The grenade blast was like nothing Lucy had ever felt before. It pushed at the core of her being with a violence that seemed almost alive.
To her surprise, she held it. Not entirely. She couldn't constrain the entire explosion. But she could force it to go just one way.
A jet of plasma roared back down the corridor. The enemy was already moving toward the door, looking to overwhelm them after the blast, and had no time to react to the sudden re-direction of their grenade. There were cries of surprise and anguish at what it did to them in their light armor.
"Can you set those explosives off, Lieutenant?", Kane asked.
"No," she answered. "At least, not with the necessary force. It would still kill us but the machinery in here is too well-protected for a simple naqia blast."
"So can't you destabilize that stuff or whatever it was you were doing?"
"I'd need to replace the hardware in the charges and I don't have the gear for that!" Lucy's mind was racing. The calculations were accurate. The same Caterina had used for the naqia in the Kelley's reactors. Maybe the quantity of naqia influences it? Or did the emitters we built into the charges not work right?
"So you can't do anything about this?", Kane asked.
"No, I can't. We're useless here. We should get back to the Control Chamber. There might be something we can do there."
Worf slipped back into cover after sending several phaser shots into the hall. "That will be difficult. There are still many enemies out there."
"I know." Lucy thought on the problem. And then she grinned. She picked up the naqia charge and changed the settings on it.
"Lieutenant?"
"We can't use these to blow the place up," she said. "So I've got something else in mind." She went over to the door and handed the charge to Worf. "Stay behind me. When I say to, hit the activation key and throw it."
"You can't go out there," one of Kane's Marines said. "They'll gun you down."
Lucy sucked in a breath. Baptism by fire time, I guess. She forced a confident smile to her face for the benefit of Kane and his Marines. "They'll try."
She reached to her belt and pulled her new lakesh out. Her thumb hit the switch and the blade extended out with its usual sharp, metallic sound. As soon as the memory metal formed completely and the EM field was glowing faint blue over the blade, Lucy entered the corridor. She focused on the training lessons Meridina had given her the prior day. What she had been told to do in these situations.
Lucy felt her arms start to move without a conscious command. She let that force inside of her do that work. A green pulse slammed into her lakesh blade and was sent flying into a wounded enemy. More enemy fire came and her arms moved with speed that felt super-human, meeting every blast, every shot. Some were deflected into the azure sheen of the corridors, blackening them. Other shots were returned to the enemy, not always the one firing, to the extent she was doing them more damage than she would with a rifle.
But she knew she couldn't keep this up. She felt the struggle to resist all of the fire coming her way, to move where she needed to avoid the shots she couldn't stop. Eventually she would be overwhelmed. "Worf, now!", she shouted.
Worf had remained behind her all this time. After three months he was still getting used to what the Gersallians could do, even considering all of the other strange beings and otherworldly powers he had seen in his time on the Enterprise. For just a moment he had been transfixed by the way Lucy's blade danced in the air, intercepting every disruptor shot as if it had been lobbed by a child. Her call to him broke through that and re-focused his mind. He pressed the key on the charge and hurled it over Lucy's head.
Lucy saw the charge appear in her vision and focused. She couldn't use her hand to concentrate her power on it - she needed both hands on her hilt - and it required sheer raw concentration from her mind to grip the object and send it flying. It was a difficulty Meridina had prepared her for. She breathed silent thanks to Meridina for that training, all that time flipped upside down and standing on one or both hands, as her power flung the naqia charge clear. "Get back!", she shouted.
Worf fell backward into the generator room. She jumped back and landed on top of him. With a sweep of her arm she forced the door closed.
There was a tremendous roar on the other end of the door.
Kane was looking at his sensors. And the noticeable lack of life signs on the other end now. "Damn," he muttered. "It worked." He smirked at Lucy. "You're always good at being Goddamned crazy, Lieutenant."
"I try," she sighed. She wanted to laugh. She settled for a smirk. Feeling Worf begin to shift underneath her prompted her to sit up and get to her feet. "Let's get going. Rob… Captain Dale and the others will need us."
Fassbinder's troops were moving toward them. They ignored Shepard for the moment; unconscious, she wasn't a threat. Meridina would be the first one they got to and, in her condition, she would be killed immediately.
This was Robert's dream coming true. Everything here. Their failure. Had he made it into a self-fulling prophecy? Maybe he should have stayed on the Aurora.
As he thought those things, a voice came out of his memory.
Trust your instincts, Robert.
Julia had said that. Julia. His oldest friend. His closest. They'd spent a lifetime together, growing up, understanding one another. Her opinion was the one that mattered to him more than anything or anyone else.
He had to trust himself. Trust the instinct that led him to coming down here. To where he could make a difference.
But how? What could he do in this situation? What…
You know. You always have.
The voice in his mind was not his. He looked to Meridina. The enemy was already coming up to the console she was leaning behind. She had mere seconds to live.
This is why you came down, Robert, her voice said in his mind. You have always known.
Robert swallowed. He knew what she meant.
His mind flashed back to that training simulation. A moment of panic brought on by the realism of the simulation and the power that had come from within, unbidden, in that moment. A power he had always suspected was there, ever since the nightmares had begun.
He didn't want it. It was another burden on top of the others he was already carrying and a temptation. His dreams were already haunted by what it caused him.
But if he didn't… then his nightmares would come completely true.
I know you're in there, he said to himself. And I need you. Whatever you are, whatever this power is… I need you. He felt within himself for that power he had used accidentally. He had only seconds left to use it.
He realized there was a warm feeling inside him now. The kind of gentle warmth you got under a blanket in the middle of a winter night, or from eating warm soup on a chilly morning. The warmth that was soothing and refreshing to the body and mind and spirit. The warmth came from within, a power that he once ignored, indeed, that he had once never even thought to look for. But it was there. It had always been there. It was ready to be used, almost eager to be used. Every ripple of it felt like an appeal saying "I am part of you, please use me. This is what I'm here for."
One of the SS stormtroopers rounded the console where Meridina was. His rifle came up. She moved, as if to defend herself, but her injury was too severe. She'd never manage it.
Robert reached his arm out. And when he did, he called upon the power. He reached with it to grab.
The SS trooper stopped. He went rigid with shock.
Robert swung his arm away from Meridina.
The trooper went flying back. Fassbinder let out an inarticulate shout that ended when, presumably, the trooper landed on him.
The power within him surged. It was a part of him, a piece, everything he was and yet more. He pondered, for just a moment, if this came from his very soul.
But that was for later. He had to act now.
Cat was staring at him. He shushed her and shifted cover. Disruptor beams scoured the floor behind him. He could sense the others in the room. Several troopers had entered and were spreading out.
He leaned out from cover and pushed out with his hand. A wave of force flew forward, bordered by the holotank in the middle. Three of the enemy went flying.
The other troopers were distracted. This gave him the moment he needed. He stood from behind his cover with his hand out. Another wave of force hit several more of them and sent them flying.
The Nazi science officer - Rabe, Robert now realized- was already taking cover. More dangerous was the last trooper. He had been winged by the last use of power and was still standing. He was bringing his weapon up to shoot Robert.
There was a thunderous roar. Blood and other stuff erupted from behind the trooper and splattered across the viewing window behind. From her place on the floor, Commander Shepard leaned up further with her shotgun steady in her arms. She was breathing hard and pain was visible in the emerald-colored eyes that looked Robert's way. But a small smirk crossed her face. "Now what?", she asked.
"Now…" He turned his attention to the door, where more of the enemy was coming. "We hold them off, and think of a way to finish the mission."
In orbit over Gamma Piratus the Aurora shook viciously again. Overloads in their systems sent sparks flying from nearby consoles. Julia heard Mataran's shout of pain and wondered, again, why the fuses didn't work the way they normally did.
"Shields are down to fourteen percent. We've got multiple hull breaches across the ship. The armor self-repair systems are losing effectiveness."
"Any ideas, Jarod?"
"None that I like," he replied.
"The only thing we have left is to either jump out or warp out," Locarno pointed out. The ship rocked under them again.
"Like hell," Angel hissed. She never even looked up. She was too busy unleashing every weapon she had into one of the cruisers up on their flank. Flame and debris started to erupt from the Dresden-class light cruiser where she was overwhelming its shields.
"No. Someone will answer," Julia insisted. "If we can just get a few ships to join us…"
There was another violent rocking of the ship. Disruptor beams played across the upper starboard nacelle of the Aurora. The damage caused a small explosion in the nacelle, which began flickering with light until it went dead.
"We just lost the upper starboard nacelle," Mataran said. "Safety systems have engaged and the plasma feed is cut. Emergency plasma venting is clearing the nacelle."
That's a relief.
"I'm starting to lose power in the impulsors," Locarno warned. "There's only so much I can…"
Jarod cut him off. And as he spoke, Julia felt the cloud of doom start to lift from her expectations.
"Someone's locking onto our jump drive!"
Several moments later Jarod confirmed what the viewscreen was already showing. Green light pierced the fabric of reality and expanded into a vortex of energy.
Julia smiled at the sight. She already knew, in her heart, what was coming through.
The Koenig emerged from the jump point.
And much to her amazement and joy, they hadn't come alone.
"We're clear of the vortex. New contacts on DRADIS." Gaeta's voice carried over the Galactica CIC. Every crewman and crewwoman was at their action stations and ready for the fight. Hearts pounded with anticipation that had only built with the jump from their native universe. "Profiles are matching those of Reich warships provided by the Koenig."
"Launch everything we've got." Adama looked at his plotting board.
"Pegasus is launching all Vipers and Raptors now," Duala reported. "Colonel Fisk is ready for engagement orders."
"Focus fire on their light cruisers, let's get them out of the way."
"Time to see if those engineers earned their money," Tigh mumbled.
As the two Battlestars closed the range, Viper fighters shot from their launch tubes and Raptors from their launch decks. The Reich warships were turning to engage. Disruptor fire flared out and struck the shields of the two ships.
When they returned fire, it was not with railguns. Thick beams of amber energy erupted from the emplacements now mounted on the bows of the large Battlestars. The powerful phaser cannons struck the light cruiser already damaged by the Aurora, meeting the red of the enemy ship's shields.
Under fire from the two Colonial Battlestars, the enemy cruiser had nothing left when Koenig soared in at full acceleration. Her forward phaser cannons blazed to life and punched into the cruiser's thin armored hull. As flames erupted from those shots, a pair of solar torpedoes crossed the short distance and slammed into the enemy ship's rear area. The cruiser's lights began to flicker as it lost main power.
The Galactica and Pegasus fired again. Their phaser cannons punched right through the dying enemy cruiser. One of the shots hit the vessel's main reactor. A bright white fireball engulfed the Dresden-class light cruiser. Only small pieces of debris remained after the fireball died.
On the bridge of the Koenig, Zack kept his eyes on the tactical display. Enemy destroyers were again racing in for the Aurora, looking to deploy their shield-disruptor torpedoes. "Scare them off, April," he ordered.
"Right away, sir," Sherlily answered from Weapons.
The powerful forward cannons on the Koenig blazed away. The lead destroyer's shields began to buckle under the onslaught until the thick phaser pulses engulfed the aft drive section of the dagger-shaped ship. It exploded in another white fireball. The other destroyers broke off, desperate to avoid the wrath of the Koenig.
"Missiles!", Magda shouted from Ops. "The enemy dreadnought has a weapons lock!"
Missiles spewed from the launcher of the undamaged Eichmann and began racing toward them. "Evasive maneuvers!", Zack ordered. Koenig, under Apley's able command, began to corkscrew and turn as the enemy anti-matter missiles pursued them.
Said missiles died in a hail of cannon fire from a flight of Colonial Vipers.
In the cockpit of her Viper, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace reveled in the feeling of getting a good fight in. She watched the enemy missiles explode under her cannons and those of the wing around her. The Pegasus' Vipers were spread about, helping to protect the Raptors moving in on the enemy cruisers remaining on the field. The remaining Alliance fighters were still locked in combat with their Reich counterparts. The entire fight was a furball like few she'd seen before. Death could be instant out here, even with the portable shields rigged into the Vipers now.
Her systems warned her of an enemy fighter locking on. She maneuvered her Viper "upward" to avoid the first disruptor shots and fired her engines to full, looking to evade. The enemy fighter was one hell of a pilot and kept on her. Kara turned and directed her cannons on an enemy fighter engaging one of her others. Her cannons slammed repeatedly against the shields of the enemy fighter.until the continued shots started to degrade them at that spot. It fired on the Viper she was trying to protect as her cannons found its engines and sent it spiraling away, trailing flames.
The Viper was lucky. She had forced her target off enough that the disruptor hits blasted off part of a wing. The pilot couldn't stay in the fight, but they could get back to Pegasus at least.
Her jury-rigged holographic indicator flashed red. The fighter behind her had just put enough shots into her shields that the small generator was on the verge of overload. She maneuvered sharply to continue trying to force the enemy off.
Ahead of her a Mongoose fighter from the Alliance was racing in. "Allow me, Captain Thrace," said a voice she faintly remembered.
Patrice Laurent's Mongoose opened up on the fighter trailing her. The fire behind her slackened. Her indicator stopped showing the presence of the enemy behind her. "Thank you, Commander," she said. "It looks like you've been busy."
"We still are," he reminded her. "We'll keep them off your people as best we can."
"Likewise." Kara triggered her command line. "Keep them off the Raptors, people!"
With the battle suddenly shifted by the arrival of Koenig and the Colonial Battlestars, Julia was considering the wider tactical picture. "Focus fire on that heavy cruiser!", she ordered. Nearby the last light cruiser was taking fire from the two Battlestars and strafing runs from the Koenig. "Where is the Sladen?"
"They're still engaged with the other cruiser," Jarod said. "They're trying to keep them from beaming down any more reinforcements to the Facility."
"Right."
As that exchange happened Locarno lined the enemy Sedan-class cruiser up on the bow. Its shots streaked at them, hitting their weakening shields and slicing across armored hull. Angel returned the favor with a full barrage of the bow cannons, the bow phasers, and both torpedo launchers. The onslaught was tearing away at the enemy's shields.
It also forced them to focus on the Aurora, and not on the Raptors streaking in.
The Colonial craft had shielding too now. Not the best, jury-rigged from spare parts meant for the shield systems being introduced to the actual full-sized ships in the Colonial Fleet, but enough to take light disruptor hits a few times. The Raptor pilots did their best evasive maneuvers coming in as they could. There were still hits. A couple were direct hits; one lucky Raptor had time to bank away with severe damage and the other became a fireball. Glancing hits caused attrition for the rest of the strike.
But then it was too late. They were in optimum range. They fired their payloads.
The missiles that streaked in were a mix. Some, the last to go in, were conventional atomics. They wouldn't do nearly enough damage to shields and needed direct hits on damaged hull to do the kind of damage that might knock the heavy cruiser out.
But the initial wave were carrying naqia-enhanced warheads, retrofitted from the spare solar torpedoes that had been left for the Koenig. These weapons struck the enemy's weakening shields in a series of impacts that battered their shields down, enough that the follow-up wave of mixed warhead types slammed into the armored hull of the cruiser. After the resulting explosions had finished the Sedan-class cruiser was trailing flaming debris and atmosphere into space.
With their jobs done, the Raptors broke off and flew back toward the Basestars. The ships would have to lower their shields to admit them and were arraying themselves to cover one another as each did the necessary operation.
The loss of her shields weakened her, but she still had weapons and they were hammering the Aurora. Worse still was that the enemy dreadnought had not given up on them. Another super-disruptor shot sliced along their port side, leaving a trail of damaged armor and hull breaches along their drive hull between their port nacelles.
This didn't stop Angel. She opened up on the enemy cruiser with another barrage. With its shields degraded by the Raptors' attack run the Sedan-class cruiser couldn't resist the Aurora's firepower. As it raced along the enemy ship its bow weapons tore into its starboard side and caused even more damage than the Raptor attack had. Once it was alongside Angel opened up with the phasers that could fire into that angle. The repeated hits to the enemy hull caused major structural damage and eliminated several power lines. The enemy ship's sublight drives began to shut down from lack of power.
As they passed, the aft solar torpedo launchers sent out more spreads of torpedoes. There was absolutely nothing left for the enemy cruiser to defend itself with. It exploded.
Julia noticed that the other cruiser was now a flaming wreck as well. All that was left was a dwindling number of destroyers… and the Eichmann.
Unfortunately, as the Eichmann's next shot proved, that was still enough to win the battle for the SS forces. Its super-disruptor barrage struck at the Aurora again. Without shields to resist it they took the hit on their armor. The ship shuddered hard from the impact. "Another direct hit to the drive section. Multiple sections have hull breaches."
"Armor self-repair systems have fallen to sixty percent capability," Mataran warned. "Emergency forcefield systems are in place, but they won't take this abuse for long."
"We still don't have the raw firepower to take out that dreadnought, we need…" Jarod's console beeped an alert to him. "We've got another ship locking on our drive. Wait... two!"
The first jump point that formed appeared "above" them. When it finished forming two ships came out. Julia recognized the Kelley-class hull shape of one and realized it was the Park, under their friend Ibrahim Fanous. The ship behind it was something she had seen only a couple of times before; the attack ship Eagle, formerly from the Tikvah.
A second jump point formed nearby, in closer orbit of the planet. The Starship Challenger, one of the Discovery-class ships based on the Aurora's design, emerged from the point. As she left her jump point fighters emerged from her flight deck.
Captain Madeleine Laurent appeared on the side of the main screen. A native of the Central African Republic, her voice had a thick accent as she spoke to them. "Commander Andreys, I'm thankful we could make it."
"Aren't you supposed to be directing the excavation of the Darglan Homeworld?', Julia asked.
"I see little point in that if these monsters win. If Command doesn't like it, they can always court-martial me. We're engaging now."
The main weapons on the Challenger opened up on the Eichmann. This drew the attention of the larger warship; one of its secondary disruptor banks barked a reply, a green beam of light that speared the shields of the Challenger.
"Aurora, this is Yonatan Shaham," another voice spoke. "I am commanding the Eagle. My father sends his regards, as do the people of New Liberty."
"It has been a while, my friends," Ibrahim added. "Let us take up your burden."
The two lighter ships zipped in toward the remaining SS destroyers. They were trailing the Aurora while Koenig helped the Battlestars finish off the last cruiser. Angel's phaser fire lashed out at them repeatedly to break up their attack runs. The SS commanders, goaded on by their commander on the Eichmann, were no longer letting her rapid fire chase them off.
But before they could try to further damage the wounded Aurora with their weapons the two light ships engaged with their own. The thick amber pulses coming from the Eagle showed that the ship had been refitted with Koenig-style phaser cannons while the smaller sapphire pulses of the Park were familiar, being the smaller counterparts of the Aurora's own main battery. Multiple torpedoes erupted from both ships in tandem to their energy fire.
The enemy Z-2500s never stood a chance. Hit after hit battered their shields into dissipation and torpedo hits gutted them. Angel's phasers added to the carnage; the heavy phaser cannons she brought to bear completely annihilated one unshielded destroyer.
All that was left was the Eichmann.
And all that the Eichmann seemed to care about was destroying the Aurora. The SS dreadnought ignored the persistent efforts of the Challenger, ignored the Koenig's strafing run on her, and the two Colonial Basestars. Their fury was directed solely at the Aurora. Locarno anticipated the shot from the ship's massive super-disruptor emplacements and twisted the Aurora. Her shields failed again under the impact; Locarno's maneuver kept the resulting shots from slamming into the center of the primary hull. They struck the port side of the primary hull instead. The local armor failed and the shots pierced the hull all the way, slicing through four decks before coming out the other end.
Julia clenched her teeth at that. "If he wants us, he can come and get us. Locarno, full impulse, away from the Eichmann."
"We have another ship locking onto our drive," Jarod said. "Jump point opening now."
Again a jump point formed ahead of them. Julia wondered who it could be this time. She had been hoping for even more of a response, with unengaged ships coming to their aid. Even if spatial aspects would be off for many, making a jump to them impossible - they would simply appear partway from their position in the other universe to this system, and quite possibly in the middle of enemy space - there had to be more ships that could make the jumps.
The ship that came out was framed like the Koenig, although it lacked the forward-swept appearance to the nacelles. Julia was shocked to see it.
The Defiant.
A baritone voice spoke over their open tactical commlink. "Commander Sisko to Aurora, what is your status?" As he spoke, his image appeared in the side of the main viewer, with the bridge of the Defiant visible behind him. Julia noted Sisko had grown a goatee since she'd seen him last, back in February.
"We've taken a beating. That ship really wants to kill us," she replied. "Commander, I thought the Federation Council was keeping out of the war?"
He kept his expression carefully neutral. "Whatever do you mean? Ah, I see." Sisko turned his head to face someone off-screen. "Major Kira, you neglected to inform me the distress call was from S4W8."
Kira's reply was a droll, "My apologies, Commander, it slipped my mind."
"Remind me to reprimand you later."
Julia let out a chuckle. "Thanks for coming, Commander. We need all the help we can get. We'll let them chase us if you want to put the boot in."
"Sounds like a plan. Defiant out."
"Mister Locarno, bring us around the planet, as quickly as you can," Julia ordered. "If they want to kill us so much, let's make them work at it."
"Right." Locarno went to work on his console.
Bruised and battered, the Aurora shot ahead of the looming dreadnought. Disruptor beams streaked after them as they moved to round the planet.
Shepard's shotgun roared again and took the head off of one of the Stormtroopers forcing the door. The wave of force Robert generated toss the body and the nearby foe out of the door. Every sense in his head seemed to be seeing the world anew. Energy surrounded him, his own energy resonated with it, and he could use it to keep the enemy flying and off-balance.
Is this what Lucy feels like all the time?, he wondered. Meridina?
The number of enemies outside the door seemed to be slackening. He could hear gunfire further down the corridor. Had his people rallied with Fassbinder out of communication?
He took a step toward the door. With a push of his arm a bulky armored Panzergrenadier tripped backward. Shepard unloaded a shotgun blast to his neck. A local weakness in the armor allowed a partial penetration. Blood gurgled out of the gap in the armor and the Nazi trooper collapsed.
When Robert got to the door, he could see why the enemy was no longer rushing forward as they had before. He watched Hakimzade maneuver her powered armor into place and let loose with the automatic weapon built into the suit's arm. Pulses nearly tore one of the light-armored stormtroopers apart. Amber phaser blasts struck another of the light-armored troops. Worf moved out of cover briefly to pour more fire into the enemy unit between them and Robert's position.
Robert lifted his arm to use his power. But he didn't have time. He could feel the surge of energy, the bright presence, of another; Lucy vaulted over one of the remaining heavy-armored troopers and turned. Her lakesh shined with an aura of pale blue light as it bit into the joint in the leg, where the armor was weakest. Sparks resulted but no breach. Lucy twirled the weapon around and thrust it in with all of her strength. Now the armor gave way with a shriek of protest. An angry growl came from the suit's occupant, who toppled over onto one leg. A missile slammed into him from the front and the SS trooper went flying. Robert could feel the trooper's life ebb and fade out in the second it took for the armor to thunk onto the blue floor.
Lucy looked at him. Her eyes widened. He knew she could feel his power and essence just as he felt hers. "You… you actually did it," she said. She walked up as, around them, the resistance of the troopers here ceased. "You called on your life force."
"I had to," Robert answered. "To save everyone."
"I understand. I'm just…" Lucy smiled thinly. "I don't know whether to congratulate you or feel sorry for you. You've just entered a complicated world, Rob."
He nodded at that.
And then a bad feeling prickled up his spine. A sense of fear, anger, hatred, it all came from behind him. There was a cry of fright from behind him. Robert turned.
As he did so, Shepard shouted, "Put it down!"
Lucy was behind Robert by the time he turned and stepped back into the Chamber.
Shepard was still propped up against the console she'd used for cover. Her shotgun was leveled toward the other end of the chamber.
Fassbinder was standing there, near one of the control consoles. Near him Rabe was on the ground, as if ready to stand. Fassbinder had his gun out and up.
It was pointed at Caterina.
She had stood from cover at Fassbinder's command. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with terror.
"Put the gun down, Fassbinder," Robert ordered. "Now. You're not walking out of this."
"I do not need to," he answered. "I only have to hold this place until the reinforcement fleet arrives. Its prizes belong to the Reich. I will not be denied! If anyone moves, if I get even the slightest feeling of your powers working on me, I will shoot. And this little untermensch brat will die."
The bridge of the Eichmann was shuddering slightly. The officers of the massive dreadnought were watching as the enemy ships pounded them again and again with fire. The attack vessels of the enemy fleet were coming in close and strafing their weapon emplacements. The larger enemy ships - those two unknown carriers and the Alliance starship - continued to pour their phaser fire and cannon fire into the deflectors of the dreadnought. Deflectors that were holding… for the moment.
Obersturmbannführer Heiss, the ship's Executive Officer, was manning a station to provide reports to Oberführer Eicke. "The enemy ships continue to attack us, sir, let us retaliate!", he urged. "We could annihilate them!"
"The Aurora might get away," Eicke retorted. "I cannot allow that!"
"Your duty is to complete the mission…"
"Do not lecture me on duty!," Eicke raved. "Those swine cost me years of work, of glorious effort to finish the work of the Great Hitler and his first followers! They left my ship humiliated and broken by the Juden, who ran away laughing at me! At the Reich! Nein! The honor of the Reich, the Schutzstaffel, and the Führer demands their blood!"
"I cannot maintain a targeting lock on the Aurora," reported the Hauptsturmführer at Gunnery. "They are using the curvature of the planet to keep our main disruptors off of them."
"Helm, full acceleration! We cannot let them succeed!"
"We are at full now, Herr Oberführer," the helmsman protested.
"Then divert more power to the drives! More!" Eicke slammed a fist on his chair arm. "Divert everything!"
Rabe had stayed down during the fighting. It had seemed the best thing, especially with the strange abilities Captain Dale was suddenly revealing. He had stared in wonder at the Alliance Captain moving his arms and sending stormtroopers flying without laying a hand on them. There had been rumors that the Alliance's people had bizarre powers, rumors that the State had been trying to suppress. Now he was seeing them first hand.
It wasn't hard to see that there were mere moments before they did something. Before Captain Dale or that Lieutenant in the blue robe and purple body armor used their powers. But could they do so before Fassbinder killed Caterina Delgado?
Rabe looked at the young woman again. He understood her terror at the gun pointed at her. She wasn't a soldier. She didn't know how to face this sort of thing.
When it came down to it, neither did Rabe.
All through his life, Rabe had believed one thing; that intelligence was the means to improve things. That the State and the People would be happier with the fruits of that intelligence. More than anything else, it was such things that continued the progression of his people. He had not been raised to consider every Human one of his own, that was true… but then again, in his education and later, he had known that there were those of the conquered countries who, despite their secondary status and education limitations, were still brilliant. He'd heard the stories of these people coming up with solutions that advanced the Reich, that made technology better, lives safer. These were people he looked up to, the people he wanted to be. Service through intelligence and problem-solving, not martial power.
It was, admittedly, not a popular viewpoint in many circles in the Reich, but it did have its followers.
Caterina Delgado was one such person he respected in that role. Her subspace scanning proposal had been a thing of sheer brilliance. From the first time he'd seen her, he knew Caterina was a boon to everything. She deserved to survive so her brilliant mind could continue to work for the betterment of all.
And now this SS man, this engineered brute, was going to snuff her life out. He already planned to. He'd never let her live. And then…
...then they would all die, wouldn't they? Even he likely would in the fight to come. That, or be a prisoner of the enemy, and that was if he was lucky.
But Caterina would still be dead.
Kurt Rabe had not made many decisions on his own in his life. As a young man, he had obeyed his stern veteran father and demanding mother. When they died, it had been his maternal grandfather, a Party functionary on New Pommerania, who had brought him out to space and finished raising him in brutal and angry fashion. Even escaping that had not been his decision: the Reich had made those decisions. The State had tested him, determined his intelligence, picked the school he was to go to, the education he would receive, and put him in the Raumkriegsmarine as a sensor and space specialist. Not one of these decisions had been his.
Not. One.
But here and now, he would make one. He would not allow the world to be further darkened by the SS. Damn his parents, his grandfather, the Reich… he would make this one choice for what he believed in.
He believed that Caterina Delgado should not die.
Rabe launched himself at Fassbinder's arm. The SS man shouted in surprise and fired his gun.
The emerald bolt from the disruptor went right by Caterina's head and scorched the far display glass.
"What are you doing?!", Fassbinder shouted at him.
Rabe didn't answer. He couldn't think of a way to explain his choice to Fassbinder. The SS man would never understand it if he could. He thought solely in terms of the Ideology, of the Party and Race. He couldn't process Rabe's thoughts in any way save to consider him a degenerate traitor. Nothing like that was something Rabe was interested in.
The initial shock of his attack was the only reason Rabe had thrown his aim off. Now that they were grappling in close quarters, Rabe was no match for Fassbinder's engineered strength and power. The SS man swiftly pulled his gun free and belted Rabe across the mouth. Rabe felt two teeth break loose from the impact and fell backward.
Fassbinder screamed "Traitor!" while directing his gun toward Caterina again.
He never got the chance to pull the trigger. Robert reached out with his power and ripped the gun from Fassbinder's hand. Shepard's shotgun rang out. Blood exploded from Fassbinder's shoulder. The powerful slug ripped through the meat and bone of Fassbinder's body and out the other end, where it promptly broke a hole through the transparent material of the window.
The impact of the shot threw Fassbinder backward and through the new hole. He screamed in rage as he fell out into the dock.
Robert forced himself to stop feeling for Fassbinder. He didn't want to experience the result of the SS man splatting several stories down.
"Damn," Shepard mumbled. "I was aiming for his heart." The smile she had was weak. She was still favoring the disruptor burn on her side.
Robert went up to Caterina. She was still pale and upset. Her breathing was shallow. "Cat? Cat, it's okay."
"He… he was going to kill me," she whimpered.
"I know. It's okay." He patted her on the shoulder. "You're okay."
Caterina seemed to be starting to process things again. She turned to face Rabe, who was spitting blood onto the blue floor. "You saved me," she said.
Rabe looked up at her. Blood had pooled around his lips and was flowing down onto his chin. He spoke and their auto-translators converted it into English. "I could not let him kill you," he said. "Nobody as intelligent and creative as you should die like that. Especially not to a brute like an SS man."
The first one to get to Rabe's side was Worf. "You showed courage," the Klingon rumbled. Rabe looked at him as if Worf were about to rip his head off.
"I am a traitor," Rabe said. He looked to where Fassbinder fell through the window. The extent of what he had just done struck him. "I… I have struck an SS man. Opposed him."
"He's dead. We're the only witnesses," Lucy pointed out. Like Robert she could feel the fear bubbling from within him.
"It won't matter," Rabe insisted. "If I am the only survivor, the SS will assume I am a traitor. They'll… the penalty for treason is to be ejected into space, Captain Dale. It would be more merciful if you were to shoot me now."
"I've got one better on you," Robert said. "Leave the Reich. You can come with us."
"Come with you?" Rabe considered that. "I…" He shook his head. "I would have to face my friends and comrades in battle, then. I have no deep love for the Reich, but the men I've served with, I can't betray them. I can't help to kill them, Captain Dale."
"I'm not saying your only option is to join the Alliance service, Leutnant," Robert said. "There are other options. All I ask is that you come with us and explore them. It's better than dying here. Not when you might have so much to offer."
Caterina nodded. "Yeah. There are… I mean, you're smart. You can join a science mission, or become a science officer somewhere outside of the Alliance. You don't have to stay with us." She smiled at him. "You shouldn't have to die because you saved my life."
Rabe seemed to consider this.
As he did, Kane clicked his tongue. "Uh, I don't want to break up the kumbaya fest here, but I'll remind everyone we're supposed to blow this place up. How do we do that?"
"What happened to the naqia charges?", Cat asked. "They should have worked."
"They didn't induce enough destabilization in the naqia," Lucy explained. "We used one of the charges on our attackers, and it did a lot of damage… but not nearly enough."
"We must have messed something up…"
"We'll find out when we can. Right now, though, we need to think of what to do." Robert hit the key on his multidevice. "Dale to Aurora, what's your status?"
There was no immediate answer.
"Dale to Aurora, what's your…"
Before his voice could show any real panic, Robert was rewarded with Julia's reply. "We're a little busy here…"
The Aurora took a hit that sent a shower of sparks off of the now-flickering MCD behind Julia. "Shields are down again." Jarod was working on his board. "The damage control teams can't keep the generators up long enough to regenerate shields to withstand those super-disruptors. We've got more hull breaches and armor damage on Decks 12 through 15, Section G and H."
Julia checked her usual station. Casualty reports were continuing to come in all over the ship. Leo was getting them treated as quickly as he could, and given how much the ship was shaking it was making it hard on him. "More power to engines," she said. "We have to get around the planet again."
"We're at max now," Jarod warned. "And we're about to come up on the Reich's Glory and Sladen. If the Glory opens up on us in this condition…"
"So…" Julia nodded. "Alright. Break us completely from orbit, Mister Locarno." She hailed Engineering with the chair control. "Mister Scott, please tell me you can get us more speed, that dreadnought really wants us dead."
"I cannae give ye any more on th' impulse engines, lass. I've given ye all I can. There's simply tae much damage."
"I'd like to know how they're keeping up with us," Angel growled. "Those things can't be that fast."
Ensign al-Rashad spoke up. "Going by their power output, I think they're putting all power into their engines."
That made Jarod look up. "Probably too much to keep up with us, even at our current capacity." He looked over the readings himself. "It looks like their shield systems are degrading. If enough fire is focused on one point…"
Even as Jarod was saying that, Zack was watching his pulse phaser cannons continue to pummel the dreadnought's shields. A few of the smaller disruptor cannons on the ship occasionally fired at them, inflicting shield loss, but so far his ship was mostly unhurt. "That commander wants the Aurora dead pretty badly," he said. He opened his tactical comm line. "Commander Sisko, what do you make of this? Any way we can use this to our favor?"
"Chief O'Brien believes they're degrading their shields to sustain this high impulse level," Sisko replied. "I'm inclined to agree."
"Yeah." Barnes spoke up from their engineering station. "And if they're doing that, maybe enough firepower into one arc might overload their shields enough to ruin cohesion."
Madeleine Laurent's voice now joined them. "Lieutenant Duwala's scans confirm that their shields are most vulnerable to their stern. It may be due to the impulse drives being pushed as they are."
"Admiral Adama here. It sounds like we have a target." Zack nodded at Adama's remark. "All ships and fighters, concentrate firepower on the enemy ship's rear drives."
"You heard the Admiral, Ap," Zack said. "Give it everything we've got."
"Aye sir."
The Koenig broke off her strafing run and moved away from the enemy ship. Only briefly, long enough that the Defiant, Park, and the Eagle met up with them. The four attack ships raced along the back of the enemy dreadnought with energy cannons blazing and torpedoes firing.
Behind them, surviving Mongoose fighters from the Aurora and Challenger roared in at full impulse. Whatever remaining munitions they had were expended and they fired their phasers to the point of overheating. The Challenger endured fire from some of the dorsal disruptors of the dreadnought. One super-disruptor emplacement fired a beam that penetrated the shields and scarred the ship's port side. It did not manage a hull breach or anything further damaging. The hull repair systems immediately began applying replicated patches to the damage.
As soon as Laurent's ship was in position her gunnery officer opened up with everything he had. Sapphire energy bolts and the amber color of the phasers streaked into the dreadnought's rear shields.
Several more amber beams began pounding those shields. Adama's ships lacked the sublight acceleration to keep up, but they still had the range and were firing for everything they were worth. Ahead of them the Raptors and Vipers of the two ships came soaring in. The handful of remaining SS fighters exploded under the volume of fire from Pegasus' Vipers, leaving the rest of the ship's complement to join Galactica's in their attack run. Rounds from the Vipers were little more than hailstones against the shields, but every little bit counted. The Vipers danced with little effort against the enemy's return fire. Since they were remaining behind the Eichmann, it's handful of aft-facing weapons were being overwhelmed by the sheer number of targets.
What counted more than the Vipers, or even the Mongooses, were the munitions the Raptors carried in. Most of them were carrying conventional Colonial atomics. A handful had the remaining special warheads with naqia. They reached their firing range and opened up in one synchronized salvo. The missiles soared in alongside solar torpedoes from the other Alliance ships and the Defiant's own quantum torpedoes. Phaser fire and the pulse plasma cannons on the Challenger chipped away at the shields further in the moments before the Raptors' strike began hitting home. Each wave of missiles came in, fully synchronized for maximum effect, and vent their tremendous energies against the dreadnought's shields.
Said shields were still flaring red. But the red began to sputter under the onslaught. "Come on," Zack grumbled. "Come on you bastard…"
The enemy dreadnought began to turn. Evidently they had realized their situation and were adjusting.
But it was too late.
More and more hits weren't hitting the red. They were hitting hull. The Defiant's phasers slammed into one of the impulse drives of the dreadnought. Challenger's bow cannons battered the port warp nacelle of the dreadnought until it exploded. Park and Eagle raced in and put torpedoes and phaser shots into the stern heavy disruptor and blew it apart. The Koenig, with Sherlily's expert aim, pumped its firepower into the enemy's port impulse drive. From further away the Galactica and Pegasus continued to batter the Eichmann's aft section. Galactica scored a direct hit on the starboard nacelle of the ship. Its blood-red color began to flicker and go out.
The enemy ship was still turning. Its overloaded shields were having trouble enduring damage even on the other arcs now, but shots were again playing against red energy and not bare hull.
Electrical fires were raging on the bridge of the Eichmann. Eicke was shouting orders and getting only reports.
"Warp drive is down! Sublight drives are at sixty percent effectiveness!"
"The shield grid has been compromised. Aft shields no longer functioning. All other shield arcs are losing cohesion from damage to the system."
"Weapons power is down…"
Heiss glared at his commander. "We are losing this battle, Herr Oberführer! What are your orders?" When Eicke didn't reply, Heiss shouted again. "What are your orders?!"
I have been a fool, Eicke realized. His fury and rage, usually so helpful to him, had betrayed him instead. He had dismissed the threat of the enemy ships as being too weak to effectively harm the Eichmann. That had cost him his ship.
His ship. His honor. His revenge. His mission. All of it lost. All that he could do now was fight the enemy to the death.
But even that felt beyond him. This had been the Reich's chance to win the war. To ensure they could lash out at their foes and impose their will on the Multiverse. But failure here would rob them of that. The reinforcement fleet was still too far away. The enemy would destroy the alien facility and rob them of their chance to level the field.
I have failed you, mein Führer. I do not deserve to live.
Eicke reached for his belt and pulled out his pistol.
"Oberführer, what are you…?"
Eicke pulled the trigger.
Julia watched the firing of the Eichmann change. It started to fire at their allies and lessened the shots at them. The range started to open up.
They hadn't had the chance to recommend Jarod's strategy before the allies did it themselves. Of course, given the concentration of talent on those ships, Julia wasn't shocked by it.
And even more importantly, it had bought them the time they needed. "The tertiary shield generators and our remaining secondaries are restoring shield cohesion."
"How well off are we, Commander?"
"I can give you at least thirty-three percent effectiveness on all faces. Double that if we focus our shields, although we might get generators going offline once we take fire."
"I see." She considered that. "We'll need at least fifty percent usual strength to take a super-disruptor hit. Commander, put all shields to bow."
"Right."
"Lieutenant Locarno, bring us back about. Lieutenant Delgado, get a target lock and fire when you can." Julia felt her voice fill with confidence. "It's time we finished this."
The Aurora swung back around and moved in toward the Eichmann. The stricken dreadnought was losing speed and acceleration with the growing damage to its impulse drives. Its firing was becoming desperate, with attempts to deal with the four attack ships moving up and down its hull and hitting every weapon emplacement they could while Challenger, already wounded, remained to the aft of the dreadnought and continued to fire into her dying engines. It was like a great beast was being stabbed and clubbed by a host of lesser creatures. Individually it could swat them all, but with its wounds slowing it down and the enemy too fast to hit, it was losing.
Angel vented the fury of the Aurora on the SS dreadnought. Pulse plasma cannon fire, pulse phaser cannon fire, phaser strips, and solar torpedoes all lashed out at the giant that had wounded the Aurora so grievously.
The enemy ship's shields resisted initially. But they were already so badly degraded by the damage to their power systems and shield generators that even the powerful banks that protected the behemoth began to buckle under the attack. Julia watched on the magnified viewer to see Angel's handiwork send flame and debris from the enemy ship's bow. Their own forward cannons hammered the big ship's bow super-disruptors until they came apart. Explosion after explosion rippled over the dreadnought.
And to top it off, a spread of solar torpedoes slammed into the great large swastika emblazoned on its hull. The insignia of the Nazi Reich disintegrated in flame and wreckage.
The symbolism made Julia grin. And, she supposed, it was a very feral grin, the kind she used to give in far more modest circumstances in high school gyms across Kansas.
And then something happened on the other ship. It might have been a hit to their armory or magazines. It could have been their scuttling charges going off.
"There she goes," Locarno said, with some cheer in his voice, as the SS dreadnought Eichmann was blown apart in a massive series of explosions.
Applause immediately broke out on the bridge of the Aurora. "Not yet," Julia demanded, and the applause ended. "Mister Locarno, bring us back into course for our original position. There's still one enemy ship left, and the Sladen probably needs our help."
If Commander King had heard Julia's remark, she would have appreciated it for the understatement that it was.
The Sladen's bridge had a thin haze of smoke from an electrical fire long put out. One of her bridge crew, a technical officer manning an auxiliary station, was already on the way to the ship's medbay with injuries. On her viewscreen the mostly-intact Reich heavy cruiser lashed out at them with another barrage from their disruptor cannons. The Sladen rocked underneath them.
"Shields are down to fifteen percent," Ensign Skarsgard warned. "Our armor has been breached on all decks."
"I'm having trouble keeping weapons power up," added Lieutenant Trymi. "And we're down to just five solar torpedoes."
King nodded. She would have broken off the engagement long ago, but she knew that would allow the enemy cruiser to beam down more reinforcements to the Facility. The mission required they remain engaged. And with the cloaking device off-line, hit-and-run attacks were no longer possible.
More of their phaser fire stitched over the enemy cruiser. The Sedan-class ship had some scorch marks and hull damage from where their shots had managed to overcome the steadily-declining shields of the enemy ship. But for all the firepower of the Sladen, they couldn't get them down completely. They were losing this battle.
But it doesn't matter. The mission must come first. If duty demands I die, so be it.
"Commander, I'm reading several explosions around the horizon of the planet," Skarsgard informed her. "I think it was the enemy dreadnought!"
"Was it? Are you sure it wasn't the Aurora?"
Skarsgard checked her board carefully. With their sensors damaged she had to be sure. Within seconds the young Norwegian nodded enthusiastically. "It wasn't! I've got the Aurora on sensors still! She's coming our way with the other ships that jumped in."
"Good for them," King sighed. Perhaps I shall live after all…
On the bridge of the Reich's Glory Lamper was listening to Leutnant Klein, Rabe's replacement, confirm the report. He drew in a breath.
The Eichmann destroyed. The SS flotilla completely wiped out.
For a moment Lamper gave himself the luxury of fear. Fear that the SS would blame him, regardless of what Eicke had ordered. It wouldn't be beyond them to embrace hypocrisy and damn him for obeying an order from an SS commander. They might yet accuse him of all sorts of ghastly things.
"Herr Käpitan?" Falk was speaking to him. "What shall we do? The enemy is rounding the planet. There are several enemy ships. Even if we could finish the Aurora off…"
"...her comrades would be the death of us." Lamper sucked in a breath. "Do we have anything from the planet's surface?"
"We have no answers from the Facility. There are only the remaining personnel in the SS camp."
Klein added, "I have only a few life signs showing."
He nodded. SS men, yes… but they were still Germans. Lamper had a duty to uphold. "Lower shields on the opposite quarter from the enemy vessel and beam them up. Helm, set us a course away from here, maximum warp velocity."
"Jawohl," came the two replies.
Lamper waited patiently as the maneuver was carried out. With the damage it had taken the other ship couldn't quite position itself in time to stop their maneuver and take advantage of the shields going down. Of course, they were just beaming people up quickly. They might have had a longer window if they were beaming down another assault team.
"They are recovered, Herr Käpitan," Falk stated.
"Get us out of here, Oberleutnant," Lamper ordered.
Julia watched the Reich's Glory jump to warp.
This time, she didn't stop the others from celebrating. She almost joined them.
Instead of cheering or laughing, she simply breathed in relief. They'd survived. The Aurora had taken a beating, the worst one they'd known, but they were still alive.
They had won.
"Jarod, please put me on with the others."
Jarod nodded and keyed the tactical commlink to visual. He looked up and saw the viewer fill with screens. Adama looked at her from his place on the Galactica CIC. His jaw was set and he looked like he had just been overseeing maneuvers, not his civilization's first extrauniversal space battle. Zack had something of a cocky stature in how he was leaning in his chair that felt new to him, and which Julia thought was a good sign. Sisko had his hands on his chair arms and looked relaxed and comfortable in the aftermath of their victory. Madeleine was sitting back in her command chair looking quite pleased with herself. Yonatan Shaham had the wide smile of a youth who had just accomplished a life's dream. Ibrahim had his usual solemn look that made him look natural in the pressures of command. And last, but definitely not least, Commander King was keeping that stiff, formal posture that the Englishwoman seemed to cultivate as part of her command style. Stiff upper lip and all, even with the haze of electrical fire smoke still wafting about her bridge. "Thank you all," Julia said to them. "I owe you all a favor."
"Who's counting?", Zack said. "I'm just glad we got here in time."
"How did President Roslin take it?", Julia asked. "Taking all of the remaining Colonial military with you?"
"The President agreed that with the stakes of this mission, risks were necessary," Adama answered. "It doesn't hurt that we're one jump away from Dorei space."
"Congratulations," Julia said. "I'm looking forward to hearing about the new world you settle."
"Where is Captain Dale?", asked Ibrahim. "Has he been hurt?"
"I don't think so. One moment." Julia nodded to Jarod. He promptly tied their tactical link in to the commlink with the ground party. "Aurora to Dale. You were saying something?"
"How is everything up there?"
"The Eichmann has been destroyed," Julia said. "And the Reich's Glory retreated. Admiral Adama is here."
"Admiral Adama?"
"Hello Captain."
Robert was quiet for a moment. "Thanks for your help, sir. What do you think of detaching a pursuit for the Glory?"
"The Challenger could do it, I suppose. But from what I gather, it might not be able to fight off a Reich heavy cruiser. And your ship is far too damaged to make the attack."
"Our warp drive is out and we have one nacelle completely ruined," Julia clarified.
"Damn. Well, that's where jump drives are good. Do we know how long until that enemy fleet gets here?"
"Given what Admiral Maran said, not for several more hours."
"Good, that gives us time. Re-establish the communications link with the Facility. We'll load as much data as we can before we go. To every ship that's here."
Which, of course, was not exactly in their orders. But Julia thought it was right. Sisko could use Darglan data to help justify his "accidental" entry into the war and for the Colonials it was a significant compensation for the pilots they had undoubtedly lost. "Jarod is setting it up now."
"Lieutenant Dax is ready to establish the link," Sisko confirmed.
"We're ready to receive," Adama added.
The other captains confirmed their readiness.
Robert overheard them. "Good. Standby, Aurora, we're sending wounded up as soon as we get our transporter enhancers back online."
"We're ready. But what we are going to do about the Facility? Are the charges ready?"
"We had a problem with them. We'll think of something. Keep in touch and let me know if anything else happens. Dale out."
He looked to the others. Marines had removed Shepard and Meridina to be treated by their surviving medic. Lucy had gone to help the engineers that survived the fighting get their transport enhancers back online. Rabe was still here, under discreet guard by Kane, while Worf and Cat were looking over Data. "I think that we can repair him if we get him back to the Aurora," she said. "We might need to have Commander La Forge's help."
"As long as we get him up there. We have other things to consider, Cat." Robert looked back out at the dock and sighed. "We need to figure out how to blow this place up if your naqia explosives aren't working. Or all of this…" He gestured toward the various dead troopers. "...will have been for nothing."
To her surprise, she held it. Not entirely. She couldn't constrain the entire explosion. But she could force it to go just one way.
A jet of plasma roared back down the corridor. The enemy was already moving toward the door, looking to overwhelm them after the blast, and had no time to react to the sudden re-direction of their grenade. There were cries of surprise and anguish at what it did to them in their light armor.
"Can you set those explosives off, Lieutenant?", Kane asked.
"No," she answered. "At least, not with the necessary force. It would still kill us but the machinery in here is too well-protected for a simple naqia blast."
"So can't you destabilize that stuff or whatever it was you were doing?"
"I'd need to replace the hardware in the charges and I don't have the gear for that!" Lucy's mind was racing. The calculations were accurate. The same Caterina had used for the naqia in the Kelley's reactors. Maybe the quantity of naqia influences it? Or did the emitters we built into the charges not work right?
"So you can't do anything about this?", Kane asked.
"No, I can't. We're useless here. We should get back to the Control Chamber. There might be something we can do there."
Worf slipped back into cover after sending several phaser shots into the hall. "That will be difficult. There are still many enemies out there."
"I know." Lucy thought on the problem. And then she grinned. She picked up the naqia charge and changed the settings on it.
"Lieutenant?"
"We can't use these to blow the place up," she said. "So I've got something else in mind." She went over to the door and handed the charge to Worf. "Stay behind me. When I say to, hit the activation key and throw it."
"You can't go out there," one of Kane's Marines said. "They'll gun you down."
Lucy sucked in a breath. Baptism by fire time, I guess. She forced a confident smile to her face for the benefit of Kane and his Marines. "They'll try."
She reached to her belt and pulled her new lakesh out. Her thumb hit the switch and the blade extended out with its usual sharp, metallic sound. As soon as the memory metal formed completely and the EM field was glowing faint blue over the blade, Lucy entered the corridor. She focused on the training lessons Meridina had given her the prior day. What she had been told to do in these situations.
Lucy felt her arms start to move without a conscious command. She let that force inside of her do that work. A green pulse slammed into her lakesh blade and was sent flying into a wounded enemy. More enemy fire came and her arms moved with speed that felt super-human, meeting every blast, every shot. Some were deflected into the azure sheen of the corridors, blackening them. Other shots were returned to the enemy, not always the one firing, to the extent she was doing them more damage than she would with a rifle.
But she knew she couldn't keep this up. She felt the struggle to resist all of the fire coming her way, to move where she needed to avoid the shots she couldn't stop. Eventually she would be overwhelmed. "Worf, now!", she shouted.
Worf had remained behind her all this time. After three months he was still getting used to what the Gersallians could do, even considering all of the other strange beings and otherworldly powers he had seen in his time on the Enterprise. For just a moment he had been transfixed by the way Lucy's blade danced in the air, intercepting every disruptor shot as if it had been lobbed by a child. Her call to him broke through that and re-focused his mind. He pressed the key on the charge and hurled it over Lucy's head.
Lucy saw the charge appear in her vision and focused. She couldn't use her hand to concentrate her power on it - she needed both hands on her hilt - and it required sheer raw concentration from her mind to grip the object and send it flying. It was a difficulty Meridina had prepared her for. She breathed silent thanks to Meridina for that training, all that time flipped upside down and standing on one or both hands, as her power flung the naqia charge clear. "Get back!", she shouted.
Worf fell backward into the generator room. She jumped back and landed on top of him. With a sweep of her arm she forced the door closed.
There was a tremendous roar on the other end of the door.
Kane was looking at his sensors. And the noticeable lack of life signs on the other end now. "Damn," he muttered. "It worked." He smirked at Lucy. "You're always good at being Goddamned crazy, Lieutenant."
"I try," she sighed. She wanted to laugh. She settled for a smirk. Feeling Worf begin to shift underneath her prompted her to sit up and get to her feet. "Let's get going. Rob… Captain Dale and the others will need us."
Fassbinder's troops were moving toward them. They ignored Shepard for the moment; unconscious, she wasn't a threat. Meridina would be the first one they got to and, in her condition, she would be killed immediately.
This was Robert's dream coming true. Everything here. Their failure. Had he made it into a self-fulling prophecy? Maybe he should have stayed on the Aurora.
As he thought those things, a voice came out of his memory.
Trust your instincts, Robert.
Julia had said that. Julia. His oldest friend. His closest. They'd spent a lifetime together, growing up, understanding one another. Her opinion was the one that mattered to him more than anything or anyone else.
He had to trust himself. Trust the instinct that led him to coming down here. To where he could make a difference.
But how? What could he do in this situation? What…
You know. You always have.
The voice in his mind was not his. He looked to Meridina. The enemy was already coming up to the console she was leaning behind. She had mere seconds to live.
This is why you came down, Robert, her voice said in his mind. You have always known.
Robert swallowed. He knew what she meant.
His mind flashed back to that training simulation. A moment of panic brought on by the realism of the simulation and the power that had come from within, unbidden, in that moment. A power he had always suspected was there, ever since the nightmares had begun.
He didn't want it. It was another burden on top of the others he was already carrying and a temptation. His dreams were already haunted by what it caused him.
But if he didn't… then his nightmares would come completely true.
I know you're in there, he said to himself. And I need you. Whatever you are, whatever this power is… I need you. He felt within himself for that power he had used accidentally. He had only seconds left to use it.
He realized there was a warm feeling inside him now. The kind of gentle warmth you got under a blanket in the middle of a winter night, or from eating warm soup on a chilly morning. The warmth that was soothing and refreshing to the body and mind and spirit. The warmth came from within, a power that he once ignored, indeed, that he had once never even thought to look for. But it was there. It had always been there. It was ready to be used, almost eager to be used. Every ripple of it felt like an appeal saying "I am part of you, please use me. This is what I'm here for."
One of the SS stormtroopers rounded the console where Meridina was. His rifle came up. She moved, as if to defend herself, but her injury was too severe. She'd never manage it.
Robert reached his arm out. And when he did, he called upon the power. He reached with it to grab.
The SS trooper stopped. He went rigid with shock.
Robert swung his arm away from Meridina.
The trooper went flying back. Fassbinder let out an inarticulate shout that ended when, presumably, the trooper landed on him.
The power within him surged. It was a part of him, a piece, everything he was and yet more. He pondered, for just a moment, if this came from his very soul.
But that was for later. He had to act now.
Cat was staring at him. He shushed her and shifted cover. Disruptor beams scoured the floor behind him. He could sense the others in the room. Several troopers had entered and were spreading out.
He leaned out from cover and pushed out with his hand. A wave of force flew forward, bordered by the holotank in the middle. Three of the enemy went flying.
The other troopers were distracted. This gave him the moment he needed. He stood from behind his cover with his hand out. Another wave of force hit several more of them and sent them flying.
The Nazi science officer - Rabe, Robert now realized- was already taking cover. More dangerous was the last trooper. He had been winged by the last use of power and was still standing. He was bringing his weapon up to shoot Robert.
There was a thunderous roar. Blood and other stuff erupted from behind the trooper and splattered across the viewing window behind. From her place on the floor, Commander Shepard leaned up further with her shotgun steady in her arms. She was breathing hard and pain was visible in the emerald-colored eyes that looked Robert's way. But a small smirk crossed her face. "Now what?", she asked.
"Now…" He turned his attention to the door, where more of the enemy was coming. "We hold them off, and think of a way to finish the mission."
In orbit over Gamma Piratus the Aurora shook viciously again. Overloads in their systems sent sparks flying from nearby consoles. Julia heard Mataran's shout of pain and wondered, again, why the fuses didn't work the way they normally did.
"Shields are down to fourteen percent. We've got multiple hull breaches across the ship. The armor self-repair systems are losing effectiveness."
"Any ideas, Jarod?"
"None that I like," he replied.
"The only thing we have left is to either jump out or warp out," Locarno pointed out. The ship rocked under them again.
"Like hell," Angel hissed. She never even looked up. She was too busy unleashing every weapon she had into one of the cruisers up on their flank. Flame and debris started to erupt from the Dresden-class light cruiser where she was overwhelming its shields.
"No. Someone will answer," Julia insisted. "If we can just get a few ships to join us…"
There was another violent rocking of the ship. Disruptor beams played across the upper starboard nacelle of the Aurora. The damage caused a small explosion in the nacelle, which began flickering with light until it went dead.
"We just lost the upper starboard nacelle," Mataran said. "Safety systems have engaged and the plasma feed is cut. Emergency plasma venting is clearing the nacelle."
That's a relief.
"I'm starting to lose power in the impulsors," Locarno warned. "There's only so much I can…"
Jarod cut him off. And as he spoke, Julia felt the cloud of doom start to lift from her expectations.
"Someone's locking onto our jump drive!"
Several moments later Jarod confirmed what the viewscreen was already showing. Green light pierced the fabric of reality and expanded into a vortex of energy.
Julia smiled at the sight. She already knew, in her heart, what was coming through.
The Koenig emerged from the jump point.
And much to her amazement and joy, they hadn't come alone.
"We're clear of the vortex. New contacts on DRADIS." Gaeta's voice carried over the Galactica CIC. Every crewman and crewwoman was at their action stations and ready for the fight. Hearts pounded with anticipation that had only built with the jump from their native universe. "Profiles are matching those of Reich warships provided by the Koenig."
"Launch everything we've got." Adama looked at his plotting board.
"Pegasus is launching all Vipers and Raptors now," Duala reported. "Colonel Fisk is ready for engagement orders."
"Focus fire on their light cruisers, let's get them out of the way."
"Time to see if those engineers earned their money," Tigh mumbled.
As the two Battlestars closed the range, Viper fighters shot from their launch tubes and Raptors from their launch decks. The Reich warships were turning to engage. Disruptor fire flared out and struck the shields of the two ships.
When they returned fire, it was not with railguns. Thick beams of amber energy erupted from the emplacements now mounted on the bows of the large Battlestars. The powerful phaser cannons struck the light cruiser already damaged by the Aurora, meeting the red of the enemy ship's shields.
Under fire from the two Colonial Battlestars, the enemy cruiser had nothing left when Koenig soared in at full acceleration. Her forward phaser cannons blazed to life and punched into the cruiser's thin armored hull. As flames erupted from those shots, a pair of solar torpedoes crossed the short distance and slammed into the enemy ship's rear area. The cruiser's lights began to flicker as it lost main power.
The Galactica and Pegasus fired again. Their phaser cannons punched right through the dying enemy cruiser. One of the shots hit the vessel's main reactor. A bright white fireball engulfed the Dresden-class light cruiser. Only small pieces of debris remained after the fireball died.
On the bridge of the Koenig, Zack kept his eyes on the tactical display. Enemy destroyers were again racing in for the Aurora, looking to deploy their shield-disruptor torpedoes. "Scare them off, April," he ordered.
"Right away, sir," Sherlily answered from Weapons.
The powerful forward cannons on the Koenig blazed away. The lead destroyer's shields began to buckle under the onslaught until the thick phaser pulses engulfed the aft drive section of the dagger-shaped ship. It exploded in another white fireball. The other destroyers broke off, desperate to avoid the wrath of the Koenig.
"Missiles!", Magda shouted from Ops. "The enemy dreadnought has a weapons lock!"
Missiles spewed from the launcher of the undamaged Eichmann and began racing toward them. "Evasive maneuvers!", Zack ordered. Koenig, under Apley's able command, began to corkscrew and turn as the enemy anti-matter missiles pursued them.
Said missiles died in a hail of cannon fire from a flight of Colonial Vipers.
In the cockpit of her Viper, Kara "Starbuck" Thrace reveled in the feeling of getting a good fight in. She watched the enemy missiles explode under her cannons and those of the wing around her. The Pegasus' Vipers were spread about, helping to protect the Raptors moving in on the enemy cruisers remaining on the field. The remaining Alliance fighters were still locked in combat with their Reich counterparts. The entire fight was a furball like few she'd seen before. Death could be instant out here, even with the portable shields rigged into the Vipers now.
Her systems warned her of an enemy fighter locking on. She maneuvered her Viper "upward" to avoid the first disruptor shots and fired her engines to full, looking to evade. The enemy fighter was one hell of a pilot and kept on her. Kara turned and directed her cannons on an enemy fighter engaging one of her others. Her cannons slammed repeatedly against the shields of the enemy fighter.until the continued shots started to degrade them at that spot. It fired on the Viper she was trying to protect as her cannons found its engines and sent it spiraling away, trailing flames.
The Viper was lucky. She had forced her target off enough that the disruptor hits blasted off part of a wing. The pilot couldn't stay in the fight, but they could get back to Pegasus at least.
Her jury-rigged holographic indicator flashed red. The fighter behind her had just put enough shots into her shields that the small generator was on the verge of overload. She maneuvered sharply to continue trying to force the enemy off.
Ahead of her a Mongoose fighter from the Alliance was racing in. "Allow me, Captain Thrace," said a voice she faintly remembered.
Patrice Laurent's Mongoose opened up on the fighter trailing her. The fire behind her slackened. Her indicator stopped showing the presence of the enemy behind her. "Thank you, Commander," she said. "It looks like you've been busy."
"We still are," he reminded her. "We'll keep them off your people as best we can."
"Likewise." Kara triggered her command line. "Keep them off the Raptors, people!"
With the battle suddenly shifted by the arrival of Koenig and the Colonial Battlestars, Julia was considering the wider tactical picture. "Focus fire on that heavy cruiser!", she ordered. Nearby the last light cruiser was taking fire from the two Battlestars and strafing runs from the Koenig. "Where is the Sladen?"
"They're still engaged with the other cruiser," Jarod said. "They're trying to keep them from beaming down any more reinforcements to the Facility."
"Right."
As that exchange happened Locarno lined the enemy Sedan-class cruiser up on the bow. Its shots streaked at them, hitting their weakening shields and slicing across armored hull. Angel returned the favor with a full barrage of the bow cannons, the bow phasers, and both torpedo launchers. The onslaught was tearing away at the enemy's shields.
It also forced them to focus on the Aurora, and not on the Raptors streaking in.
The Colonial craft had shielding too now. Not the best, jury-rigged from spare parts meant for the shield systems being introduced to the actual full-sized ships in the Colonial Fleet, but enough to take light disruptor hits a few times. The Raptor pilots did their best evasive maneuvers coming in as they could. There were still hits. A couple were direct hits; one lucky Raptor had time to bank away with severe damage and the other became a fireball. Glancing hits caused attrition for the rest of the strike.
But then it was too late. They were in optimum range. They fired their payloads.
The missiles that streaked in were a mix. Some, the last to go in, were conventional atomics. They wouldn't do nearly enough damage to shields and needed direct hits on damaged hull to do the kind of damage that might knock the heavy cruiser out.
But the initial wave were carrying naqia-enhanced warheads, retrofitted from the spare solar torpedoes that had been left for the Koenig. These weapons struck the enemy's weakening shields in a series of impacts that battered their shields down, enough that the follow-up wave of mixed warhead types slammed into the armored hull of the cruiser. After the resulting explosions had finished the Sedan-class cruiser was trailing flaming debris and atmosphere into space.
With their jobs done, the Raptors broke off and flew back toward the Basestars. The ships would have to lower their shields to admit them and were arraying themselves to cover one another as each did the necessary operation.
The loss of her shields weakened her, but she still had weapons and they were hammering the Aurora. Worse still was that the enemy dreadnought had not given up on them. Another super-disruptor shot sliced along their port side, leaving a trail of damaged armor and hull breaches along their drive hull between their port nacelles.
This didn't stop Angel. She opened up on the enemy cruiser with another barrage. With its shields degraded by the Raptors' attack run the Sedan-class cruiser couldn't resist the Aurora's firepower. As it raced along the enemy ship its bow weapons tore into its starboard side and caused even more damage than the Raptor attack had. Once it was alongside Angel opened up with the phasers that could fire into that angle. The repeated hits to the enemy hull caused major structural damage and eliminated several power lines. The enemy ship's sublight drives began to shut down from lack of power.
As they passed, the aft solar torpedo launchers sent out more spreads of torpedoes. There was absolutely nothing left for the enemy cruiser to defend itself with. It exploded.
Julia noticed that the other cruiser was now a flaming wreck as well. All that was left was a dwindling number of destroyers… and the Eichmann.
Unfortunately, as the Eichmann's next shot proved, that was still enough to win the battle for the SS forces. Its super-disruptor barrage struck at the Aurora again. Without shields to resist it they took the hit on their armor. The ship shuddered hard from the impact. "Another direct hit to the drive section. Multiple sections have hull breaches."
"Armor self-repair systems have fallen to sixty percent capability," Mataran warned. "Emergency forcefield systems are in place, but they won't take this abuse for long."
"We still don't have the raw firepower to take out that dreadnought, we need…" Jarod's console beeped an alert to him. "We've got another ship locking on our drive. Wait... two!"
The first jump point that formed appeared "above" them. When it finished forming two ships came out. Julia recognized the Kelley-class hull shape of one and realized it was the Park, under their friend Ibrahim Fanous. The ship behind it was something she had seen only a couple of times before; the attack ship Eagle, formerly from the Tikvah.
A second jump point formed nearby, in closer orbit of the planet. The Starship Challenger, one of the Discovery-class ships based on the Aurora's design, emerged from the point. As she left her jump point fighters emerged from her flight deck.
Captain Madeleine Laurent appeared on the side of the main screen. A native of the Central African Republic, her voice had a thick accent as she spoke to them. "Commander Andreys, I'm thankful we could make it."
"Aren't you supposed to be directing the excavation of the Darglan Homeworld?', Julia asked.
"I see little point in that if these monsters win. If Command doesn't like it, they can always court-martial me. We're engaging now."
The main weapons on the Challenger opened up on the Eichmann. This drew the attention of the larger warship; one of its secondary disruptor banks barked a reply, a green beam of light that speared the shields of the Challenger.
"Aurora, this is Yonatan Shaham," another voice spoke. "I am commanding the Eagle. My father sends his regards, as do the people of New Liberty."
"It has been a while, my friends," Ibrahim added. "Let us take up your burden."
The two lighter ships zipped in toward the remaining SS destroyers. They were trailing the Aurora while Koenig helped the Battlestars finish off the last cruiser. Angel's phaser fire lashed out at them repeatedly to break up their attack runs. The SS commanders, goaded on by their commander on the Eichmann, were no longer letting her rapid fire chase them off.
But before they could try to further damage the wounded Aurora with their weapons the two light ships engaged with their own. The thick amber pulses coming from the Eagle showed that the ship had been refitted with Koenig-style phaser cannons while the smaller sapphire pulses of the Park were familiar, being the smaller counterparts of the Aurora's own main battery. Multiple torpedoes erupted from both ships in tandem to their energy fire.
The enemy Z-2500s never stood a chance. Hit after hit battered their shields into dissipation and torpedo hits gutted them. Angel's phasers added to the carnage; the heavy phaser cannons she brought to bear completely annihilated one unshielded destroyer.
All that was left was the Eichmann.
And all that the Eichmann seemed to care about was destroying the Aurora. The SS dreadnought ignored the persistent efforts of the Challenger, ignored the Koenig's strafing run on her, and the two Colonial Basestars. Their fury was directed solely at the Aurora. Locarno anticipated the shot from the ship's massive super-disruptor emplacements and twisted the Aurora. Her shields failed again under the impact; Locarno's maneuver kept the resulting shots from slamming into the center of the primary hull. They struck the port side of the primary hull instead. The local armor failed and the shots pierced the hull all the way, slicing through four decks before coming out the other end.
Julia clenched her teeth at that. "If he wants us, he can come and get us. Locarno, full impulse, away from the Eichmann."
"We have another ship locking onto our drive," Jarod said. "Jump point opening now."
Again a jump point formed ahead of them. Julia wondered who it could be this time. She had been hoping for even more of a response, with unengaged ships coming to their aid. Even if spatial aspects would be off for many, making a jump to them impossible - they would simply appear partway from their position in the other universe to this system, and quite possibly in the middle of enemy space - there had to be more ships that could make the jumps.
The ship that came out was framed like the Koenig, although it lacked the forward-swept appearance to the nacelles. Julia was shocked to see it.
The Defiant.
A baritone voice spoke over their open tactical commlink. "Commander Sisko to Aurora, what is your status?" As he spoke, his image appeared in the side of the main viewer, with the bridge of the Defiant visible behind him. Julia noted Sisko had grown a goatee since she'd seen him last, back in February.
"We've taken a beating. That ship really wants to kill us," she replied. "Commander, I thought the Federation Council was keeping out of the war?"
He kept his expression carefully neutral. "Whatever do you mean? Ah, I see." Sisko turned his head to face someone off-screen. "Major Kira, you neglected to inform me the distress call was from S4W8."
Kira's reply was a droll, "My apologies, Commander, it slipped my mind."
"Remind me to reprimand you later."
Julia let out a chuckle. "Thanks for coming, Commander. We need all the help we can get. We'll let them chase us if you want to put the boot in."
"Sounds like a plan. Defiant out."
"Mister Locarno, bring us around the planet, as quickly as you can," Julia ordered. "If they want to kill us so much, let's make them work at it."
"Right." Locarno went to work on his console.
Bruised and battered, the Aurora shot ahead of the looming dreadnought. Disruptor beams streaked after them as they moved to round the planet.
Shepard's shotgun roared again and took the head off of one of the Stormtroopers forcing the door. The wave of force Robert generated toss the body and the nearby foe out of the door. Every sense in his head seemed to be seeing the world anew. Energy surrounded him, his own energy resonated with it, and he could use it to keep the enemy flying and off-balance.
Is this what Lucy feels like all the time?, he wondered. Meridina?
The number of enemies outside the door seemed to be slackening. He could hear gunfire further down the corridor. Had his people rallied with Fassbinder out of communication?
He took a step toward the door. With a push of his arm a bulky armored Panzergrenadier tripped backward. Shepard unloaded a shotgun blast to his neck. A local weakness in the armor allowed a partial penetration. Blood gurgled out of the gap in the armor and the Nazi trooper collapsed.
When Robert got to the door, he could see why the enemy was no longer rushing forward as they had before. He watched Hakimzade maneuver her powered armor into place and let loose with the automatic weapon built into the suit's arm. Pulses nearly tore one of the light-armored stormtroopers apart. Amber phaser blasts struck another of the light-armored troops. Worf moved out of cover briefly to pour more fire into the enemy unit between them and Robert's position.
Robert lifted his arm to use his power. But he didn't have time. He could feel the surge of energy, the bright presence, of another; Lucy vaulted over one of the remaining heavy-armored troopers and turned. Her lakesh shined with an aura of pale blue light as it bit into the joint in the leg, where the armor was weakest. Sparks resulted but no breach. Lucy twirled the weapon around and thrust it in with all of her strength. Now the armor gave way with a shriek of protest. An angry growl came from the suit's occupant, who toppled over onto one leg. A missile slammed into him from the front and the SS trooper went flying. Robert could feel the trooper's life ebb and fade out in the second it took for the armor to thunk onto the blue floor.
Lucy looked at him. Her eyes widened. He knew she could feel his power and essence just as he felt hers. "You… you actually did it," she said. She walked up as, around them, the resistance of the troopers here ceased. "You called on your life force."
"I had to," Robert answered. "To save everyone."
"I understand. I'm just…" Lucy smiled thinly. "I don't know whether to congratulate you or feel sorry for you. You've just entered a complicated world, Rob."
He nodded at that.
And then a bad feeling prickled up his spine. A sense of fear, anger, hatred, it all came from behind him. There was a cry of fright from behind him. Robert turned.
As he did so, Shepard shouted, "Put it down!"
Lucy was behind Robert by the time he turned and stepped back into the Chamber.
Shepard was still propped up against the console she'd used for cover. Her shotgun was leveled toward the other end of the chamber.
Fassbinder was standing there, near one of the control consoles. Near him Rabe was on the ground, as if ready to stand. Fassbinder had his gun out and up.
It was pointed at Caterina.
She had stood from cover at Fassbinder's command. Her face was pale and her eyes wide with terror.
"Put the gun down, Fassbinder," Robert ordered. "Now. You're not walking out of this."
"I do not need to," he answered. "I only have to hold this place until the reinforcement fleet arrives. Its prizes belong to the Reich. I will not be denied! If anyone moves, if I get even the slightest feeling of your powers working on me, I will shoot. And this little untermensch brat will die."
The bridge of the Eichmann was shuddering slightly. The officers of the massive dreadnought were watching as the enemy ships pounded them again and again with fire. The attack vessels of the enemy fleet were coming in close and strafing their weapon emplacements. The larger enemy ships - those two unknown carriers and the Alliance starship - continued to pour their phaser fire and cannon fire into the deflectors of the dreadnought. Deflectors that were holding… for the moment.
Obersturmbannführer Heiss, the ship's Executive Officer, was manning a station to provide reports to Oberführer Eicke. "The enemy ships continue to attack us, sir, let us retaliate!", he urged. "We could annihilate them!"
"The Aurora might get away," Eicke retorted. "I cannot allow that!"
"Your duty is to complete the mission…"
"Do not lecture me on duty!," Eicke raved. "Those swine cost me years of work, of glorious effort to finish the work of the Great Hitler and his first followers! They left my ship humiliated and broken by the Juden, who ran away laughing at me! At the Reich! Nein! The honor of the Reich, the Schutzstaffel, and the Führer demands their blood!"
"I cannot maintain a targeting lock on the Aurora," reported the Hauptsturmführer at Gunnery. "They are using the curvature of the planet to keep our main disruptors off of them."
"Helm, full acceleration! We cannot let them succeed!"
"We are at full now, Herr Oberführer," the helmsman protested.
"Then divert more power to the drives! More!" Eicke slammed a fist on his chair arm. "Divert everything!"
Rabe had stayed down during the fighting. It had seemed the best thing, especially with the strange abilities Captain Dale was suddenly revealing. He had stared in wonder at the Alliance Captain moving his arms and sending stormtroopers flying without laying a hand on them. There had been rumors that the Alliance's people had bizarre powers, rumors that the State had been trying to suppress. Now he was seeing them first hand.
It wasn't hard to see that there were mere moments before they did something. Before Captain Dale or that Lieutenant in the blue robe and purple body armor used their powers. But could they do so before Fassbinder killed Caterina Delgado?
Rabe looked at the young woman again. He understood her terror at the gun pointed at her. She wasn't a soldier. She didn't know how to face this sort of thing.
When it came down to it, neither did Rabe.
All through his life, Rabe had believed one thing; that intelligence was the means to improve things. That the State and the People would be happier with the fruits of that intelligence. More than anything else, it was such things that continued the progression of his people. He had not been raised to consider every Human one of his own, that was true… but then again, in his education and later, he had known that there were those of the conquered countries who, despite their secondary status and education limitations, were still brilliant. He'd heard the stories of these people coming up with solutions that advanced the Reich, that made technology better, lives safer. These were people he looked up to, the people he wanted to be. Service through intelligence and problem-solving, not martial power.
It was, admittedly, not a popular viewpoint in many circles in the Reich, but it did have its followers.
Caterina Delgado was one such person he respected in that role. Her subspace scanning proposal had been a thing of sheer brilliance. From the first time he'd seen her, he knew Caterina was a boon to everything. She deserved to survive so her brilliant mind could continue to work for the betterment of all.
And now this SS man, this engineered brute, was going to snuff her life out. He already planned to. He'd never let her live. And then…
...then they would all die, wouldn't they? Even he likely would in the fight to come. That, or be a prisoner of the enemy, and that was if he was lucky.
But Caterina would still be dead.
Kurt Rabe had not made many decisions on his own in his life. As a young man, he had obeyed his stern veteran father and demanding mother. When they died, it had been his maternal grandfather, a Party functionary on New Pommerania, who had brought him out to space and finished raising him in brutal and angry fashion. Even escaping that had not been his decision: the Reich had made those decisions. The State had tested him, determined his intelligence, picked the school he was to go to, the education he would receive, and put him in the Raumkriegsmarine as a sensor and space specialist. Not one of these decisions had been his.
Not. One.
But here and now, he would make one. He would not allow the world to be further darkened by the SS. Damn his parents, his grandfather, the Reich… he would make this one choice for what he believed in.
He believed that Caterina Delgado should not die.
Rabe launched himself at Fassbinder's arm. The SS man shouted in surprise and fired his gun.
The emerald bolt from the disruptor went right by Caterina's head and scorched the far display glass.
"What are you doing?!", Fassbinder shouted at him.
Rabe didn't answer. He couldn't think of a way to explain his choice to Fassbinder. The SS man would never understand it if he could. He thought solely in terms of the Ideology, of the Party and Race. He couldn't process Rabe's thoughts in any way save to consider him a degenerate traitor. Nothing like that was something Rabe was interested in.
The initial shock of his attack was the only reason Rabe had thrown his aim off. Now that they were grappling in close quarters, Rabe was no match for Fassbinder's engineered strength and power. The SS man swiftly pulled his gun free and belted Rabe across the mouth. Rabe felt two teeth break loose from the impact and fell backward.
Fassbinder screamed "Traitor!" while directing his gun toward Caterina again.
He never got the chance to pull the trigger. Robert reached out with his power and ripped the gun from Fassbinder's hand. Shepard's shotgun rang out. Blood exploded from Fassbinder's shoulder. The powerful slug ripped through the meat and bone of Fassbinder's body and out the other end, where it promptly broke a hole through the transparent material of the window.
The impact of the shot threw Fassbinder backward and through the new hole. He screamed in rage as he fell out into the dock.
Robert forced himself to stop feeling for Fassbinder. He didn't want to experience the result of the SS man splatting several stories down.
"Damn," Shepard mumbled. "I was aiming for his heart." The smile she had was weak. She was still favoring the disruptor burn on her side.
Robert went up to Caterina. She was still pale and upset. Her breathing was shallow. "Cat? Cat, it's okay."
"He… he was going to kill me," she whimpered.
"I know. It's okay." He patted her on the shoulder. "You're okay."
Caterina seemed to be starting to process things again. She turned to face Rabe, who was spitting blood onto the blue floor. "You saved me," she said.
Rabe looked up at her. Blood had pooled around his lips and was flowing down onto his chin. He spoke and their auto-translators converted it into English. "I could not let him kill you," he said. "Nobody as intelligent and creative as you should die like that. Especially not to a brute like an SS man."
The first one to get to Rabe's side was Worf. "You showed courage," the Klingon rumbled. Rabe looked at him as if Worf were about to rip his head off.
"I am a traitor," Rabe said. He looked to where Fassbinder fell through the window. The extent of what he had just done struck him. "I… I have struck an SS man. Opposed him."
"He's dead. We're the only witnesses," Lucy pointed out. Like Robert she could feel the fear bubbling from within him.
"It won't matter," Rabe insisted. "If I am the only survivor, the SS will assume I am a traitor. They'll… the penalty for treason is to be ejected into space, Captain Dale. It would be more merciful if you were to shoot me now."
"I've got one better on you," Robert said. "Leave the Reich. You can come with us."
"Come with you?" Rabe considered that. "I…" He shook his head. "I would have to face my friends and comrades in battle, then. I have no deep love for the Reich, but the men I've served with, I can't betray them. I can't help to kill them, Captain Dale."
"I'm not saying your only option is to join the Alliance service, Leutnant," Robert said. "There are other options. All I ask is that you come with us and explore them. It's better than dying here. Not when you might have so much to offer."
Caterina nodded. "Yeah. There are… I mean, you're smart. You can join a science mission, or become a science officer somewhere outside of the Alliance. You don't have to stay with us." She smiled at him. "You shouldn't have to die because you saved my life."
Rabe seemed to consider this.
As he did, Kane clicked his tongue. "Uh, I don't want to break up the kumbaya fest here, but I'll remind everyone we're supposed to blow this place up. How do we do that?"
"What happened to the naqia charges?", Cat asked. "They should have worked."
"They didn't induce enough destabilization in the naqia," Lucy explained. "We used one of the charges on our attackers, and it did a lot of damage… but not nearly enough."
"We must have messed something up…"
"We'll find out when we can. Right now, though, we need to think of what to do." Robert hit the key on his multidevice. "Dale to Aurora, what's your status?"
There was no immediate answer.
"Dale to Aurora, what's your…"
Before his voice could show any real panic, Robert was rewarded with Julia's reply. "We're a little busy here…"
The Aurora took a hit that sent a shower of sparks off of the now-flickering MCD behind Julia. "Shields are down again." Jarod was working on his board. "The damage control teams can't keep the generators up long enough to regenerate shields to withstand those super-disruptors. We've got more hull breaches and armor damage on Decks 12 through 15, Section G and H."
Julia checked her usual station. Casualty reports were continuing to come in all over the ship. Leo was getting them treated as quickly as he could, and given how much the ship was shaking it was making it hard on him. "More power to engines," she said. "We have to get around the planet again."
"We're at max now," Jarod warned. "And we're about to come up on the Reich's Glory and Sladen. If the Glory opens up on us in this condition…"
"So…" Julia nodded. "Alright. Break us completely from orbit, Mister Locarno." She hailed Engineering with the chair control. "Mister Scott, please tell me you can get us more speed, that dreadnought really wants us dead."
"I cannae give ye any more on th' impulse engines, lass. I've given ye all I can. There's simply tae much damage."
"I'd like to know how they're keeping up with us," Angel growled. "Those things can't be that fast."
Ensign al-Rashad spoke up. "Going by their power output, I think they're putting all power into their engines."
That made Jarod look up. "Probably too much to keep up with us, even at our current capacity." He looked over the readings himself. "It looks like their shield systems are degrading. If enough fire is focused on one point…"
Even as Jarod was saying that, Zack was watching his pulse phaser cannons continue to pummel the dreadnought's shields. A few of the smaller disruptor cannons on the ship occasionally fired at them, inflicting shield loss, but so far his ship was mostly unhurt. "That commander wants the Aurora dead pretty badly," he said. He opened his tactical comm line. "Commander Sisko, what do you make of this? Any way we can use this to our favor?"
"Chief O'Brien believes they're degrading their shields to sustain this high impulse level," Sisko replied. "I'm inclined to agree."
"Yeah." Barnes spoke up from their engineering station. "And if they're doing that, maybe enough firepower into one arc might overload their shields enough to ruin cohesion."
Madeleine Laurent's voice now joined them. "Lieutenant Duwala's scans confirm that their shields are most vulnerable to their stern. It may be due to the impulse drives being pushed as they are."
"Admiral Adama here. It sounds like we have a target." Zack nodded at Adama's remark. "All ships and fighters, concentrate firepower on the enemy ship's rear drives."
"You heard the Admiral, Ap," Zack said. "Give it everything we've got."
"Aye sir."
The Koenig broke off her strafing run and moved away from the enemy ship. Only briefly, long enough that the Defiant, Park, and the Eagle met up with them. The four attack ships raced along the back of the enemy dreadnought with energy cannons blazing and torpedoes firing.
Behind them, surviving Mongoose fighters from the Aurora and Challenger roared in at full impulse. Whatever remaining munitions they had were expended and they fired their phasers to the point of overheating. The Challenger endured fire from some of the dorsal disruptors of the dreadnought. One super-disruptor emplacement fired a beam that penetrated the shields and scarred the ship's port side. It did not manage a hull breach or anything further damaging. The hull repair systems immediately began applying replicated patches to the damage.
As soon as Laurent's ship was in position her gunnery officer opened up with everything he had. Sapphire energy bolts and the amber color of the phasers streaked into the dreadnought's rear shields.
Several more amber beams began pounding those shields. Adama's ships lacked the sublight acceleration to keep up, but they still had the range and were firing for everything they were worth. Ahead of them the Raptors and Vipers of the two ships came soaring in. The handful of remaining SS fighters exploded under the volume of fire from Pegasus' Vipers, leaving the rest of the ship's complement to join Galactica's in their attack run. Rounds from the Vipers were little more than hailstones against the shields, but every little bit counted. The Vipers danced with little effort against the enemy's return fire. Since they were remaining behind the Eichmann, it's handful of aft-facing weapons were being overwhelmed by the sheer number of targets.
What counted more than the Vipers, or even the Mongooses, were the munitions the Raptors carried in. Most of them were carrying conventional Colonial atomics. A handful had the remaining special warheads with naqia. They reached their firing range and opened up in one synchronized salvo. The missiles soared in alongside solar torpedoes from the other Alliance ships and the Defiant's own quantum torpedoes. Phaser fire and the pulse plasma cannons on the Challenger chipped away at the shields further in the moments before the Raptors' strike began hitting home. Each wave of missiles came in, fully synchronized for maximum effect, and vent their tremendous energies against the dreadnought's shields.
Said shields were still flaring red. But the red began to sputter under the onslaught. "Come on," Zack grumbled. "Come on you bastard…"
The enemy dreadnought began to turn. Evidently they had realized their situation and were adjusting.
But it was too late.
More and more hits weren't hitting the red. They were hitting hull. The Defiant's phasers slammed into one of the impulse drives of the dreadnought. Challenger's bow cannons battered the port warp nacelle of the dreadnought until it exploded. Park and Eagle raced in and put torpedoes and phaser shots into the stern heavy disruptor and blew it apart. The Koenig, with Sherlily's expert aim, pumped its firepower into the enemy's port impulse drive. From further away the Galactica and Pegasus continued to batter the Eichmann's aft section. Galactica scored a direct hit on the starboard nacelle of the ship. Its blood-red color began to flicker and go out.
The enemy ship was still turning. Its overloaded shields were having trouble enduring damage even on the other arcs now, but shots were again playing against red energy and not bare hull.
Electrical fires were raging on the bridge of the Eichmann. Eicke was shouting orders and getting only reports.
"Warp drive is down! Sublight drives are at sixty percent effectiveness!"
"The shield grid has been compromised. Aft shields no longer functioning. All other shield arcs are losing cohesion from damage to the system."
"Weapons power is down…"
Heiss glared at his commander. "We are losing this battle, Herr Oberführer! What are your orders?" When Eicke didn't reply, Heiss shouted again. "What are your orders?!"
I have been a fool, Eicke realized. His fury and rage, usually so helpful to him, had betrayed him instead. He had dismissed the threat of the enemy ships as being too weak to effectively harm the Eichmann. That had cost him his ship.
His ship. His honor. His revenge. His mission. All of it lost. All that he could do now was fight the enemy to the death.
But even that felt beyond him. This had been the Reich's chance to win the war. To ensure they could lash out at their foes and impose their will on the Multiverse. But failure here would rob them of that. The reinforcement fleet was still too far away. The enemy would destroy the alien facility and rob them of their chance to level the field.
I have failed you, mein Führer. I do not deserve to live.
Eicke reached for his belt and pulled out his pistol.
"Oberführer, what are you…?"
Eicke pulled the trigger.
Julia watched the firing of the Eichmann change. It started to fire at their allies and lessened the shots at them. The range started to open up.
They hadn't had the chance to recommend Jarod's strategy before the allies did it themselves. Of course, given the concentration of talent on those ships, Julia wasn't shocked by it.
And even more importantly, it had bought them the time they needed. "The tertiary shield generators and our remaining secondaries are restoring shield cohesion."
"How well off are we, Commander?"
"I can give you at least thirty-three percent effectiveness on all faces. Double that if we focus our shields, although we might get generators going offline once we take fire."
"I see." She considered that. "We'll need at least fifty percent usual strength to take a super-disruptor hit. Commander, put all shields to bow."
"Right."
"Lieutenant Locarno, bring us back about. Lieutenant Delgado, get a target lock and fire when you can." Julia felt her voice fill with confidence. "It's time we finished this."
The Aurora swung back around and moved in toward the Eichmann. The stricken dreadnought was losing speed and acceleration with the growing damage to its impulse drives. Its firing was becoming desperate, with attempts to deal with the four attack ships moving up and down its hull and hitting every weapon emplacement they could while Challenger, already wounded, remained to the aft of the dreadnought and continued to fire into her dying engines. It was like a great beast was being stabbed and clubbed by a host of lesser creatures. Individually it could swat them all, but with its wounds slowing it down and the enemy too fast to hit, it was losing.
Angel vented the fury of the Aurora on the SS dreadnought. Pulse plasma cannon fire, pulse phaser cannon fire, phaser strips, and solar torpedoes all lashed out at the giant that had wounded the Aurora so grievously.
The enemy ship's shields resisted initially. But they were already so badly degraded by the damage to their power systems and shield generators that even the powerful banks that protected the behemoth began to buckle under the attack. Julia watched on the magnified viewer to see Angel's handiwork send flame and debris from the enemy ship's bow. Their own forward cannons hammered the big ship's bow super-disruptors until they came apart. Explosion after explosion rippled over the dreadnought.
And to top it off, a spread of solar torpedoes slammed into the great large swastika emblazoned on its hull. The insignia of the Nazi Reich disintegrated in flame and wreckage.
The symbolism made Julia grin. And, she supposed, it was a very feral grin, the kind she used to give in far more modest circumstances in high school gyms across Kansas.
And then something happened on the other ship. It might have been a hit to their armory or magazines. It could have been their scuttling charges going off.
"There she goes," Locarno said, with some cheer in his voice, as the SS dreadnought Eichmann was blown apart in a massive series of explosions.
Applause immediately broke out on the bridge of the Aurora. "Not yet," Julia demanded, and the applause ended. "Mister Locarno, bring us back into course for our original position. There's still one enemy ship left, and the Sladen probably needs our help."
If Commander King had heard Julia's remark, she would have appreciated it for the understatement that it was.
The Sladen's bridge had a thin haze of smoke from an electrical fire long put out. One of her bridge crew, a technical officer manning an auxiliary station, was already on the way to the ship's medbay with injuries. On her viewscreen the mostly-intact Reich heavy cruiser lashed out at them with another barrage from their disruptor cannons. The Sladen rocked underneath them.
"Shields are down to fifteen percent," Ensign Skarsgard warned. "Our armor has been breached on all decks."
"I'm having trouble keeping weapons power up," added Lieutenant Trymi. "And we're down to just five solar torpedoes."
King nodded. She would have broken off the engagement long ago, but she knew that would allow the enemy cruiser to beam down more reinforcements to the Facility. The mission required they remain engaged. And with the cloaking device off-line, hit-and-run attacks were no longer possible.
More of their phaser fire stitched over the enemy cruiser. The Sedan-class ship had some scorch marks and hull damage from where their shots had managed to overcome the steadily-declining shields of the enemy ship. But for all the firepower of the Sladen, they couldn't get them down completely. They were losing this battle.
But it doesn't matter. The mission must come first. If duty demands I die, so be it.
"Commander, I'm reading several explosions around the horizon of the planet," Skarsgard informed her. "I think it was the enemy dreadnought!"
"Was it? Are you sure it wasn't the Aurora?"
Skarsgard checked her board carefully. With their sensors damaged she had to be sure. Within seconds the young Norwegian nodded enthusiastically. "It wasn't! I've got the Aurora on sensors still! She's coming our way with the other ships that jumped in."
"Good for them," King sighed. Perhaps I shall live after all…
On the bridge of the Reich's Glory Lamper was listening to Leutnant Klein, Rabe's replacement, confirm the report. He drew in a breath.
The Eichmann destroyed. The SS flotilla completely wiped out.
For a moment Lamper gave himself the luxury of fear. Fear that the SS would blame him, regardless of what Eicke had ordered. It wouldn't be beyond them to embrace hypocrisy and damn him for obeying an order from an SS commander. They might yet accuse him of all sorts of ghastly things.
"Herr Käpitan?" Falk was speaking to him. "What shall we do? The enemy is rounding the planet. There are several enemy ships. Even if we could finish the Aurora off…"
"...her comrades would be the death of us." Lamper sucked in a breath. "Do we have anything from the planet's surface?"
"We have no answers from the Facility. There are only the remaining personnel in the SS camp."
Klein added, "I have only a few life signs showing."
He nodded. SS men, yes… but they were still Germans. Lamper had a duty to uphold. "Lower shields on the opposite quarter from the enemy vessel and beam them up. Helm, set us a course away from here, maximum warp velocity."
"Jawohl," came the two replies.
Lamper waited patiently as the maneuver was carried out. With the damage it had taken the other ship couldn't quite position itself in time to stop their maneuver and take advantage of the shields going down. Of course, they were just beaming people up quickly. They might have had a longer window if they were beaming down another assault team.
"They are recovered, Herr Käpitan," Falk stated.
"Get us out of here, Oberleutnant," Lamper ordered.
Julia watched the Reich's Glory jump to warp.
This time, she didn't stop the others from celebrating. She almost joined them.
Instead of cheering or laughing, she simply breathed in relief. They'd survived. The Aurora had taken a beating, the worst one they'd known, but they were still alive.
They had won.
"Jarod, please put me on with the others."
Jarod nodded and keyed the tactical commlink to visual. He looked up and saw the viewer fill with screens. Adama looked at her from his place on the Galactica CIC. His jaw was set and he looked like he had just been overseeing maneuvers, not his civilization's first extrauniversal space battle. Zack had something of a cocky stature in how he was leaning in his chair that felt new to him, and which Julia thought was a good sign. Sisko had his hands on his chair arms and looked relaxed and comfortable in the aftermath of their victory. Madeleine was sitting back in her command chair looking quite pleased with herself. Yonatan Shaham had the wide smile of a youth who had just accomplished a life's dream. Ibrahim had his usual solemn look that made him look natural in the pressures of command. And last, but definitely not least, Commander King was keeping that stiff, formal posture that the Englishwoman seemed to cultivate as part of her command style. Stiff upper lip and all, even with the haze of electrical fire smoke still wafting about her bridge. "Thank you all," Julia said to them. "I owe you all a favor."
"Who's counting?", Zack said. "I'm just glad we got here in time."
"How did President Roslin take it?", Julia asked. "Taking all of the remaining Colonial military with you?"
"The President agreed that with the stakes of this mission, risks were necessary," Adama answered. "It doesn't hurt that we're one jump away from Dorei space."
"Congratulations," Julia said. "I'm looking forward to hearing about the new world you settle."
"Where is Captain Dale?", asked Ibrahim. "Has he been hurt?"
"I don't think so. One moment." Julia nodded to Jarod. He promptly tied their tactical link in to the commlink with the ground party. "Aurora to Dale. You were saying something?"
"How is everything up there?"
"The Eichmann has been destroyed," Julia said. "And the Reich's Glory retreated. Admiral Adama is here."
"Admiral Adama?"
"Hello Captain."
Robert was quiet for a moment. "Thanks for your help, sir. What do you think of detaching a pursuit for the Glory?"
"The Challenger could do it, I suppose. But from what I gather, it might not be able to fight off a Reich heavy cruiser. And your ship is far too damaged to make the attack."
"Our warp drive is out and we have one nacelle completely ruined," Julia clarified.
"Damn. Well, that's where jump drives are good. Do we know how long until that enemy fleet gets here?"
"Given what Admiral Maran said, not for several more hours."
"Good, that gives us time. Re-establish the communications link with the Facility. We'll load as much data as we can before we go. To every ship that's here."
Which, of course, was not exactly in their orders. But Julia thought it was right. Sisko could use Darglan data to help justify his "accidental" entry into the war and for the Colonials it was a significant compensation for the pilots they had undoubtedly lost. "Jarod is setting it up now."
"Lieutenant Dax is ready to establish the link," Sisko confirmed.
"We're ready to receive," Adama added.
The other captains confirmed their readiness.
Robert overheard them. "Good. Standby, Aurora, we're sending wounded up as soon as we get our transporter enhancers back online."
"We're ready. But what we are going to do about the Facility? Are the charges ready?"
"We had a problem with them. We'll think of something. Keep in touch and let me know if anything else happens. Dale out."
He looked to the others. Marines had removed Shepard and Meridina to be treated by their surviving medic. Lucy had gone to help the engineers that survived the fighting get their transport enhancers back online. Rabe was still here, under discreet guard by Kane, while Worf and Cat were looking over Data. "I think that we can repair him if we get him back to the Aurora," she said. "We might need to have Commander La Forge's help."
"As long as we get him up there. We have other things to consider, Cat." Robert looked back out at the dock and sighed. "We need to figure out how to blow this place up if your naqia explosives aren't working. Or all of this…" He gestured toward the various dead troopers. "...will have been for nothing."