Piece of cake:

  Captain Kelvin Chu stood at the edge of the briefing room, his arms folded, eyes scanning the squadron roster. He muttered under his breath, not expecting anyone to overhear. “We’re short two pilots. We only have our second term cadets, too green for this kind of fight. What are we gonna do?”

  From the back of the room, Jack O'Neill, ever the opportunist, caught the tail end of the lament. His eyes lit up with a mischievous glint.

  "Well, that's easy," he said, raising his hand like a kid in class eager for attention. “I volunteer.”

  Chu turned around slowly, one eyebrow cocked. “Sir, can you fly a PC-21?”

  Jack shrugged nonchalantly. “Of course, I can. Piece of cake.”

  A collective groan came from Sam, Cam, and Teal'c, who were standing nearby, having just overheard Jack’s declaration.

  “Jack, you can’t seriously be thinking…” Sam started, her voice threaded with concern.

  “Sam, trust me," Jack interrupted, giving her an innocent, slightly exaggerated grin. "We’ll be used for ground attack. What better way to get a view of the battlefield? Besides, it’s a two-seater. Mori, Sutcliffe, Bradbury, or Lee can ride shotgun. It’ll be like a little road trip."

  Lee, ever the team player, raised his hand with a grin. “I’ll go with Jack.”

  Kelvin Chu looked between Jack and Lee, then back to the rest of the squadron. He was about to protest when Tyra, who had been standing off to the side, busy with making coffee, suddenly piped up.

  “I can fly,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  Everyone turned to her in surprise, with Jack squinting at her. “You munchkin?”

  Tyra nodded. “I have the highest points in the academy,” she said with a smirk, her confidence unwavering.

  Kelvin nodded in confirmation, a slight grin breaking through. “She’s right. Tyra can fly just about anything.”

  Sam’s eyebrows rose. “Wait, you’ve been hiding that little gem from us?”

  “Not hiding,” Tyra replied with a shrug. “Just wasn’t relevant until now. And… ” she hesitated, “… I am one of those second-termers.”

  Reluctantly, Sam caved. “Alright, fine. But you’d better have a good story ready to tell Cate, because I’m not taking the blame.”

  William, silent until now, chuckled knowingly. “She takes after her ‘sister,’ Sam,” he said with a grin. “Let her go, or she’ll make you regret not doing so.”

  Sam shot him a dry look, but the weight of his words landed. She let out a resigned sigh. “Fine. You’re both going. But make sure you come back in one piece, alright?”

  Jack nodded like it was just another Tuesday. “We’ll be fine, Sam. Piece of cake.”

  Still not entirely convinced, Sam pressed the point. “We’ve got two hours. Cam will check you out, and the same goes for you, Tyra.” She stepped closer to the teenager, who now stood eye to eye with her, and slung a protective arm around her shoulders. “I don’t doubt you, kiddo. I just want to be sure.”

  Her eyes flicked toward Kelvin. “Go with her, will you? Although, I suppose your assessment would be far from impartial.”

  Kelvin gave a sheepish grin. “Ah, I would, Colonel, but I’ve got to get my ground crews working on the weapons fit. We’ve got five hardpoints to play with, and the loadout options are... extensive.” His mind was clearly already calculating guns, bombs, and payload ratios.

  Cam chuckled, glancing at Teal’c. “Guess that means SG-1’s stepping up again. T, you just got volunteered.”

  Jack blinked. “Really? I mean, I know T can do just about anything, but you want him assessing flight skills in a PC-21?”

  Teal’c raised an eyebrow with solemn pride. “I have logged over two hundred hours in that particular aircraft, O’Neill.”

  Jack gave a low whistle. “You know, sometimes I forget how annoyingly versatile you are.”

  Five minutes later in the pilot’s shed:

  Jack emerged from behind a locker curtain, half-zipped into a flight suit that was clearly from a bygone era. He gave the waist a tug. “Did these things shrink in storage, or did I get promoted into a new waistline?”

  Cam smirked, leaning against a bench. “You sure you didn’t leave that one behind in ’98, sir?”

  Jack shot him a withering look, then tugged the zipper up with exaggerated effort. “Gravity’s not what it used to be.”

  The two PC-21s stood gleaming in the sunlight, resplendent in their royal blue and gold livery. Jack and Cam approached one, helmets in hand, while Tyra and Teal’c strode confidently toward the second.

  Inside the cockpits, switches flicked, screens lit up, and avionics hummed to life.

  “Copy checklist,” Cam said, his voice steady. “Ready when you are, Jack.”

  Tyra gave Teal’c a thumbs-up from the front seat. “Everything green, T?”

  “Indeed.”

  The engines whined into power as both aircraft rolled smoothly from the apron.

  They accelerated down the taxiway, swinging onto the runway in turn before punching skyward in a clean, tight climb to 5,000 feet.

  Over the radio, Sam’s voice chimed in. “Sparrow One, Sparrow Two, give us a little show, would you?”

  Jack chuckled. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  The two aircraft banked hard into formation, then pulled into a graceful, inverted roll. For a moment, they hung upside down, canopies reflecting the earth below, before pulling out with perfect symmetry.

  They finished with a crisp split-S manoeuvre, peeling off in opposite directions before snapping back into line.

  “Impressive,” Sam said over comms.

  Vala’s voice crackled through. “Are they sure this isn’t just a mid-life crisis with extra steps?”

  Jack came back dry. “Speak for yourself, Miss Midriff Monday.”

  From the observation deck, the crowd watched in silence.

  William, arms folded, leaned into the comm. “Let’s see a mock gun run. Runway vector zero-niner-five. Low and fast.”

  Tyra responded first. “Copy that. Sparrow Two, inbound.”

  She dipped low, her PC-21 roaring over the tarmac at just 100 feet, perfectly level, smoke pods streaming faint contrails behind her.

  A heartbeat later, Jack followed, mimicking her angle with a precision that belied his age.

  On the deck, Daniel blinked in disbelief. “Wow.”

  He turned to Sam. “How old is she again?”

  Sam kept her eyes on the disappearing dots in the sky. “Seventeen.”

  William smiled, his voice proud but measured. “Imagine what kind of pilot she’ll be in a couple of years.”

  Sam gave him a sideways glance, one brow raised. “It runs in your family, Admiral.”

  Thirty minutes. That was the best estimate the analysts had for the Alliance’s arrival.

  Aboard the Aurora, Vice Admiral William MacGregor stood beside Lily Radovic on the flag bridge, both framed by the expansive tactical display. His face, lined with years of command, was calm but alert. The bulk of the fleet hovered in high orbit, angled defensively around the far side of Wold’s larger moon, silent sentinels in the void.

  “They’ll drop out of hyperspace on the dark side,” Lily said softly, arms folded as she watched the starfield. “Textbook move. Use the moon’s mass to mask their arrival.”

  “Let’s hope the mines soften them up,” William replied, his voice low. “Even a glancing blow could give us an edge.”

  She nodded, then tapped her earpiece. “Foxglove One, report in.”

  A pause, crackling.

  A youthful voice crackled over the encrypted channel. “All good, ma’am. Quiet out here. Cold. Little boring.”

  “They’ve been in that cloaked 402 for four hours,” she explained, glancing sideways at William. “They’ll earn hazard pay just from the boredom.”

  William gave a dry smile. “Let’s hope they stay bored for a little longer.”

  Old Dogs:

  Five kilometres south of the city of Merrenden, General Bradbury had claimed an abandoned two-storey farmhouse as his forward command post. Weathered boards and shattered windows bore witness to a different kind of war, long since passed, but the vantage it offered was ideal. From the upper floor, he could see the broad farmland laid out in a patchwork of dull green and brown, speckled with early snow. Low hills rose gently to the east; a thick pine forest loomed to the southeast, dark and silent.

  Snowflakes began to drift, light at first, like whispers. The wind carried a faint scent of frost.

  On the ground below, SG-1 mingled with a company of Australian and Cavaleiros troops. Cam and Daniel were helping dig trenches, Daniel stubbornly clumsy with the shovel but determined. Teal’c, as always, led by example, his motions precise and tireless.

  Vala, meanwhile, flitted from group to group with a theatrical sort of flair, her usual irreverence sharpened into something more focused. She made the soldiers laugh, and Sam, standing beside her with hands on her hips, followed with practical encouragement and brief words of inspiration. Even in the cold, morale lifted.

  Cam grunted as his shovel struck a stubborn patch of frozen earth. “You’d think with all our fancy tech someone could’ve invented a self-digging trench by now.”

  Daniel, a few feet away, fumbled with his own spade, managing to launch a chunk of sod onto his own boot. “I thought we had self-digging trenches.”

  “Yeah, well, turns out the little robot thing broke down about a week ago,” Cam replied, wiping his brow. “Somehow got into a fight with a goat. Don’t ask.”

  A young Cavaleiros soldier nearby, no more than twenty, freckles dusted across her nose, raised an eyebrow. “A goat?”

  Vala swooped in from behind her with perfect timing. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Tau’ri military robotics versus barnyard livestock. Truly one for the history books.”

  Another soldier, tall and broad-shouldered, leaned on his rifle. “Weren’t you the one who programmed the robot to chase the goat in the first place?”

  Vala feigned innocence. “Allegedly.”

  Sam strolled up, arms crossed but eyes amused. “She did. And it was her idea to give it a tiny air horn.”

  “It needed personality!” Vala insisted. “You lot are so boring with your ‘efficiency’ and ‘practicality.’”

  Teal’c looked up from his perfectly squared trench, one brow raised. “Efficiency is not without merit.”

  “Yeah,” Cam muttered, glancing at his crooked line. “Tell that to my trench. Teal’c, man, I think you’re part bulldozer.”

  Daniel tossed down his shovel with a sigh. “I studied ancient languages. Not trench warfare. This feels like a violation of some academic code.”

  A nearby Marine corporal smirked. “You want a backhoe, Doctor Jackson?”

  “I want a latte and a library.”

  “Don’t we all,” Sam said, clapping Daniel on the shoulder.

  Just then, a gust of wind scattered the light snowfall into swirling eddies. The young Northern Cavaleiros woman watched as flakes fell upon her boots, smiling. “Thank you, Mr. Frost, now I feel at home” she murmured.

  Cam took a deep breath, his expression softening as he looked out toward the line of hills. “Yeah. But I wouldn’t mind keeping it home.”

  There was a short silence, broken only by the sounds of shovels, boots, and the distant hum of engines.

  Then Vala leaned toward the young woman and stage-whispered, “You know he’s got a thing for dramatic lines, right?”

  The girl giggled. Daniel snorted.

  Cam didn’t even look back. “I heard that.”

  Eagles high:

  At O’Neill Field, the first flurry of snow melted against the warmed hulls of waiting F-302s. Cate stood at the top of the ladder leading to her cockpit, holding a half-eaten bánh mì. She took another bite, chewing thoughtfully as she scanned the sky, clouds greying, wind sharpening. Then, with a practiced flick, she tossed the paper wrapper into the disposal chute and climbed in.

  Across the tarmac, Captain Lieutenant Juliette “Ghost” Ramirez paused beside her own 302. Her helmet was under one arm; she held out a gloved hand, palm up. A snowflake settled on the black leather, delicate and fleeting.

  “Amazing,” she murmured.

  Nearby, First Lieutenant Andrew Kirby glanced over. “What is?”

  She looked at him like it was obvious. “Snow.”

  He blinked. “Wait… snow, snow?”

  “I grew up in Potrero, Southern California,” she said, eyes still on the sky. “Never seen it up close. From the air doesn’t count.”

  Cate, already strapping in, overheard and chuckled. “You picked a hell of a day for your first snowfall.”

  Beside her, Nugget grinned and added, “At least you’ll have a good story to tell.”

  Cate pumped her fist once into the air, drawing the attention of her squadron. In unison, visors dropped, and engines began to roar to life, eight 302s lighting up against the snowy haze like predatory birds stretching their wings.

  A few kilometres west of General Bradbury’s HQ, two PC-21s skimmed low over the gently sloping farmland. The royal blue and gold of their livery flashed brilliantly against the grey-white backdrop, each aircraft carrying a Maverick missile under each wingtip, a 20mm cannon pod slung close to the fuselage, and an ECM pod mounted beneath the centreline.

  Inside the lead aircraft, General Owen Lee squinted at the tactical display and the scene unfolding below. The Tau’ri tanks stationed under his command, powerful but vulnerable when clustered, were sitting too close for his liking.

  “They’re bunched too damn tight,” he muttered.

  Jack O’Neill, piloting the two-seater PC-21, didn’t look over. “Yeah, well, we’ve seen this movie before. Ends with a boom and a lecture about dispersal doctrine.”

  Owen clicked his comms. “Hammer Two, this is Eagle Lead. Colonel Mason, I want your units spread out. Fifty metres minimum between hulls. You’re painting a bullseye down there.”

  A crackle, then Randle Mason’s steady voice came through. “Understood, sir. We’ll reposition now.”

  Jack adjusted their heading slightly, banking gently. Behind them, in perfect formation, another PC-21 held steady, this one flown solo.

  Tyra.

  She maintained her position with surgical precision, riding Jack’s wing like she’d been born for it. Which, in a way, wasn’t far from the truth.

  “Kid’s solid,” Owen observed. “How long’s she been flying?”

  Jack smirked. “Solo? Ten months I’d say. But I’ve seen full birds with ten years’ stick time who couldn’t pull that formation turn last circuit.”

  Owen gave a long, considering exhale. “Well… damn.”

  The Soldier’s hour:

  Further north and east, near the dark forest beyond the lake, General Sutcliffe stood in his heavy coat beside an open-top command Hummer, his map board catching flakes of falling snow. Before him, three Majors stood at attention, one from the US Marines, another from the Australian Light Cavalry, and the third from the Dutch Light Cavalry.

  “This isn’t about who has the biggest gun or the fastest wheels,” Sutcliffe said, pointing at three separate positions on the field map. “It’s about who can be where they’re needed, when they’re needed.”

  He jabbed a gloved finger east of Merrenden. “Major Darnell, your ASLAVs will reposition here. Half a kilometre from Bradbury’s HQ. Dig in, eyes sharp, engines hot.”

  “Sir,” the Australian replied with a nod.

  Sutcliffe turned. “Major De Vries, you’ll support the Marines and the Cavaleiros reinforcing Altan. Keep your Dutch lads light and mobile. Watch the highlands above the coast.”

  “Understood.”

  “And the Marine squadron will stay spread below the southern shoreline of Lake Putaro. Guard Foreston at all costs. We don’t know if they’ll try to flank from there, but if they do, make damn sure they don’t like what they find.”

  The three Majors saluted and dispersed with crisp professionalism, each already barking into radios as they jogged back to their vehicles.

  Sutcliffe watched them go, eyes narrowing as he turned back to the rolling fields.

  “They’ll be here soon,” he murmured.

  The Captain and Commander:

  Back aboard the Aurora, the tactical display pulsed with markers, shifting formations, the silent chessboard of a coming war.

  William leaned closer to the edge of the holo-table, hands braced.

  Lily adjusted her earpiece again. “Still no movement.”

  William gave a small nod. “Not yet. But they’re out there. Close.”

  She glanced at him. “You ready?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. The deck beneath their feet thrummed softly with readiness, ships armed, fighters prepped, shields cycling to full.

  “I’ve been ready for five years,” he said.

  In the cramped cockpit of Foxglove One, tension hung thick.

  Captain Dayle Pepper stared at the timer on his HUD. British Lieutenant April Ewing, a highly excitable naval officer sat steady beside him, one hand near the comms switch. In the back, Warrant Officer Ahmed Haab from the Kingdom of Jordan, nursed a steaming cup of coffee, while US Marine Master Sergeant Dillon Prescott, drummed his fingers on his harness straps, eyes darting between screens.

  Then Haab’s scope lit up.

  One by one, twelve hyperspace windows tore open across the black expanse near the equator of the moon. He swore in Arabic. “Aljahim aldamawi!”

  Haab jolted, coffee splashing everywhere.

  “Guys!” he shouted. “It’s on!”

  April didn’t wait.

  “Terminator, this is Foxglove One, they’re here! Repeat, they’re here!”

  Aboard Aurora, Captain Lily Radovic turned from her tactical station, tension flashing in her eyes.

  Across from her, Fleet Admiral William MacGregor stood tall at the centre of the CIC, eyes fixed on the display as red enemy contacts spilled across the void.

  “Copied, Foxglove. Get the hell out of there,” he replied.

  Foxglove One banked hard, diving behind the curve of the moon as hyperspace windows finished blooming behind them, twelve enemy vessels in fast deceleration.

  “Action stations!” Lily barked, hitting the alert. The CIC flooded with red light as klaxons echoed across Aurora.

  The call signs went out fast:

  “Hunter,” to Invincible

  “Kingdom,” to Chekov

  “Baseline,” to the Alpha Site CIC

  Within seconds, every Allied station knew.

  Resistance:

  At Alpha Site Air Drome, the northern detachment of the 56th Attack Squadron scrambled. Major Evert Gunnarson, their CO, was already halfway up the ladder into a 302, shouting orders down the line.

  “Launch pattern Sierra-Three! Go, go, go!”

  Engines screamed to life. Light snow kicked up in sheets as the first wave of F-302s clawed into the sky. At O’Neill Field, Cate’s half of the 56th answered just as fast. Within minutes, two full squadrons were airborne.

  In high orbit, the 402s launched first, three squadrons of stealth gunships slicing through the black, cloaked and hunting. There was a running joke throughout Stargate Command, that a 402 carries more arsenal than some small countries.

  Five kilometres south of Merrenden, the snowfall thickened.

  The glow of a beam-out flare shimmered across the cold dirt and, just like that, SG-1 vanished.

  They reappeared in the Alpha Site CIC, directly beside the central command table. Lights blinked, chatter filled the air, and everyone moved with well-trained urgency.

  Cam clapped his hands together. “Alright… Bradbury first.”

  He keyed his mic. “General Bradbury, this is Mitchell. Load up the mortars. Repeat, hot load. They’re here.”

  Bradbury’s reply was cool. “Understood. We’ve been expecting them.”

  Sam was already patching through to Colonel Laurence Mason.

  “Colonel Mason, Carter. Inform General Lee: begin dispersal. I want those artillery crews in position yesterday.”

  “Copy that,” Mason answered briskly. “We’re moving now.”

  Cam flipped frequencies. “General Sutcliffe, this is Mitchell…”

  “Already got it,” Sutcliffe cut in. “But thanks anyway, Colonel. Let’s give ’em hell.”

  Cam cracked a grin. “Was planning to.”

  Sam looked up at the main holo. Enemy signatures multiplied, troopships, three, then they were gone. “Guess they found our little surprise.” Sam whispered to herself. But then it continued, six, then twelve ... fifteen... seventeen now. “Damn!” She swore

  “Here we go,”

  Vala was perched at a secondary console, staring wide-eyed at the screen.

  “Is it just me, or are they... everywhere?”

  Daniel adjusted his glasses, frowning.

  “Looks like a full strike group. Maybe two.”

  Vala gave a small shrug. “Told you I should’ve brought the bigger staff weapon.”

  Teal’c lifted an eyebrow, arms folded.

  “I believe we brought what was necessary.”

  Cam blew out a breath and cracked his knuckles.

  “Let’s prove it.”

  First Blood:

  As the twelve Hat’aks tore into real space, their arrival came not with a thunderclap, but a cold, silent ripple against the stars. One by one, they emerged in line abreast from hyperspace on the dark side of the larger moon, exactly where the Tau’ri had predicted.

  From the central Hat'ak, three troopships launched almost immediately sleek, dark, and menacing, bound for the planet below.

  They didn’t get far.

  The first mine, invisible and waiting, detonated just as the lead troopship passed over it. A shockwave of white-gold light erupted as the embedded Mk IX warhead unleashed its fury, far beyond what the troopship’s shields were rated for. The vessel disintegrated in an instant.

  The second troopship, too close to avoid it, slammed into the expanding debris. The third tried to veer away, but a loose engine core spiralling like a flaming discus struck its hull. The impact sent both it and the debris straight back into their mothership.

  That Hat’ak didn’t stand a chance. The resulting explosion ruptured its core systems, and in the chain reaction that followed, several more mines ignited, their detonations cascading through the nearby void.

  One Hat’ak and its entire first wave, gone in under fifteen seconds.

  From a high observation point in the black above, the first wave of 402s had front-row seats to the carnage. Cloaked and silent, the crews were trained, professional... but nothing could prepare them for the sight of tiny, silhouetted bodies, tossed into space like forgotten dolls, spinning in the wreckage.

  In the cockpit of Foxglove three, nobody spoke for a moment.

  Then Amy Turner muttered, “Jesus…”

  Ruel Mendez whispered something in Spanish, low and mournful.

  Captain Tony Franklin exhaled and keyed the comm. “Foxglove three to Terminator... first contact. And they just hit our welcome mat.”

  Space above the Alpha Site:

  The stars hung silent in the black. The calm before. Always the calm before.

  Commandant General Jortu Eskulion’s boots echoed softly on the metal decking of the Azhodehya’s bridge as he paced with rigid precision, eyes fixed on the void outside. Twelve capital ships in formation. Dozens more clustered around them, Al-Kesh, troopships, escorts. This was not an assault. This was a statement.

  “Troopships are ready my lord,” a junior officer announced.

  Eskulion nodded without turning. “Begin launch sequence.”

  The order had barely left his mouth when the first ship vanished.

  No warning. No flash. Just, gone.

  An instant later, the explosion reached them. A white blossom of light bloomed in the void like some dying flower, petals of flame peeling back to reveal the shattered carcass of a Lucian troopship.

  “Mine!” someone screamed.

  The second ship tried to brake, but it was too close. The shockwave caught it amidships. Armour peeled. Engines sputtered. A final, panicked course correction threw it into their third in line. They collided. Carnage. And fell into the gleaming hull of their mother ship, which detonated like a starburst.

  The bridge lit up in emergency red.

  Eskulion turned slowly, deliberately, as if moving too quickly might cause the rest of the fleet to explode behind him. His hand snapped out, seizing the collar of Major Gregory Jenson and slamming him back against a bulkhead.

  “You said they’d resist. You didn’t say they’d slaughter us with invisible bombs!”

  Jenson gritted his teeth. “Those aren’t mines. Not like you’re thinking. They're cloaked platforms, Asgard-derived, probably deployed by the Aurora. You won’t see them until they’re breathing down your neck.”

  “Then get me something that can see them,” Eskulion snarled. “You have thirty minutes.”

  Jenson straightened, lips thin. “I’ll need a ship.”

  “You’ll take a shuttle and pray they don't blow it out from under you.”

  Beyond the bridge, deep in the black:

  They came.

  Twin streaks of fire against the stars. VFA-103, the Jolly Rogers, burst from Invincible like hounds off the leash, wings stacked in tight formation, weapons hot. Behind them, the Reapers from Chekov surged forward, blades drawn.

  The Death Gliders moved to intercept, but the first volley was already in the middle of them.

  Missiles howled through vacuum. ECM fire from EW equipped F302G ‘Growlers’ blinded sensors. The space between them collapsed into chaos, raw and immediate.

  “Reaper Three, tally three at ten o’clock low!”

  “Splash one, Jolly Six, break high, you’ve got two, scratch that, make it three!”

  “Fox Three, repeat, Fox Three!”

  Through the dark, the 302s danced. They didn’t fly, they cut. Into the flanks of the Glider escort, carving them away from the vulnerable troopships behind. For every Glider that spun into nothingness, another screamed vengeance.

  “Mayday, mayday! Reaper Five’s gone! Ejecting, no, wait, God!”

  A burst of light. Then silence.

  The troopships began to scatter, panicked. Some burned hard toward the atmosphere, desperate to breach the upper layer and deploy their payloads.

  “Targets breaking off,” one of the gunship commanders called. “Eclipse squadron engaging.”

  From above, the AC-402s descended like birds of prey. Silent. Surgical. Their payloads struck with devastating precision, plasma and Avenger 30mm cannon rounds lancing into hulls, detonating core systems, turning once-mighty transports into fiery tombs.

  But some made it through.

  Alpha Site – Command Operations Centre:

  The room pulsed with tension. Lights dimmed to red. Screens scrolled faster than eyes could track.

  Colonel Mitchell stood over the central table, teeth clenched. “How many?”

  “Eight made it past the minefield. They’re breaking atmosphere.”

  “Where?”

  “We estimate ten klicks south of Merrenden. Targeting data inbound.”

  “Get Lee’s armour, prepped” Mitchell snapped. “And tell Bradbury to brace his grid.”

  He paused, then added, “And get word to Sutcliffe. I want his cavalry mobile in five.”

  Little Birds:

  “Jack, you are seeing this?” Owen Lee’s voice crackled over the headset.

  O’Neill leaned into the comms console. The view outside the cockpit was pure madness, streaks of fire cutting across the dawn sky as smoking vessels hurtled downward like dying angels.

  “Yeah,” Jack muttered. “I see ‘em.”

  He keyed the mic. “Alpha Grid, this is Sparrow One, eyes on. Mark grid zero-seven-niner as primary LZ. Targeting vectors to come.” Jack glanced over his shoulder, Sparrow Two, Cadet Tyra was off his port wing, just ten metres distant. He shook his head. “Lee, she’s keen doncha think?”

  “You been giving her lessons Jack?” From behind the oxygen mask, the dark skinned commander of the Tau’ri tank squadrons grinned.

  “I was never that good!”

  Their radios crackled with an incoming transmission. “Eagle Lead, this is Hammer Two, received and understood.” From his position in the open turret of his Abrams tank, Colonel Noel Mason, could only see over the top of a snowy embankment. All the machines of the tank regiment were placed within hastily made revetments, so that only the turret was visible to anyone who might be looking for them.

  Glancing over his shoulder a second time, Jack caught a glimpse of Tyra in her cockpit. The way she leaned forward, hands light on the stick, she was having fun. He scowled. “This isn’t right,” he told himself. “It’s Saturday, for God’s sake. A seventeen-year-old kid should be back at base, putting on makeup, worrying about what dress to wear, getting ready for a date, not flying into the face of Hell.”

  His brow furrowed. “If this is our future… we’re screwed.”

  The Cavalry:

  Brigadier Sutcliffe was already moving. His hands steady, he buckled his chest plate and slammed his helmet into place. Around him, the roar of engines and the squeal of treads on icy ground filled the snowy yard.

  “Mount up!” he bellowed over the din. “All units, we’re moving, double time!” He pulled his dark blue scarf tighter around his neck, a flicker, a blink. In that instant, a vision of his twenty-year-old daughter Lauren flashed before him. His beautiful girl, confined to a wheelchair, a victim of the same horrible accident that had claimed the love of his life, Megan, his angel, his wife of twenty-five years. Harry wiped a near-frozen tear from his eye. He would do anything now to keep his girl safe, even if it meant fighting a war light-years away from her.

  Troopers surged toward wheeled IFVs and M2 Bradleys. Mud churned. Tracks dug in. The cavalry rode.

  Major Damian Cooper, a sixth-generation soldier, slammed the hatch down on his M2, nicknamed Razor 2. His deep Alabama drawl turned urgent as he spoke, his body shaking from the cold. His breath fogged the air in front of him.

  “Watch each other’s backs, people. Don’t let the bastards get in between us!”

  A young gunner’s voice crackled over the Prowler troop net, laced with adrenaline.

  “Prowler Actual, this is Prowler Two, Alpha Site just confirmed, eight bogeys broke through the minefield. They’re in atmo. Closest one’s ten klicks south of Merrenden, might be dropping on top of us.”

  Cooper didn’t miss a beat. “Copy, Prowler Two. Standby.”

  He keyed the long-range channel. “Razor Lead, you getting this?”

  From his command ASLAV, Sutcliffe’s voice came low and composed, as always. “Roger that. Keep your spacing tight, eyes up.” He breathed the cold air deeply. “They want a fight,” he added, almost to himself, “they’ll get one.”

  The lead column began to move out, steel beasts crawling into the haze, snow hissing beneath their treads. Somewhere ahead, the enemy was coming. And the cavalry was riding to meet them.

  Bradbury’s HQ – Farmhouse, 3rd Infantry Grid:

  The map on the wall flickered. A red pulse indicated enemy landings.

  Colonel Bradbury ran a hand down his face and turned to his assembled commanders, Colonel Porter, Major Hall, Lieutenant Kim.

  “They’re here.”

  No one said a word.

  “Prep your battalions. Engage when ready. Artillery to wait for gridlock. Mortar teams, hold position until I say fire.”

  A nod. Orders relayed.

  Bradbury moved to the window, looking out across the fields, where men and women stood waiting behind hedgerows and hastily laid sandbags. Some smoked. Some prayed. All listened for the sound of engines in the distance. Light snow swirled about them. He wondered if this was Autumn, what was the coming Winter going to throw at them.

  He quickly turned to the sandy haired Kiwi next him. “Hall, your snipes are in position?”

  John drew on his smoke, looked slowly out a frost covered easterly facing window. “They are sir. Been sitting on their butts for a good few hours now.”

  Rubbing his gloved hands together, Don was more than happy someone further up the chain had ordered winter clothing. It made him wonder if the Alliance had prepared for it. “Good, get some runners and make sure they all have plenty of coffee.”

  ‘Sir!” The New Zealander pipped his radio. Within minutes out the back of a specially built Humvee, flasks of strong coffee was being poured, to be relayed to the sniper teams.

  Positioned behind a wall of frozen sandbags, in the upper level of an old railway depot shed, Loran Markwell, a young dark-haired Cavaleiros man, kneeled patiently behind his sniper rifle, one of two hundred M24s and eighty M82 Barretts distributed to long-range teams across the valley. Beside him, perched casually on a wooden crate and sipping from a steaming mug, was Royal Marine George Dorlan, stocky, sharp-eyed, and Liverpudlian through and through.

  “Careful with that barrel, mate,” George muttered, half-joking. “If the bloody snow doesn’t freeze it, your elbows will.”

  Loran made a minute adjustment to his scope, unmoved. “This is acceptable. I have slept in worse.”

  George took a long sip, then gestured vaguely with his cup. “You know, for the record… I’m not just British. I’m Scouse. That’s what you call someone from Liverpool.”

  Loran blinked once. “Scouse,” he echoed, as if testing the word for structural integrity. “Is this... a military rank?”

  George choked. “God no. Imagine if it was, a whole battalion of lads who never shut up, can’t be trusted with your wallet, and think they’re funnier than they are.”

  “Then it is a clan,” Loran concluded.

  “Close enough.” He grinned, warming to it. “We’re famous for a few things, football, heavy rain, chip shops, and 1960s rock bands that made the whole world swoon.”

  Loran tilted his head. “Rock bands?”

  “You know... The Beatles? Four mop-haired blokes who sang songs about love and submarines?”

  There was a long pause. Loran looked genuinely troubled. “Why would a submarine be yellow? That is not a colour of war.”

  George gave a helpless laugh. “God, I need to take you clubbing.”

  “Is this combat training?”

  “In a way, yeah.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Outside, the distant clank, clank of a tank rolled across the snow-blanketed valley. Loran shifted, sighting in again.

  George’s voice lowered. “Alright, jokes aside.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll be busy soon.”

  Loran gave a quiet nod, the moment of levity gone. The wind howled gently through broken rafters, dusting the floor with fine snow.

  And from the snowy fields, the war crept closer.

  And above them, in orbit, the battle still raged, 302s weaving through fire, lives taken by the dozens. The void echoed with the cry of broken ships.

  But this war was only just beginning.

  Space, behind the big moon:

  Commandant General Jortu Eskulion’s boots echoed softly on the metal decking of the Azhodehya’s bridge as he paced with rigid precision, eyes fixed on the void outside. Twelve capital ships in formation. Dozens more clustered around them, Al-Kesh, troopships, escorts. This was not an assault. This was a statement.

  Eskulion turned slowly, deliberately, as if moving too quickly might cause the rest of the fleet to explode behind him. His hand snapped out, seizing the collar of Major Gregory Jenson and slamming him back against a bulkhead.

  The Azhodehya was so large, it’s shadow was cast over the surface of the moon, like some grotesque monster waiting in the dark, to suddenly pounce and devour you. The commander of that ship and indeed the fleet Commandant General Jortu Eskulion, wasn’t far from that image himself. At well over six foot and a bulk that would make any pro footballer go weak; he demanded attention. “Well?” His voice was a contrast to his build. It was high and piercing.

  Jenson’s fingers were tapping furiously across the keys of his laptop; a laptop that had merged 21st Century Earth technology, with that of the Goa’uld. His own feelings suppressed, if he had his side arm, he’d shoot the bastard there and then. “Jesus!” He swore. “Take a look.” Greg transferred the image to Jortu’s main view screen.

  The big man’s face paled. “This can’t be!” He exploded. On the screen in front of him, there were hundreds of red dots, his ships were surrounded by mines. His mind was racing; there was only one thing he could do. “Order the fleet to move to our rear, slowly!” There was just one clear path, they had to move backwards, a least two hundred kilometres, they could then take the risk of exposing their flanks. The risk was an easy one to choose, after all they outnumbered the Tauri didn’t they?

  Orders were relayed to the other ten ships. Once they were in a prescribed position, the remaining troopships were to be launched. Another twenty five in total, twelve thousand two hundred troops and their hardware; that included tanks and what passed for an infantry fighting vehicle used by the Alliance. Technology that again wasn’t their own. Stolen from another conquered world and used for their own advances.

  UNS Aurora BB322:

  On the bridge of Earth’s flagship stood Eskulion’s opposite, Vice Admiral William MacGregor, who only a week ago, considered himself retired. He had studied Drake, Nelson and Nimitz. Will knew the tactics of all the great commanders from Earth’s history, and they weren’t all naval commanders either. Generals who led small armies to victory over superior forces, the men who became legends in their own time. “Have you ever read The Battle of Trafalgar, Colonel?” William asked his Captain.

  US Air Force Colonel Lillian Radovic had followed her father and grandfather, to gain her wings as a fighter pilot. Her father rising to the rank of Brigadier before retiring and his father Malcolm, a Colonel like herself. A veteran of both World War Two and Korea, he flew Lockheed Lightnings over the Pacific and the venerable F86 Sabre over the divided Asian nation. Thomas, her father took the F-105 Thunderchief to the skies of Vietnam, before he scored his first Mig kills in the F-4 Phantom. She was well learned in the ways of the Air Force, but the Navy? “No Admiral, I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t. But you know, seeing what we do today, with our fleet of ships, maybe I should remedy that.”

  “Admiral, sir!” A senior technician called for Will’s attention.

  “Back to work, it is Colonel.” That was the trouble with war, it too often interfered with good old down to earth talk. “Yes, Lieutenant.” Will swung his chair a few degrees, he was still coming to grips with having his crew behind him.

  “They took the bait sir,” The young man actually looked excited, and they were about to go into a very lop sided battle. In this particular case, he should be, it was his idea. Between Aurora, Invincible and Chekov, they only had about forty or so mines; they weren’t a part of their normal weapon load. Lieutenant Casey Porter had a simple plan. The ships had hundreds of drones. They could reconfigure them to give off the same energy signature as the real mines; add cloaking and spread them out to look like an immense minefield.

  “Make it so Colonel.” His tone said it all, they were committed. “They’ll retreat a to a safe distance as we predicted.”

  “Aye sir.” Lily replied. She called up Elle and Vidmar. Within minutes the three Tau’ri ships and more than thirty AC402 gunships were amidst the Alliance Hat’aks. They delivered a massive, combined firepower, using main guns and missiles. As quickly as they came, they left to their own safe point, to assess the damage they had rained down on the enemy.

  UNS Invincible DD 102 ;

  “Ma’am!” Lieutenant Zoe Wexler called from Tactical. “We have initial strike data. Two Hat’aks are suffering major structural damage, both are venting atmosphere. We’ve got three others with multiple hull breaches and what looks like system overloads on at least one.”

  Elle allowed herself a breath, maybe two. “That’ll do, Wex. Send the report to Aurora and Chekov. Priority One.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She leaned against the edge of her chair, rubbing a finger along her temple as she opened the comms. “Aurora, Chekov, this is Invincible. Preliminary strike report: two confirmed critical hits, three more damaged and currently disengaging. We’re moving to standby position Bravo. Over.”

  UNS Aurora BB322 ;

  William MacGregor leaned forward as Invincible's damage report filtered through. "They’ll regroup," he said aloud, more to himself than to anyone else. "They won’t fall for the same trick twice."

  Lily stood by his shoulder, eyes narrowing at the display. “They’re repositioning. Pulling back from the minefield. Troopships are vectoring, heading for the planet.”

  “Of course they are,” Will muttered, already moving to the next step. “They want boots on the ground while our guard’s still up here.”

  He hit the comms. “Flight Control, scramble every AC402 we’ve got on CAP. Full loadout. Twenty ships. I want them on an intercept course with those troop carriers. No boarding. No landing. Take. Them. Down.”

  “Yes, sir,” came the quick reply.

  Lily exhaled. “They’ll have escorts, the 402s will be outnumbered.”

  Will nodded. “But not outclassed.”

  On the bridge was Lieutenant Colonel Dennis McQuade, a veteran F-15 Eagle pilot, working his way up to command on his next promotion, getting his first taste in battle, filling as XO on the second watch. “Admiral if I may?”

  Will’s head turned right to where Dennis stood, standing tall, hands behind his back, his dark skin a contrast to the grey bulkhead behind him. “Yes of course Colonel.”

  “They’ll send the bulk of their Gliders along with the Troopships, leaving only Al-kesh to protect the flanks of the Motherships when they face us. We should take this opportunity to take out as many of their fighters as we can.” He rubbed the side of his chin. “I need a shave.” McQuade told himself. “Between us and our two destroyers, we have over a hundred 302s, commit at least sixty of them, five squadrons, as top cover for our gunships. Give Colonel Nguyen a free hand before they hit atmo.”

  MacGregor gave a quiet nod, the corners of his mouth tugging in the faintest of grins at McQuade’s suggestion, and his unspoken musing. “Good eye, Colonel. I like the way you think.”

  Lily folded her arms, already processing the deployment map. “Colonel Nguyen won’t need a second invitation. I’ll get him in the loop.”

  Will turned toward the comm station. “Signal Invincible and Chekov. Inform them we’re launching five squadrons of 302s, callsigns Reaper, Valkyrie, Sidewinder, Eclipse, and Saber, as top cover for our AC-402s. They’ll intercept the troopships before they reach atmo. Estimated contact in six minutes.”

  “Aye, sir,” the comms officer replied, fingers flying over the panel.

  Will added, “Let them know to expect heavy Glider resistance, but we intend to hit them hard, fast, and with maximum coverage. I want those troopships scattered before they break the upper atmosphere.”

  He glanced to Lily. “Get me Nguyen.”

  UNS Invincible DD 102:

  Elle leaned forward in her command chair as the update came through from Aurora. Her face tightened, focused. “You heard the man. We’re in it.”

  Zoe Wexler was already rerouting the data to the 302 squadrons aboard Invincible. “302s are spooling, ma’am. Colonel Nguyen just called. All wings ready to launch.”

  Elle gave a nod. “Good. Tell him we acknowledge Aurora CAG has command of the entire strike wing until contact. Priority is to keep those 402s alive and deny landing to every single troop transport they’ve got. No quarter.”

  UNS Chekov DD 107:

  Colonel Vidmar Kovacs listened to the orders relayed from Aurora, his expression grim. “They’re making their move.”

  His XO, a wiry Australian named Collins, cracked his knuckles. “’Bout bloody time we made ours.”

  Vidmar grunted in agreement. “Tell our 302s to join Nguyen’s task group. Full strike loadout. We’re on standby now for their retaliation. Sound the alarm, all hands to defence stations. Prime missile launch tubes one through eight.”

  30 Minutes Earlier:

  The sky tore open with fire.

  Eight Alliance troopships descended through the upper atmosphere, flanked by twenty-six Gliders and five Al’kesh. The threat vector was fast, steep, and ugly, but 56 Squadron was faster.

  Sixteen F-302s rose like a wall of silver and steel, contrails shimmering in the high stratosphere. ‘A’ Flight led by Squadron Leader Cate MacGregor, and ‘B’ Flight under Major Evert Gunnarson, climbed hard into the path of the invaders. Below them, the 109th Fighter Squadron ‘Ghosts’, a full wing of F-16 Vipers under Commander Neville “Dusty” Dixon, held the low sky. Nothing was getting through without a fight.

  Cate’s voice crackled over comms, calm and clipped. “Weapons hot. Flight leaders, call your marks.”

  Gunnarson answered with a dry chuckle. “B Flight on your six, boss. Let’s ruin their day.”

  The first pass was brutal. Railguns and pulse fire lit up the sky like lightning caught in a net. One of the Al’kesh exploded in a blossom of plasma as two 302s tore through it at full burn, corkscrewing away as its debris scattered like ash.

  “Nugget, on your nine!” Cate snapped.

  “Copy!” Lieutenant JG “Nugget” Bianchi jinked hard to port, narrowly avoiding a Glider’s energy burst. He looped around, lining up a clean shot. Two Sidewinders locked on with that beautiful tone and streaked outward, moments later, the Glider disintegrated mid-barrel roll.

  He whooped, elated. “Splash one! Did you see that?!”

  Cate didn’t answer. She was too busy raking an Al’ kesh’s underbelly with pulse fire. “Focus, Nugget. You can brag if we’re alive after lunch.”

  The air war churned downward as more Gliders peeled off to dogfight at lower altitudes. The F-16s moved to intercept. Dusty’s voice came through cool as ever. “Ghosts, engage. Let’s show them why we’re legends.”

  For twenty minutes, it was chaos and carnage. A second Al’kesh tried to break through and was torn apart by a coordinated strike from Gunnarson’s flight. One of the troopships wobbled in descent, trailing smoke after taking a direct hit to its dorsal engines from Nugget, who had gone completely feral by that point, his 302 weaving through return fire like a hummingbird on espresso.

  But the cost was real.

  Three 302s were downed. One pilot, Captain Mason Hall, was killed in action, his emergency beacon fading before search and rescue could lock on. Two F-16s were lost in the lower dogfight; both pilots ejected but did not survive impact. Their names would be added to the wall before nightfall.

  Of the eight enemy troopships, four never reached the surface, obliterated mid-air or spun into fiery deaths above the clouds. One of those attempted to land but instead ploughed in like a wounded beast, throwing debris and broken bodies across the field, exploding in a fireball seconds later. The other three landed as predicted, roughly ten klicks south of Merrenden. A fourth was forced off-course, pounded relentlessly by Nugget until it crash-landed twenty-five kilometres southeast of O’Neill Field. Some of its cargo survived, as he peeled away, Nugget could see Alliance soldiers exiting from several breeches in the hull, out into the snowy field.

  Commander Dixon considered it a tactical win, four ships down, 500 enemy soldiers each, and over two dozen enemy craft destroyed. But there was no time for a toast.

  Above them, more blips appeared on radar. The next wave was already inbound.

  The squadrons regrouped briefly before peeling off to their respective fields. They had to re-arm fast. How much time they had would depend on their friends in orbit.

  The moment their brakes squealed against the tarmac, ground crews swarmed the birds, 302s and F-16s alike. Ammunition belts were loaded, plasma tanks refilled, hardpoints checked, and hull damage patched with the kind of urgency only war could justify.

  Urgent messages flew up to the CIC and to the Aurora, Chekov, and Invincible, each update feeding the battle's shifting front. The next wave was inbound, and they needed at least twelve minutes, the time it would take to rearm and return to the sky.

  Two additional messages were fired off in rapid succession. One reached Generals Bradbury and Lee, detailing the landing zones of the three closest troopships now disgorging enemy troops near Merrenden. The other was sent to General Sutcliffe, requesting one squadron of cavalry to move southeast and intercept any Alliance forces emerging from the fourth troopship’s wreck. The fastest route: Swiftwater Bridge, six kilometres due east.

  Back at the Alpha Site, gun crews were already on standby. Missile silos stood primed. The skies were about to ignite again, and the line would hold.

  At a low 5,000 feet, two small aircraft circled, the pilots of each PC-21 checking their fuel, the lead flown by none other than General Jack O’Neill showing slightly less than their shadow. That was entirely due to weight. There was a huge difference between two old generals and a 50 something kilo cadet. “How’s your fuel Munchkin?” It was often when Jack used a name, right or wrong, it tended to stick. Tyra wasn’t offended, the truth was, she didn’t even know what it meant.

  She checked her gauge again. “About ten minutes at best sir.”

  “Confirmed, we’re less than that.” They needed to return, at the same time they needed eyes in the sky. “Lee.” He said to his companion in the back seat through their coms. “We need to top our tanks, but I won’t leave your boys and girls blind.” Jack had to think hard to recall the wall of information that was the briefing earlier in the CIC.

  “Baseline, this is Sparrow One. Fuel low, we need eyes on my position asap.” Whether or not it was correct radio convention, Jack couldn’t give a toss, he called it as he saw it.

  The CIC bunker fifteen metres below ground, was a whirlwind of activity. It was reminiscent of a scene from World War two Britain during the ‘Blitz’, uniformed personnel shifting little coloured blocks across a huge table map, instant updates. For it had been found that while our 21st century technology was brilliant; commanders were more quickly able to ‘see’ what was happening from the ‘Old School’ display. A virtual copy of what was on the table, was on a huge screens situated around the room.

  Sam Carter looked across the table, she could see the tiny blue aeroplane shapes sitting on the square that represented vector 5 east, 12 south. “Cam, is Captain Chu still here?”

  “Not sure Sam, I saw Vala talking to him about ten minutes ago.” That brought an instant face palm reaction from her.

  Across the table, Daniel and Teal’c saw the interaction, it was Daniel who spoke up. “I think somehow she’s convinced Kelvin she’d be of more use in the back seat of his plane.”

  “Indeed Colonel Carter, I had to concur. If nothing else, Vala Mal Doran is observant.” The big man rumbled wisely.

  “I wish she would clear things with us first.” Sam told to anyone listening.

  The ‘other’ Colonel in the room smiled, showing a perfect set of teeth. “And she knows you would have said no, Sam.” Michelle Bixby was more concerned with the four pyramid shapes on the display, three south of Merrenden, one to the east.”

  “Well yes, she has that right.” Sam shook her head. “Cam?” She needed some back up here.

  “Let’s see just how useful she can be Sam.” He adjusted his comset, nodding to one of the technicians. “Captain Chu, do you copy?”

  Captain Kelvin Chu’s voice crackled through the overhead speakers. “Baseline, this is Sparrow Three. Copy you loud and clear, Colonel Mitchell.”

  Cam leaned forward over the map, one hand braced on the table. “Captain, we’re pulling Sparrow One and Two off station, fuel’s tight. I need you and Sparrow Four up there, eyes sharp. Three troopships are south of Bradbury’s HQ. I want positions, headings, and best guess on strength.”

  “Understood, sir. Vala and I are loaded and ready. Sparrow Four is right behind us, Lieutenant Katya Orlova and Cadet Wallace. We’ll be wheels up in five.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow at the mention of Wallace but said nothing. The girl was sharp, even if she was green. “Confirm your vector as five east, twelve south. Keep comms open.”

  “Roger that, Baseline. Sparrow Three and Four outbound.”

  Back in the PC-21, Jack glanced sideways at Tyra, her expression all business. “Well, that’s our cue. Let’s go gas up, Munchkin.”

  She responded with a curt nod, already banking gently for home.

  Once on the ground, mechanics swarmed the aircraft. Jack pulled off his helmet and stretched his back with a groan.

  Owen Lee was already unstrapping in the rear seat. “I really need to get back to my troops, Jack.”

  “No argument here,” Jack replied. He gave the nearest ground crew a wave. “Let’s get Colonel Lee on a bird.”

  “Chopper’s on the pad,” someone confirmed from nearby.

  Within minutes, Lee was jogging toward the waiting Blackhawk. Jack and Tyra headed the opposite direction, toward the mess tent. The air smelled of coffee and something fried. Neither of them complained.

  Flight of the Sparrows:

  Captain Kelvin Chu adjusted his visor as Sparrow Three cut through the thinning cloud cover. The terrain below unfurled in muted browns and greens, fields scored with tyre tracks and faint scars from earlier shelling. “Baseline, this is Sparrow Three. Approaching vector five east, twelve south now. Confirming visuals.”

  Vala, sitting in the back seat and somehow managing to sound both amused and focused, chimed in. “I see three big, ugly, bricks down there. Looks like they dropped anchor.”

  “Sparrow Four copies,” came the crisp voice of Lieutenant Katya Orlova from the second PC-21, flying a loose trail behind. “We’re one klick behind you. I’ve got eyes on the eastmost ship.”

  “Copy that,” Cam’s voice replied over the open net from the CIC bunker. “Report positions.”

  Chu angled slightly westward. “Three troopships on the grid. One located approximately 10.5 kilometres due south of Bradbury’s farmhouse. They're spread one kilometre apart, west to east. Easternmost is 12 klicks south and about 2.5 east.”

  He paused as his screen flickered and then stabilised. “Troops are unloading. Forming up in structured groups. Looks like infantry supported by light armour. I count at least five tracked units, shape’s consistent with those wheeled IFVs we saw on Vegema and tanks.” Kelvin counted what he could see. “Seven so far.”

  Vala gave a low whistle. “And I see something long and mean being towed. Big gun barrels.”

  Chu zoomed in with his targeting overlay. “Multiple towed pieces. Based on length and mount, I’d estimate 155mm class field artillery. Still in assembly. No movement yet.”

  “Copy all, Sparrow Three. Good work,” Sam’s voice cut in over the net, calm and measured. “Hold observation orbit. Maintain distance. We’ll relay targeting data to the forward units.”

  Meanwhile, back on the ground, Jack leaned back in his cockpit, helmet still on, coffee cup balanced carefully on the glare shield. “That sounds like prep work for a full push.”

  He took a bite of a donut, his face went red as he quickly spat it out. “Damn that was hot!” The bag he picked up, containing six deliciously sugary donuts, had just come out of the fryer not two minutes ago.

  “Are you alright sir?” Tyra asked when she joined Jack. Her tote was two peanut butter sandwiches on wholemeal and an apple.

  “Too right,” Cam said in Jack’s earpiece from deep in the CIC. “Time to get you and Tyra back up.”

  “Fine, fine, Tyra.” He lied. Already he could feel a blister on his tongue.

  Ground crew moved swiftly beneath their planes, attaching flare canisters under the wings while fuel lines hissed and retracted. Nearby, two senior cadets were briefed and helped into the rear seats.

  Sam’s voice came through again, this time direct to Jack and Tyra. “Observers will ride backseat, Senior Cadet Arran Feldmore with you, Jack. Tyra, you’ve got Cadet Jalal Hamieh. Let them do their job and keep them alive.” Quite a mix, Arran was from Vegema like Tyra and Jalal a nineteen year old from Jersey city.

  Jack sighed. “Copy that, Sam. Babysitting duty again.”

  “You’re very good at it,” Sam replied dryly.

  As she spoke, the two cadets approached them. Quickly, he answered Sam. “Apparently that might actually be true.”

  Jack was now responsible for three kids, all under twenty. He wondered if they’d ever get to fully enjoy their teenage years. Life wasn’t fair. Straightening slightly in his seat. “Where do you want us?”

  “I want eyes on that wreck Nugget dropped out east,” Sam said. “Get in close, see if it’s intact or just a smoking crater. And if it’s salvageable, mark it.”

  Jack blew out a long breath. “You’re sure you don’t want me to bring a picnic?”

  Sam’s tone was dry. “You’d forget the thermos.”

  Three and a half minutes later the two blue-and-gold PC-21s were airborne, gliding high above the frostbitten valley as Alpha Tower cleared them to flight level one-six-zero.

  “Baseline, Sparrow One acknowledged,” Jack’s voice came calm over comms. “Flight level one-six-zero. Vectoring seven east, ten south.”

  They climbed, banking toward a distant column of smoke. Below, the first signs of movement caught Jack’s eye, twenty-four ASLAVs, four troops of them, rolling across Swiftwater Bridge in staggered formation.

  He checked the card on his lap, the daily callsigns. “Raptor Five, this is Sparrow One. Come in.”

  A woman’s voice clipped but steady: “Raptor Five. O’Hara speaking. Go ahead.”

  “Downed troopship, seven klicks south-southeast of your position. Smoke visible. Closing in.”

  O’Hara replied without hesitation. “Copy that. We’re diverting now.”

  From Tyra’s rear seat, Jalal leaned forward slightly. “That’s it,” he said. “Confirmed. Same one Nugget hit. Wreck’s eight and a half klicks south of O’Neill Field.”

  Jack keyed the mic. “Baseline, Sparrow One. Wreck is confirmed, eight point five south of O’Neill… transmitting now…”

  And then came the alert.

  “Warning. Warning. Flare. Flare.”

  Tyra’s blood ran cold, she saw a line of white smoke.

  “Sparrow one, break right!” she shouted, her voice raw with urgency. “Break right, now!”

  But it was too late.

  Below, a streak of fire shot upwards, something fast, small, and vicious. A Lucian RPG, or worse. It found them in an instant.

  The PC-21’s port wing exploded in a flash of fire and shrapnel.

  The aircraft lurched sideways, corkscrewing through the air.

  The explosion rocked the sky. Flame and debris bloomed outward as Jack’s plane pitched violently, caught in a vicious spiral.

  Her breath hitched. “Jack… Arran…” Her voice caught. “Eject! Eject, please!”

  There was no answer.

  Tyra’s eyes filled with tears, fogging her vision, her knuckles white against the edge of her seat.

  “You have to get out,” she whispered, desperate. “Please... just pull the handles...”

  No parachutes. No flare of safety.

  She could only watch, helpless, as the damaged PC-21 tumbled out of the sky.

  At five hundred feet, it levelled slightly.

  “Pull up. Pull up.”

  Then came the crash, jarring, violent. A plume of snow and mud kicked into the air where the plane tore into a frozen paddock, skidding, bouncing, grinding to a halt with a sickening crunch.

  The nose dipped. And the aircraft went still.

  Arran didn’t wait. Flames licked from the cracked airframe before the dust had even settled. He popped the canopy, then as he was clambering out, he slid down the wing. “Fuck!” He yelled as he jarred his ankle. That was going to swell in a few hours, but Arran had no choice but to ignore it.

  He twisted his body left, reaching in to unclip Jack, already he could feel heat coming from somewhere. Later he would recall he had no idea how he did it, but somehow, he managed to drag Jack from the cockpit with sheer adrenaline, half-carrying, half-hauling him clear of the wreck as the fire spread.

  A dull whump behind them told him the rest of the aircraft was gone.

  “Baseline…” he started but fumbled the radio. His gloves were soaked, fingers going numb.

  “Got eyes!” came a voice, not through his headset, but across the main flight channel. “That’s them! They’re down, looks like a controlled chaos down there.” It was Jalal.

  His voice terse, Jalal began the transmission. “Baseline, this is Sparrow Two-Alpha. Sparrow One is down. Repeat, Sparrow One is down. We have visual on the crash site. It’s approximately eighteen hundred metres due west of the downed troopship. Terrain is open, flat paddock, some tree cover to the north.”

  Tyra’s own voice followed immediately, tight with urgency.

  “Baseline do not dispatch rotary until Raptor Five reaches the site. I repeat, no chopper until we have ground cover. The Alliance wreck’s just under two klicks east of their position and Lucians are on foot. Survivors, armed. They’re already moving.”

  She circled low, watching the black dots spill from the ruined troopship. It was a flood, staggering, limping, sprinting. The snow-covered ground slowed them, but only a little. She counted dozens, more emerging by the second.

  At least two hundred of them.

  And they were heading west.

  The wind had picked up.

  A low chill rolled across the wide stretch of mud and frost outside Bradbury’s command post, the kind of wind that didn’t just whistle through your jacket, it reached inside and squeezed your bones. He stood just outside the main command post, an old farmhouse, headset pressed against one ear, eyes scanning the overcast sky. Behind him, the Baseline comms team was already reacting to the flood of alerts coming through the secured channel.

  He heard it the moment Tyra’s voice came in, tight, controlled, but with an edge of raw panic.

  "Baseline, do not dispatch rotary until Raptor Five reaches the site. I repeat, no chopper until we have ground cover. The Alliance wreck’s just under two klicks east of their position and Lucians are on foot. Survivors, armed. They’re already moving."

  A pause. Then Jalal’s clipped report: Sparrow One is down.

  Bradbury’s jaw tightened. He turned away from the wind and strode back inside.

  “Get me Lee,” he ordered, pulling off his gloves.

  A junior officer at the console nodded, patching through the armoured column three klicks to the west. Snow was already crusting over the tanks’ hulls, and the squawk of radio static gave way to Lee’s voice.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Jack’s down,” Bradbury said flatly. “Nine klicks south by east of O’Neill field, eighteen hundred metres east of the Alliance crash site. No rotary; pilot called it. They’re expecting missile threats.”

  A pause. Then Lee: “Is he alive?”

  “I don’t know, waiting on more information from baseline. It sounded like Jack’s observer has called in, so he’s alive. So, we can only pray Jack is as well.”

  “I’m moving. I’ll swing east by the tree line.”

  “No Owen, it’s too far for you tanks and we’ve got three loaded troopships to deal with. Bradbury was senior commander in the sector. “Raptor Five’s en route from the north. They’ll hit the contact line within minutes.”

  “Copy that…” There was long pause from Lee. “You’re right, unfortunately.”

  Outside the house, the wind howled again.

  A cottage by the sea:

  Ten kilometres further west, the seaside town of Altan was little more than a cluster of fishing huts and battered stone buildings huddled beneath the slate-grey sky. Snow dusted the rooftops and blanketed the old docks.

  Mori stood beside a Cavaleiro captain and a pair of Marine NCOs, all watching as the local resistance helped dig in firing positions along the crumbled sea wall. The alert reached him via handheld.

  “Sparrow One is down.”

  The words were quiet. Flat.

  Mori blinked once. “Jack?”

  “Yes, sir. A cadet called in the crash. She’s overhead. Lucians moving on foot. Estimate: two hundred.”

  The Cavaleiro captain swore softly in old Portuguese.

  Mori didn’t respond at first. Just stared out toward the cold grey waves for a moment, jaw set.

  “Send word to Bradbury. If he needs support, we’re mobile.”

  He turned to the Marines. “Tell your squad leaders: if they haven’t got snow camo, get them into whites now. No visibility errors. And somebody get eyes our southern flanks. If we’re next, I want to see them coming.”

  Snow began to fall again, slow and steady.

  Somewhere out in that cold, Jack was bleeding, and two hundred angry Lucians were closing the gap.

  And if the brass had anything to say about it, that was going to be one hell of a mistake.

  Jortu's Rage:

  Jortu Eskulion looked like a man possessed. His heavy footsteps echoed across the stone-and-metal floor of the bridge, each one falling with the weight of fury. His voice, a guttural bellow, reverberated through the command chamber of his Anubis-class mothership.

  "How dare these Tau’ri defy me!"

  He rounded on the traitor Jenson, eyes blazing with contempt. The unfortunate liaison stood rigid, arms clasped behind his back, hiding the tightness in his shoulders.

  "Tell me their tactics," Jortu snarled. "What pitiful tricks do your Earth dogs plan against me? Do they think three ships can withstand the might of ten Hat’aks and this vessel?"

  Jenson maintained a cool exterior, though his pulse thundered in his ears. "Standard Tau’ri protocol," he said. "Consolidate forces. Combine shield and weapons arrays. Focus fire, ship by ship. They will hold as long as they can."

  Jortu’s mouth twisted in contempt, but he believed it. He gestured sharply to four of his sub-commanders, standing by a tactical display. In clipped Goa’uld, he gave the order: hyperspace jump, re-emerge to the rear of the Tau’ri formation.

  Let them think they stood a chance. Let them see death come from behind.

  Ultimatum:

  Onboard the Aurora, the command bridge was a controlled hive of tension. Screens flickered with telemetry, weapons status, heat signatures. In the centre of it all, Admiral William MacGregor stood immovable, arms folded, chin tilted slightly, as the sneering face of Jortu Eskulion filled the main display.

  Beside him, Lily Radovic watched with restrained disgust. Jortu didn’t so much as glance her way.

  The warlord launched into a ten-minute tirade. His voice, smug and sonorous, filled the bridge. Behind him, guards stood at attention, dressed in a drab brown outfit that might have passed for some kind of uniform.

  “All Tau’ri forces are to withdraw from PX9-U47. All technology that does not belong to your kind, including any Ancient artefacts… is to remain in place. The Cavaleiros will be disarmed before my arrival. As their saviour, I..”

  William’s jaw twitched once. His hand animated a mouth opening and closing rapidly, the old touch of his sarcasm, all he saw was ‘blah, blah, blah’.

  “…liberate them from your oppression. You are outnumbered, outgunned, and outclassed. Surrender now, and your lives may be spared.”

  A beat of silence. Then William leaned slightly forward.

  “Mate,” he said dryly, “you can kiss my arse.”

  The comms link cut abruptly. Silence followed, only for a moment, then quiet chuckles from the crew. Even Lily cracked a half-smile.

  The Missing Four – Aboard Invincible and Chekov

  “Four Hat’aks jumped,” Elle McFearson noted, her tone tight, eyes fixed on the tactical screens aboard the Invincible’s bridge.

  Meanwhile, aboard the Chekov, Captain Vidmar Kovacs nodded grimly. “They’re flanking. Rear or beam. No question.”

  A third image joined the conversation, Admiral William MacGregor’s command relay from Aurora. “Set jump coordinates,” he ordered. “Take us just off their port quarter. Within weapons range. Power to the hyperdrives, full charge. We wait until they reappear, then we jump and hit them hard.”

  He turned, walking down the steps to Lily’s station. “Four minutes. That’s all we give it. Then we reposition. Behind their second wave.”

  “A hit-and-fade.” Lily’s brow arched. “Risky.”

  “They won’t be expecting it. They’ll commit when they think we’re cornered.”

  Chaos in the Void – Joint Strike:

  The moment the four missing Hat’aks reappeared, the Tau’ri ships jumped.

  In a flash of blue light, Aurora, Chekov, and Invincible exited hyperspace off the Alliance port quarter. Their big guns lit up at once.

  Cannon bursts, missiles and beam weapons, everything opened up in a coordinated barrage. One Ha’tak was torn apart almost instantly, another crippled. The third fought back desperately, only to be overwhelmed. The fourth turned tail and fled, limping back toward the main fleet.

  But then came the twist.

  A miscalculation, mere seconds and degrees. The Tau’ri ships emerged a shade too far forward.

  Jortu’s remaining fleet was already in motion. Five Hat’aks repositioned, cutting across the formation’s rear.

  “We’re boxed in,” Elle muttered aboard the Invincible.

  On the Aurora’s bridge, klaxons wailed. Tactical officers shouted across stations.

  “They’ve got us both sides, rear contact!”

  “Shields at seventy-two percent!”

  “Too many Gliders, can’t launch our second wave of 302s!”

  Will remained calm. “Stay the course. We push through.”

  The Cost of Boldness :

  For all its brilliance, Will’s manoeuvre had consequences. One more Ha’tak was lost to Tau’ri guns, and another heavily damaged, but they were now cornered, shields weakening.

  On the Chekov, Vidmar watched the status board with a frown. “We can’t hold this position, sir.”

  William gritted his teeth. “I know.”

  They were winning. But it didn’t feel like it.

  Elle looked out her large view window at the front of her bridge, the colour drained from her face when she saw half of Chekov’s starboard launch bay missing, sections of the aft hull were venting atmosphere. “Vidmar… “ Her voice trailed off.

  Last throw of the dice:

  From the main Lucian fleet, twelve troopships launched. Each flanked by Gliders and Al-Kesh, their formation like dagger points aimed at the surface.

  The Tau’ri scrambled interceptors, those 302s from the Invincible, 402s from the Chekov and Aurora, already committed, a furious dogfight erupting in the black.

  The roar of engines tore through the upper atmosphere as Aurora’s fighter wings launched from their bays. Sleek E/F-302s and AC-402 gunships surged into formation, their hulls catching glints of starlight and muzzle flare. They moved with deadly grace, like flares streaking across the black curve of PX9-U47, The Wold.

  “Reapers, line abreast,” came the clipped order from Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen. “Stay loose, we’re not herding cattle. Wedge formation on my mark… Now.”

  “Wedgetails, break and climb,” Squadron Leader Tyler snapped in his signature Aussie drawl. “We’ll clear a corridor for the bombers. Don’t let those damn Gliders swarm us this time.”

  “Oi! Dragon,” another voice cut in, dry and annoyed. “Tell your cowboys to stop flying through my targeting cone.”

  “Then paint faster, Vulture. You’re RAF, act like it.”

  “This is Razor One, Lucian wing inbound, tight and twitchy. Watch 'em. They're spoiling for blood.”

  “Razor Two, copy. You see that paint job? Looks like someone threw red paint on a toaster.”

  Missile trails carved streaks across the heavens as the opening salvo erupted. Explosions flared, painting the void in bursts of light and fury.

  Inside his cockpit, Squadron Leader Jahal “Tiger” Singh’s EWO adjusted his ECM sweep, tracking enemy radar ghosts as they flickered and died.

  “Lancers to all wings: Lucian jammers are down. I repeat, ECM is offline. You are cleared for precision ordnance.”

  “Copy that, Tiger,” said Hammer. “Bats are rolling in. Hawkeye, eyes and ears on!”

  “Firebirds already inbound,” came Falcon’s voice, Lt. Commander Sheena Hawthorn—strained but focused. “Low and fast. We’ll target the Al’kesh.”

  “Delta Nine! He’s on me, he’s on me… !”

  “Stay low and jink! I’m on his six!”

  “Burn, Tau’ri scum!” a Lucian pilot shrieked over open comms. “You don’t belong in this world!”

  The Firebirds broke through, four 302s in tight diamond formation. Their pulse cannons spat fire, shredding two Al’kesh in a sweeping pass. But the cost came swift and cruel…Staff weapon fire from two Gliders raked across the trailing 302. It detonated in a savage fireball. Another fighter veered wildly, its wing sheared nearly in half.

  In the lead bird, Falcon glanced back. “Dillon, no!” she cried.

  Before she could even process the hit, her own craft rocked violently as a blast tore through the fuselage. Warning alarms screamed. “John?” she said, turning toward the back seat.

  Her weapons officer slumped in silence.

  The control stick in her hand felt like it was embedded in molasses. She had almost no pitch control, only thrust.

  Sheena’s eyes burned. Her jaw locked.

  Without hesitation, she threw the throttle forward, roaring into the path of a passing Al’kesh. Her ship collided mid-arc, and the resulting fireball painted the black with searing light.

  For a moment, the comms went dead.

  Even the enemy fell silent.

  “Firebird Actual is down…” someone said hoarsely, maybe Hawkeye, maybe Ghost.

  Across the wings, pilots sat in silence, staring at the burning spot in the stars where Sheena Hawthorn had died.

  “She had kids…” a voice murmured over an open channel. No one responded, but everyone heard it.

  Tiger exhaled, voice low and controlled. “All squadrons… tighten up. She’s not the last.”

  “Copy,” Ghost replied, quiet as thunder.

  “Don’t break,” said Salty to no one in particular. “Not today.”

  “Not while she’s watching,” added Grizzly.

  Then, Lt Colonel von Klauptman cut in, voice flinty and cold. “Warlords, this is Firebrand. Form up. We haf bled enough. Now we make them bleed.”

  Banter returned, tentative at first. A necessary shield.

  “Banshees, we take them out,” said Major Volkova, her voice like ice. “Do unto others… with prejudice

  “Glad you could make the party,” Dragon called.

  “My apologies,” Firebrand replied. “Russian trains are always on time. The pain, however… arrives early.”

  “Jolly Rogers, tighten up,” barked Salty, wheeling through a pack of Gliders. “Grizzly, what’s your status?”

  “Black Sheep are punching through,” came the reply. “Lost one, rest are hot and hunting. Permission to hit the command node?”

  “Do it,” Salty said. “Make it hurt.”

  The 302s dove, streaking through debris trails and clouds of fire, weapons lighting the dark.

  Then, a fresh Lucian wing punched into the upper stratosphere, more troopships in tow. Their coms, mixing with the defender’s.

  “Zeta Flight, GO! We break atmosphere now!”

  “We’ll deliver them ourselves… death from the sky!”

  “We got three,” Hawkeye reported, terse. “But the rest…” A 402 screamed into a spin, trailing smoke.

  “They’re through,” Tiger confirmed, his tone heavy. “Alpha site, be advised. Incoming contacts inbound.”

  From the surface, their reply crackled with interference.

  “Alpha site… visibility near zero… snow blind, repeat, we are… snow blind…”

  The fleet could only watch as Lucian troopships vanished into the heart of the blizzard below.

  In Singh’s cockpit, the ECM display glowed clear. His hands stayed clenched white on the stick. His crew looked at one another. A sad day for all the squadrons.

  “Shit…” he whispered.

  Then, like a final breath, a voice drifted across the comms, Lucian, male, venomous.

  “We’re coming, Tau’ri. This world first, then yours!”

  From Jortu’s Mothership another wave of fighters and Al-Kesh were launched. Too many fronts. And now, with Tau’ri ships flanked and engaged, there was no stopping the ground landings.

  Around them, the sky burned.

  Little Sparrow:

  Tyra banked her blue-and-gold PC-21 into the wind, just five hundred feet, about 150 metres, off the deck, throttled back to her minimum safe airspeed of 120 knots. The aircraft shuddered gently in the cold air, skimming above the snow-blanketed ridgelines of northern PX9-U47.

  Her eyes scanned the terrain, flicking between the HUD and the frozen landscape below.

  There, near the base of a craggy outcrop. She thought she saw something. Movement. A figure. No… two.

  She circled tighter.

  One looked to be shielding the other against the rock face, away from the worst of the wind. A coat pulled half-off, wrapped around the other figure.

  Arran? It had to be. That size, that build, it looked right. Then, in the moment between flurries, the taller one moved. An unmistakable wave. They hadn’t moved from their last position, she couldn’t see Sparrow One, Jack’s PC-21. Then she realised, of course she couldn’t, that large mound of snow a few metres away from them, is that, landmark she was looking for.

  Tyra’s breath caught. Relief surged through her like fire in her chest.

  She keyed her mic.

  “Baseline, Sparrow Two. I have what I believe to be visual on the downed team, repeat, possible eyes on General O'Neill and Cadet Arran. Position marked. Stand by for coordinates.”

  She punched the mark button on her HUD.

  “Grid Charlie-Tango-three-seven. West side of a rocky ridge line. One figure shielding another. I know it's them but cannot confirm visual on the general’s condition.”

  She flicked channels.

  “Raptor Five, this is Sparrow Two. Ma’am, your cavalry's gonna have to hustle. I'm starting my run to delay the Lucian advance. Friendlies located, but I’ve got twenty minutes of fuel left, max.”

  Captain Gale O’Hara came through with the calm, gravel-edged tone Tyra expected.

  “We’re en route, Cadet. Four companies of ASLAVs, ETA three mikes. You just give ‘em hell, girl.”

  Tyra smiled grimly.

  “Copy that. Going noisy.”

  She switched to wideband. Not encrypted. Definitely not safe. But it was the point.

  “To the Lucian column south of grid Charlie-Tango-three-seven,” she said coolly, “This is Sparrow Two. You’re being watched. Might want to look up.”

  A heartbeat.

  “Actually… don’t.”

  She angled the PC-21 into a shallow dive, fingers tightening on the stick as she selected the 25mm podded guns.

  Time to stall some bastards.

  Tyra adjusted her heading, eyes narrowing as the heads-up display tagged the lead elements of the Lucian column trudging through the snow-covered valley. Rough count, about two hundred. Disorganised. Spreading out across the tree line. They thought they had the upper hand.

  Not today.

  She thumbed the master arm switch. The 25mm gun pods responded with a low rumble as they came live. The Mavericks blinked green, slung under her wings like sleeping wolves.

  She kept her breathing steady, letting the adrenaline ride just under the surface. Just enough to sharpen her focus.

  “Baseline, Sparrow Two. Beginning run. Advise caution to cavalry units, show of force only. Intent is delay, not destruction.”

  She rolled into a shallow dive, bringing her nose down toward the head of the column.

  The Lucian troops didn’t notice her at first, not until she closed the distance, engine howling like a banshee against the snow-flecked silence. Then the first heads turned skyward. Some dropped instinctively. Others froze.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  Twin streams of red-hot tracer fire carved through the snow ahead of the column, deliberately wide, deliberately loud. The rounds stitched the earth with angry light, churning up dirt and powder in a deafening roar.

  Men scattered. A few fired wildly into the air. One unlucky Alliance soldier dropped his weapon and bolted for a tree line.

  Tyra pulled up into a steep climb, looped, then banked hard right, coming around for a second pass.

  “You’re being polite,” O’Hara crackled through the comms, “I like it. But we’re two clicks out now. Want us to join the dance?”

  “Hold for just a sec,” Tyra replied. “Let me send a stronger message.”

  She selected one of the Mavericks, locked it not on a vehicle, but a patch of open ground just twenty metres ahead of the lead truck. Enough to make their teeth rattle.

  “Hey Lucian buddies… catch.”

  The missile streaked from her wing with a shriek of fury and punched into the ground with a controlled detonation. The shockwave kicked snow and debris skyward in a massive plume. The convoy screeched to a halt.

  Vehicles swerved. Troops hit the dirt, covering their heads, some yelling into radios.

  Tyra swung around for one final flyover, lower this time, barely two hundred feet off the deck.

  The PC-21 thundered past, its engine scream rolling across the valley like thunder. Then she climbed again, arcing back toward the ridge where Arran had waved.

  “Raptor Five, they’re stalled. You’ve got your opening. I’ll babysit them from above until you’re on site.”

  “Copy, Sparrow Two. We’re moving in.”

  Tyra let out a slow breath. She checked her fuel, low, but manageable. Enough to keep eyes on the Lucians until backup arrived.

  Her hand steadied on the stick. She wasn't done. Not yet.

  But she’d bought them time.

  Tyra brought the PC-21 low across the valley floor, barely skimming the treetops, the engine at a guttural growl. Through the thinning mist ahead, she spotted them—twenty-four ASLAVs in staggered formation, hulls frosted white, rumbling forward with unstoppable purpose. The cavalry had arrived.

  She dipped her wings in a long, sweeping arc as she passed overhead.

  “Good luck, Munchkin,” came Gale O’Hara’s dry southern drawl over the comms. Tyra grinned despite herself. That nickname had stuck fast since Jack first tossed it out, and by now, it had become a badge of honour. She tapped her gloved fingers against the canopy in response.

  The lead ASLAVs surged through the mist, tyres crunching snow and ice, hulls brushing past half-buried trees and drifts. The mounted 25mm Bushmasters turned in concert, scanning the tree line like wolves scenting prey.

  Up ahead, nestled behind a slanted rock, Arran cradled Jack’s half-conscious form, shielding him from the wind. He looked up as the vehicles arrived, relief flashing across his features. He didn’t move, didn’t need to. The Cav had them.

  To the left of the ASLAV column, shadows began to form in the fog, figures, upright and fast-moving.

  Lucian troops.

  The first shots rang out, a few wild potshots echoing from the woods as the enemy scrambled for position.

  “Alliance contact, port side,” barked a gunner.

  “Defensive fire only,” O’Hara snapped from her command vehicle. “We’re here to rescue, not start a damn war.”

  The Bushmasters spun and opened up, not at the soldiers directly, but over their heads. The air thundered with the rapid chug-chug-chug of cannon fire. Tracer rounds zipped through the fog like lightning bolts, snapping branches and showering sparks off the rocks.

  The effect was immediate. The lead Lucian elements dropped to their stomachs, then scrambled back the way they came. It wasn’t just the noise, it was the precision. The message was clear: We could. We won't. But don't push it.

  O’Hara’s vehicle halted beside Arran and Jack. The hatch popped. Gale herself vaulted out and ran the last few feet, kneeling in the snow beside them. She looked at Jack, then at Arran.

  “Nice job, Cadet,” she said, nodding to him. “Let’s get our man out of here.”

  Arran gave a breathless nod. “He’s cold, but he’s still with us.”

  As Tyra climbed back to altitude, circling wide overhead, she saw the flashing beacon of the medivac LAV pushing forward now through the mist, its headlights cutting a path to the rescue site. The Lucians were nowhere in sight.

  Mission accomplished.

  O’Neill Field, Pilot’s Bunker – Late Afternoon

  The space heater in the middle of the bunker clicked faintly, casting a dull glow on the walls that were sweating with condensation. Pilots lounged in various states of idle boredom — a game of five-card stud in progress on an ammo crate, someone half-dozing in a corner, the rest nursing lukewarm mugs of cocoa or coffee.

  Dusty flicked a card toward the centre pile. “Full house. Pay up, Ghost.”

  Juliette groaned and threw her hand down. “This place is sucking the luck out of me.”

  “Better your luck than your fuel cells,” Ariel muttered, flipping through a dog-eared flight manual for the tenth time that day.

  The door groaned open with a metal-on-metal screech. Heads turned as Tyra stepped in, helmet under one arm, flight suit damp with melted sleet. She looked exhausted, but triumphant.

  “Thought you were going to punch a hole in the mountain,” McClaren grinned, rising to offer her a mug.

  “Almost did,” she said, breathless. “Updrafts over Ridge Four were a nightmare. Had to ride the stall curve all the way down.”

  “Bet the engineers loved that,” Batman quipped.

  Cate was already on her feet, stepping in. “You made it in one piece?”

  “Mostly,” Tyra said, and offered a half-smile. “I owe Kelvin a box of cookies.”

  The tension hadn’t left Cate’s shoulders. She nodded, but her jaw was set.

  The banter started up again, but Cate stood still, staring at the map display propped against the wall. She suddenly wheeled around and slammed her fist into the steel beside the heater. The clang echoed through the room. “Fuck it!”

  “While we’re sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya and drinking hot cocoa,” she snapped, “Mori and the others are out there in sub-zero temperatures freezing their arses off, wondering when the first bullet is going to be fired!”

  Silence fell like a dropped blanket. Even Dusty sat up straighter.

  “I hate this,” Cate muttered. “I hate waiting. I hate not being able to do anything.”

  Tyra moved next to her and set a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done everything you could, Cate. You got us this far.”

  Cate didn’t look convinced. Dusty stood and stretched, trying for a lighter tone.

  “So… just between us…” he gestured vaguely… “you and Mori, huh?”

  Cate turned slowly, eyes narrowed. “We’re friends.”

  Dusty held up both hands. “Sure. Friends. It’s just, y’know, not every day you see someone go full angry-viking over friendship.”

  Tyra’s glare practically melted a nearby mug. Cate shook her head and sat down.

  Before the silence could get awkward again, Cate’s comm chimed. She answered it with a clipped, “MacGre… Cate here.”

  “Cate,” came Sam’s voice, warm and calm. “Sorry to interrupt the card game, but I’ve got two updates for you. First, Jack’s okay. He’s conscious, no head trauma, and he’s on his way back to base in one of your ASLAVs. Should be here within the hour.”

  Cate exhaled in relief, tension visibly loosening.

  “Second,” Sam continued, “your mum just called from Colorado. It’s official. The adoption’s been finalised. Tyra’s now legally your sister.”

  There was a beat of stunned silence, she had the coms on speaker. Tyra blinked, then grinned, eyes glassy. Cate’s mouth fell open slightly before she pulled Tyra into a tight hug.

  A chorus of cheers and whooping followed.

  Kelvin popped up. “Celebration time! Still cocoa, but this round’s on me.”

  “Your generosity knows no bounds,” Ramirez muttered with a grin. She flung a cushion at him. Several other pilots followed suit.

  Warmth then settled over the bunker like a blanket, and for a moment, the war outside was far away.

  A little fishing village called Altan – Just Before Sunset

  The sound shattered the stillness.

  A low crack-boom like a thunderclap rolled across the highlands, followed by a ground tremor that sent ripples across snow-covered stones and fluttered the canvas of field tents.

  Mori stood still, gaze fixed southward.

  “That wasn’t weather,” muttered De Vries nearby.

  “No,” Mori said. “That was a ship.”

  Abreau was already moving. “Two riders. Now. Go!”

  Two Cavaleiros were saddled and away in under a minute, cloaks snapping behind them as they tore across the high ridge, hooves muffled by snow.

  The rest of the camp moved with sudden urgency. Spotters climbed observation towers. Techs checked frequencies. Maps were pulled out, adjusted, consulted.

  An hour passed.

  The wind picked up, whistling through narrow canyons as snow danced like ghosts between broken pines.

  Then came the return. two riders cresting the slope at speed, their mounts lathered and steaming, riders breathless.

  Abreau met them halfway.

  “Report.”

  The older of the two, a woman in her thirties, her accent thick from the southern Andari, nodded quickly. “Troopship down near the coast, west of the cliffs. She's torn up bad. We watched, about four hundred or so, made it off. Headed toward the ruins of Unhenderim.”

  Abreau’s eyes narrowed. “Equipment?”

  “Minimal. Light arms. They’re freezing and scattered. No sign of heavy weapons or air support.”

  Abreau looked to Mori, who had approached in silence.

  Mori gave a single nod.

  “Call De Vries. Bring your staff. It’s time to plan the trap.”

  No Way Out:

  The sun had just set over the coast near Altan, the sky still clinging to the last streaks of purple twilight. It was just past 1800 hours. A faint sea breeze stirred the early evening mist that drifted inland from the coast, weaving its way over low, sandy hills and across the outskirts of Altan, a sizable fishing town nestled against the cold, dark ocean. Behind the shoreline, the terrain rose gently into forested groves and scattered grazing lands, now lightly dusted with snow.

  Inside the central command tent of the makeshift Allied camp, lanterns cast long shadows across maps, mugs, and furrowed brows.

  Brigadier General Mori Kashegawa stood at the head of the table, arms folded. Beside him, Colonel Eltano, Major De Vries, Captain Almeida, and several of Mori’s senior officers clustered around a weathered map spread over a wooden crate.

  Mori tapped the old chart .

  "Here. They’ve holed up in Unhenderim. The ruins are surrounded by uneven ground, little cover, and only two clear exit points, north and east. If we strike with speed and precision, we’ll box them in before they realise it."

  Eltano nodded grimly. "The terrain favours us. It’s been a long time since these soldiers fought a real engagement. And the cold will do half the work for us."

  “They’re scared,” De Vries added. “Our scouts saw no heavy weapons. No support. Just a few hundred miserable bastards clinging to each other for warmth. Most are conscripts. Probably haven’t eaten properly in days.”

  Mori’s tone darkened. “Which makes them desperate. Desperate men and women do stupid things. We give them no stupid options.”

  He leaned forward. “Here’s what we’ll do. De Vries, your Dutch company, your Bushmasters, will head down the coast, along Twenty Mile Beach. The sand’s hardpacked and straight. You’ll face wind resistance but should still make excellent time. When you’re level with the ruins, swing east and come in from the west. Hold position until the signal.”

  De Vries nodded, already doing mental calculations.

  Mori looked to Eltano. “Your Cavaleiros, two companies, will ride south with my 3rd Battalion. Major Kirby.” He motioned to a nearby marine officer. “I think six of your APCs will cover our rear. We move under cover of the terrain, through the northern ridgeline. We’ll come in fast and tight from the north. I’ll issue the surrender call myself.”

  Eltano gave a sharp nod. “They won’t outrun us.”

  The room stilled. Every officer present knew what they were about to do, not just an assault, but a psychological trap. There would be no glory in this. Only necessity.

  Mori’s voice dropped. “We show them there’s no way out. That they’re not just outnumbered, they’re surrounded, cold, hungry, and done.”

  Hours Later – Unhenderim Ruins

  The ancient stones of Unhenderim, crumbling and dusted with snow, had long since lost any semblance of their former grandeur. Now they served only as a desperate windbreak for the Lucian Alliance troops, who huddled between fallen pillars and cracked arches.

  A sharp blast of frigid air swept through the broken city, stirring cloaks and snapping loose tarp lines.

  Then,

  Lights.

  From the west, twin rows of Bushmasters turned on their headlamps and mounted spotlights in unison, washing the ruins in harsh, blinding beams. Shadows sprang to life, twisted and enormous across stone.

  There was shouting, confusion. Weapons raised instinctively.

  Then from the north came the sound of hooves, a steady, chilling rhythm that seemed to echo off every ruined wall. And behind it, like thunder in the mountains, came the low rumble of armoured engines.

  Two hundred metres out, Brigadier General Mori Kashegawa sat atop his horse, flanked by his marines in formation. Behind him, the Cavaleiros of Eltano’s command formed a wall of steel and leather, sabres gleaming beneath the rising sun.

  Mori raised a loudhailer.

  “This is Brigadier General Mori Kashegawa of the Tau’ri Joint Command! You are surrounded on all sides. Your position is compromised. You are twenty miles from your main force. There will be no reinforcements. No escape.”

  His voice echoed across the ruins. The soldiers below, half of them barely old enough to be called adults, stared in terror at the encircling lights.

  Mori continued. “Surrender your arms. We will treat you as prisoners of war under the rules of engagement. Lay down your weapons and no harm will come to you. Resist, and we will show you no quarter.”

  Silence.

  Then a voice bellowed back, defiant and shrill. “We are soldiers of the Lucian Alliance! We do not surrender!”

  The man emerged from cover, tall, rail-thin, wearing a red officer’s coat. His insignia marked him as a Loitnant Commandant, his name Helros Ergamon.

  “You’ll have to kill every one of us, Tau’ri scum!” he spat, waving his pistol.

  Silence reigned for a moment. Then a ripple of angry voices broke out among the ranks of the stranded soldiers. Most wore the dull grey of Imdemia, conscripts, shivering and hollow-eyed.

  A young woman in their front line shouted, “He lies! We’re freezing and starving! They will leave us here!”

  “Cowards!” barked a Lucian trooper from behind Ergamon.

  Ergamon turned, eyes wild. “Anyone who speaks out again will be shot for treason!” He raised his sidearm at the young woman.

  A single shot rang out.

  Ergamon’s body dropped into the snow, blood steaming against the stone.

  A collective gasp followed. The pistol still smoked in the hand of an older Lucian officer, stern and immovable.

  Major Eduard Camring.

  He stepped forward slowly, calmly holstering his weapon.

  “There will be no more fighting,” Camring said, loud enough for all to hear. “We will surrender.”

  No one objected. No one dared. Camring had a reputation, feared, but respected.

  He raised his voice. “Lay down your arms.”

  Weapons clattered to the ground. Hands raised. Knees bent in exhaustion. In moments, hundreds of soldiers stood in the snow, unarmed and defeated.

  Mori rode forward alone, his expression unreadable.

  “Captain Maia,” he called behind him, “get the aid units moving. Food, water, blankets. Prioritise the injured.”

  “Yes, General.”

  Within minutes, marines and Cavaleiros were dismounting, distributing field rations and thermal blankets. One marine offered a hot canister of broth to a shivering teenager who began to cry as soon as it touched his lips.

  De Vries arrived from the west, shaking his head at the sight. “Well,” he muttered to Mori, “not much of a fight.”

  “Good,” Mori replied. “I’m done killing kids.”

  He looked across the snow-streaked ruins.

  “These are the first prisoners of this war. Let’s show them how the Tau’ri treat their enemies, and how they treat those who are no longer enemies.”

  Defiance:

  While the Tau’ri ships had made a good account of themselves, it simply wasn’t enough. They were bleeding, badly. The Chekov had taken the worst of it. She held her place in the line, battered but unbowed, defiant in the fire. Her squadrons, led by Lieutenant Colonel Franz von Klauptman, "Firebrand" to those who flew under him, and Major Anya Volkova, her chosen call sign "Ice Maiden," still circled the void. The Warlords and Banshees, too damaged to return to the Chekov, had landed aboard the Invincible and Aurora to rearm.

  The saddest picture each crew member on the ‘Roar’ and the Mighty ‘I’, was the images streaming through of the beloved Chekov. She’d taken the worst of it, her launch bay a mangled wreck, half of it blown away, her engines groaned under the sealed compartments. Critical plating over and around power core had been compromised. The Asgard beam weapon was useless. She was down to thirty-four percent shields. Very near to a danger level.

  Colonel Vidmar Kovacs had been pulled from the wreckage, barely breathing. Lieutenant Commander Stuart Collins had assumed command, voice tight with concern. William ordered him to withdraw. “Stuart, I am authorising immediate evacuation. Get your people out.”

  There was a pause of silence.

  “Negative, sir. We stay. We finish it.”

  William’s jaw tightened. He looked to the woman on the screen above his head.

  “Elle. He’ll listen to you.”

  Elle McFearson nodded and patching into a direct channel from the Invincible. Her voice was calm. Familiar.

  “Stuart. Don’t be an idiot. You’ve done your job. Get them out of there.”

  When next Collins answered, it was with a heavy heart and a final salute. The Chekov limped into hyperspace, bound for the Beta Site, her crew safe, for now.

  They had lost one of their finest ships. But they hadn’t lost her crew. Not yet.

  Back on the bridge of the Aurora, Will barely flinched with each hit the ship absorbed. He stood rigid, hands behind his back, staring at the tactical display. The lights flickered once. A voice crackled through comms, Elle from the Invincible again. “Azhodehya’s shields are weakening. Another few rounds might finish her.”

  Will looked to the Aurora’s captain. “What have we got, Lily?”

  Below him, she glanced upwards and sideways a little. Then back to the screen in front of her, then once again back to Will. “Thirty-two Mark tens, Admiral.”

  Without turning, he called for a situation report. “Lieutenant Carpenter, where’re we at?”

  The tactical officer confirmed. “ Aurora’s shields were at sixty-five percent and holding sir. Forward Deck Twelve had been sealed. Minimal casualties, one seriously wounded.”

  Will simply nodded. “Lily spool up silos four through twelve.” He looked to the screen above him, to see Elle looking back at him from the Invincible. “How’re you doin’ Kiddo?” He asked.

  The Invincible hadn’t fared quite as well, she reported. “Structural damage to the aft super structure, six turrets offline, fifteen dead and nearly forty wounded, Admiral.”

  By the book. In reality, he wanted to know how she was doing. The Australian Navy was tiny by comparison to the US Navy and the aviation community even smaller. He’d known Elle since she was a midshipman, ‘Christ!’ he thought. She was almost like a second daughter to him. His next words were back to business though. “Missiles, commander?”

  Copying Lily’s movements almost to a ‘T’, she looked back up at her own screen. That solid, homely face looked back at her. “Why is he here, my God, Will you and Anne should be enjoying that little cabin up the coast right now.” She glanced away briefly, he couldn’t see the tear in her eye. “Five mark nines and three mark tens sir. For my remaining twelve turrets, fifteen hundred rounds.”

  Not good, but it might be enough. “Spool up four silos Elle, on my mark.” He nodded again to Lily. “Mark!” As the last syllable left his mouth, twelve deadly missiles arced up from the two ships, directly toward the Azhodehya.

  The Alliance fell back to regroup. They still had five capital ships, twenty-two Al’kesh, and a swarm of Gliders, though half of their original fighter strength had been obliterated. Jortu knew his flagship was doomed. Decks were aflame and collapsing, his transport was prepped, the little ship slipped out of the hangar bay to transfer his command to the smaller ‘Aglo’. This MacGregor would not defeat him. Moments later his mighty flagship exploded as the Tauri missiles found their mark.

  The clock showed two hours to the Hammond’s arrival. William’s jaw clenched, now only four ships faced him. They needed to hold.

  Jortu, now aboard his new flagship, gambled. He sent everything that remained, Gliders, Al’kesh, wave after wave. A swarm tactic. Simple, brutal.

  William did the only thing he could: he threw everything they had to meet them. Every 302 and 402 scrambled. He had Lily patch him through to Cam Mitchell. “I want the Alpha Site’s birds in the air. Now.”

  In the bunkrooms at O’Neill Field, the ‘Buzzards’ were on standby. Lt Commander Dusty Dixon snapped to when the call came through. Cam’s voice crackled with urgency. Dusty swore softly and reached for his helmet. Card games stopped abruptly, other pilots sighed as they walked away from their game consols.

  Tyra was the one to tell Cate. She found her near the mess, mug in hand, still wearing her flight suit. Cate didn’t speak, just nodded, her expression grim.

  The tension snapped like a drawn bowstring. Within minutes, the icy runway was alive with movement. The pilots ran, flight mechanics checked weapons and made the final calls.

  Tyra pulled Cate aside briefly, hand gripping her arm. “Keep them safe.”

  Cate met her eyes. “I will.”

  Sixteen 302s, the ‘Buzzards’, Stargate Command’s most awarded squadron swept away from O’Neill field, shooting almost vertically into the late afternoon sky. They joined their brethren in sub orbit, and then the sky filled with fire.

  The battle was brutal. Attritional. Comms lit with too many callsigns going silent. Grizzly. Hawkeye. Vulture. Cate heard each one in her headset, each final word. No time to mourn.

  Three squadrons broken momentarily leaderless until Dusty gathered them to his call. And still they fought.

  In a rare quiet moment aboard the Aurora, William stood behind the captain’s chair, eyes distant. He thought of that conversation with his daughter just hours ago, her self-healing from the sarcophagus, her defiance, her pain. He never wanted this life for her. But deep down, he knew, those young pilots could have no better leader.

  The Storm:

  As the space battle raged, a new threat emerged. On the snowy fields below, as the sun began to sink, the Alliance launched its ground offensive.

  Two armoured columns upgraded Lucian tanks. They had learned a bitter lesson on Vegema. They surged from the east and west. General Lee watched them through his binoculars, breath misting in the cold air. His Abrams tanks roared to life, nine to the east, eleven to the west. “I want eyes in the sky now!” He barked to a nearby tech sergeant.

  “Sparrow One on the line, sir.”

  Owen picked up the radio, his mind flashed back briefly to Iraq, only briefly. “Who am I speaking to. Static. A garbled voice. A technician at O’Neill Field. Then Chu took over.

  “Captain Kelvin Chu sir.” He knew well who was on the line.

  Static. “Chu, I want a FAC over Merrenden, asap. How quickly can you get here?” The sound of battle, close by, gave an urgency to the General’s call.

  Kelvin made a quick mental calculation. “Twenty-two minutes sir,”

  “Make it under twenty and I’ll buy everyone in your squadron a case of beer.” That wasn’t bluff, Owen was a man of his word.

  “We’ll be there General.” Kelvin replaced the handset, then picked his pilots.

  “I’ve got this,” Chu said as Tyra stood up from the bench beside him.

  “I’m coming.”

  “You’re not,” he said gently. “You’ve done more than most. Sit this one out.”

  Others echoed him, cadets and young officers. One even smiled. “We’ll save some for you.”

  Tyra didn’t like it, but the weariness in her head, told her they were right. She watched them go, aching to be a part of something, maybe after a catnap. The young woman slipped into the officer’s mess and found an empty couch.

  Chu’s flight launched in four PC-21s, turbine engines whistling. Two made for the eastern sector of Merrenden, the other pair shadowed the movement of scattered Alliance troops from the earlier downed Troopship.

  Second Lieutenant Wilson P. Johnson, a proud Pima man, made the call. He knew all the callsigns by rote, he went straight to the source “Raptor One, this is Sparrow three do you copy?”

  Clear as a bell, Harry’s voice replied. “Sutcliffe, copy Sparrow Three.”

  Wilson gave him the information and while he couldn’t see the details from the air, the smoke rising from the village, told him all he wanted to know.

  Within minutes General Sutcliffe had his units moving, they intercepted the Alliance troops near Windermar. A small town. Or it had been. Now it was smoke and cinder.

  Gale O’Hara and her cavalry, US, Dutch, South African, and Australian troops in IFVs and ASLAVs, rolled into Windermar as the sun dipped below the snow-smeared treetops. Smoke curled from blackened rooftops. Doors hung open, lifeless. The main street was eerily quiet, but they could feel the trap waiting.

  The Alliance hadn’t fled. They’d dug in.

  "Contact, northwest window, second floor!" someone shouted over comms.

  The first crack of gunfire shattered the silence. Glass burst outward as a Lucian marksman fired down the alley. The rattle of return fire came sharp and brutal, two Bushmasters opening up, their 25mm cannons chewing through stone and snow.

  “Dismount!” O’Hara barked. “Flank left, Brinkman, Rafiq, you’re on me!”

  Boots hit the slush. Her team sprinted for cover, hugging the walls of a butcher’s shop as bullets sliced overhead. A Dutch corporal lobbed a smoke grenade; it bloomed thick and white across the road, and under that veil, three marines stormed a house. Shouts, a scuffle. Then a short burst of fire.

  "Clear!" came the call.

  Not fast enough.

  A Lucian conscript burst from a side alley, rifle shaking in frozen hands. O’Hara pivoted and fired, one, two rounds, he crumpled in the snow. She didn’t pause. Couldn’t.

  "Breaching next structure!" came a call from Lieutenant Adams, voice taut. "Resistance is light, some are laying down arms."

  "Good," O’Hara muttered, half to herself. "Let 'em. They’ve seen what we can do."

  But not all of them surrendered. In the eastern sector, a pocket of Alliance soldiers refused to yield, using the second floor of a burned-out inn to lay suppressive fire down on the street. A South African IFV rumbled forward and sent a precise burst through the window, collapsing the upper floor entirely. The shooting stopped.

  "Moving up," said Sergeant van Dyk, voice low. "They’re done here."

  O’Hara took a moment to breathe, leaning against the wall of a shattered bakery. The sharp smell of scorched bread and burnt paper lingered in the air. “Building by building,” she repeated under her breath, and looked to the next corner.

  The fight wasn’t over, but they had the upper hand now.

  The Joker:

  Meanwhile, Bradbury’s forward artillery lit up. He took coordinates directly from Chu and rained fire down on the tanks. Snow churned into mud. Alliance infantry spilled toward Merrenden’s edge. Our snipers opened fire.

  And Jortu played his final card. A single Troopship. Undetected. Slipping through.

  Elle spotted it from the Invincible.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, then spoke louder: “Troopship inbound. A few escorts. Headed for the Alpha Site.”

  William cursed himself. He should’ve seen it coming. He opened a channel to Cam Mitchell. “They’re going for the base Mitchell.”

  Cam turned, eyes hardened. “Get the 109th in the air, now!”

  The order hit the room like a spark to dry tinder. Within seconds, the 109th Phantoms were scrambling from O’Neill Field, wheels spinning, engines roaring. Lieutenant Commander Anders McClaren led the charge, his voice crisp over the squadron net.

  “They’ve got Glider cover. Tight formation, stay sharp!”

  The F-16s climbed into the frigid dusk, intercepting the incoming escort just above the ridgeline. Five Gliders were downed in a blistering exchange of fire, but it wasn’t enough. The Troopship broke through, its massive frame cutting a dark scar across the sky.

  It touched down hard on Runway Four, shattering the quiet over the northern quarter of the Alpha Site. The sheer weight of it buckled the asphalt, leaving a deep gouge as it ground to a halt.

  Before the dust had settled, the ramp dropped with a hydraulic hiss, and a flood of Lucian Alliance commandos poured from the belly of the beast, two hundred and sixty of their best. Fast, silent, lethal.

  In the Alpha Site CIC, Sam Carter slammed her hand down. “Initiate full lockdown!”

  Warning klaxons blared through the bunker. Vala leaned over the nearest sensor console, eyes wide. “Are we sure everyone made it below?”

  The internal phone rang, shrill, urgent. Daniel picked it up. The blood drained from his face.

  “Sam… Twelve personnel still up top. Doctors and nurses. They’re trapped in the surface hospital.”

  Teal’c didn’t wait. “I will take a team.”

  “No time,” Daniel said, voice tight. “We won’t reach them before the Alliance does. But maybe…” he turned to Sam. “What about a beam-out?”

  Cam switched priorities. “I’ll get it!” He called the ships above, Elle answered.

  “Too risky, Cam. We’d only be taking them from the fire to the…”

  Then Lily on the Aurora interrupted. “What about a 402? It has beaming.”

  William was still learning, and a fast learning curve it was. “They can do that?”

  “Of course! Jensen, who is closest to low orbit?” Lily had the bit in her mouth.

  The youngest tech on the bridge, Ensign Scarlet Jensen, only had to glance at her screen. ”Foxglove One, ma’am.”

  “Send them!” William ordered. Did they have time? He frowned with worry.

  Captain Dayle Pepper answered. He’d go. With him, his crew: April Ewing, Ahmed Haab, Dillon Prescott. They made the dive, dodged fire, danced between Gliders and missiles in the blackness of space, before breaking through the atmosphere. Coming in low and fast, dodging another battle between F-16s and Gliders, Dayle swooped over the hospital. Twelve lives shimmered into their hold just as the enemy reached the walls.

  They were gone and seconds later they were beamed directly into the safety of the Alpha Site bunker. The 402 then returned to orbit.

  The Alliance troops reached the blast doors and began the laborious task of trying to breach them. There were four metres of hardened steel between them and their goal. The team leader Mahor Hallan Fuedal was a patient man, he and those like him had waited and planned for this, for three long years. He urged the engineers on, with the foulest cussing he had at his disposal.

  Three levels underground, Sam Carter dialled the SGC, her fingers flying across the controls. They might need reinforcements. She spoke directly to General Landry. “I’ll have twenty five marines there in ten minutes Sam.” He told her. “That’s all I have on hand at the moment.”

  “Better than none, sir.”

  Hell hath frozen over:

  And in the snowy hell of Merrenden, General Bradbury raised his voice over the radio.

  “Where’s my damn air cover?”

  Above him, the sky was falling, the Alliance had launched a new tactic, armed drones, to harass his troops. He had his own secret weapon of course, teams of snipers hidden in every place possible.

  And the battle was far from over.

  The Mountain Awakens:

  The whine of the drills was constant now, shrill, high-pitched, maddening. Red-hot fragments of shattered bits scattered across the concrete floor, kicked aside by booted feet. Sparks danced as the third drill bit into the four-metre-thick blast door. Lucian engineers shouted above the din, sweat beading on their foreheads, gloves blackened, eyes bloodshot. Explosives sat off to the side, just in case.

  Inside the Alpha Site bunker, three levels down, the tension was electric. Marines held defensive lines. SF operators crouched behind reinforced barricades, weapons trained on the main shaft. Tactical screens flickered. The air buzzed with low-level chatter—boots pacing, radios spitting static and field reports.

  Vala Mal Doran leaned over a console toward Sam Carter, her tone light, as if discussing dessert.

  “Tell me, Samantha… why did the Ancients have two control chairs?”

  Sam didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes scanned telemetry feeds—red dots clustering too close. Then she froze. Her gaze snapped to Teal’c, who had just finished checking a reinforced corridor junction.

  “I believe this may have been a defensive site, Vala Mal Doran,” he said calmly.

  Sam’s brow furrowed. “Drones,” she breathed. “There must be drones.”

  Cam Mitchell didn’t hesitate. “Major Crossley, get me a full sweep of every sublevel. Start from the chair room and work down. Find something.”

  “Sir!” Matt Crossley barked orders to his teams, six pairs of marines ran.

  Aching minutes passed until fifteen levels below, Specialist Yvonne Evans and Sergeant First Class Eddie Daxson pushed through a partially collapsed hallway. Faint blue glyphs glimmered as Evans passed her hand over the arch.

  “You sure about this?” Daxson asked, voice rough.

  “I’ve got the gene. Well, not naturally, but this door just blinked at me, so this ATA therapy thing must work.” Even she looked surprised.

  The arch hissed open slowly.

  Together, they stepped inside and stopped.

  The chamber beyond stretched wider than any warehouse. Racks of dormant golden drones lined the walls, stretching into the shadows, glinting in the ambient light.

  “They’re not offline,” Daxson murmured.

  “They’re waiting,” Evans replied, then keyed her radio. “Specialist Evans to CIC. We’ve found them. It’s a drone hangar, massive.”

  Cam’s voice cut in at once. “Good work, Evans. Get clear.”

  He turned. “Get me Cate. Now.” He had no other choice, it was she who found and activated everything down there, wasn’t it?

  High above, Invincible reeled from another direct hit. Sparks burst from shattered panels. On the bridge, Elle gripped a console with one hand, her other pressed against a wound at her side.

  “We’ve got twenty minutes left in us,” she muttered. “If that.”

  On Aurora’s bridge, William turned to Lily. Her hand hovered over navigation.

  Without a word, she nodded. “Bring us around,” she ordered. “Put us between Invincible and those bastards.”

  Aurora’s engines flared. The ship rolled, positioning herself as a shield. Explosions raked across her port side.

  She held.

  Down in lower orbit, Cate’s voice came through the squadron channel. “Still holding... Glider at eleven o’clock.”

  William cut in. “Land. You’re needed below. That’s an order.”

  Dusty added, “Go. We’ve got this.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Cate twisted her 302 as another, her last, missile streaked away. She didn’t wait to see the result. The little fighter banked, turning for Invincible.

  Cate’s 302 came in hot, skimming across the scorched deck. Her nose gear buckled, and the bird slid. Crewmen dove aside as the net came up. Before she could even speak, she vanished in a flash of beam transit.

  She rematerialised in the Alpha Site CIC.

  Cam turned immediately. “We need two. Two chairs.”

  Cate’s eyes scanned. “Where’s Tyra?”

  Sam pointed to a live feed from O’Neill Field, Tyra curled on a couch, jacket half-draped across her shoulder.

  “No longer,” Cam said. “Beam her in.”

  A shaky voice replied. “We have her.” It was Elle.

  A shimmer of white light engulfed her. Tyra blinked awake, now sprawled on the cold stone floor of the control chamber.

  Daniel crouched beside her. “It’s time. We need both of you.”

  Cate offered her hand. Tyra took it. They climbed the steps.

  There was fear in the older woman’s eyes. She hesitated.

  Above them, the drilling changed pitch, a deeper groan. The engineers cheered. They were through.

  Boots stomped. Charges were placed. Brown-coated Lucian team leaders barked orders.

  Cam watched the chair room feed, seeing Cate still frozen.

  His voice rang through the comms. “MacGregor, I don’t give a damn what your foibles are… get your arse in that chair!”

  Cate looked to Tyra. Then to Daniel. He nodded.

  They sat. The chairs tilted back. Cate gasped.

  “What now?”

  Sam’s voice came through their earpieces. “Think of weapons. Think of fighting.”

  There was a rumble three floors below as the drones awoke.

  The mountain behind the Alpha Site cracked, and fire burst skyward. Golden drones rose like a thunderhead. In orbit, they locked onto Gliders, Al’kesh, Lucian cruisers.

  And then they struck.

  Explosions shimmered across the void. One Glider wing evaporated in a single sweep. The last four Alliance ships died in fire.

  On the surface, drones flew low. Merrenden’s horizon flashed. Alliance tanks reduced to twisted husks. Troops scattered.

  On the front line, Bradbury gripped the edge of his map table. “We’ve got them on the run!” Shock coloured his voice. He keyed his radio. “Baseline, speak to me! What the hell is going on?”

  A weary voice answered. Sam.

  “A miracle, Don.”

  Sutcliffe’s voice came from the far flank. “They’re breaking ranks. They’re retreating!”

  Lee’s Abrams ceased fire, their targets already gone. One of the command vehicles sat still, a black scorch across its roof. Inside, Owen and his comms officer lay slumped, victims of an earlier hit.

  At Altan, two 402s screamed in. Marines deployed under fire. Captain Harwin from Aurora knelt beside Brigadier Mori Kashegawa, whose shoulder was soaked in blood.

  “I’ve got you, sir.”

  The fighting stilled. It was over.

  Fifteen levels down, in the glowing chamber, the final drone lifted from its cradle and vanished into the stars.

  Cate sat frozen. Tyra reached for her, gently.

  Cate’s whisper barely echoed off the walls.

  “What have I done?”