships were unbeatable and invincible. Now they knew better. Now they knew they could win, just as they had against the Enemy long ago. She looked at one of her commanders and issued her commands.

“Order the other groups to move in at full speed, crush the humans between our fleets. Bring our group around to the other side of the moon, I would see our final victory myself!”

The commander bowed in obedience and sent her orders. Down on the moon’s surface, unseen by the Wraith, the sensor outpost picked up those signals and put them through the analysis programs. With this and the earlier message from the first wave the computers finally had enough data to say, with 98% certainty which Hive Ship was the flagship. The programming was strict and was followed to the letter.

Concealed in the lunar dust, one hundred and fifty drones leaped up from their positions and stormed out at full power for the High Queen’s ship. The computers enacted their final command, setting the timer on the nuclear weapon that formed part of the outpost; it would detonate as soon as the drones reached minimum safe distance, Nothing would remain to be picked over by any Wraith survivors.

The High Queen’s commander had enough time to detect the incoming drones and realise what it meant before the warhead detonated, wiping away any trace of the outpost or what had launched the drones. He turned to his leader in a panic.

“My Queen! Lantean drones approaching from the moon’s surface!”

The High Queen’s victorious mood was shattered and she screamed in rage. She had raised her hand to strike down her clearly incompetent commander when the drones, as one, ripped into her ship. A hundred and fifty drones against a single Hive Ship was complete overkill, but Jellicoe wanted to be completely sure of a kill. The weapons raced through the hull, utterly unimpeded by the thick armour, vaporising systems and structural elements with equal effect.

The Wraith leader had staggered under the first impacts and knew she had to leave immediately. She turned and raced for the adjacent hanger and a dart that would beam her aboard and race off to a new ship. She got all of nine steps towards the hanger when a drone ripped through it, destroying the dart and moving forwards, by pure chance incinerating the High Queen as it went.

Her flagship survived her by mere moments. The damage was far too extensive to be controlled or repaired and three of the main generators exploded, consuming the Hive Ship in a colossal fireball. The destruction of the flagship and the death of the High Queen threw the Wraith fleet into confusion as a dozen lesser Queens decided that they should take over. They would need time to choose a new leader, but time was something they didn’t have.

The Task Force

The annihilation of the last of the first wave gave the Task Force vital breathing room. Power was diverted to the shields to bring them back to full strength and the crews took a moment to breathe deeply. Most of them, under the watchful eyes of their petty officers, consciously did not allow themselves to think about their fallen comrades. Some, however, had no way to avoid the issue.

In the hospital decks the handful of survivors were being attended to as needed. The loss of the Battlestar had been so quick that most of those beamed away were not injured at all, but some were, mostly the few rescued from the forward section in the brief moments between the shields collapsing and the cruiser’s crushing impact.

In Fleet Ops, Jellicoe took a deep breath. He forced his mind to focus on what was going on in the battle and worry about the rest later. He called for a status report. Several officers stood and he motioned for one to go first.

“Hive Ships in Groups Two, Three and Four are now accelerating to full, they’ll reach energy range in five minutes. Group One is beginning to move around from the moon’s farside but….” He was cut off by a shout from a different officer.

“Admiral! Lunar outpost reports Wraith Flagship identified and engaged, self-destruct engaged.”

Jellicoe grinned, the timing was perfect. “Bring up the long-range sensor feed.”

The Admiral and his staff watched on the computer-generated sensor picture as the High Queen’s ship exploded. The confusion in the Wraith fleet was immediately apparent.

“Incoming Hive Ships no longer accelerating, energy range now in twelve minutes, Group One has ceased manoeuvring!”

Jellicoe seized the moment. “Launch Scimitars and Raptors. Jump-shoot-jump on Groups Two and Three respectively. Signal Daedalus to join the Raptors and signal the Asgard to begin their run on Group Four. All small craft will jump to rally point after attack.”

The staff jumped to carry out the orders. Jellicoe turned to Captain Mace, who had stood waiting. He lowered his voice so no-one else would hear.

“What’s the count from Excalibur?”

“The computers report getting two hundred and fifty three off before it was too late, including White Knight, his XO and the CIC and some of the Engineering crews. No one else made it. I’ve no idea how many of those survivors are wounded, the hospital hasn’t reported in yet.”

Jellicoe sighed. He knew the numbers. Two hundred and fifty three survivors meant two thousand, two hundred and forty seven dead. At least the entire Air Wing had been launched already and had been well away from the big ship when she went down.

“Alan, bring her Air Wing aboard Nemesis and into the hangers, I want our landing decks clear for combat landings when we jump away.”

Mace nodded and moved off. Jellicoe looked back at the displays, noting that the Scimitars and Raptors had finished launching and were formed up ready to go, their movements shielded from the incoming Hive Ships by the powerful jamming that pervaded the area.

One of his staff spoke up again. “All Scimitar and Raptor squadrons report ready for jump-shoot-jump. Daedalus reports she’s ready for her attack run on Group Three and Tyr reports the Asgard are ready to attack Group Four.”

Jellicoe nodded. The Wraith’s confusion wouldn’t last long. It had to be now.

“Send to all Scimitar and Raptor squadrons, Daedalus and the Asgard: cleared to attack. Hit the bastards.”

========

-Shorter than usual, but I want to do the jump-shoot-jump and cavalry attacks in one big juicy battle post so I've split it off into separate parts
-Yeah, White Knight made it. He won't be unscathed though. Expect an "Interlude" from his POV at some point.

[LadyTevar]

nice tit for tat... they got Excalibur, but we got HER.

[fnord]

I'd be expecting Arthur to be psychologically affected, at very least - maybe a hefty dose of survivor guilt.

Looks like the Wraith have a similar weakness to what the murdertoasters showed over Terrra - chain of command at tactical level isn't that solid, especially after some clown blows up your admiral good.

The "I'm Spartacus! No, dammit, I'M Spartacus..." bit will help the human mob, but aforementioned ugly bags of mostly water can ill-afford to trade heavy ships one-for-one. Wonder how long until Nemesis starts giving 'em jingle-jangle?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I did consider calling this chapter "An Eye for an Eye" but "Aftershocks" felt better.

[fnord]

Speaking of which, what sort of air wing do Flight II Lionhearts embark, counting flight and ground (for want of a better term) crews?