The Thirteenth Tribe (nBSG/SG Crossover)

[fnord]

No cracks from the Tau'ri contingent about "the power of this fully armed and quite operational warstar" ?

[Eternal_Freedom]

IIRC in one occasion Hive was disabled by contact or near contact detonation of a single nuke that darts failed to intercept. At least some parts of it was still habitable, but it no longer could fire back. Their main weakness is lack of shielding. Under fire they will immediatly start to get damage reducing combat effectivness (destroyed weapons, engines, sensors) while shielded ships get no damage and are 100 % combat capable as long as shields hold.

I was thinking about this just now actually - one contact nuke does cause extensive damage. Then Orion whacks the second undamaged Hive with a drone swarm and kills it. The damaged Hive still has enough firepower to overwhelm Orion's (weakened) shields and destroy her, and then fight Daedalus to a standstill. Pre-Asgard upgrades the 304's combat record is decidedly poor against the Wraith, at least once the Wraith stop them beaming nukes aboard.

Oh, and this is after Sheppard in his 302 shot out the damaged Hive's hyperdrive.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Boom, baby

Preparations
The Next 24 Hours

The Pegasus

“Commander, FTL drives one and two are fully charged. The Asgard nav beacon has been locked in and coordinates are set. The ship is ready for max-range jump on your order” Commander Fischer reported proudly to his CO, there had been a great deal of frantic preparations and calculation for this test; this was a jump on a scale never before attempted deliberately, in fact the closest anyone had come to testing this was the Warspite’s five thousand light-year jump away from Aerilon during the Fall…and that had required a nuclear detonation in close proximity.

Confidence was high however. Despite the dark presence that still loomed over the Pegasus, caused by her genius-turned-insane former CO Admiral Cain and then a succession of dead replacements, the ship’s crew remained supremely assured that they were indeed the best crew in the fleet. They had history to maintain after all; just six months before the Fall their efforts had won the ship both the Poseidon Pennant and the Gold Star during the annual fleet wargames.

Galactica may have been the legend, Warspite the brash powerful newcomer, but Pegasus was the most efficient, well-drilled Battlestar in either the nearly-extinct Colonial Fleet or the new Combined Fleet. This was not mere arrogance; statistics from the Battle of Terra proved this. Her Air Wing had taken the fewest losses of any Battlestar’s, and her gunners had scored more hits than any other.

It was Lee Adama who had turned things around, had broken the “curse” on the Commander’s Quarters where two CO’s had been murdered within weeks of each other. Just as he’d promised his own long-dead XO, Kendra Shaw, he’d given the crew their pride back. And for that, the crew respected him and trusted him a great deal. So when he had told them they were going to make the longest-range FTL jump in history and then do the same thing coming home, they didn’t even blink.

“Very well. Mr Hoshi, start the clock.” The young Captain did as ordered, whilst Lee lifted the intercom: “Attention all hands, stand by for max-distance FTL jump. Everyone grab hold of something and have a bucket ready, this is probably gonna feel weird.”

There were a few laughs among the CIC officers…followed by furtive glances to make sure they did have buckets or bags on hand. The story told by the Warspite crew said it would be far, far worse than even the normal nausea-inducing jumps.

“5…4…3…2…1…jump!”

Spacetime twisted around them. The ship appeared to be compressed in a flash of light and then vanished. Unknown to the crew, the ship had actually been dematerialised and fired through a tiny subspace wormhole to their destination. It was, in fact, very similar to how a Stargate worked. The Ancients had not been content to let Stargates be the pinnacle of wormhole technology – the FTL drives allowed free movement for ships between two points in space, with no need for size-limiting Stargates to be present. It was, perhaps, the ultimate form of superluminal travel.

For the crew, the transit was odd indeed. Everyone aboard had clocked up hundreds if not thousands of regular FTL jumps, enough to tell that this one was something else. It was not an instantaneous leap, there was a delay of about two seconds in which the ship around them stretched out to infinity before snapping back to reality. It was not the gut-wrenching experience that Jellicoe and his crew had described, but it was still worse than standard jumps.

Commander Fischer, his mind already abuzz with speculation, decided this was due to the fact that this was a controlled jump, whereas the Warspite had experienced a sudden, unplanned and random jump. He made a mental note to ask someone from the SGC if large bursts of energy could disrupt Stargates as well.

Hoshi spoke up first after the jump was completed, checking his nav and sensor screens.

“Jump completed…pre-jump estimates and post-jump coordinates are in perfect alignment…DRADIS contact! IFF indicates Asgard Science Vessel Daniel Jackson, right where we expected her to be.”

Lee nodded. “XO, contact the Asgard ship, give Supreme Commander Thor my thanks for his help with the test.” The XO nodded and went to work. Lee turned back to his officers with an evil smile on his face. “As for the rest of us, might as well get some training in while we wait for the FTL to recharge. Action Stations, scramble all Vipers!”

The officers groaned silently. Most of them still felt unwell after the jump. But they knew the Commander had a good reason – at the end of their voyage, they might have to do a combat jump like this for real, against an unknown enemy.

Olympus Base Hanger Bay Alpha-Six

The Stargate had been beamed up to the orbiting base by the Asgard to make it easier to move supplies and Cobras through to Atlantis. All around the huge ring were crate after crate after crate of material ready to go. Weapons, ammo packs, air defence systems, portable sensor arrays, medical supplies, food rations, spare parts, tools, everything the ground force would need and everything that the original Atlantis Expedition might need. The SGC had virtually emptied several armouries to provide an ample supply of Earth-standard weaponry, on the grounds that the Atlantis teams would be more familiar with their existing weapons than the Terran armaments.

Near the centre of the vast bay were several Terran Marine officers and two Asgard. They were discussing a plan, one that if it worked would allow them to carry even more material. The idea was to use the Asgard beaming system, but instead of moving it from place to place, the system would store the beamed objects in a buffer and reconstruct them later. There was a concern that doing so with living beings would cause considerable degradation to their tissues, so it was only being planned for supplies, not troops.

The lead Asgard, Kvasir, moved some control stones around his console. “I believe we are ready for the test. I have locked on to the samples.” In a pile away from the rest was a cross-section of what they wanted to take. “Beaming now.”

There was the characteristic flash of light and the supplies disappeared. Now, they would wait the ten minutes that transit from Olympus Base to the storerooms of Atlantis would take. The Marines passed the time making small talk, the Asgard simply observed. Neither Kvasir nor his companion Hermiod had met humans before. It was an interesting experience for them both.

The ten minutes were up, and the supplies reappeared in the same space they had been. Everything appeared fine, but Hermiod moved forwards to run some detailed scans. He took several more minutes, muttering to himself the entire time, before turning to give the news.

“The process is acceptable. There is some degradation but not significant for the food or medical supplies. The assorted firearms are more concerning. They will still function but will have shorter than expected service lives. I would not recommend using this process on anything more complex than one of these weapons.”

The Marines nodded grimly. It was good news, in a way, but any hope of simply beaming the Cobras, and maybe even a few Scythes, through the wormhole was scotched. The idea of a Cobra falling apart in mid-air was far too scary. The pilots would just have to thread the needle themselves.

Olympus Base Briefing Room

Elsewhere, more Marines and a handful of Cobra pilots were studying the large hologram of Atlantis, discussing the best places to put their weapons and planes.

“…as much as I’d like to, we can’t just use the jumper bay directly above the gateroom, it’s already packed. We’ll have to do this dirt-strip style on one of the piers. Good thing we’re gonna have the city-shield up, I’d hate to get caught on the ground.”

The Marine Regiment’s Air Defence Officer nodded in agreement. “Sadly Commander I can’t spare any extra guns to cover you unless you’re out by the drone emplacements. Between those and the central towers we’ll be stretched thin as it is.”

The pilot scowled. “We can put down by the drone emplacements, but it’s a hell of a way for a scramble run if needs be. Can we see about bringing along some of those prefab airstrip buildings your Marines have?”

The Regiment’s CO, Colonel Hawley, nodded in agreement. “I don’t see why not. We’re taking everything else, might as well take a cot and the kitchen sink as well.”

Warstar Nemesis Fleet Operations Centre

Six Hours before Departure

Jellicoe and his senior officers were gathered to go over the final deployments. Around the huge display table was Captains Davies, Pendragon, Stewart and Garrett and Commanders Adama, Tigh and the newly-promoted Beatty. Their respective ships were even now gathering in formation. The Warstar at the centre, naturally. The Warspite in the lead, the Pegasus at the rear. On the port side flew Excalibur, on the starboard the new Galactica. Above was Victorious and Republic was below, rounding out the formation. Around them was a standard CAP, but one provided by Olympus Base rather than the ships themselves. The pilots were getting as much rest as possible, the next eighteen days would be fraught with launches and landings, little sleep and finally the prospect of a major engagement.

“Gentleman, lady, this is the final operational briefing for Operation: Retribution. The two Asgard battleships have already left for the first waypoint above the galactic disc. The Daniel Jackson will leave as soon as Thor has sent the ZPM and supplies via the Stargate in an hour’s time. We depart in six hours.” He reached out and highlighted a point in deep space.

“This is our first waypoint, the first of a hundred and forty. Make no mistake this is going to be a gruelling three weeks. We’ll be making one jump every three hours. For the Terrans here, just ask Saul or Lee what regular jumps and no sleep feels like, their record was two hundred and forty jumps, once every thirty-three minutes.” The Terrans grimaced at the idea.

“At every waypoint we will deploy a CAP from each ship of one squadron. I want you all to keep a close eye on your engines, we’re not sure what repeated max-distance jumps will do long-term. I don’t want to have to leave anyone waiting in the void for a tow.” There was a quiet chuckle at the idea of that.

“By our estimates, we’ll arrive at Atlantis in seventeen and a half days. We’ll have perhaps three days at most before the Wraith arrive. Sadly, whilst Atlantis was able to provide a considerable amount of information on their fighters, called Darts, information on the capabilities of the Hive Ships or Cruisers is sorely lacking. We know they are approximately two and a half kilometres long and about eight hundred metres across at its widest point. They are believed to carry upwards of a thousand Darts each.”

There was some consternation at that. Huge numbers of fighters were always a problem, even if they carried comparatively weak weapons.

“On top of that, we know they’re armed for ship-to-ship combat, but how effective they are we just don’t know. The Cruisers are about one-quarter the length of a Hive and, likewise, carry a lot of Darts and ship to ship weapons, but again, of unknown effectiveness.” Jellicoe paused to take a sip of water.

“Given the unknowns of their ships and the unknown number of other Hives present in the Pegasus Galaxy, we have to take out all of them in this group. It is distinctly possible that this is a standard scouting force and fifty times this number are slowly waking up in Pegasus. With this in mind, I feel we have no choice but to engage and destroy this entire force. We can’t allow survivors to leave and tell the others about our presence.”

Saul Tigh smirked. “You want to lay a trap of them?”

Jellicoe returned the smirk. “Of course. Between us, the Asgard and those massive nukes the SGC provided, I have a plan.” The other officers listened and discussed, tweaked and adjusted and revised. The plan would be a good one. The Wraith wouldn’t know what hit them.

========

Yup, another montage. The Alliance is gearing up for war.

[fnord]

Bucketing along to the Pegasus galaxy at an average speed of 73 million c - I like it.

Was Pegasus' test jump entirely intragalactic, for a worst-case test (all that stars, dust, maybe central black hole, etc in way)? Per word of dog, the Terran home galaxy is a spiral galaxy of some kind - elliptical galaxies tend not to have discs.

How far can the fleet push the jump cycle time (when Dread God Finagle - Murphy was busy chugging a brewery of Guinness - decides to put the boot in, by helping the Wraith fleet turn up earlier than expected)?

[Eternal_Freedom]

The test jump was to a point outside the galaxy. Might as well do it properly, and ASgard ships can tow others through hyperspace if needs be.

Terran home galaxy is the same Milky Way as SG1's. Hence why SG1 shows up along with Ba'al.

The Terran Fleet can't push the jump cycle much. This is why they're sending the ZPM and troops/Cobras/air defence crews on ahead, just in case they have to come in guns blazing rather than lay a trap.

[Sky Captain]

This is too easy, there are 3 Asgard ships and Daedalus with Asgard beaming system. Have all of them beam nukes to hiveships together and Wraith fleet are gone in seconds. In the series Daedalus blew up several hives before Wraith turned on some kind of jammer. Now there are 4 ships with beaming system.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's certainly a way to do it. And I may well include it, but I really want to avoid a single massive curbstomp. I want to be able to have them come up with a plan and work with it.

I may have them send a few cruisers in first and have them fall prey to such tactics. I have plans for the first wave of Hive Ships.

[Eternal_Freedom]

A Prayer Answered
Atlantis Briefing Room

To say the atmosphere on the fabled Lost City was tense would be a colossal understatement. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Ordinarily amiable and friendly scientists and technicians had become surly and withdrawn as the prospect of a hopeless battle and a grim death approached nearer and nearer.

That was perhaps the most difficult thing. They not only knew it was coming, they had an accurate estimate of the Wraith’s arrival and minute-by-minute tracking of their positions via the city’s deep space sensors. The burst message sent desperately to Earth the day before hadn’t helped. Virtually everyone had included a video message saying goodbye to their loved ones, even if they couldn’t tell them the details or even where they were. It was a heart wrenching experience for many of them.

There were some upsides though. Someone had helpfully calculated that, even with increased consumption as plans were desperately formulated, the coffee and tea supplies would last another month at least, so no-one would have to go without caffeine before their demise.

A more tangible upside was the result of Major Sheppard’s mission that had returned just hours ago – he had gone to a world that was in the path of the Wraith fleet and would be used as a feeding ground prior to the assault on Atlantis. He and Teyla had managed to persuade the small population to evacuate to Atlantis, though there had been a minor complication.

A rather large and violent man apparently named Ronon Dex had ambushed them at one point. He was apparently a Runner, prisoners released into the galaxy by the Wraith to be hunted for sport. They all had tracking implants to stop them from ever truly escaping their fates, but once this had been discovered, Dr Beckett had come through to remove the implant and Ronon had, albeit reluctantly, come with them back to the city, purely on the ground that he’d get to fight the Wraith and take his revenge. Sheppard and Weir were quite happy with that, the man clearly knew how to combat the vampiric creatures.

Besides that excitement, there was a note of hope as well, if a desperate one. Everyone knew that Earth had been working on the Daedalus, a larger and more powerful battlecruiser. It was just possible that she could arrive in time and drive off, if not defeat, the Wraith armada.

Rodney McKay was working twenty hour days, trying to find some way for them to fight, whilst Sheppard, Teyla and a few others were working on finding a new planet for them to evacuate to. The Athosian population had been brought back from the mainland (again), either to be ready to evacuate or, in the case of many of them, to train to fight the Wraith and defend the city.

In the main briefing room, the expedition’s leaders had gathered to hear a report on possible evacuation locations. The report was grim; twelve planets had been surveyed and of the seven discussed so far, none had been suitable. Dr Weir was about to call for a break when the Stargate began to activate.

Needless to say this was a surprise. None of their teams were off world at present so this was something more serious. The technicians in the control room went through their standard procedure, while the handful of soldiers on guard duty took up defensive positions. The gate shield was activated and the wormhole engaged.

There was silence for a moment. Nothing tried to come through, which gave them a moment of relief – had the Wraith tried to dial in they would have sent troops in immediately. Then Chuck, the senior technician, began receiving a signal. It was not a standard access code, but rather a voice transmission. He informed Dr. Weir of this and she, with a confused look on her face, told him to put it on the speakers.

”Atlantis Expedition, this is General Jack O’Neill of Stargate Command. Are you reading me?”
For nearly ten seconds silence reigned in the control room. Everyone was shocked, and deep within even the most cynical and pessimistic people, hope flared to life.

”Atlantis, do you read?”

Weir shook herself mentally and pressed the transmit button. “We’re here General. I can’t say how good it is to hear from you. You got our message?”

”Oh yeah we got that. Neat idea by the way, sending a burst signal. Anyway, we got the message and we’re sending help. Can you lower the shield and let us through?”

Sheppard immediately stepped up and whispered something to Weir. His military mind was running through some very paranoid scenarios. Luckily, Weir agreed with the need for caution.

“One person, unarmed. Lowering the shield now.” She nodded at Chuck, who did as instructed.

There was no response over the radio. Instead, a few seconds after she’d spoken, the event horizon of the wormhole rippled…and out stepped Jack O’Neill in his customary BDU’s, though without anything more dangerous than a radio.

Weir, Sheppard and McKay all raced down to the gateroom itself to meet the new arrival. All round the large room there was shock, glee and a rising sense of hope: maybe they would survive after all.

Jack spoke first once the three had reached him. “Doctor Weir, Major Sheppard, Doctor McKay, it’s good to see you all still alive. You’ve done a hell of a job out here.”

Weird spoke for the group. “Thank you General. I do hope you’re bringing more help than just you though.”

Jack chuckled. “Oh yeah, we brought the cavalry, in more ways than one. I’m gonna need you to open the doors to the jumper bay, and the exterior doors, and have some people on hand to direct the cavalry to somewhere to assemble.”

Sheppard nodded, waved at Chuck (who had of course been listening) and then called over one of the Marines on guard detail, telling him to summon others and direct the new arrivals to a few of the large halls further down the central tower.

Jack in turn reached for his radio. “Olympus Base, this is General O’Neill. Contact established, send through Sam and Daniel and then the Marines.” There was a brief acknowledgement and then seconds later, Sam Carter and Daniel Jackson stepped through. Sam was carrying a large sturdy case, while Daniel held a rucksack.

Sam stepped up, nodded at Weir and Sheppard, and then grimaced at Rodney before handing him the case.

“Here you go McKay, you should know what to do with that.”

Rodney took the case with naked curiosity. He opened it up and then nearly dropped it in shock. Within the padded interior was a ZPM…a fully charged ZPM. He was so surprised he was barely able to form a coherent sentence.

“But…how did you…you can’t just…oh wow.”

Carter just grinned at him. “Eloquent as ever McKay. Go plug that in.” Rodney didn’t need telling twice, he raced off as fast as his legs could carry him, heading for a transporter station and the power room far below.

Behind the group, a long line of Marines were emerging from the gate, being directed out of the gateroom and down by Sheppard’s troops. They were an odd looking group; their uniforms were all black and while they were similar to SGC or Atlantis standard gear, they were clearly not regular SGC personnel. The unit flashes on their shoulders were completely unfamiliar to anyone present, and their weapons were clearly not made on Earth – they had recognisable stocks and trigger groups, but no visible magazines, and the barrels were far too wide to be counted as small arms.

Sheppard and Weir remained standing with O’Neill, Sam and Daniel. Their confusion was evident for all to see, and only built as the minutes ticked by and more and more Marines came through the wormhole. Sheppard in particular seemed to be itching to go over and have a look at the new arrival’s weapons, while Weir was looking expectantly at Jack. The General finally relented.

“We found some new friends, and have some help from the Asgard. These troops are here to help defend the city. The Combined Fleet should be here in eighteen days, giving us what, two or three days before the bad guys show up?” Weir nodded dumbly. “Good, I’m sure Thor and Jellicoe can come up with something clever to kill them when they arrive.”

Sheppard shook off his confusion. “Sir, who are these people?”

Jack smiled. “This’ll sound crazy. Either of you remember that old 70’s show, Battlestar Galactica?”

Weir shook her head while Sheppard nodded. “I saw a few reruns of it back in high school.”

“Well it turns out it wasn’t entirely fictional. Long story short, these guys are from a planet called Terra. They’re sending in a battalion of their Marines plus a lot of air-defence weapons, to shore things up here until the Fleet arrives.” Just as he finished, one of the Terran Marines stepped up to the group.

“General, the last of the troops is coming through now. We’ve got the supplies through already, just the Cobras left now sir.”

Jack nodded. “Good work Colonel. Doctor, Major, we’re gonna want to move away, we need this space.” The group moved up to the top of the stairs leading from the Stargate. Jack lifted his radio. “Olympus Base, send the Cobras when ready. Slowly.”

The last of the Terran Marines cleared the area, and then a large fighter began to emerge slowly from the gate. It was long and narrow, with three wings mounted at the rear, one vertical and two more angled down from the centreline. Three weapon barrels were evident on the wings and a pilot in the cockpit, wearing a somewhat bemused expression. Jack could appreciate that, gate travel was weird enough on foot, being in a fighter at the time was no doubt even weirder. The pilot waved at O’Neill, who simply pointed up at the open doors to the jumper bay.

The Cobra tiled its nose upwards and then slowly rose up out of the gateroom, through the jumper bay and out into the clear blue skies. The pilot, Lieutenant Commander Johnson of the Terran Commonwealth Navy took a moment to enjoy the view before kicking in her engines and pulling around to start a lazy patrol around the city. Members of the Atlantis Expedition who had not yet heard of the news saw her plane and began speculating wildly, and more than a few made frantic radio calls to the control room to ascertain what the hell was going on.

As soon as Johnson’s plane was clear of the jumper bay, Jack signalled the next Cobra. The process was repeated until a full twenty-plane squadron was flying lazy circles around the huge city. Jack lifted his radio once more.

“Olympus Base, transfer completed. Tell Thor thanks for the help and we’ll see him in eighteen days.”

There was a brief acknowledgement and then the gate shut down. Jack, Sam and Daniel turned back to the Doctor and the Major. “I know you’ve got questions, so we prepared a full briefing. Call McKay back up here, he’s annoying but he’ll need to know this. Shall we?” He gestured over to the briefing room. Weir nodded and led the group off for what would be a long conversation.

But one thing was clear, as news of the arrivals spread throughout the city. Hope lived again.

===========

-Atlantis gets reinforced, am and Daniel get to see Atlantis
-Yes, I'm bringing in Ronon earlier than planned. But given his introduction and his nature as a Runner, he could have turned up on any planet. So I've had him turn up because, well, he's a fun guy.
-Next chapter will be another montage of sorts, showing preparations and plans on Atlantis and the progress of Task Force Nemesis.

[Highlord Laan]

Is Earth not sending any reinforcements outside of the Daedalus?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Earth is sending troops aboard Daedalus. The Terrans had enough troops ready to go within 24 hours, the SGC didn't, and the Terrans are already on Olympus Base where the gate is.

[fnord]

Sweet, the booties have started arriving. Now waiting for Dread God Finagle to put the boot in.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh there will be a few problems. Which will helpfully avoid the pitfall of "why don't we just beam nukes."

[LadyTevar]

If Murphy doesn't kick in, something is REALLY wrong.

Great job. I did step in to fix a italics errors.

[fnord]

Nah, Murphy is busy chugging a brewery-full of Guinness. It's his boss, aforementioned Dread God Finagle, you have to worry about.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If Murphy doesn't kick in, something is REALLY wrong.

Great job. I did step in to fix a italics errors.

Don't worry, Murphy planned ahead

Alo, thanks for the italics thing. I'm usually pretty good at catching them but sometimes they slip through too late to edit. Any chance of a longer edit window in User Fiction? Or, hell, can I be a minimod for User Fiction as well as Happy Haven so I can fix this myself in future?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I've been busy...

On the Edge of the Abyss
Atlantis Briefing Room
Task Force Nemesis Arrival: -16 days

A day after their arrival, the Terran Marines and Cobra pilots were settled in to their temporary accommodation. The standard field airstrip buildings had been set up on the Eat Pier, near one of the city’s drone silos. The air-defence crews were likewise set up; twenty-five anti-air laser cannon mounts had been deployed, five each around each of the three drone silos and the remaining ten divided between the central tower and other key rooftops. It was a thin defence for a city this size, but with the shield soon to be reactivated this was a last-resort defence anyway.

The senior Terran officers, Lt. Commander Alicia Johnson and Lt. Colonel Henry Fitzpatrick, in command of the augmented battalion of Marines, were currently giving a briefing to the Atlantis Expedition’s senior staff, outlining just what they were bringing. The Marine had gone over the troops, small arms and air-defence systems they had brought, and the pilot had just concluded a brief description of the fighters. She moved on to what was coming in the main Task Force.

“Task Force Nemesis consists of eleven ships. Your own Daedalus, the Asgard Science Vessel Daniel Jackson, which Supreme Commander Thor is using as a flagship, the Asgard Battleships Samantha Carter and Teal’c of Chu’lak, three Colonial Battlestars, the Pegasus, Warspite and Galactica, three Terran Battlestars, the Excalibur, Victorious and Republic and finally the force flagship, the Warstar Nemesis.”

Seated at the table, Sam and Daniel adopted slightly embarrassed looks as their namesake ships were mentioned. They slight embarrassment became more considerable at the rather awed looks several Expedition members sent their way. Daniel in particular was uncomfortable with the attention; he had argued long and hard with Thor that he really didn’t deserve such an honour. Thor had quietly assured him that he did, and that changing a ship’s name was considered extremely improper – it turned out the Asgard had a sense of superstition after all.

Johnson brought up a hologram, showing the Battlestar Pegasus.

“This is Pegasus. Originally a Mercury class Battlestar, after the extensive upgrades pioneered on her sister ship she is apparently now considered a Warspite-class Battlestar. She is 1,790 metres in length, carries a crew of two thousand and a complement of 200 Vipers and 20 Raptor scout/recon craft, plus assorted shuttles. She possesses powerful shield grids and superconductive hull armour. In her bow she has four mega-lasers, weapons capable of obliterating a Cylon Basestar in a single volley. She mounts turbolasers in forty-four twin mounts around the hull, mostly in the central trench, the flight pods, and the dorsal hull. Some of those replace original kinetic weapons, others were added in the refits and finally twelve forward missile tubes with heavy anti-ship nuclear missiles”

She paused to allow the various humans to take in the news. “I should stress that whilst very powerful ships, these two Battlestars are the weakest ships we’re bringing. The remaining four are Terran-built Lionheart-class vessels.” A new hologram appeared, showing another ship of a similar design.

“These ships are slightly shorter than the Warspites at only 1,650 metres, and they only carry 160 fighters each, but they make up for this with a heavier anti-ship punch. She carries the same four mega-lasers in the bows plus sixty-four twin turbolaser turrets divided to cover the bow, port, starboard, dorsal and ventral sides. This is backed up by 512 point-defence mounts all over the hull, each of these is the equivalent of one of the air-defence guns we brought with us.”

She paused for a moment, as her next point brought up painful memories. “Combat experience has shown these ships to be able to withstand approximately three hundred contact or proximity detonations from hundred-megaton-range nuclear devices before the shields fail, and that’s before we got the new Asgard generators and armour capacitors. The hull armour is equally impressive at resisting damage. Over Terra, the Battlestar Barham, despite severely depleted shields and damaged main engines, managed to engage and destroy eight enemy capital ships on her own before being destroyed. And they got most of the crew off her too.”

She shook off the memory and then activated another hologram, showing a monstrously-scaled ship. “This is the force flagship, the one-of-a-kind Warstar Nemesis. She is 3,600 metres long, and considerably more massive than the Hive Ships we’re facing. She carries the strongest generators and shields we and the Asgard can build. Her Air Wing comprises 640 Cobras, 80 Scythe Gunships, 80 Scimitar Bombers and 40 Leopard Dropships for the embarked Marine Division. She carries twelve mega-lasers in forward mounts, plus another eight in single turrets, four topside, four on the keel. Two hundred and fifty six twin turbolaser mounts, eighty heavy missile tubes and two thousand point-defence emplacements round out her secondary and close-in batteries.”

Sheppard and McKay both blinked at that, then looked questioningly at Johnson. She smiled before answering, a strong note of pride in her voice; her cousin had been part of the weapons development team.

“Yes, you heard right. The ship’s main weapon is what we call a superlaser.” Those in the room who were Star Wars fans adopted the same surprised look as Sheppard and McKay wore. “This is a spinal mounted energy weapon. The assorted systems are apparently about as big as a Lionheart class Battlestar. It has an effective range of twenty thousand kilometres and during tests, it vaporised a sixty cubic kilometre nickel-iron asteroid in a single shot.”

There was silence and awe in the briefing room. The hope that had been resurgent the day before was now building to unprecedented levels.

Warstar Nemesis Admiral’s Quarters,
Task Force Nemesis Arrival: -14 days

John Jellicoe gasped as he awoke from the nightmare. He caught his breath and then looked furiously at the clock on the bulkhead. 0356 Terran Standard Time. Damn he thought Only fifty minutes sleep since the last jump. There’s no way I’ll sleep again after that.

He stood up from his sweat-stained sheets and walked into his head to splash some water on his face. He made the mistake of looking in the mirror which served to remind him how awful he looked. The nightmare had been the same one that had plagued him after Warspite had made it back to the Colonies, only to find them annihilated. There were a lot of sights from those days that he would rather forget. The dream had faded after they’d reached Terra, but now, with nearly three weeks of travelling and nothing else to occupy his mind, it had returned with a vengeance, his subconscious filling in events he hadn’t witnessed but could extrapolate.

The Scorpion Fleet Shipyards….burning and breaking apart under Cylon missile volleys….

The Battlestar Atlantia, his first assignment out of Flight School, one of the few ships able to fight back during the Fall…blasted and broken into five large fragments by repeated nuclear strikes…

The Battlestar Yashuman, his brother Edward’s command, disabled above Caprica and burning down into the atmosphere….

The Gunstar Enceladus, his first command… lying crashed in a crater on the surface of Troy, the airless moon of Saggitaron….

His family’s home in Boskirk, the capital city of Virgon, with a splendid view of the Royal Palace…his wife and children playing in the garden…all wiped away in the flash and fury of a high-yield nuclear blast….

Countless others…cities annihilated… Battlestars crashed or blasted to rubble, ripped in half…civilian ships adrift, their hulls punctured and their doomed passengers left floating….clouds of wrecked Vipers, their pilots twisted into agonising poses before freezing solid in the depths of space….

He ran his hands over his face and glared at his reflection for a full minute, trying to banish the nightmare by force of will alone, and mostly succeeding. He walked back into his quarters, only to see a light flashing on his desk indicating an incoming call. He sat down heavily and pressed the accept button. The screen came to life, showing an image of a similarly morose-looking David Beatty, his old friend and the new Commander of Warspite. His friend took in the Admiral’s appearance before sighing.

”Again, John?”

The Admiral grimaced. “Yep. Boskirk, Scorpion Fleet Shipyards, the Enceladus and Yashuman, the works. You?”

”My father’s place in Caprica City. Susie went to stay with him after his stroke.”

The two men shared a silent reflection on what they had each lost. David’s father had been a good man, and a highly-decorated Commander during the First War. He’d brought the Battlestar Athena through the vicious Battle of Tauron in the last days before returning to civilian life, helping found Colonial Spaceways, the last surviving ship of which had carried the President through the Fall. His wife Susan had been a celebrated Doctor who had developed several revolutionary treatments for stroke victims, which is why she’d gone to her father-in-law’s home.

David spoke again. “I thought I’d seen the last of these Gods-damned dreams.”

John grimaced. “I don’t think they’ll ever be gone David. Not while we still love those who have gone.”

David nodded in silent agreement. ”Then let them rest in peace. We won the war in the end.”
John could only bow his head. He didn’t trust himself to speak. The two old friends talked for a few more minutes before they both went back to bed. Sleep would not come this night for either of them.

Atlantis
Task Force Nemesis Arrival: -12 days

Excitement was high in the city. With the Cobra pilots settled in and the air-defence system calibrated, it was now time to conduct some full-scale tests. In the control room, Rodney was frantically hopping about from station to station, while Sheppard and Weir looked on with amusement, well-used to his antics by now. Behind them, O’Neill, Carter and Jackson bore expressions of irritation; they had substantially less favourable opinions of the scientist than the Atlantis crew did.

Rodney finally finished his checks and began a running countdown. “ZPM installed, primary power conduits open. Backup generators bypassed, the city is now on ZPM power. Shield generators active…shield activating…now!”

The huge dome of the city-shield rose upwards, providing a breath-taking sight for everyone who saw it. Rodney was far too busy to be impressed. He began another series of checks before activating his radio.

“Air-defence station seven, you’re cleared for test-firing.”

On the East Pier, one of the gun platforms powered up and trained its twin barrels on an arbitrary point outside the shields. No-one was exactly sure if the laser cannons would be able to fire from within the shield, hence the test. The gunner pulled his triggers and a three-shot burst spat forth. It reached the shield in a fraction of a second…and passed through, continuing off towards the horizon with no impediment whatsoever.

Colonel Fitzpatrick looked smug. “Well Doctor McKay, with that tested can we begin the air-defence
exercises?”

Rodney scowled at the military man before relenting. “Yes Colonel, you’re cleared. Deactivating the shield now.” The huge protective dome once again faded away, leaving the city open to air attack.

Above the city, the twenty Cobras were circling in anticipation. Their flight computers had been programmed with the known performance characteristics of Wraith Darts. They would practice attack runs whilst the air-defence crews tried to stop them. Alicia Johnson, callsign Chaser, clicked her radio.

“All air-defence batteries, confirm weapons in training mode!”

The assorted gun crews radioed in, confirming they were in training mode; the gun’s power was drastically dialled back – the bolts would be clearly visible and would make a noticeable splash on the Cobra’s shields but would do no damage. Three hits were deemed a kill.

With the last confirmation received, Johnson switched to her squadron frequency. “Allright boys and girls, time to show those ground-pounders what real warriors can do. All Cobras, break and attack! Focus on the air-defence crews!”

That was another part of the exercise – the air defence platforms had sensors that could record “hits” from the Cobra’s weapons, which were similarly dialled down to training mode. It was a perfect training opportunity for both sides.

The neat formation of fighters suddenly scattered, diving down towards the city as fast as the simulated performance limiters would let them. Streams of red laser fire rose up to meet them and the Cobras began to jink and roll to avoid fire. Their own cannons began spitting bolts, shots landing near the guns before the pilots began to correct their aim. But the gunners down below were correcting their own firing solutions too.

First one, then two and finally a third Cobra pilot cried out in rage as their computers logged multiple hits, enough to count them as kills. They pulled away to assume level flight a fair distance from the city. A pair of air-defence guns had been “knocked out” in the first exchange, and the airstrip had taken heavy damage – indicated by prepositioned flares and smoke bombs igniting.

The Cobras pulled up from their dives and began to dash in and around the city structure itself. The gunners on the ground took frantic shots whenever they could, scoring a couple more kills and losing a few more guns in return.

Ten minutes into the simulated assault, only Chaser’s plane remained in the fight, but only six gun crews remained. She winged one with a split-second shot, only to be caught by bursts from two other batteries in return. She pulled her plane up to join the rest of her squadron, before calling the air-defence commander to congratulate him…with suitably backhanded praise of course.

Atlantis Control Room
Task Force Nemesis Arrival: -7 days

Weir, Sheppard, O’Neill and Fitzpatrick assembled in the Control Room, summoned by McKay and Zelenka. Sheppard looked particularly annoyed; he’d been on the shooting range getting checked out on the Terran’s weapons and getting to know Ronon better when he’d been called away.

“What now McKay?”

The scientist in question shared an aggrieved look with Zelenka before answering. “We’ve got a problem. The deep-space sensors show that three Wraith Cruisers have broken off from the main fleet and are heading here at full speed. They’ll be here in two days.”

O’Neill frowned. “Must be a recon element. The main fleet won’t get here for, what, ten more days?”

Zelenka nodded. “Correct General, the Hive Ships are sticking to their previous route and speed, stopping to feed along the way” he said distastefully. He hated the thought of anyone being fed on by the Wraith.

Sheppard grimaced. “We can’t take on three Cruisers with one squadron of fighters and they carry enough Darts that we’ll have to activate the shield to hold them off. Those Cruisers will see this and know we’ve got stronger defences than anticipated, the Hives will speed up and may get here before your Task Force does, or they’ll just sit there watching us. Either way, the secret’s out of the bag. No way we can kill them all and keep our location and defences a secret.”

No one could argue with that analysis. O’Neill pondered for a moment before asking McKay something. “Is the Task Force close enough for a subspace comm link?”

Rodney thought for a second before answering. “Just.”

“Call them up. Jellicoe and Thor need to know about this. We’ll have to change our plans.”


=======

-Another chapter, and a good-size one too. A little bit of filler, but it shows some of what's going on, gives some mroe details of the Battlestars/Warstar's loadouts and a little air-raid test for flavour.
-Also, a chance for a little character work for Jellicoe. Turns out escaping a genocide ain't something you shrug off in a few months.
-Fnord and LadyTevar: I told you Murphy planned ahead
-Finally, a cookie for whoever geusses the shout-out behind Alicia Johnson/Chaser

[fnord]

So what will Thor do? Send a single battleship on ahead (on their own, they'd only be what, 48 hours out?), keep Daniel Jackson and the other battlewagon back to provide jump beacons (while insuring against beacon failure on one Asgard vessel), and see if the Combined Fleet can step up jump cycle time to even 160 minutes?

Remember, Murphy's Law - “If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.” - (as stated by Captain E.A. Murphy, USAF in a voice like thunder) was fundamentally optimistic and an admonition for defensive design and thorough checking, after John Stapp got strained in vain in 1949 because the accelerometers in his crash harness were installed arse about and thus gave no data during crash tests.

Dread God Finagle then got involved, resulting in Finagle's Law: "Anything that can go wrong, will”

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Asgard plan will be revealed next time

[fnord]

You sure that Wallace's callsign isn't "Wizard" ?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Pretty sure, though "Wizard" is a good contender.

[fnord]

Chaser seems a little too junior to have been Barham's CAG. Have got nothing at moment on latest addition to Loads And Loads Of Shoutouts.

[Eternal_Freedom]

She wasn't Barham's CAG, but she was at the battle so she knows what happened.

[Sky Captain]

With ZPM installed Atlantis drone weapons also should work so 3 cruisers are no match for Atlantis. If Asgard send one battleship ahead then cruisers could be wiped out easily, possibly before they manage to send data back to main fleet. Submerging Atlantis also should be possible now when shield is working.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Except that a) Atlantis only had a few dozen drones and there will be darts as well and b) I never said the cruisers would close to within drone range of the city.

EDIT: In essence, and without giving too much away, I'm going to try and do everything I can to make the Wraith fight clever. They fought the Ancients and won after all, sure massive numbers help with that but they can't be that dumb.

It also occurs to me that the Wraith may well have encountered the Asgard before and know about the beaming systems - I think the Wraith attacked and destroyed the Asgard splinter faction's intergalactic ships when the Ancient war was still ongoing (as mentioned in season 5's "The Lost Tribe"). If not them, I'm sure the Asgard would have at least tried to help their allies.

[fnord]

As we've already seen with the toasters, it makes a lot more interesting story when the opposition does fight clever. (Not to mention giving Grappler an excuse to really cut sick with Nemesis' bang bangs).

Jamming beaming systems definitely will count as "interesting". Diverting a beaming attempt, also quite interesting.