The Birth of Iconia

Chapter 18

As the Ori ships limped away, Bra'tac was heard to transmit toward them, "Run! Maybe Adria will be merciful if you lose no more ships."

But the worst defeat that the Ori suffered on this day, by far, was when thirty ships dropped out of hyperspace to try to take the planet of Heliopolis. Fortuitously, every ship in the Alteran fleet was orbiting their adopted home planet, including the immense Avalon. As soon as the Ori ships scanned the space surrounding their ships, they began moving as far away from Avalon as they could. However, that was not to be. Ten Alteran battleships boxed in the Ori vessels, setting up such a crossfire that they couldn't escape. Then the massive doors on Avalon opened, and wave after wave of starfighters flew out of the station. These were Alteran Starfighters, and they were considerably stronger than the Terran version, something that became apparent when they started strafing the Ori ships. Massive explosions rocked the giant warships as the little fighters pounded away at them.

One starfighter, in particular, was leading attacks, jumping from one warship to another, followed by nine fighters determined to stay on his tail. They were hard pressed to keep up, however, as the pilot seemed to care not for the Ori shots that were continually chasing and missing his ship. He was known as Ca Rel, and had handpicked each of the members of his squadron and trained them mercilessly. He was known as one of the best pilots in the Alteran fleet, and in fact was the only person who had ever flown the city ship, Camelot. Matching his daring was another squadron of ten fighters led by his sister, Ca Ra. The two had placed wagers on which of them could inflict the most damage to Ori ships during this defense campaign, and aboard Avalon, computers were recording every shot made by each starfighter.

Ca Rel's ship dove in towards the engine section of one of the warships, and he released a phasing drone. It was similar to the Alteran drones used by the city ships, except it was programed to be autonomous. Once inside the shields, it would target the largest power source it could scan and destroy it. Then, if it was still viable, it would find the next largest power source, and so on. Ca Rel's drone phased itself out of sync, passed through the shields as though they weren't there, and then came into sync with the rest of the Ori ship. It found the reactor powering the ship and went to work. Once it destroyed the ships' reactor, it zeroed in on those weapon's systems which had reserve power left. The drone took the shortest route, which happened to be through the most densely populated part of the ship, to the forward weapons array. The shields were now down, and debris started drifting out of the hole left by the drone as it entered the hull. Suddenly, the forward part of the hull exploded outward as the drone shot through, leaving a gaping hole where the weapons array used to be.

Ca Ra watched as the remaining guns of the warship fired wildly as their systems shorted, neatly blasting a hole through a neighboring Ori warship's bridge. She had to swing her fighter crazily to miss being hit by a couple of explosions herself. Unfortunately, another one of the guns hit an Alteran cruiser, blasting it completely in two. Ca Rel saw the carnage as well, but he wasn't sure if it was a chain reaction from the damage his drone had inflicted, or just a lucky shot by the people manning the weapon. Regardless, he vowed he'd not send a drone through the shields until they discovered what had happened.

Elsewhere, Avalon was using her torpedoes and phasers, but the weapon with the greatest effect was the phasing railgun. It fired a slug the size of a watermelon, made of neutronium, which was phased to pass through shields, just as Ca Rel's drone had done. A simple sensor trigger brought the slug back into phase as soon as it detected the absence of shield energy around it. Avalon was targeting the Ori reactors with the railgun, and it was having devastating effects on the fleet. Finally, after eighteen of the ships had been either destroyed or completely incapacitated, the remaining Ori retreated. They were starting to enter hyperspace just as Avalon hit the reactor of one. The resulting explosion of the accelerating ship had impressive results. Nine made it into hyperspace, but the window was disrupted, and as the last two ships tried to enter it, it collapsed. They plowed through the debris of the exploding ship, and left burning streaks spreading out in the direction the rest of the fleet had taken.