GateWar Interludes
2: The Line
by Chaos_eternus
“Hold the line! Do not let the Drakh get the station!”
Not that she was much of a station of course, still very much a incomplete skeletal construction, but it represented something greater, it couldn't be allowed to die this day, I wouldn't let it.
Unfortunately, the Drakh had other ideas. How they had learned the location of the Babylon station was unknown, and was for the moment unimportant, we just had to deal with the forces arrayed against us and hope we survived this day.
“Prometheus signals they are on their way, but they're 30 minutes out… Stingray's just fifteen minutes out, no-one else has responded yet”
Damn it… that just left my Prometheus and a small fleet of Alliance warships to defend Babylon against a significantly larger Drakh force. They chose the perfect moment to catch us with our pants down again! They must still have agents inside the alliance command structure, despite our best efforts to root them out.
But again, a question for another time.
“Starboard flank is faltering sir”
“Set a course for the starboard flank, weapons, I want guidance locks on those cruisers; let the Minbari deal with the fighters”
The Prometheus responded like the champ she was and I had to stifle a momentary grin at the thought that this, the flagship of Stargate Command, the first Tau'ri built warship was now mine to Command. Only five days I had occupied this centre seat, but it really felt like I belonged already.
“Gauss range on the first cruiser in 15 seconds…”
“Weapons, reset priorities for pulse weapons, inbound missiles 1, inbound fighters 2, other fighter contacts 3”
“Aye sir, resetting”
I was just glad that Carter… that is, Samantha Carter had redesigned the pulse lasers controls, the old set-up had a distinct tendency to prioritise based on how close the contact was, at least with this set-up which so far only the newest or most recently refitted vessels had, it was far easier to change priorities based upon the tactical situation.
The ship shuddered then, and before I was even told I knew the main batteries were firing, sending swarms of gauss rounds at the Drakh. I just hoped it would be enough; we were bingo for missile armament, an annoying little detail which greatly reduced our destructive capability.
Not that they would have had much effect in all honesty, the races in this area seemed to have far better missile defences then the Goa'uld or the Aschen, it was entirely possible even if we could fire off a salvo, that they would never survive to hit their targets. Still… it was an option and in battle options equalled more chances at survival.
Then, the ship began to really rock, and this time it was incoming fire. Luckily, unlike the rest of the warships on both sides of the battle, Prometheus was shielded and could take quite a bit of incoming fire. Still, I was dreading the day Anubis showed a bit of sense and started giving the Drakh shields.
“Get us in closer! Weapons, helm, co-ordinate, pick us a target and we'll do a trench run, stem to stern!”
Needless to say, being raked end to end by Gauss fire at close range wasn't a healthy thing for a warship and by the time we turned around to run back down another Drakh ship, the first was burning merrily, clearly out of control.
The second ship, which we hit as we headed back through the Drakh fleet towards alliance lines had been warned, and we received far more fire from them then we had the first ship. Unfortunately for them, a few other Drakh Captains had figured out what we were doing too and sent bursts or weapons fire our way, which as we were evasive, as is normal for a Tau'ri ship in Combat, mostly splattered against our target cruiser, causing far more fire then our own fire.
That vessel blew utterly before we reached safety and we were forced to show a clean pair of heels as we dived back behind the wall of mainly Minbari warships, vengeful fire splattering across our rear shields and lighting up space around us.
We had done our job though; our distraction had given the Alliance forces on that flank time to regroup and they were once again holding. The centre was weak though, very close to collapse and that was where we headed next.
The centre was being swamped by fighters, far too many for the Minbari and Narn vessels too handle. Unfortunately, our own fighter defence whilst powerful wasn't numerous, if you get the distinction, and even with fighters swarming in from the flanks to assist, I was seriously worried that we would be seeing leekers before too long.
Still, we had no choice but to try our best to destroy everyone of the fighters and we were killing them in droves but it wasn't enough. The Narn and Minbari vessels were dropping like flies under concentrated assaults from the fighters which might not have been especially manoeuvrable, but their weapons packed a significant punch for their size.
And yes, we had leekers.
Our F-302 fighters which had been left as the final defensive line over the skeleton of the Babylon station were now reporting enemy contacts more and more frequently, and whilst they were killing them quite swiftly thanks to the F-302s far superior mobility, the superstructure of the station was already taking damage.
I don't know how it happened, for the life of me I can pinpoint the exact moment things changed but the line collapsed. Within seconds, we seemed to go from being one warship of many, destroying fighters by the dozen, the next, we were on our own, surrounded by the Drakh and watching as fighters dove for the station, their weapons tearing into the structure, mangling it, destroying it.
Our fighters had left, seeing the swarms of Drakh heading towards their position they had signalled their intention to retreat and jumped into hyper. Around us, the flanking fleets were fighting hard, but with the collapse of the centre, they were being outflanked themselves and were dying fast.
The taste of bitter retreat in my mouth, I signalled the General Retreat.
Behind us, we left the ashes of a dream, of hope.
And somehow, I had to tell Weir.
“ Weir? Its Sheridan, I'm afraid I have some bad news…”