NationStates Jolt Archive

June 30th, 20XX
2355 Hours
Caprica City, Capital of Northrop-Grumman, Earth

It was an usually cool summer night in the capital city. Brent Shaw and his six-member team were riding in a large white utility van down Capital Boulevard towards the main headquarters of the Northrop-Grumman Corporation. They were ready to go with their body armor in place and their silenced MP5s loaded. The main headquarters had several large underground plasma cannons that would rise up and destroy any vehicle or low flying aircraft that did not have a special radio transmitter built into it. The van that they had stolen an hour earlier had one installed inside the glove compartment on the passenger's side. As the van slowly pulled onto the road leading into the facility's parking garage, everyone in the van nervously waited to see if the transmitter would work. The plasma cannons remained silent. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as the van finally entered into the parking garage. When the van rolled to a stop, Shaw and his team exited the van and silently walked into the only entrance in the parking garage for the facility. Upon entering the building, Shaw looked around. There appeared to be no one around for all of the company’s employees had left over an hour earlier.
“Security is sure scarce around this place,” he noted aloud as he moved toward the executive elevator. As soon as he said that, a security guard walked around the corner. The guard did not have a chance to react before Shaw shot him with his silenced MP5. He breathed a sigh of relief as he motioned for Paul Carver to enter the elevator. Carver entered the elevator and began to look over the controls.

“Uh, Shaw. There is one of those keycard slots in here to access the top floor. It’ll take three or four minutes to hack into the system.”

“Ok, you get to work, and we’ll keep an eye out for anymore security guards.”

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Meanwhile, in his thirty-fourth floor office overlooking the skyline of Caprica City, Chairman Jack O'Neill was going over the last few reports of the day. For cryin' out loud, why do these people send me crap like this? He tiredly threw the reports in the trash and rested his head on the desk. He almost fell asleep when his elderly secretary paged him. He groggily picked up the phone and said,

"Yes, Frances. What is it?"

"Sir..." O'Neill promptly cut her off.

"Can you please drop the ‘sir’? Call me Jack."

"Yes, s...Jack. It’s getting rather late. We’ve have been working hard all day getting these reports reviewed and retyped. Let’s just call it a night.”

“Frances, you can go on ahead. I need to stay here to finish up a few more things.”

“Alright, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Frances placed the phone back on its base, gathered her coat and purse, and took the elevator down.

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After about five minutes, Paul Carver finished hacking into the elevator access panel.

“Shaw, it’s done.”

“Alright, people. Let’s go!”

The team rushed into the elevator, and the doors closed behind them. They began their ascent up to the top floor of the building just as the second elevator stopped at the ground floor to let O’Neill’s secretary out. The team soon reached the top floor and quietly assembled to either side of the large mahogany doors leading into the Chairman’s office. Robert Fulcher, the explosives expert of the team, placed demo charges around the edges of the door and stood back to detonate them.

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O’Neill laid his head back down on the desk when suddenly his office doors exploded. He saw what looked like six armed men rushing into his office. He grabbed his sidearm and was going to fire it when a bullet struck his arm, causing his hand to immediately release the gun. As he grabbed his arm in pain, a white-haired older man appeared in the blown out doorway, his face masked by the darkness of the blown out lights.

“Well, well, I thought this might have been much harder,” the man chuckled.

“Who the hell are you?” replied O’Neill angrily.

“Who do you think I am?”

The man stepped into the light. O’Neill couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the former chairman, John Davis Northrop.

“No, it can’t be you! You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Really? What makes you say that?”

“You died when the spacedock accidentally crashed right into downtown Caprica City a few years ago.”

“Accidentally? I think not. When you and the rest of the high-ranking officers were planning to remove me and install a so-called ‘nicer, kinder’ form of government, I tried to kill all of you off by using the spacedock. When that happened, I had a waiting ship teleport me up onto it. From there, I waited until I had confirmation that you all were dead, but unfortunately, you… ”

O’Neill cut him off.

“You mean you killed 325 million people just to save your sorry ass?”

“I didn’t want my company to be in the hands of the military, like it is…”

O’Neill cut him off again.

“Oh, cut the crap. What are you doing here?”

Northrop raised up his sidearm from behind him and pointed it directly at O’Neill.

“That’s the second time you have cut me off. You want me to tell you why I am here, fine. I’ll keep this simple for your simple little mind. I am retaking the company and when I do, I plan on launching several massive attacks on your allies. Also, I am instituting a policy that will help weed out the weakness in this company. You got that?”

O’Neill refused to answer him.

“Alright, be that way.”

Northrop fired a shot into both of O’Neill legs. His legs immediately buckled and caused him to smash his head into his desk, knocking him unconscious. Northrop stood over the O’Neill’s body and motioned to Hunt and Wright standing nearby.

“Take him down to the stargate terminal and throw him through to the planet Zaragoza. You know the address for it. Please don’t kill him because I want him to suffer for the rest of his life.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Hunt as he and Wright dragged O’Neill’s body out of the office.

Northrop then turned towards Shaw.

“Get the nearest artillery division down to the terminal. I want to fire on one of the planets in Underwater Asylum that are still allied toward the ex-Emperor Phoren Narqu, since I did pay the government that is in place there now a hefty sum to finance their revolution.”

“As you wish, sir,” answered Shaw as he picked up the telephone.

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Hunt and Wright flung O’Neill into the back of the same utility van they arrived in and proceeded to drive towards the stargate terminal a few blocks away from the capitol building. When they finally reached the terminal, they pulled O’Neill out of the van and dragged him to the DHD on the ground floor where they began to dial the planet, Zaragoza. Overhead on the second floor, Shiran Naelthasser, an elf who barely escaped the destruction of the homeworld of Underwater Asylum shortly before the ESUS Shivan War, was making his way towards the escalators down to the ground floor near the stargate when he heard voices below. When he looked over the side he saw two armed men talking to each other while they were dragging what looked like a body. This was something he never saw before, and it looked quite suspicious so he ducked behind one of the pillars and watched the men carefully. One of the men turned towards the other and said,

"I say we cap O'Neill right now to get it over with."

"You know what Northrop said. He's going to be marooned on that planet for the rest of his life."

"Yeah, yeah. I still think we should get rid of him now that way he won’t be a problem later."

Suddenly, it struck Shiran on who the bleeding man was. That's the chairman of the company, Jack O'Neill. It appears that this "Northrop" man is trying to gain control of the company, he thought to himself. The men finished dialing and the wormhole was established. Shiran studied the coordinates on the DHD carefully and tried to repeat them over and over in his mind. Equuleus, Virgo, Perseus, Lynx, Pisces, Monoceros The two men then dragged O’Neill to the stargate and threw him through the event horizon. As they threw O'Neill through, a small floppy disk dropped out of his jacket and slid down the ramp. They did not see this, but it caught Shiran's attention. The wormhole disengaged, and they made their way out of the terminal. Shiran carefully watched them go. When he made sure that they had left, he walked over towards the stargate, picked up the disk, and examined it closely. It was an ordinary unlabeled gray 3.5-inch floppy disk. Curiosity came over him as he looked at it, so he set up his laptop computer on the DHD. He inserted the disk in the appropriate slot and opened the text file on it.

PRO SUFFRAGIUM LOCUS ORBIS IN TERGUM OF DHD

It appears to be a form of Latin but I am unsure. He examined the words carefully. PRO SUFFRAGIUM means loosely “for assistance”. LOCUS means “place”. ORBIS can means “orb” or maybe in this case “disk”. IN TERGUM means “upon back”. OF is the same in English and DHD is an acronym for Dial Home Device. Hmmm…“For assistance, place orb or disk upon back of DHD.” Obviously this is something that would have been used if the Chairman needed help, he thought to himself. Now is as good a time as any. He felt around the back of the DHD and found a small slot to insert a disk. Next, he removed the disk from his laptop, turned it off, and put it in its case. He then took a deep breath and inserted the disk into the back of the DHD. Suddenly, the chevrons on the stargate flashed. The whole building began to shake as the gate’s inner track started to move. One by one the chevrons locked until finally the seventh locked and the wormhole was established. Shiran heard a rumbling coming from behind him, not from the gate. He looked behind him as self-propelled artillery guns plowed through the terminal’s glass doors. Dozens of men ran out from behind the artillery guns and began firing on Shiran. He knew that there was only one way out so he took off running towards the gate and dove through as the bullets flew past him.

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On Zaragoza, O’Neill rolled down the steps leading from the stargate and landed on his back. The warmth of the bright midday sun beat down upon his face and caused him to slowly regain consciousness. He painfully sat up and looked out to the distance. Open fields were all around him and there was a mountain range far off, but there was a distinct lack of civilization as far as he could tell. He sighed and turned his head towards the stargate. He searched all around but cursed when he didn’t see a DHD anywhere around. Then the pain from his arm and legs caught his attention. He crawled upon the steps nearby and tore off pieces of his clothing to stop the bleeding from his wounds. Afterwards, he leaned back on the steps and began to think if there was anything he could do about his present situation, but his mind began to wander off as he suffered from the loss of blood. Soon, he lost consciousness.

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OOC: If you want to participate, just TG me.

Also, if you do not know what a stargate is, click here. (http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/technology/s/stargate.shtml)
If you do not know what a DHD is, click here. (http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/technology/d/dialhomedevice.shtml)

OOC: Ooo, nice to see another corporation. Is your nation owned by said corporation or just in it, if owned I saw w00t to another corporate owned nation. But for now this is just saying I am interested in this and *tag*.

OOC: Ooo, nice to see another corporation. Is your nation owned by said corporation or just in it, if owned I saw w00t to another corporate owned nation. But for now this is just saying I am interested in this and *tag*.OOC: To put it in a simple way, the corporation is the nation and the corporate leaders are the nation's leaders.

OOC: Same, my system just delves down to the lowliest worker drones life, go total integration of corporation and country.

The stargate in the terminal disengaged as soon as Shiran dove into it. Though this time, it did not power down normally, but instead, channeled all of the remaining energy into the DHD, causing it to explode almost instantaneously. The soldiers in the terminal looked at each other in disbelief. Colonel Stafford, the division commander, opened the top hatch on his artillery gun and climbed out.

“Did anyone see the gate address on the DHD?” he shouted.

Everyone shook their heads no. Stafford sighed and motioned towards the supply truck.

“Do you have a naquadah generator in there?”

“Yes, we do,” replied a private.

“Good, hook it up to the gate. We’ll have to dial out the old-fashioned way.”

“Yes, sir.”

The supply truck rumbled across the main floor of the terminal, crushing benches and security checkpoints in the process. Finally, it came to stop beside the gate and a few men climbed out. Four of them proceeded to drag the generator out of the bed of the truck while two attached large power cables to the gate. After a few minutes, the six men had the generator connected to the power cables. They then turned on the generator, which hummed softly. Stafford nodded with approval and handed one of the men a piece of paper that contained a list of gate addresses.

“I want you to manually dial the first one. We’ll shell that planet for an hour. Then we’ll move on to the next one and so on.”

Two men gathered on each side of the gate, put their hands in the engraved glyphs, and proceeded to move the inner track. One by one the chevrons slowly locked until the seventh chevron locked, and the wormhole was established. Nine self-propelled artillery guns rolled up to a safe distance from the gate. Stafford stood behind them and shouted,

“Fire!”

One right after the other, each gun fired. After one fired, a shell was immediately loaded to keep a constant flow of shells through the gate.

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In his office, John Northrop sat on the edge of his desk and waited for any news from his forces. He turned towards Brent Shaw who was gathering information by phone.

“What is going on with the artillery division in the terminal?”

“Well, they’ve connected to one of the planets and have been firing on it for the past….” He looks down at his watch, “…five minutes.”

“Good, any word on what is going on at the Hubbard Mountain Complex?”

“Nothing yet. All’s quiet up there.”

“Damn, I was only able to get two people infiltrated into that facility. Let us hope they succeed.”

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Things were slowly unfolding four hundred miles away in the Hubbard Mountain Complex. There Major General Robert Ottwell and his second-in-command Colonel Patricia Delagarza were running towards the rocket control room. As they ran down the halls, they locked down every blast door by using their command codes. When they finally reached the control room door, they loaded their sidearms and opened the door. Inside sat three technicians who were monitoring the rockets. Delagarza pushed open the door and shot the technicians dead before they had the chance to rise up out of their seats. Ottwell entered the room next, kicked the bodies out of their chairs, and sat down. Delagarza did likewise.

“So, General, you ready to do this?” asked Delagarza.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. You know we won’t get out of this alive.”

“Yeah, but just think. We’ll be sacrificing out lives for a noble cause.”

“Alright, let’s do it.”

Little did they know that nearby inside an air duct was Airman Luke Greene welding a new piece of sheet metal. He heard what the two officers were saying and grew alarmed. He knew he couldn’t shoot two people from a small air duct with just one gun. Meanwhile, Ottwell and Delagarza set the coordinates for the three naquadah-tipped nuclear rockets that they were going to fire. It was set for a direct course for Earth’s orbital stargate. In the air duct, Greene was still thinking when he looked at the gas canister next to him and came up with an idea. He moved the canister towards the opening of the air duct and took out his pistol. Ottwell and Delagarza finished the launch preparations and a green light lit up on the console, indicating that the rockets were ready to launch. Simultaneously, the pressed the launch button and the rockets fired, accelerating them upwards. All this startled Greene who unscrewed the canister’s nozzle. He let the flammable gases flow out of the air duct with the fresh air that was flowing out. Then, he took the canister and rolled it. Delagarza was finishing the preparations to detonate the other nine rockets inside the facility when she noticed a gas canister roll out of the duct. She did not have a chance to do anything when Greene fired into the gas cloud. The entire control room erupted in an explosion of flames, killing Ottwell and Delagarza instantly.

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Above Earth, the orbital stargate was activated and outbound travel was commencing to the nation of Wormia in the Andromeda Galaxy. Very few vessels were making the trip at this time of night. There were one passenger transport vessel, two cargo vessels, and six private vessels. The pilot of the passenger transport vessel was Walter Ross, a retired air force fighter pilot. His vessel was the next in line to go through the gate.

“Tower, this is TWA Flight 245, requesting permission to depart through the gate.”

“Copy that, 245, you are cleared for departure.”

“Roger that.”

Suddenly, the airwaves were full of excited chatter so Ross tried to contact air traffic control in the starbase.

“Uh, Tower, what is going on up there?”

“There are three rockets, that scans indicate are nuclear, headed this way. For some reason we cannot get a phaser lock on them. I suggest you get your ass out of there. There’s one heading your way!”

Damn, thought Ross. If that rocket gets through the gate, who knows what damage it’ll do to the people on the other side. He turned his vessel around and set it on a direct course for the rocket. The air traffic controller got on the radio.

“What the hell are you doing, 245?”

Ross refused to reply. In less than three seconds later, his ship collided with the rocket and caused it to detonate, unleashing all 12,000 megatons of power. The shockwave spread out in all directions and even went through the event horizon on the gate. It struck the starbases with such power that they broke off from the gate and started to drift in different directions. Next came the other two rockets. They went into the starbases’ open hangar bay doors and detonated inside. They could not withstand the power of the weapons and exploded immediately, sending two shockwaves outward.

OOC: Tag

ooc-very very nice. And i'm glad to see someone else using stargates. And a possible tag for later.

---?
Hirn Trulien ducked down behind cover as the gate activated. He was busy fighting off ravening chimpanzees on a game, but he was still wise enough to get to cover. But as a lone elf came through, he relaxed. The elf would be facing the wall, the gate would shut down, and he would be clubbed over the head.
---Trien III
Urnut Helmian opened fire on the traitors rushing towards him. He was one of the few loyal PDF troops. The gate dialled, and his reaction was logical. A feeling of dread, because even more hostiles would no doubt emerge. He was down to his last 23 rounds. Then the building he was in exploded. At least, parts of it did, as artillery shells impacted and exploded. It crashed down, one of it's supports destroyed, and traitors ran as shells kept raining through the gate.

OOC: Tag, very much excited about this

Shiran woke up in a small cell, stood up, and clutched the back of his hurting head. I go from seeing the badly wounded Chairman thrown through the stargate to being shot at by about a hundred soldiers to being struck in the head and dragged to some cell, he thought to himself. Today is just not my day.

"You. Get over here." Three guards stood by the door, one of them, oddly enough, wearing a labcoat. And brandishing the biggest gun. They disengaged the power of the field, and would, assuming he came, cuff his hands behind his back with a strange, pliable, orange substance that set hard. And then he would be lead to an interrogation chamber, to berated, questioned, and well, generally not have a good time.

"You are Shiran Naelthasser, correct?"
"What do you know about the government forces?"
"Where did you come through the gate from?"
Just a voice, from a cold, metal box on the table.

0900 Hours IST - Terralonian Orbit
Orbital Sector 13-24 - Karasitha Gate

Captain Tarre gripped his coffee. His hands were as cold as ice, attributed to the fact that the outer habitation ring of the Karasitha gate was less than complete, and that the environment controllers for this sector were having some "trouble" with the vacuum of space. Crewmembers in this area faced constant irritation, as due to the incompletion of the station, the environmental units provided temperatures adequate only for survival. As the station orbited Terralonius III, it would either be too hot as it passed in front of the planet, or too cold as it was obscured behind it. Most crewmembers of the Karasitha Gate wore winter clothing when they were assigned duty here, and every orbit they were forced to don it, and then take it off, and return to step one.

The work in this sector was monotonous and boring, eccentuated by unpainted and unlively walls of cold, grey, steel. They watched screens over hours, to make sure nothing unwanted was coming through the gate. Perhaps the only interesting thing in this part of the station was it's ability to detect anything. From foreign scout nanobots to large asteroids, it would be seen, and dealt with, here. From panspermic bacteria, to ... well... 12,000 megaton nuclear shockwaves.

Sine waves on LCD monitors displaying the current levels electromagnetic flux within the singularity corridor shot off the screens. Moments later, the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma particle detectors skewed to well beyond normal. Kinetic and Potential energy detectors were off the scale, and the crewmembers idly watched. While most things they could deal with, the computers were calculating an obscene level of energy, one that they were incapable of "dealing with."

The Corridor Traffic Control LCD displayed numerous ships disappear as the wave passed them, and it showed the wave to only have five seconds before it emerged on the other side.

To the crew, seconds had turned into minutes, minutes, into years. But, all in all, they remained, finite values of time, which came to a distinct end when the stargate belched out thousands of megatons of energy. The docking ring on the front of the stargate stood no chance, and was vaporized within the first second of the wave's emergence. The plume of nuclear reaction continued to thunder towards Terralonius, whose inhabitants could clearly see a massive bright spot in their typically orange hued sky.

Ships strained to get out of the way, but their engines denied the ships the thrust they needed to break the inertial state necessary to escape the inevitable. They too, were consumed. The wave continued until it glanced on Terralonius III's shielding, which, fortunately, was more than a match for the weakening explosion. It panted for a few more thousand miles, whereupon the chaos ended.

A radioactive shaft of death began to encircle Terralonius, and three billion people gazed at the sky, stunned.

Shiran quietly walked over to the guards and freely allowed them to cuff him. He felt that it was odd that the Chairman would seek out help in such a place. He was then led to the interrogation chamber where he answered to the best of his knowledge all the questions that were thrown at him.
"You are Shiran Naelthasser, correct?"
He nodded. "Yes, that is correct. How do you know this?"
"What do you know about the government forces?"
This question baffled him. "Government forces? I do not know what you are talking about."
"Where did you come through the gate from?"
An easy question, he throught to himself. "I came through from Northrop-Grumman."

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Back in Northrop-Grumman, John Northrop was busily planning his upcoming speech to the nation's citizens when he was interrupted by Brent Shaw.

"Sir! I have a report on the attack on the orbital stargate. Two of the rockets detonated as planned inside of the starbases, but the third hit a passenger vessel before it entered the event horizon. It exploded, and the shockwave went through to the other side."

"How much damage did it cause on the other side?"

"Officially, unknown, but we have been running computer models. They suggest that the shockwave reached the shielding above Terralonius III, and in the process destroyed whatever gate control center was on the other side. But as I said before, the details are still a little sketchy."

"Excellent. We have shown the true capabillities of the Northrop-Grumman Corporation. Has the Wormian government issued an official statement or anything of the sort?"

"None so far."

"Do they even know who it was who attacked them?"

"If they do, they haven't said anything as of yet."

"Alright, when they do, prepare the fleet for battle. I want those vessels to fully operational when they counterattack."

"Yes, sir."

Shaw exited the room while Northrop returned to work on his speech.

"That is for us to know. How did you coordinates for this facility? For what purpose are you here?" The box was starting to blink with a green light, before it suddenly dissapeared and was replaced with a lab coated... Guard? in any case, he was wearing power armour, and he obviously expected his questions answered. If they weren't, well, things might get a little painful.

0400 Hours IST - Federate Palace

Chancellor George Thomas IV stared out the window of his room in the Wormian Federate Palace. The sky was reddening as dusk came upon the western hemisphere of Terralonius III. The typically pure sky was dotted with Wormian starships, all mobilizing for the most massive invasion by any one state ever seen between Andromeda and the Milky Way.

Preliminary scans had confirmed reports whichh Wormian leaders so desperately hoped were false. The longtime corporate state and ally of the Federated Stellar Republics had sent a destructive energy wave through the Karasithan system's stargate. War with Northrup Grumman was upon them. It was the most unlikely situation.

At last count, over 1,000,000 civilians had died, but much wreckage and debris continued to pace the orbits of Terralonius III. 80% of it would burn up in the Terralonian atmosphere and then be disintegrated on the planetary defense field before it would ever be reached. Potentally fortunate survivors within air pockets in that wreckage would not survive re-entry, let alone impact on Terralonius's shield at several thousand kilometres per hour. Other survivors within wreckage might freeze to death before being found, or might burn up on the opposite side of Terralonius. Being unshielded, any debris collisions would result in certain death for any potential survivors the said debris might carry.

According to multiple computational scenarios, from best case to worst, had concordantly established that there would be a survival rate of under 1%. With a million already dead, that was a potential 10,100 people.

"Chancellor?"

Thomas turned, observing his chief admiral, Jonathan Ketcher. "Yes?"

"The ... fleet has been mobilized. Wish us luck."

"No, Admiral, I shall not petty myself to wishing you something as useless as luck. I wish you victory. Come home. Come home after our we are avenged. Come home carrying..." His statement tapered off. The man was on the verge of tearing, tears not of sadness, but of irreputable spite. Hatred, even.

"Sir... what of the ESUS?" Ketcher asked, perhaps in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the emotional extreme it was on course to.

"Northrup Grumman has attacked us. There has been no formal response from them that decries the act of terror, or that calls for assistance in this terrible accident. Furthermore, our eyes in the Milky Way have given us sufficient information that they attacked us forthright, and that their attack was impeded somehow or another. We are, apparently, fortunate."

"Fortunate..." Ketcher said, mocking the word.

"Indeed." Thomas replied.

The room grew coldly silent, before Ketcher shattered the icy void of sound.

"I should probably get to the Chimera..."

"Indeed, you should." Ketcher nodded and began to walk out, but was stopped by the Chancellor before he could reach the door, "Oh, and Admiral...."

"Yes sir?"

"Good Luck." Thomas said.

"Thank you sir."

Shiran, with a serious expression on his face, related the story to the guard how and why he arrived there.

"I was strolling along on the upper floor of Caprica City's stargate terminal when I heard two men talking on the ground floor below. I peered over the railing and saw them dragging a badly bleeding body of what looked like the Chairman of the Northrop-Grumman Corporation, Jack O'Neill. I chose not to interfere for they were armed and I was not. Anyway, I ducked behind one of the columns and watched intently. They spoke of shooting the Chairman then to get it over with and also of some man named "Northrop". Afterwards, they proceeded to dial the stargate to a planet to which I memorized the coordinates. When the wormhole was established they threw the Chairman through, but while they did, a small floppy disk fell out of the Chairman's pocket. The men did not notice this so they continued out of the terminal. Then I quietly walked over, picked it up, and inserted it into my laptop, which you are probably examining right now. The disk had a text file on it, which I opened and read. It said this PRO SUFFRAGIUM LOCUS ORBIS IN TERGUM OF DHD which translated from Latin means loosely For assistance, place disk into back of DHD. I thought that this had to be for when the Chairman was in need of help, so I inserted it into the back of the DHD. The stargate then began to dial this place. When the wormhole was established, I was about to go through when quite a few armed soldiers came into the terminal followed by self-propelled artillery guns. They apparently thought that I was some kind of threat and began to fire upon me so I ran through the stargate and found myself here."

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John Northrop sat in his office, thirty-four floors above the city streets below, and waited for Shaw to bring him any news concerning the Wormian counterattack. He had not left his office since taking the company over for fear that his life may be taken by some of the armed forces that were still not willing to have him command over them. Shaw burst into the office.

"Sir, we have some reports that Wormia is mounting a large scale invasion."

Northrop sighed. "Alright, pull together every vessel that can fight except for the Sixth and Seventh Fleets. Tell them that when they see a Wormian vessel, do not hesitate to fire. Got that?"

Shaw nodded. "Affirmative."

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Above the colony of P3X-719 idling was the flagship of the First Fleet, the battlestar Columbia. On the bridge, Major General William Harris read his orders from the commander of the entire space fleet. He could not believe his eyes. Attack Wormia? They have been allies of the company for a long time. He had to place a call to the Chairman, who he had been friends with for a number of years.

"Sergeant Crowder, place a call to the Chairman. Audio only will do fine."

"Yes, sir." Crowder typed a bit on the console and turned around. "You are connected, sir."

"Thanks." Harris sat back in his chair. "Jack, why are we fighting Wormia?"

A strange voice answered him. "Jack is not here. He has gone away for awhile."

This baffled Harris. "Uh, who are you?"

"John Northrop."

"M'kay, are you the one who gave the order to fight Wormia?"

"Yes, I am. I gave the order and you will do it. Won't you?"

Harris replied sarcastically. "Yeah, over my dead body."

"As you wish."

Northrop immediately disconnected the call. Harris could not believe what he had heard. Jack was gone. He turned towards Lieutenant Oakes who was the navigational officer.

"Lieutenant Oakes, take the ship into hyperspace."

"Heading?"

"Earth, now step on it."

As soon as the Columbia opened the hyperspace window when a torpedo exploded in the ion-particle engines. The entire ship shook as the torpedo overloaded the engines causing them to fail immediately. Another torpedo hit the exact same place as the previous one. The hydrogen fuel tanks above the engines exploded and caused the ship to lurch forward with the front aimed right at the planet below. Most of the personnel on the bridge were flung from their seats. General Harris struggled to get back into his chair when he noticed that the viewscreen showed that they were heading directly towards the planet.

"Oakes, get us the hell out of here." Harris yelled out.

"I'm trying, sir! The engines are out and we have partial thruster control."

"Damnit! Do we have weapons or shields?"

"Nothing that can do the job from where we are."

The Columbia continued to increase in speed as it entered the atmosphere. Individual details such as trees and houses began to show up on the viewscreen.

"Oakes, it looks like we'll have to crash land. Keep the nose up no matter what!"

"Yes, sir."

The front end of the ship rose slightly but not enough to prevent a hard landing.

"Is that it?" Harris asked.

"That's all I can do, sir."

"Hold on everyone. This will be a rough landing."

The Columbia flew lower and lower until the bottom of the ship began to hit the tops of the trees. People on the ground watched with amazement at the sight of the low-flying 1.2-kilometer long ship that was billowing out smoke from its engines. The ship continued to fall until it hit a high hill and fell hard onto its starboard hangar bay. The hangar broke off of the ship, flew out into a field nearby, and burst into flames from the fighters’ fuel that was contained inside. The ship slid across the forest that it had landed in, creating a 250-meter wide path of flattened trees. It hit another hill and crashed onto its port hangar bay, tearing that one off also. When the Columbia slid to a stop a few seconds later, smoke was billowing out of what was left of the engines and out of where the hangar bays once were.

EDIT: Need to fix some spelling.

"What are these coordinates? This 'Northrop' now knows that you know of the location of Jack O'Neill. If you do not tell us the coordinates, or it turns out to be a trap, we will send you back, with a note saying that whatever he does to you is thoroughly condoned by us." Obviously something was wayyy up. The power armoured guard was leaning close, so that in his black visor the face of the elf would be reflected.

Shiran closed his eyes in deep thought to recall the coordinates. "The coordinates are Equuleus....Virgo....Perseus....Lynx....Pisces....Monoceros.

He then opened his eyes and stared right at the guard. "You now have two choices. You can say this whole entire incident was a trap, send me back through the stargate, and quite possibly never see the Chairman again, or you can trust me, go through the stargate, and save his life. The decision is yours."

---?
"Sir, we're ready. We've got the gate dialled."
"Good, Wells, you take point."
"Yes sir."
The three man team, dressed in power armour and carrying very heavy weapons, stomped through the even horizon.
--- Zaragoza
The same three stomped out, and opened fire, sweeping a 90 degree arc. Tranquiliser darts, just in case. Non lethal, even in large amounts. They stopped to regard Chairman O'Neill. They would drag him back through the gate, and take him to the medical bay as the gate cut out.

---P3X-888
Marine Rein fired a shot into the water, taking down one of those weird, swimming things. He promptly fished it out, and took a bite, assimilating information on the planet from it. Looks like there would be new slaves in the empire.
---3 hours later
Marine Rein watched as troops filed through the gate, and marched to the caverns, carrying electric stunrifles. The Unas would make good slaves. When they reached the caves, they all fired on the Unas within, and dragged them through the gate, once they were neutralised. Which took about six shots.

Jack O'Neill slowly awakened and opened his eyes. He was shocked when he saw his vital signs and the condition of his body through some sort of GUI in his eyes. What in the hell? He closed his eyes, shook his head, and opened them again. It was still there. What kind of doodad did someone stick in my head this time? He was about to get up to look around when he suddenly felt something poke into his side. “Ouch!” he yelled and rolled over to see what was poking him. A monkey-looking creature with feathers around its eyes sat there curiously looking at O’Neill. Startled by this odd creature, O’Neill slid backwards across the bed and fell off the side.

The creature hopped over the bed and landed next to him, cocking its head with some interest. There was a loud clatter though, as it had knocked over a stand holding some kind of purple camera like item, and a thin, grey skinned alien, rather similar to the Asgard in appearance burst in, obviously half asleep. "Oh... You're awake."

O'Neill did not know what to do as the creature stood there next to him until the alien burst into the room. He perked his head up from beside the bed. "Yeah, I'm awake. Uh, where am I and what is this creature next to me?" He pointed carefully towards it.

---?
"This is a secure research facility, and that is a mangree."
He walked over, and started to unhook him from the various machines. "I guess Narqu will want to see you. Don't know why. Anyone stupid enough to get caught on a hostile planet deserves to die, in my opinion..."
---?
The gate chevrons began to spin. And after the seventh locked, a team of marines emerged. And blinked when they saw a tall grey creature, with thick strands of hair, and black eyes. They stunned it, and tossed it through the gate, before calling for more marines. Soon enough an entire company was there, scouring the surrounding area for any of the creatures, and stunning them.
---?
Marine Crimi fired on the strange, pale creature standing before him. His comrades bullets had done virtually nothing, since it had regenerated its wounds! But old Bertha here, a portable ion cannon, would. He fired. And it did something all right. The anti-tank weapon splattered the creature all over the wall. Looks like this foe was tougher than they thought. Too tough to make good slaves.

While he eyed the mangree cautiously, O'Neill stood up from the floor. "It's not like I had much of a choice about which planet to get myself stranded on." He looked around the room. "Where do I go to see Phoren?"

"Down the hall and turn left, left again, down that hall and then enter the room on the right, press a button on the table, and you'll be there. Or you could just walk next door."

O'Neill nodded his head and gestured towards the side of the room. "Uh...yeah...I think I'll just walk next door." He then shook his head in disbelief and proceeded through the door.

"Hello Jack..."
The ex-emperor of UA was sitting behind a desk, various holoscreens arrayed around him as he planned the next strike. He was examining plans of some kind of vessel, but closed the screen with a flick of his wrist. "We gave you a ghost."

"Hello Phoren." O'Neill stood in the center of the room and turned his head to examine his surroundings. “Hmmm…not too shabby for someone in exile.” He turned back around when the ex-emperor mentioned the ghost. "Well, that explains why I was seeing my vital signs when I first woke up.” He then leaned over towards Phoren. “You know, the next time you want to put some doohickey in my head, ask first. I don’t like surprises.”

"Neither do I. Sorry for not asking, but you were pretty out of it. We also took the liberty of repairing your knee. I'll assume you won't mind about that?"

"Of course, I don't mind that." O'Neill bent his knees several times and smiled. "As a matter of fact, they haven't felt this good in years. And speaking of repairing, how did you ever find me? Aside from Northrop and his henchmen, I thought that no one else knew where I was or if I was still alive."

"An elf called Shiran saw you being dragged through the gate. You dropped the disk with the coords I gave you, and he used it. He had the coordinates for the planet you were on... I need you to tell me something. What's on P3X-888?"

"P3X-888?" O'Neill thought about it for a moment. "I believe that is the homeworld of the Goa'uld...and...uh...the Unas. Why?"

"That's not good... Government survey teams have been detected there, and now the amount of troops has risen dramatically. The gate's been going almost constantly. Uh... Can you elaborate as to what an Unas is, exactly? We haven't encountered them before."

0900 Hours IST - FRS Chimera
Interstellar space, ust outside Northrop Grumman

Things onboard the Wormian Armada were less than positive. Men meandered the passages of what they believed to be doomed ships, as well as their humbling gravesites. They slowly and silently approached what would be the twin of Salamis, with victory going to one side, or the other. T'was these trials that were faced by spacefaring cultures.

Admiral Jonathan Ketcher stood on the bridge of the Chimera, one of Wormia's most impressive starships. The last time Wormia had so many ships deployed was in the Shivan war, but they were primarily for reinforcement. He was a bit... angry at the almost nonexistent ESUS response to the situation.

The Chimera's bridge was the size of a small gymnasium, but was unnecessarily large. A crew of about ten occupied it on a full shift, most operations on modern starships were maintained by computers. The bridge being large as it was, Ketcher's eardrum picked up a the call of his name. As soon as the nerve impulse hit his cognitive unit, he turned to see who had called it.

The helmsman, Ensign Yelor Takrit called once again. "Admiral Ketcher!!!"

Ketcher strode over to the helmsman, "What is it?"

"The fleet has come to a full stop... were at the border."

Ketcher looked at the front of the bridge, where a massive plasma screen display showed the visual of Camera D1, the forward camera. Space was, of course, simply dotted with the typical star formations, but was also smudged with visible nebular matter here and there. While it looked no different than any other average portion of space, the fact that they rested some few thousand kilometres from the border of their most unusual and newly sworn enemy, Northrop Grumman.

Something was very awry... Ketcher knew. The situation he was currently in was outstanding proof of this. He just needed to know what.

"Helm... take us in. Set course for the Northrop Grumman Headquarters. Engage the Stellar Overdrives, take us to standard transit velocity. Defense, reinforce our Plasma Shielding, make us as invisible as you can."

"Yes sir."

"Oh... and... Alert Level 3. All hands to battle stations." Ketcher said. He tugged his uniform and sat in the center seat.

"Ah, Unas is a race that the Goa'uld first used as hosts. They're stronger than the average man and take a heck of a lot of shots to take down. They may be primative, but they're not dumb. For that reason, some of the lower tech humans have used them as slaves. Now if the government has sent survey teams there, then that probably means that they're trying to capture Unas."

"Would an Unas be intelligent enough to devise a means to counteract power armour? If they are, and do, then I'd say that it's definitely not good for the Unas. All around multiple galaxies we've been getting gate signals originating from UA territory. Which means that they're probably are looking for slaves." He sighed a little, and brought up a galactic map. Indeed, on it, were at least twenty red dots, marking the planets being visited by teams.

"If they were given the resources and the time, they could. If not, then I doubt it." O'Neill looked up at the map. "I'd hate to sound like I don't care about this Unas problem, but I don't have a clue on what the hell has gone on with my company since I was kicked out. For all I know, there isn't a company to go back to."

"There's still a company. I think. I spoke to Northrop. Nice fellow. I think I may have scared him a little. Because I could get you off of whatever that place was called. You'll probably need some help getting rid of him."

"Oh, yeah, real nice fellow." O'Neill sighed. "He had told me he was going to attack my allies. Who did he attack?"

"That, I don't know. But he did attack me. Trien III, a few of the troops remained loyal. He had one of their positions shelled through the gate. We've lost all contact on TIII."

O'Neill put his hands on his face. "I can imagine what other damage he did. He really needs to be stopped now before he pisses off the wrong person and the whole company gets massacred."

"I agree. You have any plans in mind?" He was already calling up data on the known military of Northrop Grumman, and files for various assassins.

O’Neill shook his head. “I don’t think we should go into there just yet without knowing what we’re up against. First, we need to do some recon maybe by intercepting a few of their communications. That way we know about their troop movements and what not.”

-------------------------------------------

John Northrop relaxed in his chair as the Northrop-Grumman News Network assembled their cameras and lights around him. He knew that this very speech that he made would be broadcast around the world and into space, so just in case someone wanted to retaliate against him, he had the military go to full alert. His mind began to wander off until the cameraman told him that they had ten seconds until they went on the air. Northrop sat up, adjusted his tie, and began when the cameraman motioned to him.

“Good morning, citizens of Northrop-Grumman. As you all may or may not know, I, John Northrop, have assumed the office of the chairman for the previous administration has proven himself unable to lead such a fine nation as this. I am now here to lead you all to greatness. To do so, certain changes are to be made.

Number One: The nation is to be divided into twelve sectors with each sector containing one of the twelve most populated cities. All citizens living outside of these sectors will be relocated to one of them. Now, each sector will be divided into smaller subsectors. These subsectors will be cordoned off from one another by large concrete and steel walls and with security checkpoints. This is to ensure the safety and protection of you, the nation’s greatest asset.

Number Two: The draft will be reinstated. This is because the military, for the longest time, has been operating by enlistment only. That has caused it to become undermanned. This nation cannot move forward into greatness with out a strong military. Therefore, the draft will be reinstated.

Number Three: As of now, all religions have been banned. The structures that have been used previously used for worship will be demolished. Anyone caught practicing any act of religion, that includes praying, will be executed immediately. This is because religion has been a cancer eating away at our nation’s strength and reducing us to weakness.

Number Four: The police forces within each city will be fully integrated with the military. This is because for a long time, the police have been unable to provide the nation with the security it needs.

Number Five: We must overthrow all established governments that are not like ours and integrate this nation the ones that are exactly like ours. Those nations that are unlike ours are evil and need to be removed from the face of this Earth, which leads me to this: The Federated Stellar Republics of Wormia have assembled their fleet together to invade us. I do not understand why, but I feel that they do not support this government. This has led me to issue a formal declaration of war, so as of now, we are at full and unrestricted war with Wormia. There is one thing I can tell you about this war. We will prevail!”

This concludes the initial plan to help our nation become greater in the eyes of the world. I certainly hope you all will cooperate with me in this. I also hope that you will be pleased with the way I will make this nation better. Thank you.”

The television cameras then switched off. Northrop laid back in his chair and smiled at what he had done so far.

-------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, on P3X-719, the Columbia still burned heavily. On her dark bridge, General Harris slowly rose from the floor and wiped his bloody brow. He called out to Sergeant Crowder who was one of the few people who wasn’t thrown from his seat when the vessel crashed.

“Crowder, status report.”

“We have lost all power. I believe the power plant is down.”

Harris sighed. “Alright, switch over to the battery, if you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

A few seconds later, the lights and the computers on the bridge turned on.

“Sir, the battery is built to withstand two days of standard operation in space…”

“…and probably much more on an Earth-like planet. Good, cut power to all non-essential systems.”

Harris pressed a small button on the armrest of the console behind him to communicate with Engineering.

“Engineering, what is the status on the power?”

The chief engineer, Major Thomas Norwood, answered Harris. “The main power plant is out. I can probably have it up and running in nine hours.”

“What about the engines?”

Norwood sighed. “They’re shot, sir. We cannot go anywhere without new ones.”

“Understood. Keep me notified if anything happens.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harris pressed the button again to shut the transmission off. He slid back into his chair and wondered what he should do next.

0407 Hours IST - FRS Chimera
Heliosphere, Sol System

"...I certainly hope you all will cooperate with me in this. I also hope that you will be pleased with the way I will make this nation better. Thank you.”

With that, the forward viewscreen of the FRS Chimera flashed to black, displaying only a .jpeg file of the seal of the Federated Stellar Republics.

Jonathan Ketcher had long since been in the briefing room of the Chimera to discuss the situation at hand with the top commanders of his fleet.

"Sir? What is our plan of action?" Captain Septimus Pharsalos, commanded the FRS Coliseum. His name was a blatant statement that he was a citizen of Nova Roma, a major city on the third continent of Terralonius III.

"I'm uncertain, at this point in time. It's obvious this 'Northrop' fellow is weilding a fair sized force of loyalists. But, the door swings both ways. Regardless what he says, in every government change ince the dawn of history, there will be loyalists to both governements. We can be assured that he has some opposition."

"The question is, will it be enough?"

Ketcher walked to the window. The cold, background void of space dominated 80% of the windows viewable area. The remaining 20% entertained it's audience with exterior views of Wormian vessels and ships of war. Ketcher turned to reply to the Captain's query.

"Yes, Captain. It will be enough."

Lt. Colonel Stephen Clayton stood amongst the burned wreckage inside the rocket control room of the Hubbard Mountain Complex. He could not understand why his commanding officer would throw away his life and career just to serve a money hungry warmonger like John Northrop. He shook his head and turned around to find Warrant Officer Jeffress standing in front of him with three folders.

"Sir, we’ve intercepted a transmission that says that the Battlestar Columbia has been shot down over P3X-719 about three hours ago. It crashed landed about sixty clicks from the stargate." said Jeffress as he handed a folder containing the transcript over.

"William Harris’ ship," replied Clayton as he looked over the transcript. "I cannot believe that he got himself shot down. Were there any survivors?"

"None that we know of."

“Find out more if you can. What is in the other two folders?”

Jeffress handed the first one over. "This one here just says that four tank divisions and two artillery divisions are headed this way. Intel reports that they are not friendly."

"Great..." replied Clayton. "...and the other folder?"

"This is a message from Major Carl Puckett of the 2nd Army. He wants to join the remainder of his forces with ours. He says that he has seventy-one M1A2 Abrams tanks, fifty-five M4A3 Bradleys, and sixteen M109A6 Paladin howitzers. Unfortunately, he lost most of his transports including the Humvees trying to escape the portion of his forces that sided with Northrop."

"Tell him that he is welcome to join up with us. We can use all the help we can get."

"He also is reporting that several caravans of civilians are coming this way to help us."

“Civilians? Alright, let them in but search their vehicles for any explosives or other weapons.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jeffress as he started to exit the room.

Clayton stood there contemplating what was just said to him. The idea of four tank divisions coming his way was not appealing to him, for he knew that even with the remainder of the 2nd Army, he would not be able to hold them off permanently. He paced the room thinking for a few minutes then an idea came to him. He rushed out the door towards the commanding officer’s office with was now his. He pulled open the filing cabinet and thumbed through the files until he found one labeled Project 198. He looked through the folder quickly and smiled. This was exactly what he was looking for. He immediately picked up the telephone and paged the leader of every SG team in the facility through the intercom.

"Well, I don't have any loyal agents there anymore, so I can't help with that right now." He pulled something out from under his desk: A black, obviously new, P90. "I got you something. Figured you might need it."

And he went back to his reports, and such "Remember that bioweapon we were developing to fight the shivans?"

A fighter was streaking through the dark of space, chrome plating badly burnt and scarred by weapons fire. The pilot didn't know if it would survive re-entering the atmosphere. But he would try.

A blazing streak crossed through the sky of P3X-719, and landed not far from the crashed vessel there, which had recieved a much softer landing. The pilot was alive though, but barely. His fighter had been almost melted upon impact, and the cockpit had ejected, the only thing that allowed him to survive.

O’Neill took the P90 and examined it carefully. “Yeah, I remember that bioweapon. What about it?”

-------------------------------------------

In the briefing room of Stargate Command deep inside of the Hubbard Mountain Complex, Lt. Colonel Stephen Clayton rested his hands on the small podium in front of him and began to talk.

“As you all know, our government was taken over by a madman who wants nothing more than to destroy those who do not follow his evil ways. I have a plan to restore the old government we once had. We are going to steal this.”

He pressed a button on his remote control to show a schematic of a large battlecarrier.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v73/TheQ2005/galconcept3.jpg

“This is the X-450, also known as the Zereul. With a length of over nine kilometers, a height of over one kilometer, and a width of almost four kilometers, it is the largest battlecarrier in the history of this country. Unfortunately, it is still a prototype. Therefore, half of the weapons are installed and none of the fighters have been completed. While we cannot add more weapons due to time constraints, we can add more fighters. In the hangars outside of this facility, there are 175 F-302s. They are being dismantled into three sections and are being moved down the cargo elevators to the room just outside of the gate room. After you have successfully gained control of the Zereul, the 302s will be loaded into its hangar bays. Any questions?”

A hand raised up towards the back of the room. “How are we going to get the 302s from the gate to the ship?”

“In addition to stealing the Zereul, you will be stealing P3X-719s stargate. You will need to teleport the gate into the hangar bay. From there, the 302s will be sent through the gate and reassembled on the other side.”

“How far is the ship from the gate?”

“About fifteen kilometers north.”

“What kind of resistance will we be expecting?”

“At this time of night, there should be minimal resistance. There should be only a few guards, but to make sure there isn’t any surprises, a UAV will be sent through.”

“What time do we begin?”

“ASAP The UAV will be launched once this briefing is over. Once that is finished, you all can begin. Any more questions?” Silence filled the room. “You are all dismissed.”

"Well, we call them Skaarj. And they're fighting for the government. Which is very, very bad."

O'Neill's face turned very serious. "Is there any way to stop them?"

"Short of killing them all, no. And killing them requires severe head trauma. At least a 10 gauge shotgun shell. And of course, they're guarding 'The Deliverance'. The most important ship in the empire. Which I intend to steal."

"When do you plan on stealing it? I'd like to tag along and help you a bit."

Over Earth in the flagship of the entire space fleet, General Walter Turner, the Commanding General of the Northrop-Grumman Air Force Space Command, stood by his quarter’s window and gazed at the immense size of the fleet. Never in the history in this nation has there ever been such a large ensemble of ships. Every ship that we could spare is here including 140 Columbia-class battlestars, 60 Tiger-class destroyers, 100 BC-303s, and my flagship, a Sovereign Class heavy cruiser. I believe this should be more than enough to drive the enemy from us permanently. He smiled and watched the fighter patrols flying about on their flight paths. Altogether there has to be about....er....a little over 22,000 fighters that we have. More than a match for the Wormian ships. He shook his head and left his quarters for the main bridge.

-------------------------------------------

From the stargate’s control room, Lt. Colonel Clayton watched the UAV being launched through the active stargate to P3X-719. He turned towards the technician who operated it.

“Status?”

“UAV will arrive on P3X-719 in 5…4…3…2…1…receiving visual.” The screen over his head showed dimly lit houses and other buildings in the main city.

“Activate sensors. I want to know about everything that moves out there.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the technician as he flipped some switches. The screen showed detailed information about everything the UAV scanned.

“Impressive. How long until we get a glimpse of the Zereul?”

“In about thirty seconds.”

Clayton called out through the intercom to all the SG teams waiting anxiously in the hallway directly to the right of the gate room. “Teams, enter the gate room and prepare to embark in two minutes.”

Everyone piled into the gate room and awaited the final order.

The technician called out to Clayton. “Sir, we’re receiving visual of the site.” Clayton looked up at the screen to see a massive vessel darkened with the exception of a few spotlights placed around it.

“Do the scans show any enemy forces?”

“There appears to be various guard posts around the ship and a few Humvees. Oddly enough, there is no heavy weaponry in the area.”

“Hmmm…probably out on maneuvers or something.” He leaned over towards the intercom and turned it on. “Teams, you all have a go.”

Team by team, they walked through the event horizon on the stargate, carrying everything they would need for such a large-scale mission. Clayton watched them leave and prayed that they would successfully complete their mission.

-------------------------------------------

Still in his jail cell, Shiran sat on the floor, leaned his back against the wall nearest the door, and sighed. I have given them all the information I know, yet they still keep me in here. If the rescue mission was an ambush, I would have been dead already. Why am I still here? He continued to run the same question through his mind over and over until he fell asleep.

"Sometime this week. You know how to use shotguns, right?" He was smiling a little. Booting up a simulator, and inputting values. Always with the simulations.

"Just going to run a test, showing the probability of success."

O'Neill chucked. "Yeah, I know how to use them." He watched Phoren imput the values into the simulator. "You know those simulators aren't all that useful. There have been quite a few times where I've completed a mission when the odds were way against me."

"I know. This is more a... Game, really. It's multi-player, if you will. Let's squads practise. I'll jack you in, with my squad, if you want. Give you a chance to get used to the weaponry." He was still entering values, and pressed a button, a female voice ringing throughout the entire complex "All Alpha squad members to their terminals, repeat, all Alpha squad members to their terminals"
---
A meal slid into Shiran's cell. Mashed potatoes, meat loaf and gravy, a vanilla wafer, crackers, some jelly, sugar, coffee, cream, salt, gum, matches, a napkin, and one of those moist towelettes. And an AO Enforcer 18 mm.

A minute or so later, so did a uniform. Black fatigues. Either someone wanted to get him out of there, or he was being drafted.

O’Neill nodded. "Alright, sounds good. How do I get jacked in?"

-------------------------------------------

Shiran woke up to the clattering of a tray. He groggily looked towards it and noticed that it came full of food along with a nice sized sidearm. He slid himself towards the tray and began to hastily eat. Mmmm…this is pretty good for prison food. While drinking his coffee, he picked up the sidearm and looked at it closely. An eighteen millimeter. I wonder why I am getting this?

Soon afterward, black fatigues slid into the cell. It looks like I am being drafted. This day just keeps getting better and better. He sighed and dressed himself in them.

After they exited the stargate into the dark night, each team's leader assembled around Major Brad Satterfield of SG-2 who was in full command of the sizable force. He laid out a map on the ground in front of him and pointed out various points on it.

“Teams 2 through 13 will make their way to the south end of the complex where the main control center is located. Teams 14 through 26 will assault the north end of the complex since they have the bulk of our heavy weaponry. There are a few guards up that way with Humvees and maybe APCs. Teams 27 through 39 will cover our flanks from the east and teams 40 through 51 will cover from the west. Now in order to keep this as covert as we can, I want each team to split up into five groups. Those five groups are to stay separate from each other until they reach the rendezvous point. Dismissed.”

Each small group began their lengthy journey up through the large city to their objectives. While quietly walking through people's backyards, Lieutenant Laura Roberts of SG-11 became increasing concerned about the eerie silence that was seemed to encompass the area. She then decided to page Satterfield with her small radio.

“Major? Lieutenant Laura Roberts speaking.”

“Go ahead Lieutenant.”

“Isn’t it too quiet around here? I haven’t heard any of your usual noises like car horns and dogs barking, nor have I seen any people.”

“I read you. Everyone, keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

Roberts did not feel much better, but she continued on her way with the hopes that she would not find out what had happened to the citizens of the city. She soon reached a high wooden fence that lined about two or three acres of property for what appeared to be an upper class mansion. With her flashlight on the end of her P90, she peered over the fence and was startled to find a few feet away, an elderly woman and her dog dead on the ground. She climbed over the fence and approached the bodies while she paged Satterfield again.

“Major, Lieutenant Laura Roberts speaking, once again.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“I have found an elderly woman dead in a backyard along with her dog.”

“Any gunshot wounds?”

She bent down and turned the woman’s body over. “None, sir.”

“Any bruises or marks?

“None, sir.” She examined the dog also. “Nothing on the dog either.”

“Hmmm…I believe this may have been caused by a nerve gas.”

“I believe so. That would explain the silence around here.”

“Alright, continue on your way.”

“Yes, sir.” Roberts rose up, shook her head at the scene, and climbed over the fence on the other side of the yard.

-------------------------------------------

About fifty kilometers away from the SG teams, the Columbia lay partially buried in the ground with her crew working quickly to restore whatever systems survived after the vessel crashed. On the main bridge, General William Harris turned towards the sensor operator.

“Crowder, status report.”

“Main power is back online, the fires have been extinguished, and the blaster batteries are fully functional.”

“Good, are the external sensors operational?”

“Short-range sensors were damaged in the crash but are partially working. Long-range sensors are in much better shape and are now fully repaired and operating.”

“Even better. Scan the area around us for enemy forces.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Crowder as he began to punch the buttons on his console. Harris was preparing to get himself a cup of coffee when he heard his name being called by Crowder.

“General Harris!!”

Harris turned around quickly. “Go ahead. What is it?”

“Two whole armored divisions just appeared out of the tree line.”

“Friendly?”

“Unknown.”

“Damn!” Harris shouted out to the weapons control officer, Captain Jeff Owen. “Power up the blaster batteries and prepare to fire.”

Outside, the tanks leading the divisions detected the weapons of the Columbia being powered up and began to fire. Their shells did nothing more than ding the four-meter thick armor that covered the entire exterior of the battlestar. Realizing the ineffectiveness of firing on the strong hull, they refocused their shells towards the areas where the fighter bays broke off. As soon as they did that, the exploding shells began to rock the ship. Inside, Harris tried to stay seated.

“Crowder, damage report!”

“There is fire where the fighter bays broke off and about forty casualties in the same area.”

“Well, we now know that they aren’t friendly.” Harris turned and shouted to Owen. “Fire all weapons!”

The Columbia’s sixteen side blaster batteries began to fire at the attacking force. Their plasma bolts ripped apart the tanks as if they were made of aluminum foil. Within thirty seconds, nothing remained of the two armored divisions except for smoldering ruins and deep holes in the ground.

-------------------------------------------

Nearing the Zereul, the SG teams were startled by the sound of the explosions caused by the Columbia. As they looked up to see where they came from, fireballs began to rise upwards from the trees, lighting up the entire sky. Satterfield watched them and thought to himself, That has to be the Columbia. Once we capture the Zereul, we will go search that area for survivors. He then began to talk through his radio.

“Listen up, people. We’re coming up to the ship. Keep your eyes peeled for any enemy activity.”

A few minutes later, the teams reached the Zereul. It’s dark gray hull blended in with the dark night except for the few places where it was lit by spotlights. The area around it was cleared away except for a high fence, a few barracks, and the main control center, both of which were outside the fence. Satterfield radioed the assault force.

“Teams 14 through 26, what’s your status?”

Captain Donald Throckmorton of SG-14 replied, “There are about a dozen guards and eight Humvees by the barracks. As for us, we are ready.”

“Good, you may begin your assault.”

“Yes, sir.”

Throckmorton motioned for one of his team members to fire an RPG at a Humvee, which exploded almost instantly. Next, SG-19 opened fire with their machine guns. The nearby guards were caught by surprise and began to fire their rifles crazily in all directions. One of the bullets hit a member of SG-22 in the side. A medic from SG-23 ran over to him and attempted to treat the wound. The guards in the open did not stand a chance against the teams hiding amongst the trees and buildings. They were killed very quickly by the machine guns.

Throckmorton yelled out through his radio. “Cease fire! Cease fire! Major, the area is secure.”

“Nice work, any casualties?”

“None, but we do have one wounded. He will make it.”

“Good, just stay where you are and we’ll get you.”

“Affirmative, sir.”

Satterfield motioned his team to follow him into the main control center and for the other teams to stand by on the outside. As he entered the building, he noticed a large computer console that contained four screens and several rows of buttons and switches. He turned towards his team’s civilian technical specialist, Marc Logan.

“Logan, do you think you can teleport all of us directly into the ship?”

Logan looked over the console. “Yeah, I think so.” He began to hit the buttons with his fingers. “I can teleport all of us at the same time. Where would you like each team to go?”

“Hmmm…SG-2 goes to the bridge. The rest can go to the fighter bays. We’ll need them to unload the 302s after we teleport the stargate aboard.”

“Alright, let’s see…” He hits a few more buttons when, suddenly, with a flash of light, he finds himself and the rest of SG-2 on the bridge. “I think I got it.”

“Nice, now do the gate and the DHD.” Satterfield began to talk through his radio. “Anyone who is not aboard let me know now.” Silence followed. “Good, the people in the fighter bays are to unload the 302s when they come aboard.”

Logan looks up from the console near the rear of the bridge. “The gate and the DHD is aboard.”

Satterfield keyed his radio. “Throckmorton, dial the SGC.”

“Yes, sir.” Throckmorton replied as he punched the glyphs on the DHD. Shortly afterward, the wormhole was established. “Wormhole established, Major.”

“Stargate Command, this is Major Brad Satterfield. Do you read me, over.”

Lt. Colonel Clayton answered back. “Major Satterfield, this is Lt. Colonel Clayton. What’s your status?”

“We have successfully captured the Zereul. We are now waiting for the F-302s.”

“Excellent. Any casualties?”

“None, sir. We only have one wounded. Speaking of which, I request that you send some skilled medical personnel. The chances are we will need it soon.”

“Request granted. We will send personnel and spacecraft once the wormhole disengages.”

“Affirmative, sir. Disconnecting wormhole…now.” The wormhole disconnected immediately and the event horizon vanished. Within a few seconds, the gate’s chevrons began to light up, indicating that another gate was trying to establish a connection. As soon as the seventh chevron lit up, the energy vortex spewed from the center and the wormhole was once again established. Disassembled spacecraft emerged from the event horizon shortly afterward. On the bridge of the Zereul, Satterfield motioned for each of his team members to man a console. He then turned to Captain Rebecca Short who manned the power console.

“Short, bring the power online.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied as the vessel came to life. “Power is on and at 100%.”

He motioned to Lieutenant Roy Walker. “Walker, bring the engines online.”

“Sub-light engines are powering up.” The entire vessel rumbled as the engines started for the very first time, but they “The hyperdrive will be ready in three minutes.”

He looked towards Lieutenant Charles Anderson. “Anderson, disengage landing gears and set a course for the Columbia. One-quarter speed.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied as the landing gears rose into the hull and the ship smoothly moved forward. “ETA to the Columbia, two minutes.”

“Logan, scan the entire area. Let me know if you find anything interesting.”

“Alright,” He began to type at the sensor console. Satterfield began to settle down in the commander’s chair when Logan jumped up. “Major Satterfield, I have found the Columbia somewhat intact with most of her crew alive. Also, I have found the cockpit of a fighter that crashed near it. The pilot is just barely alive. Would you like me to teleport him aboard?”

“Hmmm….go ahead. Teleport him to the medical bay and the cockpit to one of the cargo bays.”

“Sure thing.” He sat back into his seat and teleported the pilot and the cockpit to their designated areas.

July 1st, 20XX
0700 Hours
Starfleet Command (Brandoniats)
The coomunications officer looked about nervously as his console beeped at him, flashing red as well and a Starfleet directive he was unfamiliar with.
"Sir, " the young lieutenant said, "you'd better come see this, right away."
As the commander strode over to the console, the comm oficer pointed out the directive. As he read it, the eyes of the commander widened. He told the officer to decipher it using Starfleet code omega, and the message appeared on the large wall screen.
=/\=Starfleet Command. Da Vinci disabled by portion of renegade attack force. Best estimates say six Prometheus class starships, possibly more. No way to determine armament Recommending Full Tactical Alert=/\=
"You've got to be shitting me..."
"What is it sir?"
"You're familiar with our chief military hardware supplier? Well, what happens when he gets mad.Put me through to FleetComm, Admiral Hayes."
"Admiral, we've got a strike force of indeterminate size and strength inbound, Prometheii battlecruisers."
"Where did you get this information?"
"The Da Vinci, sir. Right now she's disabled out on the other side."
"You're certain?"
"Sir, when one of our starships is attacked with intent t destroy, I can't be anything but. For all we know, those Prometheii inbound might be armed with planetbusters."
"Any ideas?"
"Redeploy the Home Guard fleet and any ships able to move and fight to cover the entire system, try to catch them when they drop out of FTL."
"You are aware that they could drop out right in orbit and launch weapons before we even knew they were there, right?"
"That's why we should redeploy, to give us our best chance of stopping any attack."
"Very well commander. I'm going to arrange an scout team to investigate at NG itself."
"Let's hope we're wrong, sir, let's hope we're wrong."

The call went out. Aboard Starbase 23, a Starfleet commando team suited up in medium armour in preparation to embark by Stargate to Northrop Grumman. They all knew that if hostiles were on the other side of the gate,they would likely not survive rematerialization.

0450 Hours IST - FRS Chimera
Sol System - Earth Orbit

Ketcher eyed the blue orb on the viewscreen on the bridge of the Chimera. It was at a digitally improved 10,000x zoom, but the quality of the interpolation software that modern computers had in this day and age was such that Earth looked more real on the viewscreen than it did to the astronaut in his EVA suit.

He stood properly in his military stance of "at ease," viewing the viewscreen intently.

"Straighten up, you men. Earth's long range scanners will undoubtedly be confirming a massive fleet of basically unknown origin approaching. They will be contact-..."

His sentence was cut short when the screen blinked the Earth away and in its place some dignitarial council flickered into place. The message was unusually choppy...

"Wormian fleet, you have been detected on what can be and has been interpreted as an intercept course with planet Earth. If you do not decrease speed, we will be forced to take whatever defensive measures we deem necessary."

Ketcher wondered for a moment how exactly only one message was being sent directly from Earth, as literally thousands of nations made their home there.

"Put me on." He said.

The comms officer turned and gestured towards Ketcher. "You're on, sir." He said.

"Terran homeworld, this is the Wormian Phoenixius Battle Fleet, currently en route to Earth to blockade and discuss terms of surrender with a resident nation, Northrop Grumman. The leadership of Northrop Grumman has authorized acts most unbecoming of any civilized and spacefaring nation, resulting in the catastrophic deaths of nearly one million Wormian citizens. International law permits us to defend our lives and our sacred honor as we seek only to solve the rift between our Motherland and her enemy."

He awaited the response from the Terran... entity.

"As international law permits, you are authorized, as with any independent state, to utilize and weild the power to levy war, and no government stands above the water regarding these Higher Laws, ours included. We are, however, bound by the same laws that you quote, and are thus also bound and willing to remove your fleet, one way or another, if this war doesn't stay between you and Northrop Grumman. Such acts would be taken only for the safety of Earth, Earth's resident nations, and those nations inhabitants. I'm sure an esteemed fellow such as yourself understands."

"Of course. We Wormians are proud of the traits civilization has brought to us, and therefore, in an effort to preserve yours as much as our own, we shall, so to say, watch our shots. Ketcher out." He said, giving the "kill" sign to his comms officer.

The young man at the communications console knocked out a complex keystroke that terminated the connection between them and Earth. Likely, the next contact they would have with a Terran entity would not be a friendly one. The Wormians on the fleet could only wait and watch what time would tell.

OOC: Just so no one is confused. This battle between Brandoniats and I is a continuation of an RP that occurred a few hours (IC) earlier than this one, but has much to do with this current one. Link: http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=352810

IC: The nine Prometheii traveled farther into the Brandoniats region of space using their sublight engines. As they went about their duties, the crews of the vessels waited nervously for the first sign of trouble. The commander of the small fleet, Cecil Thompson, also was becoming quite nervous as he sat back in his command chair and thought about what to do next. After a few minutes, he finally leaned forwards and motioned towards the weapons officer.

“Raise shields, load the nuclear missiles, and prepare the fighters for launch. We want to be ready in case we have to go into battle earlier than expected.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the weapons officer as he worked quickly to do what he was ordered.

-------------------------------------------

General Turner paced the bridge of the NGC Offenbach as he waited for any news on the status of the Wormian forces. Towards the front of the bridge, an officer monitored the sensor station, which received a constant flow of information from the many satellites that orbited Earth. Suddenly, the officer jumped up from his station.

“General, the Wormian fleet has entered orbit directly on the other side of Earth!”

Turner stopped on the far side of the bridge. “Are you sure? Those satellites are short-ranged and are fourty years old.”

The officer pressed a button on the console and brought up a live video feed on the viewscreen, which showed the Wormian fleet. “As sure as I will ever be, sir.”

Turner started to make orders as he made his way toward his command chair. “Helm, set a course for the Wormian fleet, one-quarter impulse power. Comm., send out an encoded transmission to the rest of the fleet. Tell the battlestars to hold position, but be prepared to jump to hyperspace on my command. The rest of the fleet is ordered to move with us while assuming Position One."

Seconds later, the nuclear-armed BC-303s moved towards the front of the fleet, the Tiger-class destroyers took up flanking positions on both sides, and the Offenbach stayed towards the center as the entire force slowly moved towards the Wormian fleet.

0500 Hours IST - FRS Chimera
Sol System - Earth Orbit

The bridge was tense. Silence would occupy the room were it not for the sounds emitted by the consoles. The room was kept at a Wormian comfortable 57° Fahrenheit, and yet, a bead of sweat rolled off the nose of Admiral James Ketcher.

History was in the making. Like all the great naval engagements of history, the adversarial fleets met one another in combat, each naval vessel proudly bearing the mark of it's country. This was merely the next great Salamis, the question was who would play as the Athenians?

An eruption from the sensors station shattered the almost musical pattern of electronic humming and beeping.
"Sir! We're detecting a fleet of incoming vessels... they match Northrup-Grumman make. They are moving to intercept!"

Ketcher paused his last pause... it was time for decisiveness in war. So it began.

"Very well. All vessels... battle stations. Assume flank staggered formation and standby to begin firing."

In space, the vessels moved to their respective positions. Out there, somewhere, the Northrup Grumman fleet grew ever nearer to a Wormian on thirsting to avenge their dead.

The Offenbach and the rest of the fleet steadily traveled towards the Wormian fleet. A feeling of nervousness encompassed the crews including General Turner, who rested his old arthritis-ridden legs by sitting down in the command chair. He leaned back and awaited his opponent’s next move. While doing so, the sensors officer called up from towards the front of the bridge.

“Sir, the Wormian fleet has just moved into formation. They’re ready to strike.”

Turned leaned forward. “Are we in long-range weapons range yet?”

“Yes, we are.”

Turner tightly gripped the arms on his chair. He knew what he had to do next.

“Standby all BC-303s. Load the nuclear missiles into their bays and prepare to fire on my command.”

Inside of each BC-303, the automated loading systems rattled as the rocket-propelled missiles were inserted into their appropriate bays. On the Offenbach, the weapons officer turned and nodded to Turner that the weapons were now ready to fire. Turner took a deep breath and said the one word that would start the largest battle ever in the history of the nation.

“Fire.”

One missile fired out of each of the one hundred vessels and raced towards the Wormian fleet.

-------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, in his office, John Northrop watched the events unfolding on a large tactical viewscreen, which he had set up across the room. He was amazed at how simplified things looked on the screen. Green dots represented his vessels, red dots represented the Wormian vessels, and white dots stood for neutral vessels. The green dots were gradually making their way across the screen while the edges of a blue shaded angle slowly moved in behind the Wormian fleet. This represented the maximum firing angle of the many ion cannons strategically placed around the nation. In thirty minutes, Earth’s constant rotation would put the first set of cannons located on the East Coast within firing range of the enemy ships.

July 1st, 20XX
1200 Hours
Starbase 3
---------------------------
The mood in the embarkation room was tense. A squad of heavily armoured Marines were waiting for the signal to depart. The shimmering event horizon of the wormhole rippled like a pond. A few moments ago, they had sent a small probe, about the size of a softball, through to the other side. The voice of the technician issued from behind the transparent aluminium control room window.
"Rematerialization in five...four...three...two...one...mark."
A holoprojecter whirred to life in the ceiling and projected the view the drone was getting. There was only static.
"Iris impact," the voice from the control room said.
A sarcastic Marine piped up, "Y'think?"
Another poked his sergeant, "So, what now?"
From the door of the room, a much deeper voice came.
"You're all thinking in one too few dimensions. You've got to look at the problem from all sides."
Out of the shadows walked a Spartan, covered in the typical shimmering green power armour. He walked up to the Marines, then up the ramp to the gate itself. He (they could only guess it was a he by the voice) prodded the horizon with a gloved finger. The surface rippled. He swung around the gate, walking behind it relative to the Marines. His image distorted, he poked at that side the same as the other. He spoke again.
"How many Stargates have you seen with irises on both sides? Hmm?"
The officer on duty blanked for a moment as he thought.
"Y'know," he said, "that just might work."
The Spartan came out from behind the Gate. He gestured to a guard manning the phaser turret.
"Get me another drone, quickly."
The guard went to a nearby recessed shelf. He grabbed another probe and tossed it to the Spartan. He moved around to the back side of the Gate and hefted the probe. He nodded to the control room.
"Ready?"
He got a thumbs up as a response. Hefting the probe again, he heaved it through the wormhole.
"Signal lost immediately. Disintegrated."
Everyone in the room seemed to shrink from disappointment. All except the Spartan.
"We've got to find a way to get their iris down. Do we have any link to the inside?"
"We do share an area of space with one of NG's spawn companies. Perhaps they can give us something useful."
"Get on it. We need to know what's going on."

Colonel Stafford, the former 1st Assault Division commander, had been stripped of his command because he had not inflicted a significant number of enemy loses during his artillery barrage through the stargate. He was now in command of a small fifteen-man security force guarding the Caprica City Stargate Terminal. It was not an exciting job, but it had the advantage of being very peaceful for him. As he smoked his cigarette near the DHD, the inner track of the stargate began to spin rapidly. The chevrons began to light up, signaling that someone, somewhere was dialing into that gate. Stafford promptly struck the iris control button, which immediately slammed the iris shut. Just as the iris completely closed, the top and final chevron locked and lit up in its usual orange glow. A split second later, the event horizon swooshed out from the center of the stargate but was hindered by the iris. It then receded backwards until it had created a spinning, funnel-like effect coming out of the back of the gate. Finally, the spinning movement stopped. Colonel Stafford and his men looked towards it curiously, waiting for anything to happen. After awhile, a loud bang was heard coming from the iris.

“What do you suppose that was?” One of Stafford’s men asked another.

“Probably a probe or something to see whether or not we have the iris up.”

“Too bad it wasn’t a person,” one of the men towards the back of the group said as he chuckled.

Seconds later, the event horizon vaporized, the chevrons flashed off, and the connection was severed from the unknown planet. Stafford shrugged his shoulders and reopened the iris, which basically ended the most exciting event of the day for him.

July 1st, 20XX
1200 Hours
Brandoniats Space, Precise Location Classified
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the same time as the failed probe attempt, aboard the covert ops Orbital Stargate, the 3rd and 5th Fleet were preparing to embark to the Sol System. They were positioned a few lightyears away from the gate, oriented with the position where the gate would be at T-0. It was T minus 5 minutes now. Unfortunately, the size of the gate and the nature of the maneuver meant that the ships of the two fleets were packed so close together that people were looking out viewports and hand signalling to other crew in the next ship over. In fact, the maneuver was so complex that they actually had to give control over to the computers, at least until the fleets emerged from the other side. Only recently they had received reports on a Wormian fleet headed for Earth. No doubt that the NG defense systems would be up to the task of deflecting a fleet of even that size. As the launch approached, the fleet commander, Captain Lucas Rhaimes, grew agitated.
"Ops, get Gate Control to test dial Ng's orbital. Something doesn't feel right."
"Aye sir, dialing... Sir, you were right. We can't make contact with the Northrop Orbital."
"Are there any other orbitals in the Sol system? Preferably one that is not directly controlled by NG?"
"Checking sir. This will take a while."
After a tense two minutes, Gate Control replied.
"Sir, the next closest Gate to Sol is in the Criun system. An hour away from Earth at Warp 7. NG controlled though."
"It'll have to do. And how do you propose to get through that Gate without that iris closing on us?"
"Uh...I'm not sure yet, Sir."
The young ensign sitting at the helm console suddenly spun around, looking slightly flustered.
"I..I, uh... have an idea sir."
"Well, speak up then. Let's hear it."
"Sir, there are recorded instances of wormholes, uh, "jumping their tracks," so to speak."
"And this helps us...how?"
"Well sir, if we dial a gate that's between us and the Criun Gate, we can send a surge of energy through the Gate, hopefully causing the wormhole to switch to the Criun Gate. It'll happen so quickly and without warning that the operators at Criun won't have time to raise their iris."
"Sounds like a plan. Ops, start calculating how long it will take for us to reach Earth from Criun, Warp 9. And also, prepare a burst subspace message for the Wormian fleet. Let them know that support is coming. Get ready to send it as soon as we're through."
"Sir, it's 26 minutes from Criun to Earth."
"Well, at least the Wormians won't be alone for long. Any objections?"
The same timid ensign spoke again.
"Well sir, the Gate will be flanked by at least two Starbases, and if they are loyal to this new force, then it would be suicide to go through."
"That could be a problem."
"But," interrupted the Chief Tactical Officer, "we do have the element of extreme surprise. The docking bay doors might be open. If we get inside, we will be safe, for the time being."
"That's insane, you know that?"
"Perhaps sir, but it is my responsibility to keep the lives aboard this ship safe, and that does seem like the best option."
"We may have to try it. Start programming the helm. This maneuver is going to be too fast for a human to handle. Ops, put me through to the Fleet."
"Aye."
"Third and Fifth fleets, this is Captain Rhaimes. We are about to attempt something that no one has ever tried before. We are going to attempt skipping wormholes, avoiding irises and flying directly into an enemy held Starbase before we can be fired upon. Your orders are as follows. When we breach the event horizon on the other side, you are to orbit the closest Starbase, and try to find an open dock door. If you cannot immediately find one, you are to warp out of weapons range, ASAP. A rendezvous will be arranged later. This is going to be dangerous, but it is your duty to stand up for the rights of others, and now we are helping a close allied nation, as well as those the temporary rulers have fired upon. Good luck to all. I'll see you on the other side."
"Ops, confer with Gate Control, get them ready to send the energy surge right after we enter the wormhole. Also, move the fleet in, we won't need to go through at warp for this one."
A quick warp jump put the fleet just out of "flush" range from the Gate. They were ready to ride the flush back into the gate, hitting the event horizon just as it stabilized. It should allow the NG forces the least amount of time to react to the fleet.
"Contact Gate Control, dial it up."
The massive innner ring of the Gate spun, and the chevrons locked into place. Each chevron was the size of an Akira class starship, giving it a massive appearance. The flush appeared, and as it started to recede, the combined fleet moved forward. Inside each attached Starbase, the giant warp core could be heard building up to the surge. In a moment, the fleet disappeared and energy arced across the surface of the Gate. It was incredible coordination, which could only be pulled of by FTL computer processing. A massive fleet flying across space, time and dimension to participate in possibly the biggest battle ever.

Ever since Northrop had taken control of the company, the Criun System Orbital Stargate Facility laid dormant with only a skeleton crew aboard while the rest of the personnel had been reassigned to combat units back on Earth. No more were the days of endless transports, spaceliners, and other civilian ships traveling through the gate. Also, the three fleets that had been stationed there were repositioned back near Earth for the defense of homeland. The commander of the facility, Colonel Frederick Ramsey, took note of this as he rested his legs on the computer terminal in the gate control room and sipped his glass of whiskey that he had snuck in long ago. Sitting beside him, gazing out of the window, was Major William Watts who was the chief of stargate operations. Both had been there since the facility was build and were getting ready for retirement soon.

"Fred, what do you think is going on back on Earth?"

Ramsey looked at his watch. "The battle should be starting right about now."

"Think we'll win?"

"I'm not quite sure, but if the Wormians have any other sneak attack ships like the one's they used to gas a good portion of the population on 719, then we ought to get a little concerned."

"Those ships they had were something. Full cloaking abilities. They were able to fire the gas before they were detected."

"Sneaky little bastards," mumbled Ramsey as he reread the report concerning the situation from company headquarters.

"Yeah, but we'll blast them all to..." Suddenly, the computer monitors nearby screeched and flashed a chart that showed a massive spike of energy flowing into the orbital gate. Electricity raced along the edge of the stargate and down into the control room. The computers were unable to handle such a surge. Most of their internal components melted into one another. Then, the nine chevrons on the gate lit, and an energy vortex shot out from the center. The two men were bewildered for they had never seen such a sight before. Watts tried frantically to close the iris on the gate but to no avail.

"The iris isn't closing. The gate control computers are fried, and guess what?" asked Watts. "The bay doors are jammed open again. Of all the times for it to happen, too!"

"Damn!" Ramsey shouted as he pushed the combat alarm, but nothing happened. He hit the button several times, but soon grew aggravated, so he rushed out to the hall for the nearest communications station. He found one, and his voice was heard all around the facility, "This is a code red. All personnel are to assume battle stations. Maintenance crews are to report to the bay door control center. This is not a drill." The small crew raced through the corridors to their stations not knowing what awaited them.

-------------------------------------------

In the meantime, the Zereul had relocated to a position over the Columbia and began to teleport survivors onto the vessel. When the commander of the Columbia, General Harris, was teleported onto the bridge, the entire bridge crew stood to attention and saluted.

"At ease," commanded Harris. "Who is the commander of this ship?"

"That would be me, sir," replied Major Satterfield. "But, since you are the ranking officer on this ship, it is yours to command."

Harris nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Major."

Nearby manning the sensors console, the civilian technical specialist, Marc Logan, spoke up. "Sensors show that the orbital stargate has activated. There might be enemy forces coming through."

Harris adjusted his uniform and motioned to the bridge crew. "Power up weapons, finish teleporting the rest of the survivors aboard, and prepare the ship for a jump to hyperspace."

July 1st, 20XX
1225 Hours
Criun System
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain Rhaimes' ship was first to breach the event horizon, to be greeted by a completely different set of constellations. And not only that, but he was flanked by a pair of one of the largest classes of space station. Not only were they large, they were quite heavily armed. But sensors detected little to no trace of weapons activation. But that didn't mean much. It didn't take long to power up a few dozen torpedo launchers. So the captain did what was instinctual.
"Helm, break hard right. Find us a hole."
The Valiant, along with about half the combined fleet as it emerged, dove left, searching for an open portal. The first one they came to was open. It was lit, shining from within. Quickly the Valiant flew in, followed by the 3rd fleet. Evidently the 5th fleet had taken shelter in the right Starbase. As the fleet gathered, clustered around the central core, the tension eased. No reports of casualties, but that didn't mean a ship was completely annihilated and no one had reported it yet. A cursory scan gave the appearance of an intact fleet, but they couldn't be sure.
Captain Rhaimes realized he and the fleet had just pulled off a maneuver that would likely make it into the history files, depending on which side wrote them. It must've been amazing to see such a tight formation of ships suddenly starburst into fragments and disappear into your own docking bays. He couldn't help but wonder what was going through the minds of the enemy now.

Major Watts watched the event horizon on the orbital gate with astonishment as a large, tight formation of ships streamed out. As they exited, they bolted into either the left or the right starbase through one of the open bay doors. He shook his head in disbelief as he turned towards Colonel Ramsey who was still shouting orders over the intercom.

“Colonel, a fleet of ships has just came through the gate and entered into the docking bays.”

“Do we know who they are?”

“They appear to be from Brandoniats.”

Ramsey grumbled as he put his hands on his forehead. He knew that the insides of the docking bays contained no weapons. Suddenly, he had an idea. He punched a button on the intercom and was immediately connected to the bay door control center and was greeted by a young maintenance man.

“Docking Bay Door Control Center, Gary Kendrick speaking.”

“Kendrick, when will the doors be operational again?”

“We almost have them now.”

“Good, when they are, close them,” replied Ramsey as he hung up the phone.

“Won’t that trap the fleet in there?”

“Of course, it will.”

Seconds later, the large duranium and tritanium doors began to slowly close, trapping whoever might be inside.

-------------------------------------------

General Harris sat down in the command chair on the bridge of the Zereul and looked around with amazement. The newest ship in the fleet had everything he could think of: plush leather seats, food replicators, padded carpeting, hundreds of thousands of sensors, a wider viewscreen with a three-dimensional output, redesigned shields and engines, modified Asgard teleportation technology, large storage facilities, hospital-grade medical facilities, and entirely new weapons. Now, with the crew of the Columbia on board, the Zereul’s many stations were now fully manned including the ones on the bridge. Harris took note of this as he continued to observe the surroundings. Behind him, Logan spoke up.

“Sir! A fleet of ships is exiting from the event horizon! From their actions and the starbases’, they do not appear to be Northrop’s”

“Well then, what are they all doing?”

“They have flown directly into the starbases on either side. Meanwhile, the starbases are powering up their weapons.”

“That’s odd.” Harris rubbed his chin. “How many people do we have left to transport aboard?”

“Everyone is aboard.”

“Good. Helm, set course for the orbital gate. Maximum speed.”

The Zereul slowly moved forward with its bow pitched upwards. Within minutes, the ship would be at the orbital stargate.

July 1st, 20XX
1231 Hours
Criun System
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Sir, the doors are closing!"
"What!"
"The bay doors, sir. They're closing!"
"Phasers, target the joints. Now!"
Amber beams lanced out from the arrays of near all the starships in the base. They struck the duranium of the doors as they slid out of the neighbouring walls. The metal heated, but to no avail on the actual movement of the doors. One could almost hear the massive crash of the doors locking together. The fleet was stuck. There were no open portals for the fleet to escape through. Worse yet, they didn't know whether when those doors opened, there would be an armada of NG ships or not. It was a stroke of luck that they had decided to bring along two squads of Spartans.
"Lieutenant, go inform the Spartans." I've got a mission for them. Cargo Bay 3, in 15 minutes."
-------------------------------------------
1246 hours
Cargo Bay 3
True to form, the Spartans were early. Five minutes early to be precise. Rhaimes had asked them once, why they were always early. He had simply gotten the answer, "To be the first one on the battlefield is to be able to tilt it in your advanatage." Rhaimes had then said that not every meeting was a battlefield. The Spartan, being even less clear, said, "You never know, sir." It was somewhat chilling. The Spartans seemed to see everything as some sort of battle to be fought and won. They had even been observed to fight off sedatives for hours just to see if they could do it. It must've been hell training to be one. The twenty Spartans who stood in front of him were equally intimidating. Not one was below six feet in his armour. And the armour itself. It's iridescence seemed to give the impression that it was fading in and out of the visible spectrum.
"I assume you've been keping up with the chsin of events. We're now trapped within an enemy Starbase and need a way out."
The apparently ranking Spartan took two steps forward.
"We understand sir. I assume you've called us to get the fleet out of this. Correct."
"Correct, Master Chief. You're going to deploy through vacuum, we can't trust they don't have pattern scramblers set up. We've found several open shuttlebays you could get to. All we need you to do is open the doors. However, if you can disable the offensive systems, that would be a boon to the fleet. We don't need prisoners either. Think of the priorities as such. Alpha, doors. Beta, weapons. Delta, prisoners. I do want every single one of you back. You're good men. Here," he said, indicating a point on the map PADD he had brought, "is where we intend to rendezvous. If you don't meet us there, head for friendly territory, then home."
The Spartan took the map, studied it for a moment, then set it aside on a cargo container.
"Sir, assuming this is a standard layout and complement Starbase, I'll only need a single squad."
"We doubt they have even a full complement. Best indications say a skeleton crew."
"Poor odds, Sir. For them, I mean."
"Give'em hell, Chief. Dismissed."
With that, Rhaimes left the cargo bay. He would leave the rest of the plan up to the Spartans. They knew their own capabilities and limitations better than any other.
As soon as the Starfleet captain had left, the Master Chief turned to his unit.
"I need four volunteers."
Almost instantly, the entire group snapped to attention, and took a step forward. Reviewing his list, the Chief listed 4 other names.
"Jenkins, Wallace, O'Neill, and Gibbs. Fall out. Remainder, dismissed!"
Looking almost disappointed, the rest of the group filed out with the normal precision. Once the last of the other Spartans had departed, the Chief spoke directly to the four in front of him.
"You for specialize in demolition, close quarters combat, computer infil, and space ops respectively. That's what you've been chosen for. Your deployment zone is that cargo bay door behind you. We'll jump through the docking bay and into an open shuttlebay. From there, we are to pacify and subdue the base, and make possible the fleet's escape. After that, we take out weapons control and escape ourselves. Prisoners are a low priority. No questions?" Silence. "Twenty minutes, get all the gear you think you'll need, plus CCW (close quarters weapons), and get back here. Dismissed."

Ramsey and Watts viewed the live video feed from the docking bays. They saw the large duranium and tritanium doors close on the enemy fleet, who tried vainly to keep the doors from doing so by firing upon them with their phasers.

Watts immediately turned to Ramsey and asked, “What now?”

“Follow me,” ordered Ramsey as he walked out of the room towards one of the functioning computer terminals. Watts soon followed and arrived at the terminal where Ramsey had begun speaking to it.

“Computer, activate self-destruct sequence.”

The computer answered back in its usual monotonous tone. “Authorization needed by two ranking officers.”

“Computer. Colonel Frederick Ramsey. Activation Code: 13D3684D3092A.” He then nodded to Watts. “Now, it's your turn.”

“Are you sure about this, sir?”

Ramsey looked him straight in the face. “Look, it's our job to protect this country in any way possible. If we do this, we can save countless lives. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do,” reluctantly replied Watts as he leaned towards the computer. “Computer. Major William Watts. Activation Code: 26A1972G1910B.”

“Countdown time required.”

Ramsey stepped closer to the computer. “Thirty minute silent countdown.”

“Final authorization code required.”

“000Destruct0”

“Self-destruct initiated. Thirty minutes remaining.”

Ramsey turned to Watts. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.” They both began to run to one of the external shuttlebays to escape.

-------------------------------------------

When the Zereul had reached the minimum safe distance from the orbital stargate, it came to a dead stop. The facility had already detected the vessel, raised their shields, and powered up their weapons. General Harris carefully examined it through the viewscreen on the bridge of the Zereul

“Hmmm…looks like they’ve closed their bay doors on whoever is in there. Do we know who it is?”

“I’m scanning,” replied Logan. “The ships have matter/antimatter warp cores. I’m now running a check on all nations who use that and orbital gates.” After a few minutes, he spoke up. “There is a high possibility that they are from Brandoniats.”

“Alright, what kind of weapons are we talking about here?” he asked Logan as he gestured to the viewscreen.

“Seven-hundred forty type twelve phaser arrays and forty-eight type two burst fire photon torpedo tubes.”

“The phasers shouldn’t be a problem. Now, the photon torpedoes are something to worry about. Well, let’s try to get our allies out of there. Shields up. Prepare to fire weapons on my command. Full speed ahead.”

The Zereul’s engines roared to life as the vessel started to move forward towards the orbital stargate.

-------------------------------------------

Shiran had begun to grow impatient as he waited in his cell. It had been several hours since he had received a firearm and fatigues. Suddenly, his cell door swung wide open. He saw the silhouette of a man carrying what looked to be a human-made projectile firearm. The overhead lights were just far enough behind him to darken almost all of his features, and the darkness of the cell did not help either.

The man then gestured to Shiran, “C’mon, it’s time to go.”

Shiran dropped his pistol and headed towards the door until the man pointed to the pistol. “You’ll probably need that. Better bring it along.”

Shiran picked it back up and ran back towards the door. When he exited the doorway, he immediately recognized who the man was.

“Mr. Chairman!”

O’Neill nodded and stuck out his hand. “Call me Jack. You must be Shiran Naelthasser.”

Shiran took his hand and shook it. “Indeed. I am pleased to meet you.”

“Me, too. Oh, and I want to thank you for saving my life.”

“I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. That’s all.”

O’Neill was about to speak when a large unit of soldiers ran down the hall past him causing him and Shiran to back up against the wall.

“I think that we should be moving along now,” O’Neill said as he started to walk in the opposite direction of where the soldiers went.

“What is going on?” replied Shiran as he followed.

“I haven’t a clue. All I know is that Phoren rushed me out of his office, gave me this gate address,” He pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. “And told me to get out of here as soon as I can. He also said that there would be a ship waiting on the other side.”

“Did he mention anything about getting me out?”

“No, not really. I finally remembered on my way to the gate.”

“Thank you. I’ve been stuck in this place for the past few days.”

Soon, they came upon the facility’s stargate. O’Neill held the paper out and punched the corresponding glyphs on the DHD. As he hit each one, the chevrons on the gate lit up, and when he had hit the final glyph, the point of origin, the top chevron locked and lit. Next, he hit the red orb-shaped button in the center of the DHD. An energy vortex burst out of the center of the gate and the wormhole was established. O’Neill and Shiran then both walked through the event horizon.

July 1st, 20XX
1248 hours
Criun System
-------------------------------------------------
The situation had just went from bad to worse. Not a moment ago, they had detected an energy spike in the systems of the Starbase. They assumed the worst, a self destruct sequence, and computer forecasts gave them 30 minutes, or less to deactivate the sequence, get out somehow, or die in a brief sun. Not the best of options. The captain was doing all he could to get through the dock doors.
"Tactical, prepare a full salvo of quantum torpedoes. Identical impact points. I want you to hit that door dead center. Also, prepare phasers, I want them to impact the same moment the first torpedo hits."
"Aye sir."
"Fire at will."
A dozen brilliantly white starflares flew out of the forward torpedo turret, flying fast towards the as yet impenetrable dock doors. Simultaneously, the phaser arrays on both the top and bottom of the saucer could be seen starting to glow. The glow suddenly started speeding to converge at the very front of the array, and an amber beam lanced out from both arrays. At this moment, the first torpedo impacted, sending debris flying in all directions. A split second later, the next, and the next, and so. Twelve quantum torpedoes with a total yield of 600 isotons unleashed their fury on that door. It was scarred, charred and cratered deep, but still yet not deep enough to release them. Then, the phaser beams struck. They raked across the scarred duranium, vaporizing what they didn't carve off. As the phasers cut out, the doors were seen to be horribly gouged and scorched, but no visible hole.
"Sir, I'm reading a slight perforation. Maybe a meter across."
"Can we widen that?"
"I doubt it sir. I don't think there is time to make enough room."
"We have to keep trying. Tactical, rinse and repeat. Hit it again."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Simultaneously, the Spartan team had received news of the self destruct. Instead of taking time to equip themselves as they'd hoped, each ran to the nearest weapons locker and grabbed everything they could carry. Multiple hand phasers, photon grenades, phaser power packs, stun grenades and armful of rifles. Everything was strapped to their armour, or slung across their back as they ran back down the corridor back to the cargo bay. Skidding in, they were met by the Chief. He looked the group up and down, nodding with acceptance.
"Good to know you didn't waste any time. Stand against the wall."
As they repositioned themselves, the Chief took his place next to a wall control panel. Touching a control, he deactivated the artificial gravity. Sensing this, the Spartans' boots automatically activated their mag-grips. The Chief called out again.
"Stand on the wall, I want the fastest launch possible towards that shuttlebay."
As they positioned themselves on the wall opposite the outer door and crouched. The Chief tapped another control and the door rose, replaced with a shimmering blue forcefield. He started counting down.
"5..4..3..2..1..Launch!"
With that, he hit one last control and the forcefield vanished. As it did, the air rushed out tugging at the Spartans as they pushed off the wall as hard as they could. Now, a Spartan weighs in at half a ton in full armour, and with that weight, they can jump nearly two metres straight up in the air. Now all that force was directed sideways, pushing them out the door towards their target.

As the Zereul neared the orbital stargate, both starbases began firing on the vessel. Their phasers had almost no effect upon the Zereul’s shields, but the photon torpedoes proved to be much more of a threat.

“What’s the status on the shields?” shouted General Harris as the bridge around him was rocking from the torpedoes.

“Down to 75%,” replied Logan.

“Fire the rapid heavy lasers at the torpedoes, see if we can knock them out as they get to us, and power up both ion cannons. I want to get a couple a shots at those starbases.”

When the heavy lasers fired, they successfully knocked out almost all but a few of the torpedoes. Meanwhile, the ion cannons charged to maximum. Then, Harris gave the order to fire. The first blast crippled the first starbase’s shields while the second blast finished the shields off. Now, one of the starbases was fully exposed.

-------------------------------------------

O’Neill and Shiran exited the event horizon on a far distant planet from where they had been. It was rather earth-like in many ways. It had the typical green grass, trees, and other plants.

“Do you see what we are looking for?” asked Shiran.

“All I see is trees, trees, and more trees.” O’Neill sighed.

“It could be in those trees over there. Where else would someone hide a ship?”

“True. I’ve seen them hidden like that before.”

They both started to walk into the dense forest, searching around for any sign that there was a ship there. After a few minutes, Shiran noticed something that was a tan metallic color.

“Jack, I think I may have found something.”

O’Neill walked up to the large object and began to pull branches, vines, and weeds off of it. He uncovered a large cylindrical ship that had a slanted front and back.

“I haven’t seen one of these babies in years.”

“What is it?”

“It has many names, but I prefer ‘puddlejumper’.” O’Neill walked up to what appeared to be the back of the ship and started to feel around it. “Let me see if I remember how to open it.” When he pulled on an inconspicuous lever, a large door opened and fell flat on the ground like a drawbridge. As they entered, the lights at the rear of the ship came on automatically. Shiran looked around with curiosity.

“What is so special about this ‘puddlejumper’?”

“It was made specifically to go through the gate. It even has a small DHD built into the center console up towards the front,” replied O’Neill as he pointed forward.

As they moved to the front of the puddlejumper, more lights came on. O’Neill sat himself down in the pilot’s chair as Shiran did the same in the copilot’s chair. O’Neill looked around for a minute before he leaned over the center console and started to punch the built-in DHD.

Shiran watched with interest. “Where are we going now?”

“Earth. If I remember right, some allies of our still have an embassy there with a gate. Hopefully, we can just fly right through there.”

After O’Neill had punched the last engraved button on the DHD, he hit a small button on the console in front of him, which activated a radio.

“Brandoniats Embassy. This is Chairman Jack O’Neill of the Northrop-Grumman Corporation. As you may know, someone has seized control of my government and has most likely attacked any of my allies. I am requesting permission to enter through the stargate into your embassy with a ship that you may know as a ‘puddlejumper.’ Do you copy? Over.”

July 1st, 20XX
1252 hours
Brandoniat Embassy, Former Location of Brandoniat Territory, Earth
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The radio transmission was a complete surprise, almost as much as an unschedulued, unexpected Gate activation. Even more of a surprise was the sender, one Jack O'Neill, of NG fame. Still, the surprise wore off quickly, replaced by duty. The duty officer quickly grabbed a mike and started to reply.
"Uh...greetings Mr. President. We weren't expecting any friendly NG travellers lately, much less the President himself. I'm sorry, but we didn't have time to roll out the red carpet. We aren't exactly prepared for Puddlejumper landing, but I think we'll manage. Is it just you, Mr. President?"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Criun Orbital Stargate
The deck shook beneath the just landed Spartans. They had a pretty rough landing, considering the launch velocity and angle. Red Two had smacked a shuttle's front viewport pretty hard when they arrived in the gravity affected shuttlebay. This gave the rest of the team a laugh while Red Two rubbed his helmet.
"I think I dented my pride."
The team quickly regained it's composure and ran out the doors. Over a thousand lives depended on their mission. As they ran down the corridor, the Chief briefed them on what they would do.
"Since the crew most likely evac-ed upon starting the self destruct, they probably locked down main Ops controls. Our best bet is to get to Engineering and eject the antimatter pods manually. Hopefully the emergency ejection system wasn't disabled. Wallace, you and Jenkins will secure the station as best you can, and get us a ride out of here, preferable with transporters. When we need to go, I don't think we're going to have time to get all the way back up to a shuttlebay."
The two he picked responded by simply blinking their acknowledgement lights.
"O'Neill, you head to Ops. You might not be able to stop the sequence, but see if you can 'repurpose' the weapons."
O'Neill grinned. To the remaining Spartan, the Chief gestured.
"You're with me. Turbolifts are too slow, but there shafts aren't. You get me?"
"I think you're suggesting we base jump an elevator shaft?"
"Gotcha, sounds like fun, don't it?"
"If you say so, Chief."
Silently, Gibbs wished he would find out the Chief's name before he died. That might not leave him much time, however.

O’Neill smiled, “No, I have one passenger, a friend of mine. So are we cleared to come through?”

-------------------------------------------

The Zereul continued firing upon the starbases as the crew desperately tried to open its bay doors to rescue their allies. They were under a considerable amount of stress, but a new discovery was to make it worse.

“General!” shouted Logan. “We have a problem.”

Harris walked over to Logan’s station and looked over what was being shown to him. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yeah, a self-destruct with fifteen minutes to go.”

“Why in the hell didn’t you tell me this before?!”

“I didn’t know about it ‘til now. This ship has hundreds of sensors. I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out what they all do. I came upon this particular one a few minutes ago.”

Harris threw up his arms and walked away as he mumbled, “This place is so damned confusing that it should have a manual.”

Logan held up a large spiral-bound book. “Actually, it does.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, almost all the stations have them. Each one is designed for that particular station.”

Harris took it from Logan, flipped through the pages, and then handed it back while shaking his head. “Well, get reading then.” He walked back to his chair and motioned towards the weapons officer. “I want you to fire everything we have at those doors on my command.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied as she powered up and targeted the weapons.

“Fire.”

The Zereul opened fire a split second later. The heavy duranium doors started to show signs of weakness under the bombardment. The crew hoped that there would be enough time to blow them open and save the fleet trapped inside.

July 1st, 20XX
1255 hours
Brandoniat Embassy, Former Location of Brandoniat Territory, Earth
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Presidential One, you are clear for Gate travel. Please keep your seatbelts secured until wormhole transition is complete."
The tech grinned at his little joke, and hit the control for the massive metal iris. He watched intently as it slid out of the way of the shimmering portal.
"Iris clear. Come on in."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Criun Orbital Stargate
The deck shook again beneath the boots of the Spartans. Wallace and Jenkins ran to the central core of the station. It was here that they hoped to find a zero-G cargo shaft that they could use to get to the lower decks, where the shuttlebays were located. Rounding a corner, they nearly went headfirst into a couple of crewmen trying to escape. Quickly, they snapped up their rifles and slowly treaded around the pair. Their orders were to secure the station. No casualties were necessary. Breaking into a run again, the two Spartans hit a door, looking reinforced exactly like the cargo bay door on one of Brandoniat's Starbases. Since everything was locked down, the door didn't open at their approach. Instead, Wallace shrugged his rifle over his shoulder and jabbed his armoured fingers into the joint. The metal dented, then bent, creating a hole. He dug his fingers further and braced to pull the doors apart. Slowly, the doors yielded, groaning as they were forced apart. Beyond the pair could see a large cargo complex, with another set of doors at the opposite end. They had found their cargo shaft. With a final great shove, Wallace pushed the doors apart and into the walls. He snapped up his rifle and ran, followed closely by Jenkins. Mindless of any weapons fire that might've been directed in their direction, they quickly hit their top speed. Wallace put his right shoulder forward and slammed into the door, cratering it. He quickly rolled out of the way and Jenkins hit it the same way. With Jenkins impact, the seal between the two halves of the door was broken, and again, Wallace pried them apart. Ahead of them was a massive shaft, spaqnning at least 50 metres. Grabbing a nearby cargo container, Jenkins shoved it out the threshold of the door. The residual momentum of gravity acting on it caused the container to float downwards, but the lack of acceleration told them the shaft was gravity free. Jenkins stepped first, holding onto the doorframe. He could feel the lack of gravity. A slight with his toe spun him about, rotating where he gripped the door. He now faced downward, and with a push, was on his way deeper into the station. Wallace followed soon after, imitating Jenkins.

In another part of the station, O'Neill was weaving through corridors, passing crewmen before they knew they'd been passed. He was trying to get to station Ops, but that was going to be very far above him. Luckily, he found an empty transporter room. Ducking in, he took a quick look around the console. Finding the proper controls, he set a time delay and jumped over to the pad. Just before the transporter engaged, he loosed a frag grende from his belt and lobbed it behind the console. The grenade had a roughly three second timer, and hopefully he would be gone by then. He felt the transporter take hold, and in a blink, the surroundings were swept away and replaced by new surroundings. Somewhere below, he could hear the grenade detonating. Another tremor to the already unsteady station. For safety, O'Neill hadn't beamed directly into Ops. He was certain that Ops would be surrounded by transporter scramblers. As he advanced on the door to Ops, he hoped that the others were doing well.

O’Neill chuckled at the tech’s joke. He then closed his eyes as he concentrated on powering up the puddlejumper. Finally, the lights on the control panel started to flicker before they came on permanently. After hearing the ship power up, he opened his eyes and took hold of the flight sticks. When he did, the ship started to rise off of the ground.

“What are we going to do once we reach the other side?” inquired Shiran.

“We’re going to do some basic recon. See what’s going on back on the homefront.”

The ship finally rose above the tops of the trees. From there, the stargate could be seen in the distance. The ship lurched forward as O’Neill moved the flight sticks.

“Here we go!” he yelled right before the ship darted through the event horizon.

-------------------------------------------

Major Watts and Colonel Ramsey finally reached the shuttlebay after their long descent to the lower decks by ladder. They had not wanted to risk using the turbolifts for the fear that they might become trapped in them. Ramsey used his keycard to open the door leading into the shuttlebay. It promptly opened, revealing a Type 11 shuttle.

“Time?” Ramsey asked, referring to the countdown for the self-destruct.

“Twelve minutes,” replied Watts as he looked at his watch.

“Good. We’ll have plenty of time to get clear of the…”

The force of the Zereul’s weapons striking the doors of the docking bay doors slid Watts across the room and against the wall. Ramsey was thrown against the side of the shuttle. He screamed in pain as he heard his arm and shoulder break from the hit.

As he sat and leaned against the shuttle, he yelled, “Watts! Where the hell are you?!”

He did not know that Watts was lying unconscious on the other side of a pile of crates.

“Damn!” He then looked towards one of the computer terminals in the shuttlebay. “Computer. What fired upon this facility?”

“A Zereul-class battlecarrier.”

Ramsey grumbled and tried to stand up but wasn’t able to in his condition. He then attempted to slowly slide himself towards the rear of the shuttle to board it and escape.