Book 2 – Chapter 2

One Week after establishment of settlements.

Navigations Officer Simon was searching for something, asteroid belts. So far this would have been the third asteroid belt to scanned and recorded. The other two were only mildly successful as they contained trace levels of important elements they needed. Although Olympus’ mining situation was good, they were mining about 200 tons of iron, copper, carbon, gold, silver, platinum, trinium, and naquadah in total for the first week alone. Currently about a third was being stashed away for when trade began. The rest of it was being used in the construction of technology and buildings.

As the Atlas finished its scans of the asteroid field to reveal it was not a rich source of raw materials they began heading out. At this point in time they encountered something they weren’t ready for.

“Sir, we’re picking up signs of unknown ships on the way to us sir!” the helmsmen reported.

“How many?” Nathaniel asked.

“Seven captain, three about 600 meters long, four about 400 meters long. They’ll be here in five minutes and their weapons are powered up, Captain!”

“Activate shields and hail them.” Nathaniel said.

“They’re not responding sir.” The communications officer told him.

“Send a notification to Olympus, tell Leo we’ve met some hostile locals and might need help. Battle stations!” Nathaniel ordered.

With the notification of red alert the ship’s light switched to a red hue. After that every railgun and missile launcher was ready to be fired.

“Broadcast my message to them.” Nathaniel said.

“Ready.”

“This is Captain Nathaniel Quinn of ISS Atlas, we demand you stop all advances towards our ship. We will destroy you if you do not, this is your only warning.” He threatened.

“They’re not slowing down sir.”

“Eden, what are the chances they’ll be able to damage us?”

*Initial scans reveal that those ships will not be able to make it past our shields once the three main ships are taken out. However should they make it past our shields, our hull will not be able to stop the weapons of this Universe.* Eden responded.

“But we made this ship with the most advanced metals on earth! How could they make it so easily through our hull?”

*Precisely, we are no longer on earth.*

“Touché’ Eden. Helm how long until they reach here?”

“Thirty seconds sir.”

“Ok since this is our first contact were going to disable only, if necessary we’ll destroy them but I doubt it will come to that. Prepare replicator missiles, we want to capture those ships people!” Nathaniel ordered.

As the preparations finished the seven ships appeared and started in guns blazing. Nathaniel could imagine their surprise when the shields appeared to stop their attacks.

“Shields down to 78%!”

“Reroute power from some of the Plasma Beams. We’ll need the protection. Use the railguns to punch a hole in their armor and break some of their defenses. After that send in missiles of replicators. Open fire!”

As the ships started splitting up their formation, the forty-two railguns began targeting them. Again the ships fired upon them using everything they had from missiles to lasers. Then the railguns started shooting, each a metallic slug of tungsten steel. As the ships danced around each other, the railguns would each wear down the enemy ships. Slowly the shields on their ships collapsed, leaving them now vulnerable.

“Fire replicator missiles after we take down some of their point defenses. I want at least one ship to take back to Olympus.” Nathaniel roared through the shaking of the ship. As they began focusing on one ship’s engines and power supply, the other ships would come in and help. Slowly like a pack of wolves they started out maneuvering the Atlas, taking any shot they could at breaking the shields. Nathaniel was getting worried now, the number of enemies were slowly getting to them.

“Sir, our shields are critical. Were down to 20 percent and out shield generators are damaged.”

“Damnit. Use –“

“Incoming ship Captain… it’s the Prometheus!” the navigations officer said.

Out of hyperspace came the Prometheus, immediately as it arrived it launched its fighter drones. The drones were programed by Eden from flight tactics from both Asgard and Atlantean war books. As the drones started in it the Atlas received a communication.

“Captain! I see you have yourself a situation here.” Leo said over the comm.

“Yes sir, I do. I was trying to capture some ships so we may study them. Also we’ve refrained from using the Asgard plasma beams since you said we weren’t supposed to show them yet.” Nathaniel reported.

“I understand. We’ll take the little ships, you capture the big ones. You have permission to use the APB.” Leo said as he cut the line.

After the arrival of the Prometheus, the attacking ships became wary, with a new ship here it would become a lot more difficult. As the drones started attacking, they attacked all the guns they could find. Destroying any gun placement would make it easier for them to capture in the future, once the replicator missiles landed. If they could land at all.

“Damn it! I can’t believe I just thought of this. Eden can we beam replicators onboard their ships.” He cursed.

*Yes*

“Damn… beam replicators directly to the engine room of each ship. I want them to disable all systems except for life support and comms.” Nathaniel said dejectedly.

“Replicators on board sir. Calculations say the fastest one will need 15 minutes to take over their system. That’s if they aren’t discovered sir.”

“How many replicator’s were sent over?”

“A thousand bug units’ sir. Each with standard attack parameters.”

A standard attack parameter was for each block to immediately begin attacking linking systems. Each system is linked by two ways, power lines and control lines. Replicator units were ordered to attack those lines, once completed they returned to their base parameters to replicate. They were also allowed to kill when enemies were identified.

“OK then let’s give them some help. Target their weapons systems with two APBs. Fire when ready.” Nathaniel ordered.

As the APBs hit one of the massive ships and stopped it dead in its tracks the other ships panicked at this new weapon. Finally with free reign to use the APBs, Nathaniel began targeting the systems of weapons and engines on every ship he could find.

Aboard the Prometheus, Leo was targeting the smaller ships in a similar fashion. As the fighting continued some of the drones had been destroyed, a majority of them were devastating the ships external defenses. All the ships had started getting battered and their guns at this time were now barely firing, even with power. As for their engines, Leo was considering just sending droned directly into their engines, just because he knew it would definitely disable them.

“Ah what the hell… begin sending drones to fly directly into their engines. Send two at a time force them to either retreat or surrender.” Leo ordered.

As the drone began to self-destruct into the engines the ships immediately began to flee.

“Alright they’ve turned their back on us… let one escape and disable the others. Target their warp drives.”

Twelve APBs hit the fleeing ships disabling all but one.

“Job well done. Beam over more replicators onto their ships. I want full control as soon as possible. Set them to restrain.”

“Yes sir!”

Back on the Atlas, Nathaniel had finally taken out their warp drive, engines, and weapons. Though not before they downed the shields and hit the hull with laser fire. Luckily for them though they hit crew quarters and not anything too vital.

“Sir, we’re receiving a transmission from the lead ship sir.”

“Patch it through.”

Appearing on screen was a dirty looking man who was had a look of desperation. In short he looked like a sleaze ball.

“Okay, buddy. You win.” The man said with a nervous smile.

“That’s obvious. Now want to tell me who you are and why I shouldn’t kill everyone on board your ships?” Nathaniel asked.

“Wait! Let’s not be rash here.” The man stammered.

“Then give me answers.” Nathaniel demanded.

“Alright. How about we meet face to face?” the man asked.

“No. You either tell me now or I target your life support systems.”

“Okay! You’re a hard-ass you know?” The man said.

“Target Life su—“

“Wait! Ok, I got it! You want answers, I got you. They call me Buck, im leader of this troupe called ‘Buckies Buccaneers’.”

“So you’re pirates? Ready guns.”

“Wait no!” Buck pleaded.

“And why should I?” Nathaniel asked.

“I’m on a job right now, refugee transport. There are three thousand people on board. You wouldn’t kill them would you?” Buck smiled sinisterly.

Nathaniel frowned as he cut the communications line.

“Scan their ship. If there are any refugees let me know.” Nathaniel ordered.

The helm officer replied with, “Sir, I’ve found them, they’re in the cargo bay.”

“I see. How many are there?” He asked.

“We can’t tell sir, they’re too close together. Estimates are in the hundreds sir.”

“Can we beam them out?”

“I think so sir.”

“Okay then how many can we beam off at one time?”

“Maybe half at a time. We can reroute the replicators there for target marking.”

“Do it and beam them out. Open a line to the Prometheus.”

Nathaniel explained the situation to Leo, how the buccaneers were using the refugees as hostages. Leo did not take to it kindly and approved the plan. He would have a security team meet them in the hanger of the Prometheus and offer them a place on Olympus. As for Buck and his buccaneers, his ships were more useful. Leo told Nathaniel to do what he saw fit with the crews.

A/N: THANKS FOR READING!

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@slaggedfire: SARA HAD NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN, RELAX BRO.

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