In the shadow of the events and chaos of Disclosure, the first Battlegroup is formed...
And sent straight into action!
He leaned forward, considering the display. That destroyer had been damaged but not badly enough to have just died like that. He tapped at the display; replaying the last few moments and bringing the debris scatter up as well.
The explosion was external.
The sensors had picked up weapons fire but nothing at the point of origin of that fire.
The fire was too powerful to be from a fighters, and it had to be a stealthed platform otherwise there would have been something at the origin point. Passive stealth was more likely given that it hadn't appeared on the sensors as it fired unless Anubis had developed a way of firing whilst fully cloaked but passive stealth was resource prohibitive for warships and technically very challenging.
Al-kesh.
It had to be.
They hadn't fired again either, so either they couldn't or they were trying to throw the Tau'ri off balance.
Twenty Al-kesh abruptly dropped cloak in the middle of the Tau'ri fleet and with a curse Maktenos realised he had at least part of the answer.
He glanced across at the icons for his own fleet on the tactical display and nodded, “concentrate fire on the Cheops and engage as soon as you have the range.”
They would have range in mere moments now, and then it would be their turn to bleed.
“Bastards!”
O'Neill swore as the icons for his fleet scattered, each ship trying to bring its own weapons to bear on the threat that had suddenly appeared amongst them.
‘This wont do,' he thought, ‘unless we regain cohesion swiftly, that Cheops will finish us'.
“Detail the two Ha'taks and their fighter screen to deal with the Al-kesh , all other ships are…”
“ Al-kesh recloaking!”
He frowned, considering this as he gazed at the tactical display for a moment, then he grimaced, “signal the fleet, I want all ships back in formation in two minutes flat, also release the pulse lasers to engage Al-kesh. I know they won't kill ‘em quick if they have their shields up but there's a window of vulnerability as they switch between cloaks and shields when they can really hurt them.”
“Make sure the batteries are set to predictive mode too,” O'Neill glanced across at Hailey surprised, “a cloaked Al-kesh has to rely on its armour and until it changes course, the computers should still have a pretty good idea of where it is.”
Nodding approval, he turned back to the display, letting a tight grin slip onto his face for a moment as the icons for Seeker and Watcher started moving back towards the fleet, the remainder of the Viper squadrons slipping into position around the two destroyers.
Their return would certainly help.
His eyes caught eight more blips dropping into position at the flank of Anubis's forces, Maktenos's four Ha'taks and four Ha'tens.
As would theirs. Still, he considered, it would be best to deal with that bastard swiftly, “Keep fire concentrated on the Cheops! ”
“She's not going to be around much longer,”
“Maybe,” O'Neill glanced at Hailey as he replied, “but she can still hurt us if she wants….”
The ship rocked abruptly, lights flickering for a moment and O'Neill found himself feeling slightly nauseous as the inertial compensators lagged for just a moment, the sensation of unevenly dampened movement being weird and almost painfully unnatural.
He glanced at the tactical display, grimacing as he realised that the Free Jaffa were now short a Ha'tak and Atlantis was short a starboard shield, finished off by a segment of hull larger then most mansions.
The ship began to rock and then shudder and as quick glance at the readouts confirmed what he already knew. The Goa'uld now had Atlantis in their sights and enemy weapons fire was now impacting directly onto her starboard hull.
“What have they done to that things shield?”
Nodding agreement with his XO's quiet curse, O'Neill sighed then darted forward in his seat, the words on his lips to order the launch of a nuke as, at last, the Cheops shields gave way.
It would have been completely unnecessary, the guns of the Tau'ri fleet spoke as one once more, but not with standard trinium rounds as in a moment of almost telepathic glee, the fleet's tactical officers switched over to Naquadah tipped rounds.
The Cheops shattered into thirds, one segment flipping straight over into a Ha'tak, demolishing it in an instant, leaving two Ha'taks on each side of where the vessel had been.
Maktenos on the other hand had decided as soon as the Cheops shields went down that no further help would be needed there and his eight ships concentrated their fire on two Ha'taks even as his ships manoeuvred towards the rear of the enemy fleet.
The other two Ha'taks, finding them facing the full Tau'ri fleet on their own decided that the whole game wasn't any fun anymore and attempted to flee behind the wreckage, swiftly meeting Maktenos's vessels coming the other way.
Seeing weapons fire impacting on one of the Ha'tens they turned their guns to that ship even as they tried to dive underneath the opposing ships to flee. Maktenos diverted the fire of his ships and the lead Ha'tak of this group abruptly found itself under concentrated fire from twenty ships, Atlantis, Gettysburg, four destroyers, six patrolcraft, five Ha'taks and four Ha'tens and four minutes later ceased to be. Its compatriot at this point abruptly stopped firing and dropped shields, signalling surrender.
That left two Ha'taks and Maktenos eight vessels swiftly switched their fire back as the Tau'ri vessels turned, aiming to come around the debris to assist. The two Ha'taks decided to flee, but in doing so, allowed the Tau'ri to open fire upon them as well.
The rear Ha'tak got the message first and attempted to surrender but too late, the weapons fire already incoming was enough to blow straight the armour and straight into the main drives to an inevitable result.
The final Ha'tak, more sensibly, kept its shields up until sure no weapons were directed its way.
“How do you suggest we deal with the factory?”
O'Neill grimaced at Maktenos as he appeared on the screen and held back a quick and potentially Alliance-ending retort.
“To start with,” he replied, “the surrendered Ha'taks… one each.”
“Agreed,” came the reply, “but my question stands. The defensive platform was tougher then anticipated as you found out and there are fourteen more of them to deal with. I'm not sure we have the strength to deal with them.”
“We didn't come all this way and lose all these people to fail,” O'Neil replied, his voice almost dangerously calm, “somehow we are going to take that facility out.”
“I,” Hailey interrupted, “have an idea,”
O'Neill glanced across; his expression turning intrigued at the look on the Genius's face, a look of malicious glee, devilry satisfaction. He glanced across toward the display where Maktenos too was looking interested and a little bemused.
“I for one would be glad to hear it,” he noted, glancing at O'Neill questioningly.
“Well, there's two parts to it really…
A pin-point hyperspace jump is possible but tricky, precision always being an issue with the hyperspace drives. A precise jump can be made far easier with a Colonial spin-point drive and we have several vessels with that, the two Sentinel destroyers and the Vipers.
The Sentinels are a bit big for the task at hand, but that's okay. We have the Vipers and it doesn't matter so much if we lose a Viper or in this case two then if we risk a destroyer…”
“Risk a destroyer doing what?” O'Neill finally asked, exasperated and irritated.
“Why jumping into those two massive bays in the stations hull where the Cheops were hiding with nukes slung underneath of course,”
The Colonel chocked back a laugh as he considered the idea, then nodded, slowly, grinning.
“Those defensive batteries wont even get a look in,” she finished satisfied.