(Nova Roma – Control Room – 9 November 2016, 1601)
The Nakai motherships were giant three-dimensional trapezoids. There were two fighter bays sticking out of the sides. The ships were grey, with red details. This included a big dish at the front of the vessel, which was the main weapon. All six ships opened fire, but Major Teldy had been manning the tactical station. And she had raised the shields just in time. Nevertheless, Nova Roma took a major pounding.
“Shield down by ten percent.”
“Returning fire.” Vale said from the control chair. “All defense stations, open fire.”
Nova Roma had hundreds of Ancient drones, but that was not all she had. All of the balconies that were big enough to hold one had a railgun. There were also eight missile launchers. And finally, there was an Asgard Beam Weapon. There was, however, a problem with the Asgard Weapon. In order to fire them, they had to take the hyperdrive off-line. Otherwise, there simply wasn’t enough power. But the other weapons cut loose as ordered. They hit the shields of the two closest ships, but did not do any damage. The Ancient drones, however, cut through the Nakai shields. Three of the motherships exploded. But they had managed to fire several more shots before they had been reduced to rubble.
“Shields down to seventy percent.”
The remaining motherships fired again. Vale fired another wave of drones and two more Nakai motherships bit the dust. The last mothership went to full sublight in an attempt to outrun the drones. But it was not enough. They fired again and the ship exploded. Vale was about to ask for a damage report, but another ship dropped out of FTL. At first glance, it looked like the other ships. But a closer look revealed that it was bigger. There were dome-shaped sections on top and an sphere-like expansion in the rear. Vale estimated it was about fifty percent bigger than the first wave ships. It first two pulses off yellow energy. Vale put the tower into a wild turn, dodging one of the pulses. But the second one hit.
“Shields down to thirty-five percent.” Teldy began. “One more shot, and no more shields.”
“How the hell are they doing this much damage ?” Colson said. “This doesn’t line up with their attacks on Destiny and the reports we have.”
“I think I have an answer.” Hailey began. “The New Asuran expeditions….” The ship fired again, with Vale dodging the fire. “…we presumed that the Nakai destroyed the ships completely. But what if they didn’t ? What if that’s how they invented their intergalactic hyperdrive ?”
“You mean they did some retro-engineering ?” Aranov said. “But how does that explain that ship out there ?”
“Recycling.” Hailey said. “They learned what they could from the parts, then used them to do some major upgrading to that ship out there. It probably detected us flying through their galaxy. They followed us and arranged for this little party.”
The Nakai ship fired again. There were three pulses, two of them missed. But the last one hit and the shield collapsed. And that was not the only damage. One of the console exploded, sending the crewmember who had been manning it flying. At the same time, the lights flickered. Worse, with the shields down, the balconies were exposed to space. While the bulk of folks manning the railguns had managed to get back inside, several did not make it. Before the crew could blink, the Nakai ship fired again.
Vale threw the tower through a wild turn. Alas, the tower was hit again. And the shot was devastating. More consoles exploded, windows shattered and whole sections of the tower decompressed. Then, the chair went dark….Vale realized that this meant the engines and the weapons were down. Nova Roma was a sitting duck. And the Nakai were about to fire again. He looked at his crew. They all realized what was about to happen. He looked at the tactical display – well, what was left of the display – and saw that the Nakai ship was lining up for the kill shot. There was an energy surge, the pulse launched and then….hit something else. Something invisible. The object – whatever it was – exploded.
“What the….” Before he could finish, sections of space rippled and eight spaceships appeared. Vale recognized them from the description the Destiny crew had given them. “Ursini !?”
“Looks like it.” Teldy said. “And they’ve all opened fire on the Nakai.”
All eight of the Ursini ships opened fire. Their energy weapons fire passed right through the shields of the Nakai ships and did major damage. Then they fired some kind of torpedoes. They hit the Nakai ship and its shields collapsed. The Ursini fired another wave and finished the mothership. Vale leaned on the nearest console and sighed. It was over.
(Stargate Command – Briefing Room – 11 November 2016, 0711)
Reginald Jones was exhausted. He and the rest of the representatives had not slept since word about the ambush had come in. The tower had been in really bad shape. The crew had spent the time since the attack making repairs and connecting the few rooms that had not been decompressed. But even with the Ancient repair nanites, it was slow work. And the death toll was expected to be extremely high. Jones was leaning on the table when General Landry came in. The look on his face made it clear that this was not going to be good news.
“How many made it, General ?”
“We’re still working on the final report.”
“Dammit, Hank ! We authorized this ! How many !?” He sighed. “I’m sorry, General, this…”
“….is not your fault. You had no idea the Nakai were planning to ambush Nova Roma.” Landry said, while approaching the table. “Have a seat.” Jones sat down at the table. The rest of the representatives were already sitting. The General joined them. “Thirty-three. Including seventeen wounded.”
Landry began giving them a more detailed report on the condition of Nova Roma. As he did so, General O’Neill watched from Landry’s office. He turned to Sergeant Walter Harriman.
“Have they been camped out here since the news came in ?”
“Yes, sir.” Harriman began. “They….they’re blaming themselves, sir.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Hailey did the math, and both Zelenka and McKay confirmed it. And then Carter confirmed it AGAIN.” He paused. “There was no way they could have predicted this. That’s the whole point of an ambush.”
“Yes, sir. But I don’t think that will make them feel any better.”
The look on O’Neill’s face made it clear that the General thought that Walter was absolutely right that. These were good people. And they would have to life with the decision they had made.
(Nova Roma – Mess Hall – 11 November 2016, 0903)
Vale woke up. They had turned the mess hall into a living space. Nova Roma was in bad shape. Most of the outer rooms were still exposed to space. But the managed to create a small safe zone in the core of the tower. There were only a handful of survivors. The Nakai had targeted the lower part of the tower. Aranov and Hailey had explained that this was because the Nakai wanted to loot the control room for intel. The other survivors had been in rooms deep inside the tower. They had been saved because the doors had closed and kept them from being sucked out into space. This had left them trapped inside pockets that had life-support.
But only thirty-three of one-hundred and two remained. And that was his fault. He should have done more and he could have done more. Leaving the sleeping bag he had been using, he made his way to the bar and searched the supplies. He pulled out a bottle of red wine and uncorked it. There were no glasses left, so he drank straight from the bottle. After a couple of sips, he sat down on one of the few surviving tables. Three sips later, Captain Grogan walked in. But there was something off about him.
“Carl.” He said with a nod.
“Not really.” Grogan began. “General O’Neill.”
Vale put away the bottle and snapped to attention.
“At ease, Colonel.” Vale relaxed a bit, but the tension did not leave his body. “Listen to me, Col…” He sighed. “Oh, to hell with protocol. Marc, sit down.” The two of them sat down on the table. “This is not your fault.”
“Like hell it isn’t. I’m the CO, it is….or was….my job to keep these people alive.”
“You know, I have five IOA representatives who are beating themselves up over this thing.” O’Neill began. “And I’m going to tell you the same thing I told them. The only people responsible are the Nakai bastards who did this. Pull your head out of your ass. Because you still have a job to do.” He paused. “And if you can’t, step aside for somebody who can.”
There was a long moment of silence. Although he would never admit it, sometimes General O’Neill reminded him of his father. And he knew what his father would do if he was he gave up. ~He would kick my ass.~ Vale thought. He picked up the bottle of wine, paused and then threw it into the bulkhead across the room. It shattered.
“It was a bad year anyway.” He turned to O’Neill. “So, what’s the game plan ?”
“Well, according to the eggheads, it’s bad.” He looked at Vale. “Even if you managed to repair all the damage, there is no way that the tower can handle the jolt of going into hyperspace. Apparently, the whole thing would tear itself asunder.”
“There is good news, sir. We have friends, the Ursini have not left us since they saved our bacon. We’re heading towards one of their planets as fast as we can. The bad news is that it would take a hundred and four years to get there at our current speed.”
“Got a Plan B ?”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to like it.” There was no way to sugarcoat this, so he wouldn’t even try. “Colson and Hailey calculated the Gate addresses of all eighteen New Asuran Stargates. It would take all six remaining ZPMs and all but two of ours naquadah reactors, but we can dial back there.”
“You’re right, I don’t like it. Especially since salvaged Ancient tech is what basically allowed the Nakai to ambush us in the first place.”
“That’s why we are going to use the last two reactors to destroy the tower. We’ll connect them to the Stargate. When the wormhole disconnects, it will start a ten second countdown. The reactors will overload and the tower will be vaporized.”
“And if it doesn’t ?”
“Aranov thinks he has figured out a way to ask the Ursini to take care of any wreckage. If they agree, we will be certain there is nothing left for the Nakai to find.”
“And then what ?”
“To be honest, we haven’t thought that far ahead yet. But if we stay here, we’ll run out of food and water and die. That is the first thing we have to deal with.”
“There’s that.”
The door opened and Alison Porter walked in. She had not been in the control room during the battle. But she had survived by diving into a supply closet. Porter was the only one left any Medical training. She had taken a First Aid course during her time in Atlantis. The look on her face said that it was not good news.
“General O’Neill, I believe you know doctor Porter ?”
“Well, doc, how does it look ?”
“It’s not good. We have thirty-three people left. But Xander Henderson is comatose and three of the crew are shell shocked.” Porter said. “So basically we’re down to twenty-nine. Also, we lost the entire Medical staff and the security staff is down to just Teldy and Grogan.”
“You’re right, that’s not good.”
The intercom came to life and Aranov called for Vale to come to the Control Room. The three of them headed there. When they arrived, they found Aranov at the Science console, looking at some kind drawing of the city.
“What do you have, Nikita ?”
“Well, according to the reports, the first time we met the Ursini, they were aboard a seed ship.” Aranov began. “So I figured that, maybe, the Ursini can read Ancient. It was a long shot, but since it was the only shot we had, I figured we had nothing to lose….” He paused. “I also send it in Wraith, Goa’uld, Chinese, English and a crude version of Nakai I put together using data we got from the New Asurans. Just to cover all the bases. Turns out the Ursini can read Nakai.”
“That makes sense.” Porter said. “The upgraded mothership probably send orders, which the Ursini intercepted and decoded. That’s how they knew to ambush the Fleet.”
“General O’Neill here.” O’Neill said. “And I’d like to know if there’s a point to this little science get together.”
“Yes, sir.” Aranov began. “The Ursini have agreed to Plan B. They….” He swallowed. “They’ve also collected all the bodies, sir. And they promised to bury them on their planet, sir.”
O’Neill made a face. Then he took a deep breath. “Are we sure this is going to work ?” He looked at Vale. “Because if you don’t have enough power, you might be stuck on a tower about to blow up.”
“The chances are eighty-twenty, general.” Aranov began. “Which, based on the reports I’ve read, is actually not that bad. SG-1 and AR-1 have pulled off plans with much worse chances.”
“And the whole food, water and death thing, sir.” Vale added. “So, even if the chances were worse, we don’t really have a Plan C.”
“There’s that.” O’Neill began, leaving a long silence. “Do it.”
“Yes, sir.” Vale said. “We’ll need three days to make it happen. One to set up the power source and self-destruct and two to strip the base. Since we’re probably going to be in the Hope Galaxy for…well, a while…I think we should take anything that is not nailed down. And as much of the rest as we can.”
“Better get started then.”
O’Neill headed for the Communications Room to disconnect the Ancient Stone, while Vale began giving orders.
(Nova Roma – Gate Room – 15 November 2016, 0755)
Colson looked at the display in front of him. He was sitting at the Engineering Station. Victor Leyton had died in the attack, so it had fallen to him to modify the tower. Nova Roma was designed to be powered by three ZPMs at a time, which meant that they had to plug the other ZPMs directly into the Gate. But that was easier said than done. And – as a result – it had taken two days, instead of one to get the power set-up done. But that had actually worked out in their favor. In the original plan, they would have been forced to abandon the Puddle Jumpers. This was because the door between the Jumper Bay and the Gate Room had been broken. The delay had given them the time they needed to repair the door.
“How’s the power looking, Alec ?” Vale asked as he walked into the room.
“Good.” He began. “Power is stable and at maximum. How are the Jumpers ?”
“Jumper One has the wounded and shell shocked, while Jumper Two is crammed with all the heavy gear.” Vale said.
Fifteen of the seventeen wounded were back on their feet. Xander Henderson was still in a coma and Hetty McConnell was still on the mend. She had survived the battle with just one injury. The problem was that this injury was a broken leg. And Porter had decided that she was not to even try to stand up for a week. As for the shell shocked. The truth was there was no way to treat them aboard Nova Roma. They needed some serious psychological treatment before they would heal.
“How long until we dial ?” Colson asked.
“Two minutes.” Vale said. “You need to join the others.”
Colson nodded, stood up and made his way down the stairs to the Stargate Room. All the survivors who were not in the Jumpers, were here. His backpack was lying against one of the bulkheads. Grogan helped him put it on. Soon after, the Gate began dialing. After what left like forever, the final chevron locked and the wormhole opened. The door to the Jumper Bay opened and the two Jumpers went through. Teldy began to count down from ten. Then she turned to the group.
“Okay, people, you know the plan.” She said. “Two at time on a two count.”
Then she readied her weapon and stepped through the Gate. The others followed, until it was just Colson and Grogan. Since they had not been totally sure this would work, they had decided not to enable the self-destruct until the last moment. Which was why Vale was still in the Control Room. He looked at the Gate Room and saw Colson and Grogan step through the Gate. He entered his command code into a laptop that was tied into the reactors. A beep told him that the self-destruct was armed.
“Okay, Marcus, time to go.”
He ran down the stairs towards the Gate. His backpack had been loaded in Jumper Two that he didn’t have to carry it for his jolt. He reached the Gate, but didn’t run in. To do so, felt….wrong. Instead, he stopped and gave the Gate Room one last look. The Nakai had made one more victim.
“Goodbye.”
He stepped through the Gate. Five seconds after that, the wormhole disengaged. And fifteen seconds after, Nova Roma was no more.
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