Another brainstorm :
If Wraith ships are bio engineered, could it be possible to "weaken or kill" them with a virus/bacteria or a genetic bomb ?
Get a sample of wraith hull, see if it is susceptible to this kind of attack. Concoct a weaponized cocktail mix of all the bacterias, viruses and other nasty stuff the humans have ever devised ( Earth+Terra+Colonyes), there should be some interesting biowepons there...
If the bioweapons fail why not try and introduce "gene therapy " to the cruisers and hives.
If you can not kill the ship this way "per see" , at least its bio armor/hull could be eaten away. Less armor= less life = less laser hits per kill= fun for Humans ?
OK i get it that this kind of R'n'D would take a shitload of time and energy but it could have potential if the war drags on or the "hail mary" plan doesn't work+ you are employing experts from fields you do not necessarily need--> bio weapon division, genomics, pathogen and virus study etc..
The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Moderator: LadyTevar
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Tandrax218
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 184
- Joined: 2009-12-19 09:47am
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
That's actually a fairly good avenue to chase down, Tandrax - as you said, it doesn't strain the main-line strategic resources (such as weapons-grade naquada - wonder what a Kobolian battlewagon could pull off if it was running on stabilised naquadria?).
Nicking Captain Mace's boots again for a bit (he must be getting angry enough to start growing hair by now), I have to ask if such use, even if against Wraith kit and not Wraith themselves, will likely spur retaliation in kind?
The Wraith forces have shown themselves capable of getting ground troops into Atlantis itself despite Allied effforts - what happens if next time, they also bring a human-specific bioweapon and let rip into the life support? Perhaps while throwing some heavy ships at TF Nemesis to keep them away from Atlantis?
Nicking Captain Mace's boots again for a bit (he must be getting angry enough to start growing hair by now), I have to ask if such use, even if against Wraith kit and not Wraith themselves, will likely spur retaliation in kind?
The Wraith forces have shown themselves capable of getting ground troops into Atlantis itself despite Allied effforts - what happens if next time, they also bring a human-specific bioweapon and let rip into the life support? Perhaps while throwing some heavy ships at TF Nemesis to keep them away from Atlantis?
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Tandrax218
- Padawan Learner
- Posts: 184
- Joined: 2009-12-19 09:47am
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Well i was thinking more on this topic...
And since this a struggle for survival and not some war of conquest or resources where you want the enemy's infrastructure and work force left intact...
I think bio and chemical weapons of mass destruction should be used to max possible effect. Because this is a war of annihilation and genocide, there can be no peace....
So in that spirit letting loose some Plagues or agents is ok , but again human troops should have a bare minimum ob Chemical/ biological protection gear ..
Hell even humans purposely infected as suicide soldiers cold be used as a access vector for the bio weapon stuff
And since this a struggle for survival and not some war of conquest or resources where you want the enemy's infrastructure and work force left intact...
I think bio and chemical weapons of mass destruction should be used to max possible effect. Because this is a war of annihilation and genocide, there can be no peace....
So in that spirit letting loose some Plagues or agents is ok , but again human troops should have a bare minimum ob Chemical/ biological protection gear ..
Hell even humans purposely infected as suicide soldiers cold be used as a access vector for the bio weapon stuff
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
That basically describes the Hoffan Drug developed by a random planet in Atlantis' first season - made the person immune to feeding, killed the Wraith that tried....but had a 50% mortality rate amongst humans treated with it.
Anyways, as you will see here, there is a different plan:
Plans Rethought
A week had passed since the Task Force had ambushed the large Wraith fleet and courted disaster. They had returned to Atlantis, the crews on the two Asgard ships, the Warstar, the Excalibur and the Daedalus already hard at work shoring up what damage they had sustained. The mood on the ships was mixed. Most of the various crews were pragmatic enough to realise the war simply could not be an endless string of easy, bloodless victories, this was proof.
Despite that pragmatism, the crews also realised that this had still been a stunning victory. Almost all of the Hives and half the cruisers had been destroyed, at the cost of mild damage to five ships that could be easily repaired. Some diehard optimists were convinced this could continue, other equally diehard pessimists were convinced of the exact opposite and warned of the dangers of arrogance and complacency.
Their return to the base had found the Daniel Jackson absent, which elicited a brief amount of worry before O’Neill reassured them that Thor was off laying the first batch of sensor and navigation buoys at selected points around the Pegasus galaxy. Already the results were coming in, and the news was not good.
The initial data showed a major Wraith migration: every ship in sensor range was racing at full speed to a point on the far side of the galaxy. One did not need to be a master strategist to know what this meant, the Wraith were uniting and there was only one target that this appallingly powerful armada could possibly aim for: Atlantis, and through it Earth, Terra and the Milky Way. Billions upon billions of humans that the Wraith horde would descend upon and devour without care or mercy.
As the week progressed, the Daedalus, Samantha Carter and Teal’c of Chu’lak completed their repairs, received their own batches of sensor buoys and headed out on their assigned routes. The assorted exploration teams of the Atlantis Expedition, spearheaded by a recently-promoted Lt. Colonel Sheppard, were out visiting every inhabited world they knew of, spreading the word that the Wraith were massing and what this meant.
As the sensor net widened, they got a better picture of the Wraith assembly point. Even after only a week, fifty Hive ships and countless cruisers were assembled, with another forty Hives in transit in various groups. It was clear to everyone involved that if the huge force reached Atlantis they had no hope of victory, withdrawing from the Pegasus galaxy entirely would be their only viable option.
The need for a better plan saw Jellicoe gather a team of officers to generate what he termed “ideas crazy enough that they might just work.” Mindful of Captain Mace’s comments, the group included a strong Tau’ri presence: O’Neill, Carter, Jackson and McKay joined Davies, Wallace, Saul Tigh and Lee Adama in one of the many briefing rooms aboard the Nemesis.
The team divided their efforts into several areas; ideas and tactics to make their ships more effective, “big picture” ideas that bore a closer resemblance to lunacy than strategy, and the final, much-ridiculed “absolute last resort” set. All of these were written up on a series of huge marker boards that surrounded the room, whilst the table at the centre was littered with crumpled-up pieces of paper, empty coffee cups and wrappers from various confections.
On the eighth day after the Task Force had returned to Atlantis, Jellicoe got around to checking up on their progress. He’d left them to it for four days now, knowing that the crazy ideas he was hoping for would take a while to percolate. He walked in to find McKay and Carter having a highly technical discussion about modifying some weapon systems, Jackson appeared to be gently snoring while slumped over a star chart whilst the remainder of the group were gathered at the “big ideas” board, several tablets on hand, and Saul Tigh refuting one of O’Neill’s less than stellar suggestions:
“…you just can’t do that with FTL drives. Trying to jump nukes into Hive ships is a complete waste of time. The spatial distortion from jumping in will damage the target but the missile itself will get chewed up by the effect as well. Plus we don’t have drives small enough to fit on missiles, and we’re running short on the heavy warheads anyway.”
Jack, used to having his odder ideas dismissed for highly technical reasons, simply shrugged and went back to thinking. Some thought or idea was trying to make itself known to his consciousness, but it wasn’t done yet.
Jellicoe approached this group. “Progress?”
Saul, Lee, Davies and Wallace all saluted, but it was clear from how casual it was that they were tired. Saul, apparently elected spokesman, answered the Admiral.
“We’re getting some ideas Admiral but nothing big or crazy enough yet. The geeks over there have a plan to tweak with the superlaser, apparently vaporising Hive ships is inefficient, they want to see if they can increase rate of fire at the expense of power.”
Davies nodded at that. “It should be possible, and would certainly be nice. It’s our one definitively effective anti-Hive ship weapon. Other than that, the only thing we’ve come up with that would do any good is hitting some of the smaller Wraith groups still in transit to this meeting.”
Jellicoe smiled. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ve picked out three targets, two pairs of Hive ships plus cruiser escort and one group of four Hive ships. Three Battlestars will go after each pair while Nemesis will be gunning for the quartet. We’ve got to keep the pressure on these bastards and do as much damage as we can.”
Commander Wallace looked back at the boards and shook his head in disgust. “Ideally I’d like to suggest laying a trap for them, but we just don’t have anything powerful enough to catch them all at once.”
The rest of the group nodded while suddenly that idea exploded into Jack’s mind. “Actually, I have an idea. We’d need a spare solar system though.”
Saul expressed his shock that the Tau’ri had such powerful weapons, and hadn’t told them about it, loudly enough to both draw Carter and McKay’s attention and wake Daniel. All three walked over to join the larger group.
Everyone was looking expectantly at Jack. He didn’t disappoint. “Well, a few years back we sorta blew up a star to take out a large Goa’uld fleet, worked like a charm, apart from that whole “stranding us in another galaxy” thing.”
Sam buried her face in her hands. Everyone remembered that one thing, she couldn’t get away from it no matter what she said. Even Daniel managed to get people to shut up about his escapades, and he had come back from the dead three times, not counting various uses of a sarcophagus.
The Terran and Colonial officers were openly staring now. Finally, Lee found his voice.
“You blew up a sun? How?”
Carter answered, in a resigned tone. “About six years ago one of our teams was exploring an uninhabited world in a binary system that also contained a newly-formed black hole, something we didn’t know in advance. Due to time dilation effects the wormhole wouldn’t disconnect and the gravity field expanded into the SGC. We almost lost the base but fixed it in time. My father and I realised that we could use this against that Goa’uld fleet, we used a spare Stargate, dialled the black hole gate and flew our Stargate into the star. This swallowed up enough material to disturb the star’s equilibrium and cause a nova, which wiped out the Goa’uld fleet and all the planets in that system.”
The Terran and Colonial officers absorbed this with various degrees of shock, awe and admiration. Rodney, meanwhile, simply looked grumpy that Carter had outshone him again. Jellicoe was curious about something.
“What happened to your team on the planet around the black hole?”
“With some Asgard time-dilation technology and one of their ships, we were able to rescue them about six months ago. They weren’t too pleased about losing six years in the blink of an eye but they were at least alive,”
Wallace meanwhile was running this idea through his head.
“If we go with this idea to take out the entire Wraith fleet, then I see a problem. As soon as they saw the nova starting they’d jump to hyperspace and we’d waste a solar system for nothing. We’d have to jump our Task Force in and engage them to hold them in place, and that’s a suicide mission, never mind being caught in the nova or thrown Gods-know-where while jumping out. We can’t jump out sooner, they’d think we were up to something and move position anyway.”
Saul too was thinking. “So we need to set this up in a system the Wraith won’t want to leave, which means Atlantis, which means the plan still doesn’t work since they could still hyperspace away before the shock wave hits, and we lose the city anyway. Damn, I was frakkin’ hopeful for a second there.”
Jack couldn’t fault that logic, the only reason the original plan worked was because the Jaffa crews would never dare retreat unless Apophis had ordered it; the Wraith were certainly more intelligent than that.
Sam however, had thought of something else. “What about that tainted ZPM Camulus gave us?”
Jack and Daniel nodded thoughtfully, that was a much bigger and faster-acting blast than the Stargate-in-a-sun idea. Seeing the blank looks from the others, Sam explained the background.
“…so we were left with what looked like a fully-charged ZPM that if we tried using it would explode and take out a good chunk of a solar system in moments. Does that fit better?”
Wallace was thinking furiously. “It just might. We’re still left with having bait to draw in the Wraith though, and we can’t sacrifice Atlantis for that.”
Rodney, back into insufferable genius mode, finally spoke. “Why don’t we just move the city?”
Blank looks greeted that remark, so he explained. “The city is basically a giant spaceship, complete with a stardrive for interstellar or intergalactic travel. With only one ZPM we couldn’t go far but we should definitely be able to get to another nearby star system.”
Davies shook his head. “The Wraith wouldn’t stay in system long if they realised the city had gone elsewhere.”
Wallace had a thoughtful look on his face. “But what if they thought it was still here?”
Rodney immediately saw what the Commander meant, and had an idea ready. “An Asgard hologram, it would be a stretch but we could leave a holo-city behind to lure in the Wraith, then set off the tainted ZPM when they’re all in orbit.”
Saul felt compelled to play devil’s advocate. “And what will they think when they scan this city and see it’s an illusion? Or even just open fire on it and see their salvos pass straight through?”
Jack had a solution to that issue. “Sensor jammers, and maybe one of those city-shields you had on Terra.”
The plan had come together so quickly that Jellicoe felt compelled to summarise it, just to make sure it was right in his mind.
“So you’re all suggesting we move a frakking city to another planet, leave behind a holographic decoy of the same huge frakking city, cover it in sensor jammers and a Terran theatre shield to hold off the Wraith, then overload a super-duper Ancient power source and obliterate them? When I said “crazy ideas” I didn’t mean this crazy!”
Jack smirked. “Well when you put it like that John, it’s insane. But I can’t think of anything else big enough to deal with all the Wraith ships.”
Jellicoe nodded at the General. “Ok, forgive my scepticism, I think we can explore this further. Carter, McKay, I want you to get together with the superlaser crews and get those modifications you talked about started, then you’re all going to get a good night’s sleep, a solid meal…and definitely a shower. Meanwhile, I’ll contact Thor and Olympus Base to see if this insane idea is even feasible, thought we’ll probably need to send an Asgard ships back to Terra and Earth to gather the equipment needed. The Nemesis and the Battlestars will be leaving to ambush those three Wraith squadrons in sixteen hours. Well done everyone, now get out of here and cleaned up.”
Everyone else nodded or saluted as required and headed out. Jellicoe remained, running over the rough plan in his head. Yes, he thought, this just might work.
========
So there it is ladies and gents, The Ultimate Plan (TM). It's a combination of the Stargate/black hole/Supernova idea from SG1, the "make them think we're gone" plan from Atlantis early season 2, and the "Fly to another planet to escape" plan from the end of Atlantis season 3.
The tainted ZPM was introduced in SG1's season 8, "Zero Hour" (IIRC). Carter stated it would destroy the solar system, which makes me wonder why they never busted it out to use against the Ori in Season 9/10, or against the Asuran Replicators in season 4 (the black hole/nova idea would ahve worked equally well there too).
Now, it's going to take a while to pull together, and there's at least one more ambush/battle scene to occur before then, and the Fleet will have to engage the Wraith over pseudo-Atlantis to make it believable. And they may have to find more ZPM's, so this is not the end, yet, but we're moving along.
Anyways, as you will see here, there is a different plan:
Plans Rethought
A week had passed since the Task Force had ambushed the large Wraith fleet and courted disaster. They had returned to Atlantis, the crews on the two Asgard ships, the Warstar, the Excalibur and the Daedalus already hard at work shoring up what damage they had sustained. The mood on the ships was mixed. Most of the various crews were pragmatic enough to realise the war simply could not be an endless string of easy, bloodless victories, this was proof.
Despite that pragmatism, the crews also realised that this had still been a stunning victory. Almost all of the Hives and half the cruisers had been destroyed, at the cost of mild damage to five ships that could be easily repaired. Some diehard optimists were convinced this could continue, other equally diehard pessimists were convinced of the exact opposite and warned of the dangers of arrogance and complacency.
Their return to the base had found the Daniel Jackson absent, which elicited a brief amount of worry before O’Neill reassured them that Thor was off laying the first batch of sensor and navigation buoys at selected points around the Pegasus galaxy. Already the results were coming in, and the news was not good.
The initial data showed a major Wraith migration: every ship in sensor range was racing at full speed to a point on the far side of the galaxy. One did not need to be a master strategist to know what this meant, the Wraith were uniting and there was only one target that this appallingly powerful armada could possibly aim for: Atlantis, and through it Earth, Terra and the Milky Way. Billions upon billions of humans that the Wraith horde would descend upon and devour without care or mercy.
As the week progressed, the Daedalus, Samantha Carter and Teal’c of Chu’lak completed their repairs, received their own batches of sensor buoys and headed out on their assigned routes. The assorted exploration teams of the Atlantis Expedition, spearheaded by a recently-promoted Lt. Colonel Sheppard, were out visiting every inhabited world they knew of, spreading the word that the Wraith were massing and what this meant.
As the sensor net widened, they got a better picture of the Wraith assembly point. Even after only a week, fifty Hive ships and countless cruisers were assembled, with another forty Hives in transit in various groups. It was clear to everyone involved that if the huge force reached Atlantis they had no hope of victory, withdrawing from the Pegasus galaxy entirely would be their only viable option.
The need for a better plan saw Jellicoe gather a team of officers to generate what he termed “ideas crazy enough that they might just work.” Mindful of Captain Mace’s comments, the group included a strong Tau’ri presence: O’Neill, Carter, Jackson and McKay joined Davies, Wallace, Saul Tigh and Lee Adama in one of the many briefing rooms aboard the Nemesis.
The team divided their efforts into several areas; ideas and tactics to make their ships more effective, “big picture” ideas that bore a closer resemblance to lunacy than strategy, and the final, much-ridiculed “absolute last resort” set. All of these were written up on a series of huge marker boards that surrounded the room, whilst the table at the centre was littered with crumpled-up pieces of paper, empty coffee cups and wrappers from various confections.
On the eighth day after the Task Force had returned to Atlantis, Jellicoe got around to checking up on their progress. He’d left them to it for four days now, knowing that the crazy ideas he was hoping for would take a while to percolate. He walked in to find McKay and Carter having a highly technical discussion about modifying some weapon systems, Jackson appeared to be gently snoring while slumped over a star chart whilst the remainder of the group were gathered at the “big ideas” board, several tablets on hand, and Saul Tigh refuting one of O’Neill’s less than stellar suggestions:
“…you just can’t do that with FTL drives. Trying to jump nukes into Hive ships is a complete waste of time. The spatial distortion from jumping in will damage the target but the missile itself will get chewed up by the effect as well. Plus we don’t have drives small enough to fit on missiles, and we’re running short on the heavy warheads anyway.”
Jack, used to having his odder ideas dismissed for highly technical reasons, simply shrugged and went back to thinking. Some thought or idea was trying to make itself known to his consciousness, but it wasn’t done yet.
Jellicoe approached this group. “Progress?”
Saul, Lee, Davies and Wallace all saluted, but it was clear from how casual it was that they were tired. Saul, apparently elected spokesman, answered the Admiral.
“We’re getting some ideas Admiral but nothing big or crazy enough yet. The geeks over there have a plan to tweak with the superlaser, apparently vaporising Hive ships is inefficient, they want to see if they can increase rate of fire at the expense of power.”
Davies nodded at that. “It should be possible, and would certainly be nice. It’s our one definitively effective anti-Hive ship weapon. Other than that, the only thing we’ve come up with that would do any good is hitting some of the smaller Wraith groups still in transit to this meeting.”
Jellicoe smiled. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ve picked out three targets, two pairs of Hive ships plus cruiser escort and one group of four Hive ships. Three Battlestars will go after each pair while Nemesis will be gunning for the quartet. We’ve got to keep the pressure on these bastards and do as much damage as we can.”
Commander Wallace looked back at the boards and shook his head in disgust. “Ideally I’d like to suggest laying a trap for them, but we just don’t have anything powerful enough to catch them all at once.”
The rest of the group nodded while suddenly that idea exploded into Jack’s mind. “Actually, I have an idea. We’d need a spare solar system though.”
Saul expressed his shock that the Tau’ri had such powerful weapons, and hadn’t told them about it, loudly enough to both draw Carter and McKay’s attention and wake Daniel. All three walked over to join the larger group.
Everyone was looking expectantly at Jack. He didn’t disappoint. “Well, a few years back we sorta blew up a star to take out a large Goa’uld fleet, worked like a charm, apart from that whole “stranding us in another galaxy” thing.”
Sam buried her face in her hands. Everyone remembered that one thing, she couldn’t get away from it no matter what she said. Even Daniel managed to get people to shut up about his escapades, and he had come back from the dead three times, not counting various uses of a sarcophagus.
The Terran and Colonial officers were openly staring now. Finally, Lee found his voice.
“You blew up a sun? How?”
Carter answered, in a resigned tone. “About six years ago one of our teams was exploring an uninhabited world in a binary system that also contained a newly-formed black hole, something we didn’t know in advance. Due to time dilation effects the wormhole wouldn’t disconnect and the gravity field expanded into the SGC. We almost lost the base but fixed it in time. My father and I realised that we could use this against that Goa’uld fleet, we used a spare Stargate, dialled the black hole gate and flew our Stargate into the star. This swallowed up enough material to disturb the star’s equilibrium and cause a nova, which wiped out the Goa’uld fleet and all the planets in that system.”
The Terran and Colonial officers absorbed this with various degrees of shock, awe and admiration. Rodney, meanwhile, simply looked grumpy that Carter had outshone him again. Jellicoe was curious about something.
“What happened to your team on the planet around the black hole?”
“With some Asgard time-dilation technology and one of their ships, we were able to rescue them about six months ago. They weren’t too pleased about losing six years in the blink of an eye but they were at least alive,”
Wallace meanwhile was running this idea through his head.
“If we go with this idea to take out the entire Wraith fleet, then I see a problem. As soon as they saw the nova starting they’d jump to hyperspace and we’d waste a solar system for nothing. We’d have to jump our Task Force in and engage them to hold them in place, and that’s a suicide mission, never mind being caught in the nova or thrown Gods-know-where while jumping out. We can’t jump out sooner, they’d think we were up to something and move position anyway.”
Saul too was thinking. “So we need to set this up in a system the Wraith won’t want to leave, which means Atlantis, which means the plan still doesn’t work since they could still hyperspace away before the shock wave hits, and we lose the city anyway. Damn, I was frakkin’ hopeful for a second there.”
Jack couldn’t fault that logic, the only reason the original plan worked was because the Jaffa crews would never dare retreat unless Apophis had ordered it; the Wraith were certainly more intelligent than that.
Sam however, had thought of something else. “What about that tainted ZPM Camulus gave us?”
Jack and Daniel nodded thoughtfully, that was a much bigger and faster-acting blast than the Stargate-in-a-sun idea. Seeing the blank looks from the others, Sam explained the background.
“…so we were left with what looked like a fully-charged ZPM that if we tried using it would explode and take out a good chunk of a solar system in moments. Does that fit better?”
Wallace was thinking furiously. “It just might. We’re still left with having bait to draw in the Wraith though, and we can’t sacrifice Atlantis for that.”
Rodney, back into insufferable genius mode, finally spoke. “Why don’t we just move the city?”
Blank looks greeted that remark, so he explained. “The city is basically a giant spaceship, complete with a stardrive for interstellar or intergalactic travel. With only one ZPM we couldn’t go far but we should definitely be able to get to another nearby star system.”
Davies shook his head. “The Wraith wouldn’t stay in system long if they realised the city had gone elsewhere.”
Wallace had a thoughtful look on his face. “But what if they thought it was still here?”
Rodney immediately saw what the Commander meant, and had an idea ready. “An Asgard hologram, it would be a stretch but we could leave a holo-city behind to lure in the Wraith, then set off the tainted ZPM when they’re all in orbit.”
Saul felt compelled to play devil’s advocate. “And what will they think when they scan this city and see it’s an illusion? Or even just open fire on it and see their salvos pass straight through?”
Jack had a solution to that issue. “Sensor jammers, and maybe one of those city-shields you had on Terra.”
The plan had come together so quickly that Jellicoe felt compelled to summarise it, just to make sure it was right in his mind.
“So you’re all suggesting we move a frakking city to another planet, leave behind a holographic decoy of the same huge frakking city, cover it in sensor jammers and a Terran theatre shield to hold off the Wraith, then overload a super-duper Ancient power source and obliterate them? When I said “crazy ideas” I didn’t mean this crazy!”
Jack smirked. “Well when you put it like that John, it’s insane. But I can’t think of anything else big enough to deal with all the Wraith ships.”
Jellicoe nodded at the General. “Ok, forgive my scepticism, I think we can explore this further. Carter, McKay, I want you to get together with the superlaser crews and get those modifications you talked about started, then you’re all going to get a good night’s sleep, a solid meal…and definitely a shower. Meanwhile, I’ll contact Thor and Olympus Base to see if this insane idea is even feasible, thought we’ll probably need to send an Asgard ships back to Terra and Earth to gather the equipment needed. The Nemesis and the Battlestars will be leaving to ambush those three Wraith squadrons in sixteen hours. Well done everyone, now get out of here and cleaned up.”
Everyone else nodded or saluted as required and headed out. Jellicoe remained, running over the rough plan in his head. Yes, he thought, this just might work.
========
So there it is ladies and gents, The Ultimate Plan (TM). It's a combination of the Stargate/black hole/Supernova idea from SG1, the "make them think we're gone" plan from Atlantis early season 2, and the "Fly to another planet to escape" plan from the end of Atlantis season 3.
The tainted ZPM was introduced in SG1's season 8, "Zero Hour" (IIRC). Carter stated it would destroy the solar system, which makes me wonder why they never busted it out to use against the Ori in Season 9/10, or against the Asuran Replicators in season 4 (the black hole/nova idea would ahve worked equally well there too).
Now, it's going to take a while to pull together, and there's at least one more ambush/battle scene to occur before then, and the Fleet will have to engage the Wraith over pseudo-Atlantis to make it believable. And they may have to find more ZPM's, so this is not the end, yet, but we're moving along.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
-
Burak Gazan
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 1536
- Joined: 2002-12-30 07:45pm
- Location: Sault Ste Marie, Ontario
- Contact:
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Too Many THINGS to go wrong (tm) in this plan.... 
"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
And dammit, the Terran officer most suited to drop into the discussions of ka-fricking-boom is well-dispersed meat vapour somewhere near Terra.
We've had a back-at-Terra sideplot with Eridanus' salvage, what's going on back on third rock from Sol?
We've had a back-at-Terra sideplot with Eridanus' salvage, what's going on back on third rock from Sol?
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Which will make it great reading
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Trouble sleeping, so chucking this one in the pot for future mangling/reuse/awesome-making:
"Sir, our Tau'ri friends forgot to tell us they can blow up a star when really pushed." - Jellicoe, to the Moustache and the Old Man
"Sir, our Tau'ri friends forgot to tell us they can blow up a star when really pushed." - Jellicoe, to the Moustache and the Old Man
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Fnord, thats a good line, I will definitely use it somewhere.
As for what's going on on Sol-3, I honestly haven't given it much thought. I expect that things are continuing as normal, the Stargate is still a secret, they're busy building Odyssey and Korolev, and teams are still exploring. I dare say that the Terrans and the Asgard are contributing technology/designs to the two new 304's (though they'll probably be called 305's since they'll be basically a new class). I'll have to include some mention of it in the next Terra Interlude.
As for what's going on on Sol-3, I honestly haven't given it much thought. I expect that things are continuing as normal, the Stargate is still a secret, they're busy building Odyssey and Korolev, and teams are still exploring. I dare say that the Terrans and the Asgard are contributing technology/designs to the two new 304's (though they'll probably be called 305's since they'll be basically a new class). I'll have to include some mention of it in the next Terra Interlude.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Sky Captain
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 2008-11-14 12:47pm
- Location: Latvia
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
A simpler plan may also work - Rig a Puddle Jumper with remote control and ZPM bomb and use cloaked Asgard ship to infiltrate it into Wraith formation and set it to blow second after Asgard ship jumps away. If humans can calculate where Wraith fleet will take a hyperspace break they could lay a trap there and wouldn't have to wait till Wraith arrive at Atlantis.
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
That's good point, but I have an idea of how the Wraith will avoid such an issue.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
-
Sky Captain
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 2008-11-14 12:47pm
- Location: Latvia
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Wraith also could do something like split up their fleet into 2 groups. one goes to Atlantis, other is held in reserve. Ambush with ZPM bomb would only be partially successful. Half of Wraith fleet is more than enough to wipe out human force in a battle.
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Funnily enough, that is precisely what I had in mind, though I was going to have them split into 4 groups - they've got 90 Hives, so 22 ships per group is still way too much for the Task Force to handle, but also small enough that if the humans do pull an ambush, it's not a war-ending defeat.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Crazedwraith
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 11897
- Joined: 2003-04-10 03:45pm
- Location: Cheshire, England
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
I'm really behind so I've no idea if you're referring to something in particular but the Exodus trick would be really hard to pull off in Pegasus. Since you'd need to be able to 8 chevron dial the black hole world.
They can also escape the same Apophis did canonically if they've got good sensors.
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
That's why it got vetoed. The escaping part that is, the 8 chevron thing hadn't occurred to me.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
-
Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
LAter than planned, and longer too. You get a double-bill today ladies and gentleman (was supposed to be one post, but it was getting longer than my usual 2k word target so I split it).
Keeping Up Appearances
Task Force Nemesis elements, The Next Day
The various officers had indeed eaten, showered and slept after returning to their ships. Jellicoe had been right, they needed to keep up the pressure on the Wraith. The vampiric species may not be genetically disposed to feel fear, but the Colonial Admiral was determined to make a good effort to teach them the emotion. Once the ships were once again fully manned, the force split into three elements and headed out.
The Victorious, Excalibur and Republic would hit their targets first, a pair of Hive ships and five cruisers that were still a day away from the vast Wraith armada. Exactly as expected, the small Wraith force had dropped out of hyperspace to regenerate their hulls before the final flight to the meeting point. They had scarcely slowed to their sublight cruising speed when the three Battlestars appeared in flashes of light directly astern of them.
This was the perfect position for a devastating first strike. Attacking an enemy’s tail, where very few guns could fire in return. In a stroke of luck, and taking inspiration from fighter pilots since the dawn of flight, the Battlestars even had the system’s sun at their backs, its natural broad-spectrum emissions adding to the Terran ships’ powerful jammers and electronic warfare systems.
As one, the three Battlestars fire their main batteries. Twelve megalaser beams slammed into the unprotected engines of the nearer Hive ship. The shots did colossal damage, burning deep into the ship and utterly wrecking both the huge sublight thrusters and the delicate hyperdrive generators positioned forwards and below of the main drives. The ship was already crippled and effectively dead in space when the final beam managed to penetrate to one of the ship’s main naquada reactors, prompting a catastrophic overload.
The explosion caused by that eclipsed even the flashes of the engines being destroyed; the fireball consumed the entire aft third of the huge ship. Fires raged in the surviving forward sections even as all power was lost. The ship, now considerably reduced in size and definitely out of the fight, began listing forwards even as sections of the hull continued to burn and secondary explosions continued the ship’s destruction.
The sudden appearance and savagery of the Terran attack stunned the Wraith on the other ships. They had answered the call and studied the data included but nothing they had read prepared them for this kind of assault. That surprise and shock sealed the fate of two of the cruisers, they were already under fire from the Battlestars’ turbolaser batteries even as the larger Hive ship met its end. Too stunned to manoeuvre or even return fire, both vessels were quickly smashed into submission, their own hulls afire and their guns permanently silenced.
The second, undamaged Hive finally responded. It began a radical turn to port, aiming to get its own vulnerable engine section out of the line of fire and bring its heavy guns to bear. As soon as those guns could see the Battlestars they began sending streams of blue plasma fire at their enemies. The thought of retreat did not enter the Wraith commander’s mind until he was already committed to battle, and by then it was far too late.
The Terran shields were glowing blood-red as they absorbed the hellish energies launched at them, their own guns returned that energy and more as the turbolaser gunners blazed away at the second Hive ship. For the first time, the Battlestars were also launching fighters. All three ships managed full-deck launches in less than thirty seconds, and 480 Cobras formed up in twenty-plane squadrons ready to go hunting for Wraith darts.
Seeing this, and the small number of targets, the Hive ship’s commander naturally decided to launch his own darts in response and swarm them with targets. This proved his undoing, this commander was not as experienced or as intelligent as the Wraith Queen who had led that first force against Atlantis two weeks prior. He ordered all his darts to launch at once and did not try to roll his ship to shield the vulnerable Dart bays.
It was not a conscious or deliberate decision by the Terran gunners to aim for the bays, it was pure chance that saw a turbolaser volley from the Excalibur pass through the huge hanger doors right as they opened, vaporising the initial wave of darts and igniting the volatile fuels stored in the hanger decks. Fire and explosions quickly spread, fully-fuelled darts ready for launch exploded one after another like a chain of firecrackers. Maintenance bays were gutted as the conflagration spread, before finally one of the fuel bunkers detonated with enough force to breach the armoured hull, ripping a gaping wound in the Hive ship’s port side.
The three surviving cruisers were not having an easy time either. Their own darts were launched, but with the loss of half the Hive ship’s fighters they barely outnumbered the Cobras by two to one, far better odds than the human pilots were used to facing. The Cobra formations scattered, keeping well clear of the Battlestars’ fire lanes, before diving into the tightly clustered Wraith fighters.
Their initial pass was devastatingly effective. Rather than focusing on one target at a time, the Cobras simply charged through the dart swarm, firing their lasers as rapidly as possibly, not caring whether their shots hit or missed, or caused kills or mere scratches. The aim here was to cut down the numbers and break the Wraith formation, this was achieved with aplomb, the wireless channels being filled with victory calls as pilots saw the enemy break and scatter before them. In the background, another of the surviving cruisers flared and died, the victim of a coordinated turbolaser salvo from two Battlestars.
The Hive ship was in trouble and its crew knew it. They were trapped engaging three powerful vessels with only two cruisers a paltry few hundred darts for protection. The port side was heavily damaged and worse, the fires and explosions in the dart bays had disrupted the ship’s power systems, enough to render an escape to hyperspace impossible.
The Battlestars spread out now, moving to surround the huge bulk of the Hive. The big ship might have been bleeding but it still had teeth. The Wraith gunners recognised this manoeuvre as one designed to make the Hive split its fire. The Wraith gunners did not give the humans this satisfaction, instead every dorsal and starboard gun fired in unison at the Victorious.
The shields held up well, but against such an enemy, and having already endured a considerable amount of punishment, they could not hold for long. The starboard shields failed, and several volleys of plasma bolts slammed into her armour belt. The armour did its work, protecting the ship’s vitals and venting the energy it couldn’t absorb into the internal capacitors. But it was not the Hive ship’s guns that would inflict the first serious damage to a human ship since this war began.
A group of darts had seen their Hive struggling to survive, and also seen it focusing fire on one of the huge human ships. They broke off from the fighter furball and raced in, juking and jinking to avoid the Victorious’ point-defence fire. Most of them failed at this, and fewer than ten managed to break through the defensive screen right as the shields failed.
With their engines at full power, the darts slammed into the Battlestar’s starboard flight pod. Most of them did little more than shatter a few armour panels, but three impacts were more serious. One managed to miss the pod entirely and instead slammed into the starboard-midships pylon, by pure chance impacting near one of the main power feeds, shattering it and compromising power to the entire starboard pod. The turbolasers and point-defence lasers were reduced to firing on their own emergency power supplies, something that could not last for long.
A second dart managed to slam into the extreme aft end of the starboard landing deck, the resulting explosion not only tore up twenty metres of the landing deck, it wrecked two elevators and scattered debris across the entryway that returning Cobras had to use, greatly limiting the speed at which fighters could be recovered.
The third and final dart was aligned perfectly to fly down one of the Cobra launch tubes, smashing through the outer and inner airlock doors to explode deep in the starboard flight decks. The heavily-armoured bulkheads spread along the pod’s length stopped the damage from spreading, but fifty deck crew were killed or wounded in moments. Fortunately this was a Terran and not a Colonial Battlestar, and there was no flammable fuel or munitions in the hanger decks that might have added to the destruction. It was still a severe blow however.
Seeing Bad Wolf’s ship in obvious distress, Captain Garrett turned the Republic bow-on to the Hive ship and let fly with his main battery. He’d been carefully manoeuvring into this position for several minutes; his mega-lasers had an unimpeded shot at the already-damaged port side. With no armour in the way the four red beams burned deep into the ship, shattering components and vital systems with wild abandon. Fires spread, fuel supplies detonated, guns and power sources overloaded. The energy backlash was so severe that the starboard hyperdrive generator exploded in sympathy. This only encouraged Captain Pendragon, whose own main battery had just finished charging, to finish the big ship off.
A final four megalaser beams tore into the dying Hive ship, this time from below. They cut through the intervening decks to strike the main reactors, setting off a final cataclysmic explosion in the ship’s heart that ripped it into large fragments that were scattered far and wide.
The two remaining cruisers would not live much longer. They turned to run, only to find themselves directly in the gun sights of the wounded but still mighty Victorious. Her main battery split its fire, two beams each lashing out to shred each cruiser’s engines, leaving them adrift and easy targets for the turbolaser gunners.
Kate Stewart watched on her tactical display as the cruisers flashed and vanished, indicating they were dead or dying. The remainder of the darts were son cut down, the last twenty while making a suicide run on the Excalibur, they were felled by the point-defence guns before they even reached the shields.
She sighed and ordered a damage report, and for the Cobras to begin landing. She left it to her Flight Ops Officer to figure out how to do that with a damaged landing deck. The group would be leaving soon, heading back to Atlantis, but first she told her Comms Officer to open a subspace channel to Galactica, flagship of the Colonial Battlestars, to see how their raid had gone.
Saul Tigh quickly answered her call. His force had faced two Hives and only three cruisers, so they had had a somewhat easier time.
”Bad Wolf, Greaser. My targets are all gone, but the Warspite took a couple of heavy hits to her bows, she’ll have to pull back for repairs. Any word on how Iron Duke is doing?”
“Not yet Greaser, but I expect he’s doing well, that ship of his is too damn big to be stopped easily.”
Her comments were accurate, but the Wraith were certainly trying hard.
=======
Part 2 coming soon. This chapter and the next one show the human force starting to take damage and losses, this will continue. The damage sustained many be minimal now, but it still weapons the human ships and there was still 90 Hive ships to face in future. It's attrition, plain and simple.
Keeping Up Appearances
Task Force Nemesis elements, The Next Day
The various officers had indeed eaten, showered and slept after returning to their ships. Jellicoe had been right, they needed to keep up the pressure on the Wraith. The vampiric species may not be genetically disposed to feel fear, but the Colonial Admiral was determined to make a good effort to teach them the emotion. Once the ships were once again fully manned, the force split into three elements and headed out.
The Victorious, Excalibur and Republic would hit their targets first, a pair of Hive ships and five cruisers that were still a day away from the vast Wraith armada. Exactly as expected, the small Wraith force had dropped out of hyperspace to regenerate their hulls before the final flight to the meeting point. They had scarcely slowed to their sublight cruising speed when the three Battlestars appeared in flashes of light directly astern of them.
This was the perfect position for a devastating first strike. Attacking an enemy’s tail, where very few guns could fire in return. In a stroke of luck, and taking inspiration from fighter pilots since the dawn of flight, the Battlestars even had the system’s sun at their backs, its natural broad-spectrum emissions adding to the Terran ships’ powerful jammers and electronic warfare systems.
As one, the three Battlestars fire their main batteries. Twelve megalaser beams slammed into the unprotected engines of the nearer Hive ship. The shots did colossal damage, burning deep into the ship and utterly wrecking both the huge sublight thrusters and the delicate hyperdrive generators positioned forwards and below of the main drives. The ship was already crippled and effectively dead in space when the final beam managed to penetrate to one of the ship’s main naquada reactors, prompting a catastrophic overload.
The explosion caused by that eclipsed even the flashes of the engines being destroyed; the fireball consumed the entire aft third of the huge ship. Fires raged in the surviving forward sections even as all power was lost. The ship, now considerably reduced in size and definitely out of the fight, began listing forwards even as sections of the hull continued to burn and secondary explosions continued the ship’s destruction.
The sudden appearance and savagery of the Terran attack stunned the Wraith on the other ships. They had answered the call and studied the data included but nothing they had read prepared them for this kind of assault. That surprise and shock sealed the fate of two of the cruisers, they were already under fire from the Battlestars’ turbolaser batteries even as the larger Hive ship met its end. Too stunned to manoeuvre or even return fire, both vessels were quickly smashed into submission, their own hulls afire and their guns permanently silenced.
The second, undamaged Hive finally responded. It began a radical turn to port, aiming to get its own vulnerable engine section out of the line of fire and bring its heavy guns to bear. As soon as those guns could see the Battlestars they began sending streams of blue plasma fire at their enemies. The thought of retreat did not enter the Wraith commander’s mind until he was already committed to battle, and by then it was far too late.
The Terran shields were glowing blood-red as they absorbed the hellish energies launched at them, their own guns returned that energy and more as the turbolaser gunners blazed away at the second Hive ship. For the first time, the Battlestars were also launching fighters. All three ships managed full-deck launches in less than thirty seconds, and 480 Cobras formed up in twenty-plane squadrons ready to go hunting for Wraith darts.
Seeing this, and the small number of targets, the Hive ship’s commander naturally decided to launch his own darts in response and swarm them with targets. This proved his undoing, this commander was not as experienced or as intelligent as the Wraith Queen who had led that first force against Atlantis two weeks prior. He ordered all his darts to launch at once and did not try to roll his ship to shield the vulnerable Dart bays.
It was not a conscious or deliberate decision by the Terran gunners to aim for the bays, it was pure chance that saw a turbolaser volley from the Excalibur pass through the huge hanger doors right as they opened, vaporising the initial wave of darts and igniting the volatile fuels stored in the hanger decks. Fire and explosions quickly spread, fully-fuelled darts ready for launch exploded one after another like a chain of firecrackers. Maintenance bays were gutted as the conflagration spread, before finally one of the fuel bunkers detonated with enough force to breach the armoured hull, ripping a gaping wound in the Hive ship’s port side.
The three surviving cruisers were not having an easy time either. Their own darts were launched, but with the loss of half the Hive ship’s fighters they barely outnumbered the Cobras by two to one, far better odds than the human pilots were used to facing. The Cobra formations scattered, keeping well clear of the Battlestars’ fire lanes, before diving into the tightly clustered Wraith fighters.
Their initial pass was devastatingly effective. Rather than focusing on one target at a time, the Cobras simply charged through the dart swarm, firing their lasers as rapidly as possibly, not caring whether their shots hit or missed, or caused kills or mere scratches. The aim here was to cut down the numbers and break the Wraith formation, this was achieved with aplomb, the wireless channels being filled with victory calls as pilots saw the enemy break and scatter before them. In the background, another of the surviving cruisers flared and died, the victim of a coordinated turbolaser salvo from two Battlestars.
The Hive ship was in trouble and its crew knew it. They were trapped engaging three powerful vessels with only two cruisers a paltry few hundred darts for protection. The port side was heavily damaged and worse, the fires and explosions in the dart bays had disrupted the ship’s power systems, enough to render an escape to hyperspace impossible.
The Battlestars spread out now, moving to surround the huge bulk of the Hive. The big ship might have been bleeding but it still had teeth. The Wraith gunners recognised this manoeuvre as one designed to make the Hive split its fire. The Wraith gunners did not give the humans this satisfaction, instead every dorsal and starboard gun fired in unison at the Victorious.
The shields held up well, but against such an enemy, and having already endured a considerable amount of punishment, they could not hold for long. The starboard shields failed, and several volleys of plasma bolts slammed into her armour belt. The armour did its work, protecting the ship’s vitals and venting the energy it couldn’t absorb into the internal capacitors. But it was not the Hive ship’s guns that would inflict the first serious damage to a human ship since this war began.
A group of darts had seen their Hive struggling to survive, and also seen it focusing fire on one of the huge human ships. They broke off from the fighter furball and raced in, juking and jinking to avoid the Victorious’ point-defence fire. Most of them failed at this, and fewer than ten managed to break through the defensive screen right as the shields failed.
With their engines at full power, the darts slammed into the Battlestar’s starboard flight pod. Most of them did little more than shatter a few armour panels, but three impacts were more serious. One managed to miss the pod entirely and instead slammed into the starboard-midships pylon, by pure chance impacting near one of the main power feeds, shattering it and compromising power to the entire starboard pod. The turbolasers and point-defence lasers were reduced to firing on their own emergency power supplies, something that could not last for long.
A second dart managed to slam into the extreme aft end of the starboard landing deck, the resulting explosion not only tore up twenty metres of the landing deck, it wrecked two elevators and scattered debris across the entryway that returning Cobras had to use, greatly limiting the speed at which fighters could be recovered.
The third and final dart was aligned perfectly to fly down one of the Cobra launch tubes, smashing through the outer and inner airlock doors to explode deep in the starboard flight decks. The heavily-armoured bulkheads spread along the pod’s length stopped the damage from spreading, but fifty deck crew were killed or wounded in moments. Fortunately this was a Terran and not a Colonial Battlestar, and there was no flammable fuel or munitions in the hanger decks that might have added to the destruction. It was still a severe blow however.
Seeing Bad Wolf’s ship in obvious distress, Captain Garrett turned the Republic bow-on to the Hive ship and let fly with his main battery. He’d been carefully manoeuvring into this position for several minutes; his mega-lasers had an unimpeded shot at the already-damaged port side. With no armour in the way the four red beams burned deep into the ship, shattering components and vital systems with wild abandon. Fires spread, fuel supplies detonated, guns and power sources overloaded. The energy backlash was so severe that the starboard hyperdrive generator exploded in sympathy. This only encouraged Captain Pendragon, whose own main battery had just finished charging, to finish the big ship off.
A final four megalaser beams tore into the dying Hive ship, this time from below. They cut through the intervening decks to strike the main reactors, setting off a final cataclysmic explosion in the ship’s heart that ripped it into large fragments that were scattered far and wide.
The two remaining cruisers would not live much longer. They turned to run, only to find themselves directly in the gun sights of the wounded but still mighty Victorious. Her main battery split its fire, two beams each lashing out to shred each cruiser’s engines, leaving them adrift and easy targets for the turbolaser gunners.
Kate Stewart watched on her tactical display as the cruisers flashed and vanished, indicating they were dead or dying. The remainder of the darts were son cut down, the last twenty while making a suicide run on the Excalibur, they were felled by the point-defence guns before they even reached the shields.
She sighed and ordered a damage report, and for the Cobras to begin landing. She left it to her Flight Ops Officer to figure out how to do that with a damaged landing deck. The group would be leaving soon, heading back to Atlantis, but first she told her Comms Officer to open a subspace channel to Galactica, flagship of the Colonial Battlestars, to see how their raid had gone.
Saul Tigh quickly answered her call. His force had faced two Hives and only three cruisers, so they had had a somewhat easier time.
”Bad Wolf, Greaser. My targets are all gone, but the Warspite took a couple of heavy hits to her bows, she’ll have to pull back for repairs. Any word on how Iron Duke is doing?”
“Not yet Greaser, but I expect he’s doing well, that ship of his is too damn big to be stopped easily.”
Her comments were accurate, but the Wraith were certainly trying hard.
=======
Part 2 coming soon. This chapter and the next one show the human force starting to take damage and losses, this will continue. The damage sustained many be minimal now, but it still weapons the human ships and there was still 90 Hive ships to face in future. It's attrition, plain and simple.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
-
Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Shock Treatment
Warstar Nemesis, The Same Time
The huge ship had emerged from the distortion of her FTL jump already in a perfect position. It was well out of range of the guns on her targets, but her own main weapon could just reach the enemy. Carter and McKay had done the best they could, adjusting the energy yield on the superlaser downwards to improve rate of fire, but they had hit a snag. The weapon’s cooling systems could not handle more than three shots in rapid succession before failing, so even with the new three-minute charging time the Warstar would still need to close in to finish off the Wraith flotilla.
The Wraith ships had barely started to turn towards the vast human vessel, knowing that they own hyperdrives and hulls needed time to recover from the strains of hyperspace travel before they could escape, when the superlaser fired.
The effect was less spectacular than the normal instant vaporisation of the target, but it was nevertheless effective. The bright blue beam stabbed into the Hive ship, cutting deep into the organic hull before the ship erupted into a brilliant explosion. The other three ships gave no indication of retreat, instead completing their turns and firing their sublight drives at maximum possible power, pushing the thrusters well beyond sustainable limits.
The group of fifteen cruisers likewise turned towards the human ship and went to full thrust, but they had a different tactic in mind. They began rapidly charging their hyperdrives; attempting a jump so soon after dropping back to realspace would wreck the drives utterly, stranding the cruisers in an empty star system, but with the plan they had that was irrelevant.
The Wraith ships closed quickly, even as the superlaser charged rapidly for another shot. A second blue beam struck out, cutting one Hive ship cleanly in half along its centreline before the ship exploded into fragments and debris.
The cruisers’ charging drives had drawn the attention of the Warstar’s commanders. Davies was suspicious as the cruisers were far too distant for a hyperspace-ramming to work. To be safe he’d just ordered a change of course when the cruisers jumped.
They entered hyperspace as expected, only to drop out again within spitting distance of the Nemesis. They did not slow down. The first cruiser struck the Nemesis’ shields while travelling at approximately one-tenth of lightspeed. The huge vessel’s sudden change in course proved crucial as the cruiser only scored a glancing blow, ripping itself apart as it skimmed the Warstar’s dorsal shields.
A second cruiser likewise glanced its target, though in this case the human ships evasive action worked against it. The turn had pushed the stern section further to port than it had been, allowing the second cruiser to clip the aft shields whilst it too was shredded as vast amounts of kinetic energy were released by the impact.
In the ship’s CIC the crew staggered under the twin hammer-blows. Davies and Wallace barely had to time to regain their footing when a third cruiser slammed head-on into the forward shields. That impact sent more than a few crewmembers flying across their compartments to slam into bulkheads, including their Captain. Wallace staggered back to his feet in the midst of CIC, saw Davies was unconscious and took command, calling for a damage report. The Tactical Officer did not disappoint.
“Forward shields at ten percent, dorsal and aft shields at thirty. Internal shock damage has disabled the superlaser charging systems, we’ve only got enough power for one more shot. Shock damage has also reduced thrust on the main engines to fifty percent. The other twelve cruisers are opening fire.”
The surviving cruisers had indeed opened up on the Warstar with every gun. They also launched their darts in one massive swarm, three thousand strong. Worse still, the two remaining Hives were rapidly approaching engagement range. Wallace took all this in in a moment, realised what needed to be done and began shouting orders.
“Cut all power to the sublight drives and divert it to the shields. Bring all redundant generators to full power. Weapons, align us with a Hive ship and use that last superlaser charge. All other weapons fire at will. Begin charging FTL drives for jump to emergency coordinates.”
He had not even finished speaking when the deep thrum of the main sublight thrusters was silenced, to be replaced instead with another deep rumble as the countless weapon mounts on the ship cut loose.
The eight megalaser turrets doubled up to shatter four of the attacking cruisers, whilst the hundreds of turbolaser mounts likewise opened up, concentrating fire on two cruisers at a time. In moments, every port turbolaser had one unlucky cruiser bracketed and were firing at maximum rate; in three seconds a thousand turbolaser bolts ripped into the cruiser. They didn’t need to target vital components, this hellstorm of weapons fire literally chewed up the ship from bow to stern, in ten seconds there wasn’t a ship left and the portside guns switched to a different target.
The point-defence mounts, two thousand strong, had also opened up a furious cannonade into the Wraith darts that swarmed around her. Hundreds died, even as hundreds more evaded. Several of them were unlucky enough to be passing in front of the Warstar when the superlaser fired for the third and final time.
The blue beam erupted forth, not even remotely impeded by the five darts it vaporised on its way to its ultimate target, one of the closing Hive ships. The beam struck slightly off-centre on the bow, burning a hole clean through the entire starboard flank of the huge vessel before venting its energy deep within the organic hull. The explosion was likewise off-centre, focused in the aft-starboard section near the engines. It still destroyed the ship, but left several larger fragments than usual.
The Wraith now had a single Hive and six cruisers to face a damaged but still mighty Warstar. Whilst the FTLs were now charged, Wallace felt they had the upper hand and decided to finish the fight. With the bow shields now back to fifty percent strength, he ordered the main engines restarted and closed on the last Hive ship, aiming to bring his bow megalaser battery into range.
The Wraith could see their gamble had failed, even three suicidal cruisers had failed to breach the shields, and there was no other option but to go all in. Another pair of cruisers died to the dorsal megalaser turrets whilst a third was being shredded by the starboard turbolasers. The last three cruisers went to full power and ran straight at the enemy.
Their hyperdrives were wrecked so ramming at relativistic speeds was impossible; the relatively short run-up they had meant the impacts were far less punishing than they might have been. But when all three cruisers impacted in sequence on the still-weakened dorsal shields, it was still effective.
The first cruiser scored a direct hit on the shields amidships, the Wraith ship being shattered by the released energy drained the shields further and also blinded the targeting sensors. The second cruiser’s impact, five hundred metres aft of the first, brought the shields to the point of collapse.
The third and final cruiser salvoed all its forward weapons just before impact, the burst of plasma fire was the final straw and the dorsal shields finally collapsed. The Wraith cruiser struck a glancing blow to the upper-port flight pod, ripping away a portion of the armoured hull covering the upper landing deck, though fortunately causing no damage to the flight decks below, before striking the dorsal armour at an oblique angle just forward of the number-three dorsal megalaser turret.
The cruiser’s hull crumpled under the impact whilst the Warstar’s heavy armour held, at least initially. The Wraith vessel was reduced to a pile of scrap and wreckage that spread all along the upper hull, the pieces destroying a number of turbolaser turrets and point-defence mounts. The number-three megalaser turret was also wrecked, only the fact that it had only just fired prevented the huge capacitors from exploding with the impact.
Then the Wraith ships reactors detonated. The explosion unleashed a torrent of energy directly into the armour belt, and whilst it did its job the armour was breached in a half-dozen places, allowing spears of fire and fury to stab deep into the human ship. Most of the energy released by the exploding reactors was dispersed and re-radiated by the armour out into space, whilst some was channelled into the capacitor systems. This proved to be exactly what was needed to finish charging the twelve forward megalasers that had just reached firing range on the sole remaining target.
Commander Wallace, who had only managed to remain standing after the succession of powerful impacts by grabbing the plot table in a death grip, shouted for the forward battery to fire. Twelve beams stabbed out from the forward talon structures, blasting deep into the Hive ship, causing irreparable damage in the forward half of the hull. Fires raged throughout, setting off countless secondary explosions in weapon mounts and dart bays. The ships was dying but kept coming, determined to take the Nemesis with it.
She was denied her prize. The Warstar’s engines flared as her bow came around, the vessel moving with a surprising agility for a such a large ship. On her new course they continued closing the range but now the two ships would pass close to each other rather than colliding. As the two ships passed each other every gun on either side fired as fast as it could, but with the Hive dying and all its forward weapons destroyed, it was a losing battle. The brief exchange of broadsides completed the Wraith’s destruction whilst the Warstar’s port shields held. The Hive ship flared and died like its comrades had done and the Nemesis was once more alone.
In CIC Wallace let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He knew that the damage and casualties topside were his fault; he could have withdrawn safely minutes ago with only drained shields and shock damage. Instead, the big ship had taken a powerful hit, one that had noticeably reduced her overall firepower and would require repairs back at Styx Base to be made good.
His Tactical Officer gave the report, even as the CIC corpsman was tending to a now awake but groggy and unfocused Captain Davies.
“Dorsal shields are coming back up now. Multiple armour breaches between frames 650 and 720. Number three dorsal megalaser turret destroyed, twelve dorsal turbolasers and twenty two point defence mounts destroyed. Substantial armour breach over upper-port flight pod, upper landing deck exposed but no other damage. Casualty reports still coming in, but at least seventy killed and a hundred wounded. The hospital is on standby to receive casualties.”
Wallace looked vaguely sick at this. At least seventy people had died because he had gotten cocky and not pulled back when he could have done. Admiral Jellicoe would not be pleased. As if reading his mind, the doors to CIC opened and the Admiral walked in. He had a bandage on his forehead from when he’d fallen against the holo-display in Fleet Ops and an angry look on his face. He took in Wallace’s expression, then looked over and saw Davies still being attended to. He headed over there, to be informed by the corpsman that Davies had a severe concussion and was being taken to the hospital. The Admiral nodded and headed over to the ship’s XO, standing close to younger man and speaking in a low tone so no one else would hear.
“Before you say anything Commander, remember this. While in command, every life aboard this ship is your responsibility, as are any casualties. However, while you are responsible for them, that does not make those casualties your fault.”
“But I could have jumped away, avoided those impacts, stopped them from dying…” Jellicoe cut him off.
“You chose to finish a fight where you had the upper hand and the bad guys on the ropes. I would have made the same call had I been in command. I’m pretty sure Wayne will say the same once he’s back on his feet. You can’t second-guess command decisions in the light of hindsight, Phill, that way lies madness”
“Thank you Admiral. It’s just, no one has ever died under my command before…” The man looked almost lost, luckily none of the crew saw this.
“It’s not something that gets any easier Phill. Just remember what I said. Now though you need to put back on the Mask of Command and see to your ship, at least until Wayne gets back up here.”
Wallace nodded, took a deep breath and did exactly that. When he looked back up, his eyes were hard and his face showed no trace of the pain and doubts he had just privately expressed to the Admiral. It was into that brief silence that the Comms Officer broke in.
“Admiral, I have Bad Wold on priority channel for you.”
Jellicoe nodded. “Very well, I’ll take it in Fleet Ops. Commander Wallace, shore up the damage and get us back to Atlantis.”
Phill nodded and turned to give the orders. It was time to go home and see how the rest of their grand plan had worked.
========
A historic moment here everyone. Fir the first time, the Warstar Nemesis has had her shields and armour breached by enemy action, and taken her first casualties.
Next Time on The Thirteenth Tribe: The Ultimate Plan proceeds, a quirky engineer arrives, General Hammond balks at obliterating a star system again, Adama, Roslin and Lethbridge-Stewart give their own views, Commander Kirov continues getting the Eridanus back to Terra, and the Task Force licks it's wounds.
Warstar Nemesis, The Same Time
The huge ship had emerged from the distortion of her FTL jump already in a perfect position. It was well out of range of the guns on her targets, but her own main weapon could just reach the enemy. Carter and McKay had done the best they could, adjusting the energy yield on the superlaser downwards to improve rate of fire, but they had hit a snag. The weapon’s cooling systems could not handle more than three shots in rapid succession before failing, so even with the new three-minute charging time the Warstar would still need to close in to finish off the Wraith flotilla.
The Wraith ships had barely started to turn towards the vast human vessel, knowing that they own hyperdrives and hulls needed time to recover from the strains of hyperspace travel before they could escape, when the superlaser fired.
The effect was less spectacular than the normal instant vaporisation of the target, but it was nevertheless effective. The bright blue beam stabbed into the Hive ship, cutting deep into the organic hull before the ship erupted into a brilliant explosion. The other three ships gave no indication of retreat, instead completing their turns and firing their sublight drives at maximum possible power, pushing the thrusters well beyond sustainable limits.
The group of fifteen cruisers likewise turned towards the human ship and went to full thrust, but they had a different tactic in mind. They began rapidly charging their hyperdrives; attempting a jump so soon after dropping back to realspace would wreck the drives utterly, stranding the cruisers in an empty star system, but with the plan they had that was irrelevant.
The Wraith ships closed quickly, even as the superlaser charged rapidly for another shot. A second blue beam struck out, cutting one Hive ship cleanly in half along its centreline before the ship exploded into fragments and debris.
The cruisers’ charging drives had drawn the attention of the Warstar’s commanders. Davies was suspicious as the cruisers were far too distant for a hyperspace-ramming to work. To be safe he’d just ordered a change of course when the cruisers jumped.
They entered hyperspace as expected, only to drop out again within spitting distance of the Nemesis. They did not slow down. The first cruiser struck the Nemesis’ shields while travelling at approximately one-tenth of lightspeed. The huge vessel’s sudden change in course proved crucial as the cruiser only scored a glancing blow, ripping itself apart as it skimmed the Warstar’s dorsal shields.
A second cruiser likewise glanced its target, though in this case the human ships evasive action worked against it. The turn had pushed the stern section further to port than it had been, allowing the second cruiser to clip the aft shields whilst it too was shredded as vast amounts of kinetic energy were released by the impact.
In the ship’s CIC the crew staggered under the twin hammer-blows. Davies and Wallace barely had to time to regain their footing when a third cruiser slammed head-on into the forward shields. That impact sent more than a few crewmembers flying across their compartments to slam into bulkheads, including their Captain. Wallace staggered back to his feet in the midst of CIC, saw Davies was unconscious and took command, calling for a damage report. The Tactical Officer did not disappoint.
“Forward shields at ten percent, dorsal and aft shields at thirty. Internal shock damage has disabled the superlaser charging systems, we’ve only got enough power for one more shot. Shock damage has also reduced thrust on the main engines to fifty percent. The other twelve cruisers are opening fire.”
The surviving cruisers had indeed opened up on the Warstar with every gun. They also launched their darts in one massive swarm, three thousand strong. Worse still, the two remaining Hives were rapidly approaching engagement range. Wallace took all this in in a moment, realised what needed to be done and began shouting orders.
“Cut all power to the sublight drives and divert it to the shields. Bring all redundant generators to full power. Weapons, align us with a Hive ship and use that last superlaser charge. All other weapons fire at will. Begin charging FTL drives for jump to emergency coordinates.”
He had not even finished speaking when the deep thrum of the main sublight thrusters was silenced, to be replaced instead with another deep rumble as the countless weapon mounts on the ship cut loose.
The eight megalaser turrets doubled up to shatter four of the attacking cruisers, whilst the hundreds of turbolaser mounts likewise opened up, concentrating fire on two cruisers at a time. In moments, every port turbolaser had one unlucky cruiser bracketed and were firing at maximum rate; in three seconds a thousand turbolaser bolts ripped into the cruiser. They didn’t need to target vital components, this hellstorm of weapons fire literally chewed up the ship from bow to stern, in ten seconds there wasn’t a ship left and the portside guns switched to a different target.
The point-defence mounts, two thousand strong, had also opened up a furious cannonade into the Wraith darts that swarmed around her. Hundreds died, even as hundreds more evaded. Several of them were unlucky enough to be passing in front of the Warstar when the superlaser fired for the third and final time.
The blue beam erupted forth, not even remotely impeded by the five darts it vaporised on its way to its ultimate target, one of the closing Hive ships. The beam struck slightly off-centre on the bow, burning a hole clean through the entire starboard flank of the huge vessel before venting its energy deep within the organic hull. The explosion was likewise off-centre, focused in the aft-starboard section near the engines. It still destroyed the ship, but left several larger fragments than usual.
The Wraith now had a single Hive and six cruisers to face a damaged but still mighty Warstar. Whilst the FTLs were now charged, Wallace felt they had the upper hand and decided to finish the fight. With the bow shields now back to fifty percent strength, he ordered the main engines restarted and closed on the last Hive ship, aiming to bring his bow megalaser battery into range.
The Wraith could see their gamble had failed, even three suicidal cruisers had failed to breach the shields, and there was no other option but to go all in. Another pair of cruisers died to the dorsal megalaser turrets whilst a third was being shredded by the starboard turbolasers. The last three cruisers went to full power and ran straight at the enemy.
Their hyperdrives were wrecked so ramming at relativistic speeds was impossible; the relatively short run-up they had meant the impacts were far less punishing than they might have been. But when all three cruisers impacted in sequence on the still-weakened dorsal shields, it was still effective.
The first cruiser scored a direct hit on the shields amidships, the Wraith ship being shattered by the released energy drained the shields further and also blinded the targeting sensors. The second cruiser’s impact, five hundred metres aft of the first, brought the shields to the point of collapse.
The third and final cruiser salvoed all its forward weapons just before impact, the burst of plasma fire was the final straw and the dorsal shields finally collapsed. The Wraith cruiser struck a glancing blow to the upper-port flight pod, ripping away a portion of the armoured hull covering the upper landing deck, though fortunately causing no damage to the flight decks below, before striking the dorsal armour at an oblique angle just forward of the number-three dorsal megalaser turret.
The cruiser’s hull crumpled under the impact whilst the Warstar’s heavy armour held, at least initially. The Wraith vessel was reduced to a pile of scrap and wreckage that spread all along the upper hull, the pieces destroying a number of turbolaser turrets and point-defence mounts. The number-three megalaser turret was also wrecked, only the fact that it had only just fired prevented the huge capacitors from exploding with the impact.
Then the Wraith ships reactors detonated. The explosion unleashed a torrent of energy directly into the armour belt, and whilst it did its job the armour was breached in a half-dozen places, allowing spears of fire and fury to stab deep into the human ship. Most of the energy released by the exploding reactors was dispersed and re-radiated by the armour out into space, whilst some was channelled into the capacitor systems. This proved to be exactly what was needed to finish charging the twelve forward megalasers that had just reached firing range on the sole remaining target.
Commander Wallace, who had only managed to remain standing after the succession of powerful impacts by grabbing the plot table in a death grip, shouted for the forward battery to fire. Twelve beams stabbed out from the forward talon structures, blasting deep into the Hive ship, causing irreparable damage in the forward half of the hull. Fires raged throughout, setting off countless secondary explosions in weapon mounts and dart bays. The ships was dying but kept coming, determined to take the Nemesis with it.
She was denied her prize. The Warstar’s engines flared as her bow came around, the vessel moving with a surprising agility for a such a large ship. On her new course they continued closing the range but now the two ships would pass close to each other rather than colliding. As the two ships passed each other every gun on either side fired as fast as it could, but with the Hive dying and all its forward weapons destroyed, it was a losing battle. The brief exchange of broadsides completed the Wraith’s destruction whilst the Warstar’s port shields held. The Hive ship flared and died like its comrades had done and the Nemesis was once more alone.
In CIC Wallace let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He knew that the damage and casualties topside were his fault; he could have withdrawn safely minutes ago with only drained shields and shock damage. Instead, the big ship had taken a powerful hit, one that had noticeably reduced her overall firepower and would require repairs back at Styx Base to be made good.
His Tactical Officer gave the report, even as the CIC corpsman was tending to a now awake but groggy and unfocused Captain Davies.
“Dorsal shields are coming back up now. Multiple armour breaches between frames 650 and 720. Number three dorsal megalaser turret destroyed, twelve dorsal turbolasers and twenty two point defence mounts destroyed. Substantial armour breach over upper-port flight pod, upper landing deck exposed but no other damage. Casualty reports still coming in, but at least seventy killed and a hundred wounded. The hospital is on standby to receive casualties.”
Wallace looked vaguely sick at this. At least seventy people had died because he had gotten cocky and not pulled back when he could have done. Admiral Jellicoe would not be pleased. As if reading his mind, the doors to CIC opened and the Admiral walked in. He had a bandage on his forehead from when he’d fallen against the holo-display in Fleet Ops and an angry look on his face. He took in Wallace’s expression, then looked over and saw Davies still being attended to. He headed over there, to be informed by the corpsman that Davies had a severe concussion and was being taken to the hospital. The Admiral nodded and headed over to the ship’s XO, standing close to younger man and speaking in a low tone so no one else would hear.
“Before you say anything Commander, remember this. While in command, every life aboard this ship is your responsibility, as are any casualties. However, while you are responsible for them, that does not make those casualties your fault.”
“But I could have jumped away, avoided those impacts, stopped them from dying…” Jellicoe cut him off.
“You chose to finish a fight where you had the upper hand and the bad guys on the ropes. I would have made the same call had I been in command. I’m pretty sure Wayne will say the same once he’s back on his feet. You can’t second-guess command decisions in the light of hindsight, Phill, that way lies madness”
“Thank you Admiral. It’s just, no one has ever died under my command before…” The man looked almost lost, luckily none of the crew saw this.
“It’s not something that gets any easier Phill. Just remember what I said. Now though you need to put back on the Mask of Command and see to your ship, at least until Wayne gets back up here.”
Wallace nodded, took a deep breath and did exactly that. When he looked back up, his eyes were hard and his face showed no trace of the pain and doubts he had just privately expressed to the Admiral. It was into that brief silence that the Comms Officer broke in.
“Admiral, I have Bad Wold on priority channel for you.”
Jellicoe nodded. “Very well, I’ll take it in Fleet Ops. Commander Wallace, shore up the damage and get us back to Atlantis.”
Phill nodded and turned to give the orders. It was time to go home and see how the rest of their grand plan had worked.
========
A historic moment here everyone. Fir the first time, the Warstar Nemesis has had her shields and armour breached by enemy action, and taken her first casualties.
Next Time on The Thirteenth Tribe: The Ultimate Plan proceeds, a quirky engineer arrives, General Hammond balks at obliterating a star system again, Adama, Roslin and Lethbridge-Stewart give their own views, Commander Kirov continues getting the Eridanus back to Terra, and the Task Force licks it's wounds.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Yeowch. One hell of a baptism of fire for Fireman.
I'll plow thru the spelling and grammar fixups when I'm more awake.
I'll plow thru the spelling and grammar fixups when I'm more awake.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Don't worry about the typos, I've already fixed them in my master version but it's too late to edit them.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
One really dumb question - in that first part, you said it was an all-Terran show - so how did Warspite get banged up in that fight? From the text, the only Terran ship to suffer notable damage in that barney was Victorious.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Damn, misread. Thought it was Stewart saying it, not Old Chrome Dome.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
The three Colonial ships were, as stated in a previous chapter, off raiding a different group of Wraith ships.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
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Sky Captain
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1267
- Joined: 2008-11-14 12:47pm
- Location: Latvia
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
Finally Wraith manage to wreck some human hardware. Stargate is going to be busy in Atlantis and Olympus base sending parts to fix everything that can be fixed in the field.
Wallace should have done a tactical micro jump not to retreat, but to reposition and evade last three suicide cruisers.
Wallace should have done a tactical micro jump not to retreat, but to reposition and evade last three suicide cruisers.
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Eternal_Freedom
- Castellan
- Posts: 10380
- Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
- Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
That's true, but like I had Jellicoe tell him, hindsight is a bitch. I wrote this as a mistake on his part, quite deliberately.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Re: The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)
However, Fireman is now rather unlikely to forget the lesson.
He's also in some ways both a beneficiary, and victim, of circumstance - if Barham had survived the Wild Ride, he'd probably still be assigned to her crew (as either second officer, IIRC his original assignment, or first officer), and have more time to play himself in - and thus wouldn't be the Warstar's XO. As that didn't happen, and his old ship selfishly insists on remaining a well-dispersed cloud of vapour and debris, he's chucked into the sharp end.
To some extent, it looks like "better lucky than good" is in play. Moustache et al can train good - I'm not sure if they know how to train lucky.
He's also in some ways both a beneficiary, and victim, of circumstance - if Barham had survived the Wild Ride, he'd probably still be assigned to her crew (as either second officer, IIRC his original assignment, or first officer), and have more time to play himself in - and thus wouldn't be the Warstar's XO. As that didn't happen, and his old ship selfishly insists on remaining a well-dispersed cloud of vapour and debris, he's chucked into the sharp end.
To some extent, it looks like "better lucky than good" is in play. Moustache et al can train good - I'm not sure if they know how to train lucky.
A mad person thinks there's a gateway to hell in his basement. A mad genius builds one and turns it on. - CaptainChewbacca