GateWar Interludes

“Guardian, you are clear to depart bay, please follow Blue-line to southern exit route. Be advised incoming traffic, MGB Gunner inbound on Red-line from Eastern. As always, exiting vessel has right of way”

Her tone was dry, dull and official as always but I knew Flight Controller Hauptman, ‘Patsy' to her friends better then most, after all, it was her bed I was sleeping in the night before. Luckily for me, regs don't cover civilians, even those recruited from the ATC tower at Atlantic City International.

Still, at this point we had the… somewhat interesting task of manoeuvring Guardian out of her dedicated bay, along the ‘wide till you try moving a MTB along them corridors' that led from each of the secured and buried bays the MTBs were kept to the much larger corridors, tunnels really that led to the exit routes. That day, we had Southern, Blue exit which meant we would exit the tunnel into a cave and flash out into the sun (assuming it was day outside, frankly you easily lost track of time when you're either in space or stuck under ground) at most fifty feet above the water.

It was insane as hell yes, but it was fun. Compared to Gold, or Western exit which was the reserve, or hidden exit anyways. That was a true nightmare to get out of, but it was set up in the first place because they didn't expect anyone to think such an insane exit route would be used. May at just say that reasoning like that makes me wonder about the sanity of Command sometimes?

Eastern (Red) was the easy one, large door set into a cliff far back from the waters edge, that one even had a runway. Not that it mattered too much, when all was said and done, you still had those bloody awful tunnels to move your MTB or MGB through before you could sign off. Command keeps promising us tractors and doilies to shift our warcraft through the corridors, which would have been far safer but so far they haven't materialized. Annoying, but what can you do?

I mean, it wasn't as if we wanted to use our manoeuvring burners inside the tunnels but command plays merry hell about the damage it causes and has even said we can't have our tractors till we stop causing so much damage… Again, I question the sanity of command, or at least, some of the paperpushers at Stargate Command. They should at least have got the tractors out before we hit full squadron strength, well, when they see the repair budget for next quarter I'm sure they will wish they had.

We passed Keeper as we hit the outer chamber of the launch bay, Keeper being our Alert Five warcraft for today and punching up our speed to the glorious 10kmph we quickly cross into the final launch chamber where we stop. As you run our final check-list, a blast shield rises up behind yoy, ready in theory to protect the station against our wash or us, should we come a cropper. Emphasis, thanks to an admin screw up, is very much on that ‘in theory'.

Twenty minutes after beginning power-up, we finally launched, dancing over the waves for a moment before hitting the sky at a 45degree angle. After transmitting our ID to Defender where she lay in orbit over the Alpha site and headed out for the first stage of our patrol.

It was supposed to be a simple patrol of the nearby systems, none of which had a working Stargate, and more often then not, was quite boring. Unfortunately it seemed fate had other plans for us, as in the very first system of our patrol we came upon a patrol of Al-kesh bombers.

Which was a problem; time was if you saw anything Goa'uld you could just shoot but the biggest users of Goa'uld technology nowadays were Maktenos, currently allied with us, and the Free Jaffa Nation, also allied. Following them, was Anubis (not likely to be in this area of space), the Tok'ra, the Cylons (used the technology but not the ship designs) and the finally the minor leagues, several wandering bands of rogues, mercenaries and a few independent worlds which had one way or another gotten access to a small stock of Goa'uld equipment and keep a hold of it.

We had no real way of knowing which applied in this case, but the vessel was no broadcasting any IFF signals which ruled out Maktenos and the Free Jaffa. Oh yes, and they had promptly opened fire upon us, a very good indicator that they were hostile.

We had put shields up and sent a contact report as soon as we detected someone inside the patrol zone of course, the Alpha Site, in particular its location was a closely guarded secret and if that had been compromised in anyway, base needed to know it soonest. As soon as the Al-kesh opened fire, the computers instantly blipped off a warning to base whilst we got stuck in. In truth though, the poor fools should have run, a lone Al-kesh was not a real match for a Blastboat class MTB except in the hands of a master and these guys were indifferent.

It took a careful burst of just three gauss rounds, supplemented by fire from the pulse lasers to shut their shields down, then it was boarders away as the bulk of my crew left via the ring-transporters for the more interesting phase of the operation, capturing whoever it was that decided my ship was a target for interrogation by the Intel boys.

By the time that was done, base had confirmed Full Alert status and Defender had jumped out to join us, being replaced on overwatch by Keeper from the Alert Five slot.

A quick trip back to base with our prize then we had to take up the Alert Five slot whilst we wrote up our reports, Keeper took over our patrol and Defender took back her position as Overwatch.

Then word came in, on the third system of the patrol, Keeper had signalled contact, only their contact, a Tel'tac had legged it, abandoning the system. With confirmation of more then one Goa'uld ship in the area, a decision was made to increase the alert status, not an easy decision considering that to defend the Alpha Site, we had only six MTBs, no fighters and that after the Alert blew over, we would still need to maintain a ship on overwatch and one on Alert Five at least. It was bad enough trying to juggle the schedule under normal circumstances…

Keeper stayed in the third system, watching carefully for any activity until she was joined by the fifth boat of our squadron, the MGB Gunner then they resumed the patrol. Our sixth and final boat, Artillery , an MGB launched, joining Defender on overwatch, and Paladin was sent to the Alert Five slot in the Eastern launch bay.

We sat there for the four hours it took for Keeper and Gunner to complete the patrol doing little more then patrol writing, sleeping for those lucky few who could find room and twiddling our thumbs but the patrol arrived back in system, late but reporting no additional contacts.

The Intel boys however had had more then enough time to start working their magic and the crew of the Al-kesh had been forced to talk. What they said was interesting, they were once Apothis's Jaffa, but had switched allegiance at his death, and then switched again and again and again as their masters kept dieing. Finally convinced their masters were not Gods, they decided to go pirate and dragged a few like minded humans and Jaffa along for the ride. They had thought this area of space would be a good hide-out, just as we had, but they hadn't expected us to be in the area.

At which point, the mission became simple, the secrecy of the Alpha Site was paramount and we had to see to it that not a single one of these pirates escaped to let word out that there was Tau'ri activity in the area, one way or the other. Unfortunately, the ace in the pirates hole was a Ha'tak , killable if we took our whole squadron out but it would mean leaving the Alpha Site itself unmasked.

Twelve Hours after first firing on the Al-kesh during our abortive patrol, the Squadron launched from the Alpha Site for our first Full Squadron operation, the utter destruction of the pirates that threatened our home.

Unsurprisingly, it turned out the pirates hadn't been entirely honest with us and as soon as we arrived at the supposed location of the Pirate base we found not one Ha'tak but two, plus their attendant support craft.

Making a mental note to have a word with the interrogators back at base, I ordered a flank speed advance, hoping we could catch the Ha'taks before they started launching the rest of their fighters and bombers thereby reducing the number of ships and weapons they could bring to bear against us.

It worked, the speed of our swift advance outpacing the reaction times of the pirate crews, they easily got their shields up in time, they would have to be idiots to leave their bridges unmanned after all, but it was the MGBs Gunner and Artillery that opened fire first, the rounds from their capital ship grade Gauss rifles splattering across the first Ha'tak, master designate one.

Seconds later, we hit gauss range for the cut-down rifles used on the MTBs and now concentrated fire from all six craft was pounding master one, with enough random fire being sent at the section of shields covering master twos launch bays to make any Jaffa think twice about launching. That goes double when you consider that these Jaffa were in it for themselves, not for their ‘Gods', a minor little detail which meant survival would be their game, not dying gloriously in the name of the God Insert-name-here. In combat, that apparently minor detail actually makes a lot of difference.

The Jaffa had woken up however and now master one was showing all the signs of having a crack gunner at the controls, something we would have been more then happy to do without.

Paladin was taking a heavy beating, being hit far more often then she was being missed by master one. Master two was busy firing at my Guardian but not doing a particularly effective job of it.

Then, we hit effective torpedo range and quickly fired off a full spread at Master One, before quickly breaking off, covering a rather battered Paladin. The gunner on master one showed his stars however, and he diverted his fire from us to the torpedoes, firing bursts of energy at the projectiles, quickly and rather astoundingly managing to destroy a full half of the spread.

The last twelve impacted however, chewing already weakened shields to shreds and master one began to manoeuvre to hide behind master two, probably just long enough to get their shields back to strength. This couldn't be allowed to happen, and despite the fact that our tubes were not yet reloaded, I ordered a charge on master twos position, intending to dive around the back of master two, now clearly a badly crewed vessel and finish off master one.

It might be worth noting here that despite the exceptional gunnery skills displayed by master one, these vessels both appeared to be unmodified Ha'taks and therefore in all likelihood neither vessel had been in the service of Maktenos or Anubis.

Our five ships ( Paladin had been left behind) quickly approached master two, main guns raking her shields and dealing with the occasional Al-kesh that attempted to threaten us before diving underneath master two to reach the more dangerous master one. It was clear from our scans as we came up under master two that one was actually in pretty good shape, they had a collapsed shield sector definitely, but the rest of the hull was still well protected. At which point, I decided to reuse a manoeuvre Harris had first used with Blastboat herself, diving through the destroyed shield sector and raking the hull with pulse laser fire.

Unfortunately, we were far too close for gauss weapons and pulse lasers aren't the best anti-armour weapons but with concentrated fire they will break through. That was my plan at least, but Keeper as it turned out had plans, which involved an otherwise dead missile, the ring transporters and a detonator.

I really wish that they had warned me about that first; it was somewhat of a shock to see an internal explosion blow out a hull segment in an area of master ones hull that hadn't even been fired upon. Still, it did the job and sensors quickly detected fires inside the Ha'tak in several areas. Knowing that was likely to keep them busy for a while, we moved back outside the shield perimeter and began firing gauss rounds through the destroyed shield segment. Perhaps I should have tried that first, its not really important now but the Ha'tak was doomed at this point, even with master two attempting to draw us away, which we ignored, she had internal fires, a shield segment which we were beginning to suspect was down permanent and weapons fire now hitting areas inside her hull.

Power went off across master one twenty minutes after we first engaged her, earning her an instant relegation to a Sierra, or non-threat designation.

At which point, rejoined by Paladin, I ordered the squadrons guns and tubes pointed very aggressively at master two and sent a transmission ‘suggesting' that they surrender, promising their survival if they did so. The vessel did so.

Initial Verbal Report Given by Captain Grissom on the capture of the Ha'taks Sword of Apothis (Intact), Godly Wraith (severely damaged)

Official (and hopefully more to the point) Report will follow.

Co Alpha Site"

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