Crazedwraith wrote:Weir's american shouldn;t she say zee pee em?
The prescence of Checkov and Scotty forces me to leave accents to your imagination.
Also they've found two at least two active ZPM's the regilous order's one and the kiddies' one.
See? You should have run it past us first
Well, they're not going to steal the kiddie's one, so she didn't mention it.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Chris OFarrell wrote:Uhhh.....Teyla isn't going to end up in Kirk's bed is she? I mean she aint green.....
I don't want to alleviate your fears entirely, so I'll say; probably not.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
What the hell are they going to require trans-deathstar level firepower for? In stargate.
I'd just like it known that this idea has, having spent a few weeks rattling around inside my head, finally been introduced to the current plan for the rest of the plot.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Chris OFarrell wrote:Uhhh.....Teyla isn't going to end up in Kirk's bed is she? I mean she aint green.....
I don't want to alleviate your fears entirely, so I'll say; probably not.
Given that this is around the time of TUC, I'll put my money on Weir instead. Kirk's gotta be a little more careful in his advanced years, after all.
"And the sign said, 'Anybody caught tresspassing, will be shot on sight.' So I jumped over the fence and yelled at the house, 'Hey! What -'" BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM*BAM
What the hell are they going to require trans-deathstar level firepower for? In stargate.
I'd just like it known that this idea has, having spent a few weeks rattling around inside my head, finally been introduced to the current plan for the rest of the plot.
I'm happy. It's just such an obvious use for them that never gets explored in the show. And don't they still have that booby trapped one on earth?
I wonder how hard they were for the ancients to manufacture. I supose they just thought of volleys of drones as being more sensible. And it's fair enough really I supose, after all there isn't really anything that a volley of drones can't take out. They just needed more drones.
Hi! I'm Prozac the Robert!
EBC: "We can categorically state that we will be releasing giant man-eating badgers into the area."
Major Sheppard looked out of the window of the puddle jumper as it flew over the buildings of the solitary settlement of Dagan. Thanks to the differences in time due to the stargate, it was close to dusk in the settlement, and the people could be seen going about their daily business with the comparatively carefree attitudes of people who were aware of a major peril but could do nothing to stop it.
Teyla leaned forwards behind the pilot’s chair, “That one, I suspect,” she said, at last, pointing to a building they’d spent much time in during their last visit to Dagan, a small monastic building in the main settlement.
“Yeah,” muttered Sheppard, “that’s the one.”
The invisible space ship coasted to a stop over the building, and Sheppard concentrated on a question within his mind. The window was obscured by a holographic screen that materialised in the air, showing the layout of the building below, with white dots representing mammalian life forms within the building. A quick count told Sheppard as much as he needed to know, “six,” he said.
“Five Protectors and a Master Handler,” McKay muttered.
“Right,” Sheppard said, landing the ancient craft outside the building, and vacating the cockpit, taking a look at Spock, “Is everyone ready?” he asked, to a chorus of emphatic nods from most, and a simple ‘Yes,’ from the Vulcan. He shouldered the uncomfortable wraith rifle, and pressed the control at the side of the rear section, easing his finger onto the trigger, and jogged off into the night, trying to keep their passage as quiet as possible.
McKay had been a little reticent at being left behind, but he was the only one apart from Sheppard able to fly the jumper if they needed its support. He held a stunner pistol, reflecting that the thing was highly uncomfortable, as it had evidently been designed for beefy wraith soldiers, and looked out of the cloaking field, watching for any activity.
Doctor McCoy smirked knowingly at Kirk as he entered the Enterprise’s bridge, holding one hand behind his back. “Everything go according to plan?” Kirk asked, turning a little.
“Rather him than me,” McCoy said, “insane contraption.”
Kirk smiled a little, “What’ve you got there?”
McCoy pulled a small box from behind his back, and held it up for Kirk.
“Star Trek Two: The Wrath of Kahn. You’re kidding, Bones, tell me this is a joke,” he said, taking the box, and reading its back, “Now this is surreal. It’s the ‘Modern Ulysses’ thing all over again. Executive Producer, Gene Roddenberry,” his eyebrows shot up, “Well, now that explains quite a bit.”
“That’s what you get for having a biographer Jim. Didn’t I tell you …”
“You never told me that he’d… find a way to travel into an alternate cosmos… and make films about me, I’d have remembered that.” he said, flipping the cover over again, “Well, it’s a fair likeness anyway. Nice job on the ship too, gaps between the panels are a bit too big,” he said.
“Nitpicker,” the doctor said and took the box back, “I’m going to have this transferred to something we can watch. I’m sure it’ll give a good few laughs…”
Allina sighed slightly as the ‘brotherhood’s’ inner circle concluded its meeting. The relations with the Genii had become increasingly strained of late, and the Potentia, their great religious artefact, should be moved once more, in case of treachery. They’d seen first hand that outsiders lusted after it, unaware of the object’s relevance to the great plan of the Ancestors, as conveyed by Janus the Lord of Portals.
“Good night,” she said, to each comrade in turn as they left.
Outside the building, Sheppard and his team crouched outside the Puddle Jumper, watching as the brotherhood broke up to return to their respective homes. Though they were dedicated, Dagan was not quite developed or populous enough for them to all avoid having day jobs.
“Well, that was lucky,” whispered Ford as they moved off. “I count five.”
“So there should still be one inside,” Sheppard said, “Let’s go.”
Allina heard the scuff of boots at the doorway and turned, but she had only enough time to glimpse the foremost intruder as he fired his weapon. The stunner-bolt hit the cleric, and she let out a strangled gasp as she fell.
Aidan Ford watched the dark haired woman go down and moved into the room cautiously, lowering the stunner as everything appeared to be clear. “Clear,” he said, shifting to the side of the doorway, careful of the light backpack containing the zee pee emm. Spock entered the room after Sheppard, with Teyla guarding the rear. He quickly crouched, shifting Allina onto her back and taking her pulse. Seeming satisfied, he spayed his fingers and laid them to the side of her head, closing his eyes and concentrating.
The Vulcan’s brow furrowed as he whispered a meditative chant for a moment, then he opened his eyes again. “I have the information,” he said, after a few moments, the process of mind-melding had become much simpler since his studies in the Kolinahr discipline some fifteen years ago now, a surprisingly long time in retrospective. Conscientiously, he paused to put the woman in the human recovery position of his time and rose to his feet.
“Right,” Sheppard said, “let’s go.”
Scotty watched the cloaking device being attached to the primary warp drive. It was much bigger than the Romulan version, a product of its makeshift nature, but it was sophisticated nonetheless. One of his engineers passed him a folder-sized display device with new schematics on it, “The control circuits are ready for testing Sir,” he said.
Scotty nodded, and leaned over to the intercom on the wall nearby. “Bridge, we’re ready for a test here,” he said simply. The captain’s voice came back a moment later.
“Very well Mister Scott. Uhura, transmit instructions to Lieutenant Farrago,” there was a pause, and Kirk said, “Shields down, it’s all yours.”
Scotty nodded, and walked over to the vertical chasm where the warp generator, connected directly to the antimatter reactors. He keyed in an authorisation code, and pushed a slider upwards, changing the reading on reactor output to seventy percent, and priming the cloaking device. “Efficiency at factor four,” one of the crew reported, and he grimaced.
On the outside of the Enterprise, the warp pylons glowed softly with waste energy being radiated, and the ship shimmered, and disappeared, leaving only patches of scattered brightness where the hull radiated light through the cloaking field. Alongside, observers aboard the captured wraith cruiser watched as the majestic ship disappeared from sensors, except as a heat distortion.
After half a minute, the ship reappeared as Scotty deactivated the improvised cloaking device. He turned and shouted at his staff, “That’s nowhere near good enough! The waste heat lights us up like a sun! Tear all that wiring out and try again!”
Dagan’s stargate filled the view screen, as Spock leaned forwards to press the buttons on the dialling device in the sequence he’d memorised, as he pressed the closest button, the stargate sprang into life with its characteristic ‘flush’ and the jumper ploughed through.
On the other side of the portal, there was a blasted mountainside, devoid of life, and Spock leaned forwards, pointing over the horizon, “That way, two kilometres. There should be no guards.”
“No guards?”
“The device is hidden, not guarded.”
The ground shot by underneath them, and McKay muttered, “It’s never that simple.”
The hill was passed, and Spock pointed again. “It’s buried under that shale,” he said.
“Well, sometimes,” McKay said.
The jumper touched down and decloaked nearby, and its passengers ambled out, “So, why’d we bring this thing anyway?” Ford asked, taking the extinguished zero point module out of its protective casing.
“It is illogical to antagonise these people unnecessarily,” Spock said.
“Right,” agreed McKay, “and we might even win some credit in their eyes if we make it look like we had the opportunity to take the thing, but chose not to. And we need every ally we can get. They’re a pre-electrical civilisation, they’re not likely to know.”
Spock reached under a shattered piece of slate, and took out one of the crystalline devices, holding it up for McKay. He took the replacement from Aidan and put it in the place of the fresh one, carefully doing so the wrong way up and replacing the cover.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit to subtle?” asked McKay.
Spock brushed some dust from his trousers as he stood, “Generally, religious groups are rather meticulous. They should notice.”
“Right then,” McKay said, “let’s get back.”
The jumper shot recklessly into the gate room, being caught by a tractor beam inside the chamber. Ascending through the ceiling, into the launch bay above, it finally came to a stop. The vehicle’s ramp lowered with an inaudible hiss, and McKay bounded down, looking at the waiting guards, then he held up the zero point module, pressing a panel on it resulting in an inner light illuminating the device, pieces of the cut crystal exterior glowing with a yellow light from deep within.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” he said over the device’s soft hum of operation, as Doctor Weir entered the hangar.
“Rodney, what say we power the shields?” Sheppard said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Yeah,” he replied, “What say we?” He took the power source, holding it like the priceless relic it was, advancing towards the circular staircase at the side of the room.
Kirk and McCoy sat in the former’s quarters, “Well, that was… alarmingly accurate,” Kirk said, after a few moments contemplation. “I’m going to have to find out where they got such convincing doubles from…”
“Speak for yourself,” McCoy said, “I’m nowhere near that cantankerous.”
Kirk laughed, “That was the best bit. You really are! Remember ‘I was drafted.’”
McCoy gave a grunt of feigned annoyance, “You know, you’re overdue for a physical. As usual,” the CMO gloated, “I can fit you in at six thirty tomorrow morning!”
“You sadist,” Kirk intended to say, but was cut off half way through the second word by the whine of the intercom. He reached out and pushed a button, “Kirk here.”
“Captain,” it was Uhura’s voice, “The city ship has raised its shield.”
“I’ll be right there,” Kirk said.
“Look on the bright side,” McCoy said, “He could have made a bad film of us.”
Three hours later, and with thirty-two hours remaining until the predicted arrival of the Wraith, Colonel Everett and Major Sheppard materialised on the Enterprise’s transporter pad. “Welcome to the Enterprise,” Kirk said, “This way please gentlemen…”
The Enterprise possessed a great number of meeting rooms, with many of them simply being multi-purpose rooms used for different functions by the crew, but the captain had chosen to eschew their use, favouring instead the large botanical gardens on the ships underside, thanks to their massive windows looking out on the planet ‘below.’
It seemed to have the desired effect, on the major at least, who gave an apple tree a particularly longing glance before he sat down. “So,” Everett said, “you said you have a plan?”
“Yes,” Kirk said, sitting down at the head of the table, “It seems obvious that we can’t destroy all these vessels,” he smiled, “but we’ve been working on equipping our ship with a cloaking device that should be able to render us invisible to Wraith sensors. We think that we should be able to manage one for the city too, now that it has a better power source.”
Sheppard interjected, “Perhaps you won’t have to. From what I understand, it should be possible to modify the cloaking devices we’ve got to work with the shield… So we try and fool the Wraith into thinking that you’ve destroyed the city?”
“Precisely,” Kirk said, “we detonate one of our torpedoes - we’ve got ones with an enhanced ECM function, that should help blind their sensors while you cloak the city – over the city, then you switch to the cloak, and move the city.”
“I don’t think we can do that.”
Kirk frowned, “Well, we’ll have to hope they’re not smart enough to go looking for debris. Anyway, after that, we leave the system, and pretend we’ve evacuated everyone. Then we cloak, come back, and get ready to fight if things go south.”
“Right,” Everett said, “It would perhaps be best to transfer as many people as possible to the Alpha Site – our fallback location – before this happens.”
“How about taking these guys on before they arrive?” asked Sheppard, “They have to stop off to raid planets and to let their engines cool or something.”
“How far away is the nearest stopover point?” Kirk asked.
“I’ll find out,” Sheppard said, “but it’d send them a message – the Ancients lost because they just sat there and took it. Going out and doing them some damage would probably be a kick in their complacency.”
“That is a reason not to attack them,” Spock, sitting beside Kirk said, “If we want them to make mistakes, encouraging their complacency is in order. In any case, the chances of the Enterprise surviving such a battle are… very slim indeed.”
Sheppard frowned, “Well, in that case, I suppose we’d better hold off on that one.”
“It’s a good idea,” Kirk said, “and this campaign’s probably going to be a long one. There may well be time for it yet…”
“What about the cruiser you’ve captured?” Sheppard asked, and Kirk took on an expression of surprise, “I’d forgotten that. We’ll have to send it out of sensor range by remote…”
“Or you could try landing it by the city – there’s a whole bunch of guys down there who’d kill for a look at it.”
“Right,” the Captain said, “We’ll see what we can do – the controls aren’t exactly too easy to use.”
====
Not my best chapter, but it'll get better next week!
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Oh yes. Roddenberry as Kirk's biographer is a conceit I picked up from the TMP novel. I didn't make that one up, I just extended it a bit.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
That one was very good. I'd wondered if they'd have had problems with Spock's death, tho. Personally, I was crying by the time "Amazing Grace" started playing.
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
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
LadyTevar wrote:That one was very good. I'd wondered if they'd have had problems with Spock's death, tho. Personally, I was crying by the time "Amazing Grace" started playing.
I wasn't sure about what to do there. It'd probably involve McCoy bitching about the katra thing. Again.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
The Enterprise cruised above the surface of the moon-less planet in a standard orbit. The great ship’s white hull was abuzz with activity as the last pieces of valuable debris were cleared away into its cavernous cargo bay, the centrepiece of its engineering section. The cruiser, the largest prize, was sent to drift in deep space, and Captain Scott once again found himself testing the cloaking device’s capricious functioning.
In the officer’s mess, the rearmost room of deck two of the Enterprise, boasted large windows that showed a view of the oceanic curve of the Ancient’s planet as the ship neared her terminator. Scott, having finally permitted himself to go off duty after the excitement of finally haranguing his work crew into installing the cloak correctly, sat by one of them with the ship’s master. “Aye Captain,” he said, at last, “I don’t like it, but at least on this ship, we can run it with only seventy percent of our output…”
“You mean that we can fire when cloaked?” Kirk asked.
“Aye Captain. It won’t hold up to scrutiny from a good sensor, the Klingons would see right through it, but the Wraith’s sensors seem to be their weak point. They’re not as developed as the rest of their gear.”
“Well, it is nice to know, but I rather hope we don’t need to shoot anything.”
“If we have to fight, we’d be best off transporting photon torpedoes into their ships. That would be much harder to trace back to us, using their sensors.”
Kirk nodded approvingly. “Good suggestion,” he said, “Prepare two transporter rooms worth of warheads. One bomb for each hive ship.”
“We’re going to run out eventually,” Scotty cautioned, leaning back in his plush chair and looking out of the wide windows, showing the starless sky above the night time darkness of the planet.
Kirk nodded, “We’ve got a five year supply of most irreplaceable items, but we’re probably going to run out of torpedoes soon at this rate. What was it they were calling it? Naquadah, and lithium could make a nice, cheap combination that would give a fair bang, and we can get those locally.”
Scotty nodded in return at the suggestion, “I’ve been thinking it might be worthwhile to try and retrofit some of the darts we salvaged with some of our own equipment to make them space worthy again.”
“It would be useful to have them, yes. Perhaps we could merge their technology with one of our shuttles and make a stargate capable ship. Spock says that he thinks they’ll be useful…”
The captain was interrupted by the ship’s intercom, “Captain Kirk to transporter room, Captain Kirk to transporter room. Atlantis party arriving…” He rose, and nodded at the engineer, who took a sip of his Aldeberan Whiskey, and raised his glass in parting.
Kirk smiled as he breezed into the transporter room, a short skip from the mess, having taken one of the numerous ladders in the ship down a deck rather than wait for a lift. There was only one guest this time. Teyla was somewhat impressed by the simple efficiency of the Enterprise’s interior, though she didn’t show anything of it – it was, she felt, somewhat less tastefully ornate than the décor of the city below.
“Welcome to the Enterprise,” Kirk said, and Teyla seemed a little disoriented for a moment.
“Do you still have the Wraith aboard?” she asked, after a moment.
Kirk nodded, “Yes…”
“We should remove them immediately,” she said, “or they could give away our location during the battle.”
Kirk frowned for a moment, and suddenly seemed embarrassed, “Yes, I should have thought of that,” he said, at last, springing over to the nearest intercom unit, and relaying instructions to have the prisoners transported to the rest of the Wraith on the ship’s next pass over the right hemisphere.
“If you don’t mind the question, why don’t you just kill them straight away?” she asked, when he was done.
Kirk frowned, “A number of reasons, really. Distaste at killing captives, even ones that would starve to death otherwise anyway, also, we might be able to do something about their particular condition, or find some acceptable substitute food that works. This way please,” he added, gesturing into one of the Enterprise’s corridors.
Teyla nodded, biting her lower lip, “Interesting. Perhaps you should talk to Doctor Beckett about that. He has expressed some interest in a similar project.”
“Very interesting,” Kirk said, “And otherwise, it could prove useful to have Wraith on hand in order to bargain or examine.”
The Wraith were less coy in their arrival second time around, blasting straight into orbit over the city, in a high orbit that gave them a commanding view of its shielded dome. The commander of the ship that had survived the previous assault, shamed by the loss of his hive ship, watched from one of its viewports as hive ships began taking up equidistant positions in a circle, their bows pointed towards the city below, and the human designed ship cruising over it.
But they did not fire, instead perplexed by signals, two of them, one mundane, and one telepathic.
In one of the Enterprise’s smaller multi-purpose rooms, Teyla Emmagan, sitting opposite the ship’s second in command, closed her eyes, concentrating as she did so. Her job was to try and convincingly connect to the Wraith in the ships above, and show them the determination she felt in her desire to prevent them from taking control of the ancestral city, but keep the truth of the plan from them. The Vulcan, as she’d been told that Spock’s race was called, seemed to be unerringly confident, and even worse, he seemed to manage to look at her without malice, but also with a distinctly raptorial vigilance that seemed far from human.
The commander of the Wraith cruiser watched on one of the display screens in his chamber showed an middle-aged human in a red outfit that seemed almost absurdly bright. He remembered this commander, and longed for the order to fire to be given, “Wraith Armada,” he said, “We will not permit you to reach Earth. Now or ever… Fire,” he snapped to someone off screen, and the commander whirled with unintentional drama to stab at the membranous control panel nearest, switching to an external view, showing the delicate ship releasing an incandescent projectile, he recognised those too, down towards the planet’s surface.
The ship banked hard to avoid a shot from one of the more alert hive ships, and it shot forwards, the nacelles attached to its rear pod glaring brightly and leaving behind a retina searing trail. The planet below was lit up as though by a tremendous fire raging in the sea, and several of the ship’s displays flickered out.
A hushed silence fell over the Atlantis control room, as though the assembled crowd felt that they could betray their privacy by breathing too loudly. “And the cloak’s online…” McKay whispered, “they shouldn’t be able to detect us now…”
Everett nodded, “Now to see if this works…”
“Cloaking device online,” Scott called from the engineering station at the back of the bridge, and Kirk looked towards the helm.
“Bring us about, put us above the Wraith ships…”
“Aye sir,” the helmsman nodded.
The Wraith ship’s commander watched as the display cleared. Nothing. That was suspicious; he felt that there should have been some, even if it wasn’t much, debris left from the city. He curtly snapped off an order to one of his lieutenants, and from the belly of his craft, a flight of darts descended…
Aboard the invisible Enterprise, Kirk watched the Darts descend towards Altantis command, and forced himself to contain a most unprofessional curse, instead commuting it to ‘bastards’ and turning to Uhura, “Signal Atlantis, tell them it didn’t work, and to get that shield up. Transporter room, commence beaming. Red alert.”
The glow filling the room changed from yellow to red, and Kirk turned stare at the viewer as if he could will the hive ships to destruction.
In Atlantis there was pandemonium at the message. McKay stabbed at his laptop in order to disengage the hastily forged link between the removed cloaking generator and the massive shield projectors, and return the projectors to their original function. He ground his teeth at the seeming slowness of the device, but after a moment, the side-on display of the city, drawing data from the ancient generators, showed the green bubble of the shield’s perimeter. Marines dashed this way and that as those that had gathered in the control room to watch returned to their defence stations, eager to be ready for the fight.
Sheppard watched the displays as the darts neared the shield bubble, and began attempting to turn back. “Can we shoot out?” he asked, looking at McKay.
“Sure,” Rodney nodded, and Sheppard activated his radio’s microphone, “All units, open fire at will,” he snapped, and the streaks of railguns and contrails of missiles appeared outside the gateroom’s windows, flashing in the night as several of the slower darts blossomed into unfolding petals of fire as their fuels ignited.
The Wraith were quite capable of feeling vindicated, and the cruiser’s commander certainly did so, savouring a kind of smug satisfaction that only outsmarting all of one’s peers could bring. He watched dispassionately as several, he counted six, darts were destroyed before the others had a chance to escape the fairly moderate human engagement range and return to orbit.
Scotty sat at the rear of the Enterprise’s bridge, feeding coordinates from the ship’s sensors to the transporter room controls. Rather than destroying one vessel at a time, which would greatly simplify the transport process, the captain wanted two simultaneous strikes on six of the vessels, to maximise the advantage that the Enterprise should have from surprise.
Fortunately, the Wraith were being nice to him, and remaining in the bombardment formation as they began to pummel Atlantis’ shields once again.
Doctor Weir watched from Atlantis’ highest balcony as the Wraith’s weapons impacted, a flurry of blue streaks impacting the slowly rippling bubble of the shield and sending out concentric shockwaves accompanied by pulses of fire exploding against the shield. Each was accompanied by a soft, almost imperceptible shudder running up from the base of the great tower.
Suddenly, the sky where the blasts originated burst into light, a half-ring of fire that would have been too bright for her to look upon if it weren’t for the shield cutting off the excess light from outside. She ran to the door, and demanded “What was that?”
“I don’t know!” McKay said, “half of the hive ships just exploded.”
The Wraith commander screamed in horror at the shock of so much destruction. Worse than last time, he could feel his long unused oesophagus going into a series of violent spasms as it attempted to clear his body of harmful substances. He staggered forwards, seizing the control pedestal and gagged as he vomited bile, which left a sickly burning in his throat, onto the floor. Unable to send anything through the now catastrophically turbulent telepathic link with his fellows, he roared, “Activate countermeasures!”
Through the turbulence, he could suddenly feel something else. His fellow Wraith, having fallen silent, left something… else… nearby. He probed at it, kneeling up on the floor.
Scott punched frantically at several keys, “It’s no use captain!” he said, “they’ve got some sort of jamming up that will interfere with rematerialisation…”
The captain spun to the science station, “Confirmed sir,” the officer manning it in Spock’s absence said, “I think we might be able to break it given long enough.”
Kirk sighed, “How about standoff blasts?”
Scotty turned back to his station, and brought up a display, “We can’t get anything within a kilometre of the ships. We wouldn’t do more than superficial damage at that range.”
The ship bucked under them, and Scott was flung from his standing position to land sprawled across the floor. Others were more fortunate. Kirk managed to hold himself in his chair, and after the initial shock had worn off, yelled for the ship’s shields to be raised – apparently the cloaking device wasn’t as perfect as they’d thought it was
“Helm,” Kirk added, “Full impulse, get us out of here!”
The Wraith cruiser’s commander could feel the alien presence from inside the alien ship. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it was sufficiently telepathic to be noticeable. As he concentrated on it, he could feel several others. Suddenly filled with anticipating he staggered over to the sensor station, brushing its operator away with superhuman strength, he pressed at the touch sensitive membrane of the console and hissed with bestial glee as he found exactly what he wanted.
A diffuse stream of ionised gas, presumably emitted from the engines of the invisible human vessel. It took him a moment and a few touches of the controls to transfer the location to the gunnery controls. If one compares the telepathic sense of the Wraith to human hearing, one could say that his ears were still ringing, and so, rather than risk miscommunication, he reached out, grabbing the gnarled edges of the sensor podium, he snarled, “Rapid fire on target. I want it intact…”
The cruiser turned slowly, instead of presenting minimal surface area to the planet, it turned to show its underbelly, instead allowing its dorsal weapons batteries to fire upwards at the Enterprise. Blue bolts shot out from it, tearing up into deep space, an uncoordinated barrage centred around the area where the engine’s vapour trail terminated.
Suddenly, a brilliant cloud of vaporised debris came into view in the uneven red sphere of an explosion. A moment later, the ship reappeared, lightning flashing from a hole in one of the pylon structures that supported her nacelles. A dark duck blue section, veined and releasing dark fluids just visible against the white on white perfection of the hull, had been punctured through by the hit.
“Main starboard heatsink destroyed!” the damage control station called shrilly into the bridge, “Sixty five percent power available.”
Kirk paused momentarily, “Warp power. Get us out of here.”
The helmsman punched frantically at the controls, sliding the warp power control up to maximum, “No response captain,” he said. Another hit rocked the bridge, and someone called out the reduced reading of the shields.
The ship, unable to escape, safety systems having cut in because of the massive structural damage to the starboard pylon, rocked under a hammering as the Wraith armada began to lay into her, their shots carefully aimed so that when the shields ultimately failed, the ship itself would not be hit.
In the Atlantis control room, Major Sheppard leaned forwards and grabbed McKay by the back of his jacket, hauling him out of his seat. “Come with me!” he snapped, and ran towards the internal-teleporter station that served as a lift.
“What? Where?” the neurotic scientist said, his voice sounding a little like that of a distressed puppy.
“I’ll explain on the way,” Sheppard said, and the doors of the teleportation-closet slid shut behind them, followed by the familiar sound that the device shared with goa’uld copies of the Ancient’s transporter rings.
Aboard the Enterprise, Scotty staggered back up, keeping a knuckle-whitening grip on the edge of the railing around the central depression, looking at the tactical station, where a side-on display of the ship, accompanied by her hull-hugging shield bubble showed the damage each hit did, the bubble slowly fading from a healthy green to a dark, bloody crimson.
A swarm of darts was indicated on another screen by pinpricks of red swarming around the ship, their light weapons joining in as they attacked her from above, dorsal side, having no real impact, but nevertheless being a threat in themselves – when the shields failed, they would rapidly become a serious threat.
James Kirk gritted his teeth, “If we’re going out, we’re taking some of them with us. Lock onto the nearest cruiser.”
“Aye sir,” Checkov said.
“All weapons, Fire at will,” Kirk snapped.
The closest Wraith ship, already beginning to block the fire of others from its proximity, merely six hundred meters from the Enterprise, was assailed by blue beams of phaser fire, tearing into its unshielded hull and punching through armour. Inside, huge sections of the ship were flashed to disassociated neutrinos by the reaction of phaser beams to solid matter. The federation ship’s torpedo launchers flashed and two glowing spheres shot forwards from the ship, slowly turning in space. A dart collided with one, though it was unclear if its self-destruction was intentional or accidental. The other slowed and turned, slamming into the forward section of the cruiser and smashing it open with an explosive hammer blow, peeling back the hull as though it were a tin can and pulverising the insides.
“Shields at five percent Captain!” Scotty called, “Four,” the ship was slammed by another hefty impact, “Shield collapse!” he snapped. The ship was rocked again and the screen began to turn red as Wraith dart’s weapons punched holes in her hull, depressurising rooms and breaching conduits and pipes throughout the ship.
The commander of the wraith vessel watched with dismay and fury as one of his vessel’s sister ships was mangled. “Destroy those weapons!” he snarled, “I want that ship helpless!” he roared, “And I want its commander…” The wraith fire was far from pinpoint, but it quickly did its assigned task, blasting craters in the Enterprise’s hull where her weapons had been moments before, or silencing them with near hits, and the commander snarled in triumph, and commanded his harvesters to prepare to board the enemy vessel…
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
It could be far worse, agaist the Goa'uld Ha'tak pyramid ships the Enterprise would just be target practice.
"Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything. " Argument against god's perfection.
Setesh wrote:It could be far worse, agaist the Goa'uld Ha'tak pyramid ships the Enterprise would just be target practice.
All I have to say there is 'naquadah enhanced photon torps.'
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Setesh wrote:It could be far worse, agaist the Goa'uld Ha'tak pyramid ships the Enterprise would just be target practice.
I like how NecronLord is showing cap ships. Vastly more power than any fighter could hope to be and some to be very very afraid of when you run into them without any tricks out your sleaves.
The Enterprise managed to destroy 6 cruisers and mission kill another. Thats down right great for for 12 to one odds.
However, shouldnt it be 12 hive ships not cruisers?
Also NecronLord has basicly stated that the Ancients used offensive teleporter technology at some stage against the Wraith
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
ggs wrote:However, shouldnt it be 12 hive ships not cruisers?
Odd... I'm pretty sure I did.
“I don’t know!” McKay said, “half of the hive ships just exploded.”
It was six hive ships, and one cruiser.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Setesh wrote:It could be far worse, agaist the Goa'uld Ha'tak pyramid ships the Enterprise would just be target practice.
All I have to say there is 'naquadah enhanced photon torps.'
Some how I doubt it, that was tried in an early SG ep with nukes, the explosion was 'in excess of 1000 megatons' and it didn't bother the Ha'tak's at all.
Goa'uld shielding is apparently far more effective against massive explosions that direct fire. The main advantage the Ha'tak's would have over the hive ships against the Enterprise is their shields block transporters.
"Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything. " Argument against god's perfection.
Setesh wrote:Some how I doubt it, that was tried in an early SG ep with nukes, the explosion was 'in excess of 1000 megatons' and it didn't bother the Ha'tak's at all.
The Goa'uld firepower debate is a really nasty can of worms you really don't want to open in a fanfic review thread. And just for the record, those missiles most likely didn't explode.
Goa'uld shielding is apparently far more effective against massive explosions that direct fire. The main advantage the Ha'tak's would have over the hive ships against the Enterprise is their shields block transporters.
Ha'tak shields block ring transporters, but can be modified to accept incoming transport beams. Usually, they are useless against Asgard transporters (Anubis' Ancient modified fleet is the exception). The Wraith have a much better record than the Goa'uld when it comes to defense against transporter tactics.
Setesh wrote:Some how I doubt it, that was tried in an early SG ep with nukes, the explosion was 'in excess of 1000 megatons' and it didn't bother the Ha'tak's at all.
The missiles spluttered on impact (trust me, I tried holding the position that they detonated. It's untenable). Photon torps would actually detonate.
Also, the Enterprise has vastly superior combat ranges in this fanfic. It just sometimes looks otherwise, such as in this last battle.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Setesh wrote:Some how I doubt it, that was tried in an early SG ep with nukes, the explosion was 'in excess of 1000 megatons' and it didn't bother the Ha'tak's at all.
The missiles spluttered on impact (trust me, I tried holding the position that they detonated. It's untenable). Photon torps would actually detonate.
Also, the Enterprise has vastly superior combat ranges in this fanfic. It just sometimes looks otherwise, such as in this last battle.
Its only untenable if you don't watch the rest of the episode, anyone who says the didn't detonate is left with trying to explain where the emp that knocked out half the worlds communication satalights came from.
"Nobody ever inferred from the multiple infirmities of Windows that Bill Gates was infinitely benevolent, omniscient, and able to fix everything. " Argument against god's perfection.
Setesh wrote:Its only untenable if you don't watch the rest of the episode, anyone who says the didn't detonate is left with trying to explain where the emp that knocked out half the worlds communication satalights came from.
This has been done, many times. Many, many times. The missiles do not detonate correctly, and there are a myriad of things that can cuase elecromagnetic pulses in stargate. There is no nuclear flash. Furthermore, naquadah enhanced nuclear weapons - the most impressive possible armament of the Prometheus, - are clearly a threat, in the estimation of General Jumper, to two ha'taks at a time.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Setesh wrote:Its only untenable if you don't watch the rest of the episode, anyone who says the didn't detonate is left with trying to explain where the emp that knocked out half the worlds communication satalights came from.
Weapons grade Naquadah cooking off from the physical impact on the shields.
Run a tinny current through a sample of Naquadriah will generate a gamma ray pulse powerful enough to kill everyone in the room in less than 30 seconds. We know Naquadah interacts destructively with certain chemical configurations, for example the trace amounts of potassium in a 12 year old child's blood(at most a kg or 2 total, even less in the blood itself) and similar amounts of naquadah was enough to rivel the effects of a theomo-nuclear bomb.
We also know from the episode where the solid state Naquadah reactors first showed up, that the electron flow in the Naqaudah was critical to the reactors working properly. Too much and the entire thing goes super-critical. Not enough and the reaction burns itself out.
That a change in electron shell configuration can trigger such an output suggests that the actual nucleus is very unstable. Potassium metal is a very strong base, it tends to removes electrons from what it is bonding too. This probably means a highly negatively charged naquadah atom is going to release a lot of energy, very fast.
This explains why Carter was so shocked about the concept of a liquid naquadah reactor(Ascended directed dream, but no reason it shouldnt be accurate). You have to somewhat convince the naquadah to have enough free electrons so it is a fluid, but not enough so it spontaneously converts itself into hard radiation. All at the same time of extracting usable amounts of energy.
As for Naquadriah producing more than it's mass-energy, we know only at most a few kilograms of Naquadriah exist in the SGCs hands and that Naquadriah bomb was into the teratons.
Another in-universe reason is it doesnt make any sense for the Ancients to go from Naquadah as an energy source which is limited to E=MC^2 to an energy source which pisses all over E=MC^2 w.r.t. to apparent mass. A ZPM contains too much energy for it's mass.
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
Crazedwraith wrote:^ Carter really should have known what liquid nawuadah was though, seeing as Jack pulled out a liq. naq. powercell from T's staff in "5th Racc"
It was just a hallucination.
Superior Moderator - BotB - HAB [Drill Instructor]-Writer- Stardestroyer.net's resident Star-God.
"We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate and most of all freedom of will." ~ Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Ha'tak shields block ring transporters, but can be modified to accept incoming transport beams. Usually, they are useless against Asgard transporters (Anubis' Ancient modified fleet is the exception). The Wraith have a much better record than the Goa'uld when it comes to defense against transporter tactics.
