Derelict. A Stargate - nBSG crossover

[Xon]

Hmm, Stargate fanfic

[Soontir C'boath]

I can't wait to read Galactica's point of view.

[A-Wing_Slash]

Nice chapter.

[NecronLord]

Yes, Galactica's reaction to that will be priceless. Of course, having blown one basestar up, the others would probably be gunning for the jumper... Which can only mean they're going to have to retaliate...

[ray245]

How many drones does a jumper carries, by the way? Also, is it possible for Raiders to jump through the portal?

[NecronLord]

At least six.

[Perseid]

Good chapter, loved the end where Mitchel has the urge to blow up the basestar and the puddle jumper does it for him, that had me in stitches.

[HSRTG]

This is going to be a great fanfic. I can feel it.

I can't wait to read the BSG side of the fic, with the "Unknown Contact" being picked up, then it blowing a Base Star to hell. And after that a capital ship is picked up. This is about to be priceless. The only major hitch I can see is that since Stargate-Earth is much like our Earth, what happens if there's a sci-fi fan in the crew? I mean, s/he's going to've at least seen nBSG, so won't s/he recognize them?

[Agent Fisher]

When writing a crossover, it is assumed that both universes would have no reference in pop culture to the other.

[ray245]

what about TOS battlestar? Could be fun if one of them notice how alike they are!

[HSRTG]

When writing a crossover, it is assumed that both universes would have no reference in pop culture to the other.

Ah, thanks.

[technomage]

When writing a crossover, it is assumed that both universes would have no reference in pop culture to the other.

Not always. Have you seen some of the Earth/Star Wars fics out there? They usually have "OMG!!! It's Luke Skywalker!!! Squeee!"-style crap.

[Darth Yoshi]

Yes, but those are also generally poorly written fanwank.

[Chris OFarrell]

Chapter 5.


Battle Cruiser Prometheus.
Inter-dimensional Rift
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

With a flash of lighting, BC-303 Prometheus, Earths first combat capable long range battleship materialized into a universe where none of the matter and energy that made up the great ship belonged.

“Bring the Railguns on line and load the missile tubes with quad pack defensive loadouts” Colonel Pendergast ordered. All humor was gone from the commander’s voice, leaving the icy professionalism of the ships master heading into battle. “Load up the forward VLS cells with anti ship loadouts”.
The bridge lighting fell to an eye forgiving blue as the alert klaxon started to echo through the ship, sending dozens of off duty personnel running to their duty stations or to man damage control parties. Staff pored into the bridge to man the ships secondary consoles which switched from training functions back to their primary military applications.

“Contact, many contacts at vector three two niner, system relative” Marks spoke up as the Goa’uld and Asgard based subspace sensors pulsed out from Prometheus and bounced back nanoseconds later. “Unknown silhouettes, unknown energy signatures…wait, positive ID on Snake Null”
“Open a channel” Pendergast demanded, adjusting his headset. “Null this is Prometheus actual, come in”.
Static hissed back at them. Pendergast turned his glower on Marks, who anticipated the question and shook his head.
“Communications are fine on this end sir, the Jumpers communications systems might be down, I don’t have its IFF transponder either”.
“Null, this is Prometheus actual. If you are receiving, squawk your transponder”.
Nothing happened on the sensor displays. Pendergast narrowed his eyes. “Where is he?”

Marks brought the computer generated sensor readout up onto the main screen, panning until a sandstorm of unknown icons in orbit of a nearby planet came into view, with a single green icon in the middle of it. “He’s lost his cloak”.
“Given the amount of weapons fire I’m detecting in the area, it looks like SG1 stumbled into a battle” Marks said. “I’m detecting two distinct different groupings in the styles on the unknowns suggesting two races or factions and they appear to be exchanging fire”.
“Isolate the Jumper” Pendergast ordered, ignoring the local politics for now and simply concerned with his own people. Obediently Marks switched the display to a much closer scale, showing the green icon of the Jumper being all but englobed by something like two hundred small sensor contacts, the last few dozen starting to fall into place ahead of the tiny ship, to block the Jumpers path towards the rift. Pendergast had flown bombers for a living before being transferred to Area-51, but he knew enough about fighter combat to read the ‘moves’ of the unknowns…and it was clear they were extremely wary of the Jumper in the way they were keeping their distance. Pendergast what the hell they were doing, then he saw two icons representing capital ships vectoring in towards the melee.
“They’re playing for time, keeping the Jumper contained. He can’t last much longer in there. Fighter status?”
“Ready for launch”.
“Then let’s move. Pilot, I want us five hundred kilometers in front of the closest edge of that fighter swarm in ten seconds”
“Yes Sir” The Major replied, tapping her console. Prometheus’s hyperdrive spun up and with only a brief hop into hyperspace, the ship jumped a half dozen light seconds. The stars outside the ships windows didn’t change position, but the tiny dot that had been the planet was now a huge sphere that filled the window.
Which was the perfect backdrop for a dozen white flashes that flared in the night like miniature suns.
“Nuclear detonations” Marks reported grimly.
“The Jumper?” Pendergast demanded with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“Intact” Marks declared as his board cleared up the white flash of the nuclear detonations. “But they were close, low kiloton yield, but they bracketed the Jumper with fifty of the damn things, closest one was about three kicks away.
Hissing through his clenched teeth, Pendergast glared at the screen. Charging in without a plan was a good way to get ten billion dollars of highly advanced US property blown to hell. But he didn’t have much time to think of one.
“What kind of active emissions are we getting from the hostiles?”
“EW suggests S, X and K band radar emissions, encrypted digital signals. No active subspace emissions”.
“Good. Launch the fighters, have them take the low road and punch through to Null. Lock in the radar frequencies and stand by to initiate countermeasures. As soon as the fighters are clear, straight down the middle”


F-302 Interceptor Snake Prime.
Docked, Battle Cruiser Prometheus.
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

Inside the hanger bays on Prometheus, eight F-302’s lit off their aerospike engines, the noise close to levels that would rupture the eardrums of a human without ear protection. The flight deck staff (almost exclusively USN sea-men transferred from carrier service) still on the deck, the so called ‘crash crew’ moved to standby positions, ready to act in damage control should one of the USAF flyboys (who of course were second rate pilots as far as they were concerned) crashed into a bulkhead on takeoff.

Said flyboys (and girls) would sooner be vaporized in an explosion on takeoff then live and give the naval deck crew the satisfaction of course.

The final checks were completed uneventfully, but fast enough to make an Indy car pit crew envious, the lead technician for each aircraft stopping next to the cockpit and holding up a fist full of pins trailing red ribbons. Each pin slotted into the missiles racked on each the F-302’s pylons and with the pins in place, the missiles would be physically unable to arm and launch by accident. Holding up the four pins for each fighter was the final sign that each of the craft was hot and ready to rock; the technicians then removed the wheel chokes and retreated through the doors. The yellow warning strobes flashed and the hanger bay door slid open, revealing the flash of nuclear detonations in the far distance, backstopped by a planet half shrouded in darkness.

Slamming his visor down over his eyes, Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Vader” Aston returned the salute of the deck officer, who after a final look around, knelt down safely off to the side, pointed out into space and touched his hand to the floor.

Instantly, the fighter accelerated with a force that Aston felt, even with the inertial dampeners built into the spacecraft. Aston and the pilots under his command had had the inertial dampeners reprogrammed to allow some of the forces they were designed cancel out to be felt. The flight control computer would only let a maximum of 2G’s leak, proportionally enough to let the pilots ‘feel’ the way their craft was behaving as they threw their ships around at speed. It got past the disconcerting lack of motion the fighter pilots felt when in a hectic dogfight, letting them feel the way their craft was behaving, but still kept them more then safe from the extreme forces that would otherwise turn them into a chunky paste on their canopies.

Flicking a switch to retract his undercarriage, he pulled his throttles back slightly, allowing the three craft launching behind him and four from the ships second hanger to catch up and slot into formation.

“Snakes, lead. Call it in” Aston ordered as he watched the gaggle of death black shapes form up around him.
“Eight, two lit and in the green”
“Seven, ready”
“Six, good to go”
“Five, ready to save shafts ass”
“Four, all systems go”
“Three, lets get some”
“Two, ready opp”
“Ok, go to secure communications and adopt EMON protocols…” he paused to glance at the mission clock, which was counting down the last few seconds…“mark”.
The F-302’s switched from their digital radios to secure line of site lasercoms. Useful only at short ranges, where each ship functioned as a node to bounce the signal to all the ships it could see in burst transmissions, it wasn’t completely reliable…but the signals were almost undetectable.
As Aston led the ‘Snake skinners’ down and away from Prometheus, the Battle cruiser went into action, ascending over their heads towards the upper hemisphere of the sphere the Jumper was trapped in.


Battle Cruiser Prometheus.
Inter-dimensional Rift
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

“This is the United States vessel Prometheus. You have engaged in hostile actions against one of our craft, which was on a mission of peaceful exploration and exploration. We have no quarrel with you and mean you no harm. But will we respond with deadly force if you do not cease your attacks against our craft immediately”.

The posted rules of engagement for the Prometheus as laid down by the Pentagon stated that all attempts at peaceful contact must be made before engaging unknown hostiles in combat. That wasn’t to say that Pendergast was expected to sit on the bridge pleading with the bad guys to stop shooting while Prometheus rocked with direct hits. But his logs would show he gave fair warning before he started blasting away.

He gave them a full ten seconds.

Then five more, just to be safe.

“Anything?” he finally asked as Prometheus powered towards the picket line of fighters, which had started to respond to the ships presence and turn away from the trapped Jumper.
“Unless you count them hitting us with X and K band targeting radars, nothing sir” Marks said dryly. The high frequency low wavelength beams were used exclusively for targeting purposes and painting Prometheus with them was the modern equivalent of a knight slamming his visor down and drawing his sword.
“That may be the only response we get” Pendergast said, raising his eyebrow as the lower alien ship twisted malevolently, changing its course away from the centre of the sphere to the edge Prometheus was aiming for.
“Target capital Alpha just locked us up with its own fire control systems” Marks warned, suddenly starting to sound nervous at getting the attention of the ship that out massed them by over an order of magnitude.
“Return the favor” Pendergast ordered coolly.
“Targeting, aye” Marks said and two of the ships sixteen bow mounted (S)SPG-01 illumination radars went from standby to active, focusing their energy into pencil thin beams that struck the central core of the strange ship with megawatts of energy.

It responded by finishing its turn and opening fire.

“Missiles loose! Missiles loose!” the sensor technician sitting ahead and to the left of the ships helm shouted as a cluster of fast moving contacts blossomed onto the sensor display, arcing out from ship designated target Alpha and settling down onto identical tracks.
“Vampire Vampire, we have multiple incoming missiles!”
“Shields up, increase speed to full military thrust! Signal Snake Prime to commence his run. Have the-”
“Bridge Combat” a new voice broke in over the ships intercom, coming from the ships CIC buried deep in the central core. The Combat Information Centre was essentially a second command centre buried deep in the ship. If the Prometheus had been a naval ship in fact, it was more then likely that the ships Commanding Officer would have ‘fought’ the ship from the much safer location inside the ships hull, delegating the bridge to a navigational only role.

The ships designers however hadn’t reckoned with flyboys like Ronson, Pendergast and Caldwell. Who had an obsessive need to fly the ship like it was a B-52, looking out into space and seeing with their own eyes what was going on. So the USAF had effectively turned the CIC into a data centre, controlling the ships sophisticated sensors, communications links, computers and weapons. While the staff on the bridge might give the orders to designate targets and fire the weapons, the staff in the CIC guided each missile to its target on an individual basis (when the weapons officer wasn’t doing so himself), designated targets for the railgun batteries, worked the data links to the fighters and guided them like any AWACS controller. Someone from the CIC calling directly to the bridge in a combat situation meant something seriously wrong had happened.

“Combat, bridge, make it quick”.
“Sir, JTIDS links are being pinged from an unknown external source”.
“Someone is trying to get into our systems?”
“Yessir” the junior officer confirmed. “It’s a fairly primitive attempt, just trying to brute force a handshake with our communications systems”.
“Threat level?”
“Minimal so far. It doesn’t look like they have the understanding of our systems to attempt a successful intrusion and even if they gain access, the physical hardware linked to external sources is highly restrictive, but I request permission to adopt non secure protocols until-”
“Granted, bridge out” Pendergast cut the technician off, a little more worried about the incoming fire then incoming communications for now.
“We have multiple missile seeker heads tracking us, bearing change zero” Marks warned as the missiles steadied onto direct courses.
“Pitch back ten degrees, come left five zero” Pendergast ordered the helm, to present the smallest radar target to the incoming swarm while unmasking the ships forward missile tubes. He then turned to the ships electronics warfare officer. “Commence blanket jamming on their radar frequencies”.
Prometheus carried more electronics warfare equipment then a squadron of Wild Weasel suppression aircraft and a Burke class Destroyer combined, all of it state of the art (and some it beyond state of the art). Powered by the immense nuclear forces being harnessed in the ships main reactor, multi frequency jamming pods mounted all over the ship started to flood the missile targeting radars with enough energy to turn their ‘screens’ of sensor contacts into masses of electronic noise.
“Enemy is attempting to shift frequencies” the EW officer warned.
“Stay with them” Pendergast ordered unnecessarily, knowing the officer was one of the best in the job at this type of warfare.
“Sir, the Snakes are approaching their Initial Point, requesting weapons free”. Pendergast paused only a second, praying that he wasn’t dragging Earth into an inter-dimensional war.
“Signal Prime, good hunting”.


F-302 Interceptor Snake Prime.
Initial Point, inbound.
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

Robert Aston watched his left multi function display with half an eye as he carefully steered his fighter into position. His ‘second seat’ partner, Major Jeffery Lawrence was doing the real work in providing course corrections as they approached their initial point, but he still kept half an eye on the displays to make sure they weren’t being spiked.

The F-302 wasn’t a true Stealth Fighter. It was true a lot of the stealth technology and structural design from the FA-22 series had been incorporated into the base design of the 302. Partially to take advantage of common technology when designing the space fighter, partially to hide a significant chunk of the F-302’s costs inside the FA-22 budget.

Included were some of the advanced composites designed for the Raptor, as well as a skin of radar absorbent material. The underlying structure was carefully angled to refract radar (and more then a few alien sensor technologies) away from their transmitters and deny a sensor return as far as possible.

But the F-302 lacked the Raptors internal weapons bays for its primary weapons, meaning it didn’t have all aspect stealth while carrying its external missiles. The rear thrusters were not completely stealthy either and even the most effectively ‘protected’ sections were not perfect. Stealth technology wasn’t magic; it was simply a means of denying a sensor return to a transmitter. Given enough power at a close enough range, any transmitter would eventually get a return on even the stealthiest target.

This was why the F-302’s were paralleling the curved sphere of fighters that had trapped the Jumper, presenting their dorsal surfaces towards the enemy ships as they slowly angled in closer. The dorsal wings and fuselage hid the very non stealthy missiles from the radar returns, letting the ship return a radar cross section so diffuse and hard to lock down that their opponents would have been inclined to dismiss it as nothing, had they seen it. They also had the bonus of keeping their closing rate with the alien fighters minimal as they dove down, if they were using pulse Doppler radars (and the EW emissions were strongly suggesting they did) then the Snakes would be showing relatively little aspect change, making it even more difficult for the aliens to pick them out. With the help of Prometheus turning their radar reception to chaos, these guys had a snowballs chance in hell of seeing the semi stealthy targets on their approach.

“Ok, let’s do this”. Aston said to the squadron as the rangefinder wound under 300 klicks. “Snakes, execute!”

The 8 F-302’s pushed their aerospike thrust up to 80 percent, pulling up and aiming towards the ‘south pole’ of the fighter globe while simultaneously bringing up their own targeting radars. They had been tracking their prey via Data link from the Prometheus to help mask their presence while they got into position, but now they made their presence known in grand style.

The aliens brought up their own radars, sweeping them over the area the incoming energy was hammering them from. But try as they might they were having a devil of a time locking down the semi stealthy designs in the storm of jamming coming from Prometheus . The enemy capital ship clearly had no intention of letting the unknown contacts close in and scores of fighters broke off from the clearly damaged and no longer shooting Jumper to deal with the new targets. At the same time, far more craft broke off from the ‘Northern Hemisphere’ clearly aiming to follow the missile strikes in towards Prometheus, starting the collapse of the sphere.

Clearly Mitchell was still flying the Jumper and he was watching what was going on as he stopped jumping the craft around and spun, accelerating as fast as he could towards the rear as it collapsed into chaos. A double squadron blockade however started to spread out into his path to halt Mitchell’s dash for freedom.

“Spartan, go and break up that defensive screen they’re trying to throw in front of Shaft” Aston ordered, not liking the loss of firepower but guessing that he would like his old boss getting vaporized even less. ‘Spartan’, the call sign of one of the Snakes best pilots named for his addiction to a certain X-Box game double clicked his microphone in acknowledgement then broke up into a steep climb, the trio of other F-302’s in his flight smoothly following in his wake as they ascended towards their distant targets, leaving Astons flight of four to face a gigantic capital ship and about fifty enemy fighters. It was absurdly unfair.

For the aliens anyway.

“Two, engage targets to port. I’ve got starboard. Three four, tuck it in close and get ready to punch through”.
“Two”
“Three”
“Four”.
‘Four’ didn’t sound at all happy. Captain Phong ‘Mushroom’ Nguyen was carrying their strike package under his ships wings. The missiles were modified AIM-155 Advanced Air to Air Missiles, designed in the early 90’s to replace the aging AIM-54 Phoenix missiles carried by the F-14 Tomcats. With the collapse of the USSR however, the Tomcat had been relegated to the bone yards and the AIM-155 program along with it. The AMRAAM had been determined to be more then adequate for the remaining F-18’s and in truth it was, the F-302’s all carried them.

But what the AMRAAM lacked was space. Fitting in thrusters, improved computers and so on had been a nightmare for the versions the 302’s used and trying to modify it again to give it the punch needed to threaten Goa’uld Motherships had just proven impossible. So the technicians at Area-51 had dug up the blueprints for the 155’s and manufactured their own variant, designed to put quite an expensive dent in a Goa’uld Mothership.
Which in turn meant Phong was carrying more firepower under his wings then the entire current US strategic deterrent. What made him irritated however was that the heavy loadout slowed him down and made him roughly 25% less agile then the rest of his pack, never something to make a pilot happy.

“Enemy fighters are switching to high frequency radar” Lawrence warned as the threat board whined at him, a rotating targeting circle bouncing around the angular silhouettes of the enemy fighters as the 302’s computers worked to chew down a firing solution. “Fifty klicks to target”. He paused for five seconds. “Forty” he said as the counter continued to wind back, then the targeting circle locked onto one of the enemy fighters and stuck to it like glue, flashing read as a high pitched buzzing sounded in their ears. “We have a lock, target is locked!”
“Snake lead, fox four two!” Aston declared into his comm, stroking his trigger twice.
“Snake two, fox four two!” his wingman added.

A pair of missiles shot out from under the wings of each of the two lead ships, riding white exhausts which dissipated in seconds into the vacuum of space, the pilots carefully checking their eye protection was in place as the drive trails rapidly outdistanced them.

The AMRAAM’s the F-302’s were carrying were, again, not the AIM-120s one might expect. This series had been built for the failed X-301, designed with thrusters for space combat and shield modulating technology. The shield modulators had been rendered useless with the Ancient technology Anubius had introduced to Goa’uld shields, but the Naquadah warheads were still sound. The missiles standard chemical fragmentation warhead had been removed and replaced with a cylinder of equal size, internally divided by a two millimeter thick plastic disk. On one side of the Cylinder was a cone of weapons grade Naquadah the size of a child’s thumb. When the warhead was triggered by impact or proximity fuse, said cone would be fired like a bullet, shattering the plastic safeguard cylinder and sending the bullet crashing into much larger but hollow cone made of pure potassium.

The detonation was expected to yield close to four megatons. Hardly what Phong was carrying around, but effective enough for their purpose.

The AMRAAM’s activated their terminal radars as they reached four seconds from impact. With their nuclear grade warhead yields, a direct hit was not needed but as the missiles less sophisticated targeting systems went on line, they found themselves somewhat confounded by the desperate last ditch ECM the aliens threw into the mix in a belated effort as they detected the incoming. One of the warheads lost its lock and detonated based on extrapolated proximity to enemy craft, taking its companion missile with it before it could detonate but shattering, melting or outright vaporizing six raiders and charring another two seriously enough that they staggered away for the dubious safety of the nearest capital ship. The other two missiles held their locks and slammed into their chosen raiders. The collision would have probably been enough to rip the fighter in half even without the warheads, but they still detonated, wiping out two dozen of the craft in flashes of white light as their furious brethren closed into weapons range, all guns blazing.

Hundreds of blue tracer rounds reached out from the raiders, none touching the F-302’s which impossibly against the laws of physics, danced into defensive sidesteps and returned fire with their twin cannons, shattering another half dozen of the enemy as they ripped through their disintegrating defensive screen without slowing down. The surprised Cylon ships took a split second to realize the F-302’s weren’t turning hard back to dogfight and belatedly twisted their own ships around to spray fire after the hard charging F-302’s. But with their relative range opening rapidly, their cannons simply lacked the velocity to catch up to the elusive human ships.
“Leapfrog by pairs and break the formation” Aston ordered, the quartet of fighters spreading out so no nuclear detonation or burst of defensive fire could get all of them by luck.
As the quartet of fighters spun down towards the capital ship, orange bolts of color started to materialize from points along the wide arms, stabbing up towards the descending fighters.
“Commence weave, fifteen seconds to firing position” Phong called, taking charge of the flight as they came into the attack run. Aston threw his fighter into a series of irregular jinks and turns, keeping his forward momentum but bouncing around in a box that made it all but impossible to predict where he would be. All four ships switched their defensive jamming equipment to active, reducing the ability of radar to track them when combined with their reduced radar cross sections. But this close to the enemy and with Prometheus increasing in distance all the time, the capital ship was able to burn through.
The missile launch warning alarm screeched in Astons helmet speakers, the tone of the alarm very specifically designed to cut across the noise of battle and into the focused concentration of a fighter pilot without fail. Snapping his head up, Aston saw a swarm of small and fast missiles rip into space from the opposing arms of the starfish shaped ship, turning right for the fighters.

He swore. Loudly.

“Phong, make your run, everyone else, make yourself a target!” Aston ordered, Lawrence catching on instantly to his meaning and shutting down the F-302’s ECM, followed a second later by the other two escorts. The missiles under data link instructions were more then happy to give up trying to lock the shifting and distorted target that was Phong’s F-302 and lock onto clear trio of ships closing, allowing Phong to pull under. Watching the cluster of missiles approach Aston prayed these aliens wouldn’t be insane enough to detonate nukes this close to their own ship, then called out to his people. “Flight, break!”
The three ships pulled into near impossible turns and managed to dodge the salvo detonating all over them, but the enemy ship had anticipated the move this time, the ships defensive guns all fired en mass at the evasive paths they had guessed the 302’s might take.

Aston watched in horror and rage as one of his wingman vanished in a yellow white explosion as a hail of slugs managed to tag their F-302, tearing into the housing for the solid rocket engine and detonating the fuel stores. A jolt to his force feedback flight stick let Aston know he had taken a hit, probably to his right wing, but none of the damage lights flashed so he dismissed it as Phong’s voiced crackled.
“Warheads gone”.
“Extend, max burn” Aston ordered, the trio of ships lighting their aerospikes off to maximum and shooting right at the ship, tracer fire trying to track them, but the guns were unable to traverse fast enough as the 302’s zipped right over the hull of the alien ship, then rolled over its side and triggered their solid rocket boosters, also at maximum.
For the first time the F-302’s pushed their engines to the maximum thrust they could generate, shooting away from the Aliens at speeds rivaling a Goa’uld Death Glider for that short time, the acceleration was so far outside their previous performance that the massed batteries of railguns that had swiveled to engage the 302’s as they popped down the other side were caught flat footed and didn’t even fire a single shot.

It was about that time that the aliens noticed the eight missiles still closing on the other side, which had simply detached from Phong’s fighter then started a two second countdown before igniting their engines, spreading apart and looking to hit the capital ship in eight different locations.
To their credit, they DID respond, defense turrets desperately firing as they trained towards the incoming tracks, often chewing parts of their hull as the weapons traversed.
One cluster even managed to tag a pair of the missiles heading for them, disintegrating them as the heavy slugs connected.
The remaining six missiles however impacted within half a second, each setting off its six hundred and fifty megaton warhead.

If Astons F-302 had been designed with a rear view mirror in his cockpit, he would have seen the huge, white (and strangely elegant) alien ship behind him turn black as it was silhouetted by a new star that snapped into existence behind it, before the outline melted away, struck by almost four gigatons of explosive force. In space, there wasn’t a blast wave of course (except for the vaporized remains of the ships that had been attacking the 302’s), but Aston could almost feel the raw heat and shockwave from the nuclear fury behind them as the ships pulled up and ascended straight up the middle of the collapsing sphere.


Battle Cruiser Prometheus.
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

“Missiles approaching at fifteen hundred meters per second, bearing steady, they may have us” Marks warned as the red ‘V’ symbols marched across his board followed by countless dots of enemy fighters. To his right, the Electronics warfare officer was playing a deadly game with the enemy seeker heads, trying to spoof them off course as they got closer and closer. The active jamming had sent roughly half the missiles wildly out of control, even causing one or two to detonate as they collided with what their sensors had said were hard contacts, leaving fifteen nukes streaking in towards the Battle Cruiser. The capital ship appeared to be reloading after firing its all out salvo and more and more fighters were being drawn away from Mitchell and the other alien ships to try and form some kind of blockade as Prometheus charged in.
Which was the idea after all.
“Distance to missiles”. Pendergast asked as the hazy cone of estimated acquisition by the enemy missiles seeker heads started to approach the Prometheus.
“Approaching one twenty. One fifteen. One ten. One oh five. One hundred”.
“Fire”
Prometheus’s bow erupted in flame as the ship (as Marks had so disturbingly put it) ‘shot her wad’, sixteen Mark II Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles launching in rapid succession, the bow targeting radars on Prometheus focusing pencil thin beams at the inbound warheads. The enemy missiles AI programs detected the megawatts of power burning on their surfaces and started to jink and move, trying to mix their radar signatures and confuse the incoming weapons as much as possible, gaining the grudging admiration of Pendergast.

The targeting radars however were being themselves targeted by the ships Goa’uld and Asgard based sensors.

And they weren’t fooled.

The ESSM salvo did quite well, scoring skin-skin kills against six dodging missiles and detonating another six with proximity fuse explosions. That left four inbound and heading towards the ships second last line of defense.
“Remaining missile tracks closing, they have target acquisition. Seventy Klicks and closing, time to impact twenty seconds”.
“Forward railguns, clear to fire when they reach optimal range”. Pendergast ordered.

Prometheus’s forward railguns opened fire, bright yellow streaks stabbing out after the twisting missiles. Designed to tag Goa’uld Death Gliders, the relatively slothful missiles made deliciously easy targets for the CIC crew to practice on, shattering all four missiles before they came within ten kilometers, the ship brushing through their debris as she approached the blockade.
“Sir” Marks put in with a confused tone, “why did we bother to waste the ordinance? Our shields would have handled those easily”.
Pendergast smiled slightly and it wasn’t a friendly smile, but that of a hunter sizing his prey.
“Given the complete lack of any shield technology in these ships, I want to keep ours a surprise for as long as possible. From their perspective, we’re clearly packing hugely powerful weapons and can maneuver like no capital ship they have ever seen. But charging towards their fighter screen and that capital ship plays into their hands”.
“Meaning they’ll hoard all the resources they can to throw when we get into point blank range, leaving Colonel Mitchell’s path clear” the Lieutenant finished.
“We’ll make a Captain out of you yet Marks” Pendergast grinned.
“Just one problem Sir…what if they have weapons powerful enough to breach our shields?”
Pendergast simply starred at the man and Marks eyes blinked as he realized the stupidity of the question.
“Well, maybe a Naval Captain” Pendergast muttered under his breath.


Puddle Jumper Snake Null.
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

“Break left!” Carter shouted, causing Mitchell to pull the shuddering jumper into a left turn. Another pack of Raiders shot past, their bursts of projectile fire whizzing by the window followed by the raiders themselves as they overshot. Mitchell nodded his thanks before pulling into a sluggish defensive climb, trying to think of a way to get them the hell out of this situation.
He didn’t really blame these Cylons for being pissed off over the fact that he had just vaporized one of their big capital ships, even if they HAD shot first and tried to kill them. Prior to today, he never would have believed in the idea of a traffic jam in space, but now he made a mental note to talk to Colonel Aston about designing a training module along these lines if he Carter and Daniel survived to see him again. If not for his co-pilot monitoring the sensors and watching his back, the Jumper would have probably been shot out from under them five times by now.

He would have been more then happy to simply blast his way out and run for the rift, but the drone launcher system had drained all its ready power into the two drones that had taken out the Base Star. Carter had assured him that the system would recycle and build enough power to launch the remaining dozen or so drones within a few minutes, saying the same temporary loss had occurred when she and O’Neill had blasted a Ha’Tak with another Jumper last year. Unfortunately a series of nuke detonations close aboard had damaged to engine internals exposed by the drive pod, cutting acceleration by almost eighty percent as well as the power lines to the drone launchers, not to mention the communications gear, which he really could have used about now.
“So Daniel, glad you decided to stay around and go on one last great adventure before heading off to Atlantis?” Mitchell asked grandly, dodging another burst of cannon fire that would have taken off his starboard engines if he had been a second slower.
“Oh yes, it’s everything I thought it would be” Daniel wryly replied, holding onto his seat for dear life as the craft continued to shudder from its engine damage.

Of course, if he had known at the time he said that that the Daedalus was fighting for its life against an extremely advanced and adaptive Wraith computer virus that was trying its dandiest to kill everyone on board, he might have made a less glib answer.

“Carter” he said as yet another pack tried to attack from his rear, causing him to spin around and face them, scattering the quartet who clearly didn’t want to risk any direct confrontation, which in turn led to four more craft breaking out of the shell straight for his six, which once again he spun around onto an intercept course towards...“Now would be a fine time”.
“For what?” she said in a confused tone, not taking her eyes off the screen.
“Oh the usual, come up with the brilliant last minute solution that saves the day and so on”.

Now she did look up, her expression hovering between exasperation and amusement at his jokes while they were in the fight of their lives.

“Cameron, there isn’t anything I can do that I haven’t already-”

The quartet of fighters charging towards them suddenly exploded in a flash of light that made the trio inside the Jumper squint, but once again the almost magical material the window was made of appeared to absorb the brilliant pulse of light’s more blinding effects. Admiring the carnage for a half second, Mitchell and Daniel turned to look at Sam, who looked back and pointed a finger out the window.
“That wasn’t me”.
“Snake Five to Snake Null, do you copy?”
The voice crackled over their vest mounted radios, causing Mitchell to grab for his as Carter grinned in delight and Daniel breathed a sigh of relief, slumping back into his seat. Striving to force as much nonchalance as he could into his voice, Mitchell triggered his radio, setting the power to maximum. Technically the handheld units were encrypted, but he wasn’t going to take chances.
“Ah roger that Snake five, that you Spartan?”
“Affirm” the disembodied voice came back sounding apologetic. “We would have been here sooner but Six remembered he left the shower running”.
“Pendergast would have had my ass if he found out” the junior officer added in an abashed voice.
“Very responsible” Mitchell said trying not to roll his eyes.
Or smile.
“But if you’re about ready to get down to work…”
“Head straight out, we’ve got your back” the Major acknowledged.

The Cylons sphere had collapsed, the majority of their fighters either diving towards the lower Base Star to protect it from the 302’s on their attack run (a completely futile tail chase Mitchell thought) or ascending to try and stop the Prometheus (a completely futile anything Mitchell thought). Twenty or so still firmly bared a retreat out of the sphere in front of them but with a roar over the feedback speakers inside the cockpit, a quartet of F-302’s powered up from underneath, swinging around to assume point positions. The nearest one with a tiny green figure dressed in Mark V MJOLNIR armor painted on the nose waggled its wings…then opened fire, joined a spilt second later by the remaining 302’s.
AMRAAM’s and Sidewinders accelerated downrange, scattering the raiders in all directions as the lethally smart weapons followed them. A dozen of the missiles caught their targets and blew the Raiders to hell, the remaining dozen clearly deciding discretion was the better part of valor, ran to get reinforcements. But at the rate the Jumper was now able to accelerate, they wouldn’t have much of a chance to fetch any.
Especially as the Base Star they were running towards suddenly became luminescent and disintegrated completely under a barrage of nuclear weapons, the three surviving F-302’s from the assault run accelerating at full burn in a long arc to rejoin the five ships on their way out of the combat zone.


Battle Cruiser Prometheus.
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 10, 2005.

“We have incoming enemy fighters vector three one zero, system relative”.
“All railguns stand by, continue reloading missile tubes with SRAM’s and prepare for close combat”.
Down at the bow of the ship, canisters of missiles were racked into place by hydraulic loading systems under the watchful eyes of technicians manning the firing rooms. The AGM-131 SRAM III’s they were loading were based off a Strategic Air Command design back in ‘the good old days’ of the cold war, that no-one (with the possible exception of Captain Nguyen) on board missed. Nothing more then a high powered rocket mated with a nuclear warhead, the collapse of the USSR had once again relegated the technology to the scrapheap. They had been resurrected as an interim short ranged anti Mothership missile for the Prometheus until the new mark eight missiles and warheads designed for the Daedalus class ships came into service.

Alas, Prometheus hadn’t been designed to carry the new technology, so the less sophisticated missiles had been kept in service. Unfortunately, the SRAM’s were still relatively short ranged. Outside an atmosphere range against moving against moving targets fell dramatically, proportional to the distance targets could move to evade. And while it looked like these enemy capital ships didn’t exactly have a high delta-V, closer was better for a sure hit.

Pendergast didn’t mind in the slightest. He wanted to make a point to this race that had opened fire without a second’s hesitation and completely ignored his pleas, then his warnings. It was the same point the US had made to the world after the first Gulf war, crushing the forth largest army in the world, that had been led well and equipped with modern military hardware, with fewer then 1000 casualties taken. And the same point the Asgard had made to the Goa’uld with a few select ‘case studies’ that had kept the Goa’uld controlled for thousands of years.

Don’t f**k with us.

Fear was the weapon needed today, Pendergast decided as the enemy fighters started to enter visual range, the distant shape of their Mothership or command ship continuing to grow behind them. Even more then the ships weapons systems.

Fear was often frowned upon as a tool of the bad guy, but in truth it was neutral. It was how you used it that defined its morality. The Goa’uld had used fear like a cudgel for centuries, breaking populations and terrifying them through acts of horror and barbarity.

Which had finally backfired when the fear of the Goa’uld had been outweighed by the hope of a better existence, free from that fear of being killed, taken as a host or just having your planet wiped out from orbit on a whim of some badly dressed snake with delusions of Godhood.

Today, Pendergast would teach this race fear of a different kind, letting their own minds fill in the blanks as they speculated on a future military encounter between the two powers which, if Earth was lucky, would keep these aliens so worried and frightened that thoughts of going looking through the rift would become damn near taboo.
Not that Earth had the resources or collective will to go to war with yet another alien species…
“Enemy fighters entering optimal range” Marks noted, double checking the shield systems.
“Open fire, all batteries all targets” Pendergast said, throwing the dice as he committed his ship to battle.

Prometheus’s railgun batteries opened fire, the deck throbbing slightly under the recoil as the magnetic rails accelerated 12.7 mm rounds to close to two thousand meters per second. Built with cores of semi refined Naquadah encased in Trinium, the rounds were relatively tiny but one well placed shot from the railguns could blow through a Death Glider and they could empty thousands of rounds per minute.

A half dozen raiders died in the first second as the formations jinked furiously. Ten of them opened small doors and shot pairs of missiles before breaking off with the rest of their companions. The railguns switched targets and fired, knocking a dozen of the warheads down before the rest detonated…on the ships Asgard designed shields.

The shields refracted and reflected the bulk of the explosion so the crew inside were not blinded looking out when the detonation took place. But to outsider observers, it surely looked like the Daedalus had just been vaporized at the heart of a nuclear fireball. The Cylons looked on in relief. The Colonials with grief, that this new race wasn’t invulnerable after all and had just vanished as fast as they had appeared.

Then Prometheus re-appeared all guns blazing as the shields cleared back to a shimmering gold. Shear terror was returned into the equation for the Cylon’s and disbelief combined with jubilation spread through the Colonials fighting their own battle closer to the planet. The Battle Cruiser raked the startled raiders with her railguns, shattering another six as they closed in firing blue bolts of cannon fire that impotently splattering over the shields. A pair of Raiders came in too quickly spraying fire towards one of the ships weapons mounts and nicked the shields around the ships command tower, causing them to cartwheel into the grid and explode. Unfazed, the pair of cannons in the battery swung and laid down sustained fire along Prometheus’s port side.

“Approaching the target” Marks commented, resisting the urge to wipe his hands on his flight suit. In amongst the sound of the railguns firing and weapons fire striking the ships defensive shields, the sound of the ships engines increasing in thrust could be heard as the helm officer brought the ship up to attack speed.
“Stand by on forward weapons” Pendergast ordered as the huge enemy ship started to pivot in place. Would they run or fight he wondered.
They fought.
Apparently having finished reloading their tubes, the alien ship spat out a full salvo of missiles from dozens of launchers that lined the arms of their ship, warheads rocketing down towards Prometheus. No doubt armed with high yield nuclear warheads, they probably thought with Prometheus much closer they could score a full strike this time.
They wished he thought with a smile as he brought the next trick from his bag. It wouldn’t work against a ship with subspace sensors, but as they didn’t appear to have them…
“Helm, on my mark, engage the Hyperdrive on minimum power for five seconds”.
“Sir” she acknowledged, though looking a little unsure about the order. Glancing at the tactical display, he mentally traced the time it would take for them to close compared to the time it would take the Hyperdrive to activate…“execute!”
A blue rip in space formed in front of the Prometheus as the glow from the missiles drive trails started to materialize, but too late as Daedalus jumped out of real space …and after just enough time for the Cylons and Colonials to wonder what the hell had just happened, she crashed back into real space ten kilometers in front of the enemy ship.

Subspace was another dimension in which FTL travel was possible relative to realspace…but it didn’t mean you had to go faster then light…

“Time on target!” Pendergast ordered smirking at the huge target sitting framed by the bridge window as his ship hurtled towards it.
“Missiles away” Marks acknowledged, the six high acceleration missiles exploding into space. The warheads crossed the distance between the two ships rapidly but before they could start their terminal dives, a white light raced down the length of the ship almost appearing to turn it translucent, before an orange flash expanded…and when it faded, the ship was gone. The SRAM missiles automatically self destructed once they lost their lock, their warheads not initiating but shattering into debris with the missile. All around, the ragged formations of alien fighters were vanishing in flashes of light, the two remaining capital ships pausing only to load of some of their more damaged flights before they too vanished, abandoning the system to the Colonial Fleet and the Prometheus.

“Recall the snakes” Pendergast sighed, sitting back in his chair with relief that the battle was over. “Keep the shields up for now but stand down from general quarters. Get CIC to get me a report of the attempted computer intrusion and have damage control get me a report as soon as possible. Bring us around towards the Snakes, standard thrust. And send a tight beam message at the rift, for the station to retransmit to Earth as follows…”

[Xon]

Very nice!

[Soontir C'boath]

Very lovely battle. I see Pendergast is a big fan of the Picard Maneuver.

By the way, you mixed up the names at the end. You called it the Daedalus.

[Darth Yoshi]

Wow, that was a beatdown. Keep it up, Chris.

[NecronLord]

Very nice, as usual, but I want more detail on the Colonial reaction!

Oh, and I took the liberty of fixing a formatting error, but I'll leave the Prommie's sudden name change for Chris to fix himself.

[Ender]

I thought there were only 2 basestars, but I count 3 destroyed, 2 fled.

I'm waiting to see the meat of the story - like starcrossed, the sheer disparity in capabilities means that for it to be anything but a side glorifying curbstomp, it has to be intensly character driven. A couple of batles early on, but then you have to deal with the people for a stoory to be anything but Star Destroyer Rampant. And I'm confident Chris can do it, so I'm looking forward to it.

Though chris, I would point out that in space stealth is far less effective - so is radar in fact. Simply use a passive infared detector.

This http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/ specifically the weapons part, might prove helpful in writing space combat scenarios.

[Chris OFarrell]

To answer a few questions.

1. The next chapter will essentialy the battle from the Colonial point of view. I was going to have the chapter deal with both POV's at the same time, but decided to keep them seperate until after.

2. The ownage of the Cylons is just the natural result of the disparity between the two sides...that is going to change. Not in a cheasy way, but...well....I can't really say anymore without spoiling everything. But this is only very early days.

3. The stealth in space thing I agree with, especialy the fact that spacecraft dump heat like *insert analogy here*. But either the Colonials / Cylons don't really use good passive IR sensors or they don't have them, given how effective the BlackBird is. The F-302's aren't stealth fighters, it was their reduced RCS plus the jamming from Prometheus that let them do what they did.

4. Sorry about the Prometheus being renamed Daedalus

[phongn]

Mushroom, eh?

[Crown]

Dude, don't be afraid to use the 'Enter' key more than once when starting new paragraphs or another character starts speaking.

[His Divine Shadow]

Teal’c’s expression was one of simple determination.
The vacuum would not win. He would not let go.
Even as the air pressure dropped and the temperature plummeted, he refused to be defeated.
Even as the bulkhead his left hand was clamped to groaned in protest at the force being exerted upon it, he refused to let up.
Even as his muscles cried out in pain, he ignored them.
He would not yield.

For some reason this had me thinking of the worst driver thread in N&P, namely what they said about drivers in new jersey.

Anyway a very good fanfic, although the inclusion of board members is always something that yanks me out of SoD.

[LadyTevar]

Good chapter, loved the end where Mitchel has the urge to blow up the basestar and the puddle jumper does it for him, that had me in stitches.

You and me both! That was FANTASTIC!!!

[LadyTevar]

Wow. Just... Wow. Chris, as a fan of both shows, this is fantastic. You have the SG's dialogue totally in tune with the show, and I hope you can do the same with the BSG crew.

Although I do happen to agree with whomever suggested that their be a fanboy of the Original BattleStar Galactica onboard. For 30-40yr olds, that was THE show on TV, and one that many of us fell as deeply in love with as we did StarWars.

Hell, make Mitchell the fanboy. Or have Sam remember a crush she had on Starbuck. Whichever's more fun.
(Nit reads the part about Sam & Starbuck. "That's Disturbing"
"But Starbuck was a GUY on the original! EVERY girl my age was in lust with him!")