The rest of the System Lords are increasing their pace, the sensor operator reported urgently. Theyll be in range within three minutes!
Apophis must have been on that ship, Nekhrun noted. The damned harpies were hanging back until Id killed him for them. Thats rather insulting of them. At that moment the Leonidas opened fire on the two Hatak that had been harrying the Dilios. Without the Confederate cruiser to shelter behind, the pair were swiftly speared by the twin broadsides of the destroyer, battering viciously at their shields. The result wasnt as swift as the initial alph strike that Fumizuki had carried out, but even so the two ships shields collapsed under the brutal impact, the weapons fire digging deep into their hulls.
Insulting? Shakuntala asked.
They thought that he was more dangerous to them than I am, Nekhrun pointed out. That may be tactically advantageous but my ego is bleeding out here. The Tokra may claim that they turned against the other Goauld for ethical reasons, I just did it because theyre so stupid.
He turned to the fleet operations. Have Stelios and Astinos pull back to supporting positions. I dont want them getting seperated when the main force arrives. He paused and glanced at the four Hatak still in the immediate area. And please feel free to get rid of those four, any time now.
A firestorm of firepower swept across four Hatak as the cannon of all five surviving Confederacy ships were brought into play. One of the ships exploded as the Leonidas focused upon it, a second started to drift, fires raping its engines after both of the two carriers and the Stelios focused their firepower upon it. The other two scurried back out of range, their surviving Death Gliders joining the swarms approaching from the rest of the fleet.
They lost eleven ships taking down the Dilios, Daniel asked quietly. At this point they have to be wondering if theyd rather go home and start picking off Heru-ur and Apophis territory.
Shakuntala sighed. That would be truly good. But my home is a rich prize, richer than any ten of the worlds they could scoop up. And Apophis damaged the Stelios and Astinos as well. They still have more than fifty ships, enough to pin the carriers and cruisers with half a dozen ships each and leave more than twenty to take down the Leonidas. Even these ships cant survive against those sort of numbers.
The false gods are sending their Death Gliders forwards, Tealc observed.
Probably want to clear a path for their ships, theorised Nekhrun. I dont know about you, Princess, but I dont believe that we should accommodate their wishes on this matter.
Shakuntala smiled, Speaking on behalf of my father, I believe a warm welcome is in order. May I have your permission to extend such a welcome?
Get our fighters clear! Nekhrun snapped to the fighter control officer and then bowed to Shakuntala. By all means take the lead, my dear.
The princess picked up a headset. Put me through to the Planetary Defense Centre, she ordered and paused. Major, this is Lieutenant Colonel the Princess Shakuntala. You should have received notification placing the orbital platforms under the command of Admiral Ayodhya. He now wishes to employ them. She waited a moment more for authorisation and then nodded. Thank you major.
Angrezi Planetary Defense are removing the final firing locks from their orbital platforms, sir, one of the gunnery officers reported. We have fire control and the targetting solutions are locked.
Princess Shakuntala, the Goauld said pleasently. I do believe that it would be most fitting for you to give the word.
Send them to hell, she snapped.
.oOo.
Whats Nekhrun up to? Jack muttered as Mongoose Flight joined the other fighters scambling away from the incoming mass of Death Gliders. He wasnt unhappy to be out of the scrum the X-Wings werent the death traps against Death Gliders that they might have been against Vipers but the numbers involved were daunting. Hes got to be up to something.
Sam looked at her instruments. Sir, Im picking up movement in Angrezis lower orbit.
Hes sending up reinforcements? asked Jack.
No sir, it looks like. She paused. Sir, a number of satellites are manuvering.
Satellites? What, are we screwing with their TV reception or something?
I dont think these are communication satellites, sir, Sam warned him. I really wish Id had more time to look at these sensor syste- She broke off suddenly.
Carter?
Sir, Im getting a radiological readout from the satellites.
Radio-logical? Signals from Vulcan? Jack asked, but he was bringing his X-Wing around to get a closer look at the satellites.
Nuclear, sir, she said exasperatedly. Those satellites are packed with nuclear weapons. And if theyre manuvering
Then theyre about to launch, Jack agreed. I wonder how big they are.
Not very big, Sam told him. Not even as big as the ones used on Hiroshima. But there are an awful lot of them and Theyre launching!
Despite being the best that the Angrezi had been able to manage without obtaining access to Confederate technology, the missiles being launched didnt have a lot of reach, not being able to reach far past the high orbit of the current battlefield and maintain acceptable accuracy. They had just enough but, as Sam had noted, there were a very great number of them. In fact, each satellite had been built around four tubes, each containing twelve five-kiloton missiles and once the light propellant charges had boosted one missile free, a second would be only a few seconds behind them. The entire firing process lasted for almost a minute and virtually guarenteed that the firing platform would fall out of orbit over the following weeks.
But in the space of that minute, very nearly one hundred platforms, more than a third of the entire network, fired off over four and a half thousand nuclear-tipped missiles towards the oncoming Death Gliders. The next stage of the battle took more than six minutes to play out but to the Jaffa pilots it felt more like six seconds.
To Jack ONeil it felt like six hours.
The flock Hatak had halted their advance, their commanders wanting to see what the missiles were supposed to accomplish before deciding on a response. If the missiles were a threat then it would be relatively simple to slip into hyperspace before they arrived and return to the system on another attack vector. If they werent, then what would a few minutes matter? The Death Gliders, for their part, moved to target the oncoming missiles. They didnt have much mobility so it was merely a matter of hitting them. Initially the range was enough that shots were hitting only chance and the number of missiles was reduced by only a miniscule percentage. But the range was dropping rapidly and their accuracy was improving.
And then, still thousands of miles short of the Death Gliders, the missiles seemed to reach an invisible line in space and rank after rank of them began to detonate.
Jacks cockpit darkened and half-forgotten training had him roll the X-Wing so that the bulk of the fighter was between him and that awesome light. A mass of static crashed across the communications net and he hoped that those nukes hadnt been set up to deliver an electromagnetic pulse or something of that nature, because he was pretty sure that the X-Wing wasnt going to fly without computers.
-ible, he heard Sam shouting as the static faded. How in the world did they do that?
Do what? he asked, rolling again to get a look. Holy what the hell happened to the Death Gliders?
Those missiles must have been carrying bomb-pumped X-ray lasers, sir, she explained quickly. Like the ones that were supposed to form the backbone of the Star Wars project back in the eighties.
There was a Star Wars project in the eighties?
He could almost see her roll her eyes. The Strategic Defense Initiative, sir. It was going to use nuclear warheads to power orbital lasers that would be able to target incoming nuclear missiles. They never got it anything close to working, I guess the Angrezi must have. Look what it did to the Death Gliders!
Where thousands of Death Gliders had been swarming towards the blue and green orb of Angrezi, only a few dozen survivors, perhaps a hundred, were trying to claw their away from the graveyard of obliterated fighters that their fellows had become. Already Viper squadrons were diving towards them, intent on finishing the job.
Jack felt very old all of a sudden. Yeah, he said. I see it.
.oOo.
Would that do anything to the Hatak? Daniel asked.
Not really, Nekhrun told him. Warship shields can take that sort of beating and the individual laser beams generated really arent all that powerful. A single Hatak might be in trouble against that sort of strike but the Angrezi just used about a third of their missiles for that one attack and the others are out of arc to fire on them anyway. Still, getting rid of the Death Gliders definitely improves our chances itll be a lot easier for our X-Wings and Skiprays to operate now.
So what happens now?
Now its time for the main event, explained Nekhrun. Captain Fumizuki, I want all ships to combine their fire. Target flagships if you can. We need to drop them fast so hold nothing back.
Gunnery nets are interlinked and ready, the Captain told him. Their countermeasures are keeping us from picking out the command vessels however.
Then I suppose we take our chances, the Admiral decided and seated himself in the command chair. I suggest you all strap yourselves in, he added to the observers. This will be one wild ride.
Daniel and Shakuntala both secured seats for themselves and buckled up. Tealc simply gripped a stanchion in what could have been machisimo but was more probably simply well justified confidence in his ability to avoid being thrown about by the shocks of combat. Down in the front of the command deck, Harjit also remained standing.
Nekhrun shook his head when Daniel pointed this out to him. Shes over two hundred years old, Doctor. If she wants to put her life at risk I guess I dont have the right to force her.
The first Hatak came into range and the five ships, arranged so that all their turrets could bear, opened fire in the same instant. One moment the ship was a flying example of the might of the System Lords might and the next it was an expanding cloud of debris. In the same moment, three more Hatak cruised past the wreck with their own weapons firing. Clearly the Goauld had drawn up some sort of plan as they were all firing at the Leonidas, their shots exploding against her shields.
Another volley dropped one of the ships, then another but now there were six ships, all firing on the Leonidas and the ship was shaking under the barrage.
Drop us out of the net, Nekhrun observed. This isnt working. Lets hope that the other ships can take their target down as fast as the our guns can.
A Hatak near the back of the Goauld formation exploded as it was savaged by torpedo boats and X-Wings but that was a sideshow as the Leonidas didnt even bother to stop firing as the turrets tracked from one target to another. One Hatak, its shields collapsing under the barest second of shots limped out of formation presumably someone had skimped on the shield generators when they were building it in order to bolster their apparent fleet numbers. But that was only a fluke and within moments the first shot penetrated the Leonidass shields to blacken its previously pristine white hull.
Theyre spreading out to englobe us, Fumizuki muttered. Not very well co-ordinated but itll work.
The only thing better than a little brute force is a lot of brute force, Nekhrun reminded him. Thats elementary tactics. The bulk of them are still up front.
Sparta is moving! a sensor operator called.
Nekhruns head snapped around. I didnt order that! he growled.
Message from Captain Knaak, an operations officer reported. He says - Leonidas shook again as a shot punched a divot out of its clean lines - that hell shield us from the front while we clear out the flankers.
Fumizuki nodded. Colonel Maybourne, roll the ship! Main batteries, fire as you bear!
Nekhrun half-opened his mouth to speak and then closed it, an unhappy look on his face.
Stelios, Astinos and Thermoplyae are also moving forwards, reported the operations officer.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Apophis must have been on that ship, Nekhrun noted. The damned harpies were hanging back until Id killed him for them. Thats rather insulting of them. At that moment the Leonidas opened fire on the two Hatak that had been harrying the Dilios. Without the Confederate cruiser to shelter behind, the pair were swiftly speared by the twin broadsides of the destroyer, battering viciously at their shields. The result wasnt as swift as the initial alph strike that Fumizuki had carried out, but even so the two ships shields collapsed under the brutal impact, the weapons fire digging deep into their hulls.
Insulting? Shakuntala asked.
They thought that he was more dangerous to them than I am, Nekhrun pointed out. That may be tactically advantageous but my ego is bleeding out here. The Tokra may claim that they turned against the other Goauld for ethical reasons, I just did it because theyre so stupid.
He turned to the fleet operations. Have Stelios and Astinos pull back to supporting positions. I dont want them getting seperated when the main force arrives. He paused and glanced at the four Hatak still in the immediate area. And please feel free to get rid of those four, any time now.
A firestorm of firepower swept across four Hatak as the cannon of all five surviving Confederacy ships were brought into play. One of the ships exploded as the Leonidas focused upon it, a second started to drift, fires raping its engines after both of the two carriers and the Stelios focused their firepower upon it. The other two scurried back out of range, their surviving Death Gliders joining the swarms approaching from the rest of the fleet.
They lost eleven ships taking down the Dilios, Daniel asked quietly. At this point they have to be wondering if theyd rather go home and start picking off Heru-ur and Apophis territory.
Shakuntala sighed. That would be truly good. But my home is a rich prize, richer than any ten of the worlds they could scoop up. And Apophis damaged the Stelios and Astinos as well. They still have more than fifty ships, enough to pin the carriers and cruisers with half a dozen ships each and leave more than twenty to take down the Leonidas. Even these ships cant survive against those sort of numbers.
The false gods are sending their Death Gliders forwards, Tealc observed.
Probably want to clear a path for their ships, theorised Nekhrun. I dont know about you, Princess, but I dont believe that we should accommodate their wishes on this matter.
Shakuntala smiled, Speaking on behalf of my father, I believe a warm welcome is in order. May I have your permission to extend such a welcome?
Get our fighters clear! Nekhrun snapped to the fighter control officer and then bowed to Shakuntala. By all means take the lead, my dear.
The princess picked up a headset. Put me through to the Planetary Defense Centre, she ordered and paused. Major, this is Lieutenant Colonel the Princess Shakuntala. You should have received notification placing the orbital platforms under the command of Admiral Ayodhya. He now wishes to employ them. She waited a moment more for authorisation and then nodded. Thank you major.
Angrezi Planetary Defense are removing the final firing locks from their orbital platforms, sir, one of the gunnery officers reported. We have fire control and the targetting solutions are locked.
Princess Shakuntala, the Goauld said pleasently. I do believe that it would be most fitting for you to give the word.
Send them to hell, she snapped.
.oOo.
Whats Nekhrun up to? Jack muttered as Mongoose Flight joined the other fighters scambling away from the incoming mass of Death Gliders. He wasnt unhappy to be out of the scrum the X-Wings werent the death traps against Death Gliders that they might have been against Vipers but the numbers involved were daunting. Hes got to be up to something.
Sam looked at her instruments. Sir, Im picking up movement in Angrezis lower orbit.
Hes sending up reinforcements? asked Jack.
No sir, it looks like. She paused. Sir, a number of satellites are manuvering.
Satellites? What, are we screwing with their TV reception or something?
I dont think these are communication satellites, sir, Sam warned him. I really wish Id had more time to look at these sensor syste- She broke off suddenly.
Carter?
Sir, Im getting a radiological readout from the satellites.
Radio-logical? Signals from Vulcan? Jack asked, but he was bringing his X-Wing around to get a closer look at the satellites.
Nuclear, sir, she said exasperatedly. Those satellites are packed with nuclear weapons. And if theyre manuvering
Then theyre about to launch, Jack agreed. I wonder how big they are.
Not very big, Sam told him. Not even as big as the ones used on Hiroshima. But there are an awful lot of them and Theyre launching!
Despite being the best that the Angrezi had been able to manage without obtaining access to Confederate technology, the missiles being launched didnt have a lot of reach, not being able to reach far past the high orbit of the current battlefield and maintain acceptable accuracy. They had just enough but, as Sam had noted, there were a very great number of them. In fact, each satellite had been built around four tubes, each containing twelve five-kiloton missiles and once the light propellant charges had boosted one missile free, a second would be only a few seconds behind them. The entire firing process lasted for almost a minute and virtually guarenteed that the firing platform would fall out of orbit over the following weeks.
But in the space of that minute, very nearly one hundred platforms, more than a third of the entire network, fired off over four and a half thousand nuclear-tipped missiles towards the oncoming Death Gliders. The next stage of the battle took more than six minutes to play out but to the Jaffa pilots it felt more like six seconds.
To Jack ONeil it felt like six hours.
The flock Hatak had halted their advance, their commanders wanting to see what the missiles were supposed to accomplish before deciding on a response. If the missiles were a threat then it would be relatively simple to slip into hyperspace before they arrived and return to the system on another attack vector. If they werent, then what would a few minutes matter? The Death Gliders, for their part, moved to target the oncoming missiles. They didnt have much mobility so it was merely a matter of hitting them. Initially the range was enough that shots were hitting only chance and the number of missiles was reduced by only a miniscule percentage. But the range was dropping rapidly and their accuracy was improving.
And then, still thousands of miles short of the Death Gliders, the missiles seemed to reach an invisible line in space and rank after rank of them began to detonate.
Jacks cockpit darkened and half-forgotten training had him roll the X-Wing so that the bulk of the fighter was between him and that awesome light. A mass of static crashed across the communications net and he hoped that those nukes hadnt been set up to deliver an electromagnetic pulse or something of that nature, because he was pretty sure that the X-Wing wasnt going to fly without computers.
-ible, he heard Sam shouting as the static faded. How in the world did they do that?
Do what? he asked, rolling again to get a look. Holy what the hell happened to the Death Gliders?
Those missiles must have been carrying bomb-pumped X-ray lasers, sir, she explained quickly. Like the ones that were supposed to form the backbone of the Star Wars project back in the eighties.
There was a Star Wars project in the eighties?
He could almost see her roll her eyes. The Strategic Defense Initiative, sir. It was going to use nuclear warheads to power orbital lasers that would be able to target incoming nuclear missiles. They never got it anything close to working, I guess the Angrezi must have. Look what it did to the Death Gliders!
Where thousands of Death Gliders had been swarming towards the blue and green orb of Angrezi, only a few dozen survivors, perhaps a hundred, were trying to claw their away from the graveyard of obliterated fighters that their fellows had become. Already Viper squadrons were diving towards them, intent on finishing the job.
Jack felt very old all of a sudden. Yeah, he said. I see it.
.oOo.
Would that do anything to the Hatak? Daniel asked.
Not really, Nekhrun told him. Warship shields can take that sort of beating and the individual laser beams generated really arent all that powerful. A single Hatak might be in trouble against that sort of strike but the Angrezi just used about a third of their missiles for that one attack and the others are out of arc to fire on them anyway. Still, getting rid of the Death Gliders definitely improves our chances itll be a lot easier for our X-Wings and Skiprays to operate now.
So what happens now?
Now its time for the main event, explained Nekhrun. Captain Fumizuki, I want all ships to combine their fire. Target flagships if you can. We need to drop them fast so hold nothing back.
Gunnery nets are interlinked and ready, the Captain told him. Their countermeasures are keeping us from picking out the command vessels however.
Then I suppose we take our chances, the Admiral decided and seated himself in the command chair. I suggest you all strap yourselves in, he added to the observers. This will be one wild ride.
Daniel and Shakuntala both secured seats for themselves and buckled up. Tealc simply gripped a stanchion in what could have been machisimo but was more probably simply well justified confidence in his ability to avoid being thrown about by the shocks of combat. Down in the front of the command deck, Harjit also remained standing.
Nekhrun shook his head when Daniel pointed this out to him. Shes over two hundred years old, Doctor. If she wants to put her life at risk I guess I dont have the right to force her.
The first Hatak came into range and the five ships, arranged so that all their turrets could bear, opened fire in the same instant. One moment the ship was a flying example of the might of the System Lords might and the next it was an expanding cloud of debris. In the same moment, three more Hatak cruised past the wreck with their own weapons firing. Clearly the Goauld had drawn up some sort of plan as they were all firing at the Leonidas, their shots exploding against her shields.
Another volley dropped one of the ships, then another but now there were six ships, all firing on the Leonidas and the ship was shaking under the barrage.
Drop us out of the net, Nekhrun observed. This isnt working. Lets hope that the other ships can take their target down as fast as the our guns can.
A Hatak near the back of the Goauld formation exploded as it was savaged by torpedo boats and X-Wings but that was a sideshow as the Leonidas didnt even bother to stop firing as the turrets tracked from one target to another. One Hatak, its shields collapsing under the barest second of shots limped out of formation presumably someone had skimped on the shield generators when they were building it in order to bolster their apparent fleet numbers. But that was only a fluke and within moments the first shot penetrated the Leonidass shields to blacken its previously pristine white hull.
Theyre spreading out to englobe us, Fumizuki muttered. Not very well co-ordinated but itll work.
The only thing better than a little brute force is a lot of brute force, Nekhrun reminded him. Thats elementary tactics. The bulk of them are still up front.
Sparta is moving! a sensor operator called.
Nekhruns head snapped around. I didnt order that! he growled.
Message from Captain Knaak, an operations officer reported. He says - Leonidas shook again as a shot punched a divot out of its clean lines - that hell shield us from the front while we clear out the flankers.
Fumizuki nodded. Colonel Maybourne, roll the ship! Main batteries, fire as you bear!
Nekhrun half-opened his mouth to speak and then closed it, an unhappy look on his face.
Stelios, Astinos and Thermoplyae are also moving forwards, reported the operations officer.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.