She had a sufficiently experienced crew to operate the \`Hippaforalkus\` without mental control. To be perfectly frank, Trebal had, one way or another, selected for the crew, reduced twenty-five times from the standard complement, the very best of those who remained among the survivors on the \`Aurora\`.
Well, to be completely honest, after the loss of the \`Aurora\`, too few highly competent individuals remained in her crew. Which didn't negate the fact that they were still necessary.
She wasn't going to risk her brains and connect the control chair to all the starship's systems. Not in this life.
She had seen enough of Mikhail in a "baked vegetable" state to revert the settings of the drone control station to their original configuration. Honestly, she would have welded shut the access panel to the chair's control crystals too. But then there could be no talk of easy access for the technical crew to service the systems.
Only five minutes of battle had passed, and the news Ihaar was reporting to her over the intercom was... mixed.
The allied Hive Ship had sustained significant damage, losing up to forty percent of its internal compartments that had survived decompression as a result of the enemy cruisers' and Darts' attack. The enemy pair of Hive Ships had also landed hits on the allies (brrr, it sent shivers down the spine just thinking about it), resulting in half the portside artillery, the Dart control station, and part of the engines on the right side of Alabaster's ship being completely wrecked. She had lost speed, mobility, and maneuverability, now looking more like a target than a warship.
However, if she croaked along with her tub, Trebal would only worry about Saya. The cyborg had proven incredibly useful. And lethally effective. What she was doing to the Wraiths in ground combat clearly indicated how effective Lantian technologies could be if channeled in the right direction.
Captain Labrea's \`Swift\`, despite being engaged in intercepting enemy Darts and covering the allied Hive Ship, had received serious damage. Its shields were at a minimum, the auxiliary reactor had failed due to overloads, life support was at a minimum, and up to a third of its gun emplacements were destroyed. And, if Alabaster hadn't positioned her ship across the line of fire that the other two Hive Ships were directing at the Nomad vessel, Labrea and her crew wouldn't even have had time to evacuate.
The \`Endurance\`, albeit not without help, had dealt with two of the five Wraith cruisers. One was now burning up in the upper atmosphere of the dead planet. The second was being shot at by both sides in large chunks of organic scrap metal during the battle. After all, fighting in a cloud of debris, any piece of which could damage your defense, was no pleasure.
On the positive side, besides reducing the enemy fleet by two starships, was the fact that Alabaster, Labrea, and the allied Darts had managed to disable the hyperdrives of all remaining enemy starships. The queen had even managed to thoroughly thrash one of the enemy Hive Ships, and it was now drifting in space, venting atmosphere from numerous breaches.
They had also lost twenty Darts, but among the dozen survivors were Kirik and Alvar. Which was heartening.
Trebal thought with malicious glee that even the former "runner," Celise's guardian, controlled a Dart far better than Wraith soldiers. In truth, the Darts were supposed to be piloted by junior Wraith commanders, the so-called blades. And they were true virtuosos in space combat.
But, it seemed the enemy hadn't managed to get ace pilots into their squadrons. The girl was getting the impression that Wraith soldiers were at the controls on both sides of the conflict.
Otherwise, how could one explain that such a large and relatively slow target as the \`Swift\` (slow compared to Darts, of course) had already racked up fifty enemy fighters? And the remaining allied Darts had almost as many combined.
Overall, one could say they had destroyed two-fifths of the enemy armada. Well, in terms of combat power, it probably felt more like three-fifths.
And, considering that the ZPM-powered \`Hippaforalkus\` had finally arrived from its drift point outside this star system, the Wraiths had better start crying now. If, of course, they could do that.
A personal screen unfolded in front of Trebal, displaying information about the status of the \`Hippaforalkus\`, the other ships, and their relative positions.
The Wraiths, taken aback for a moment by the events, immediately transferred concentrated fire from all their guns to the Lantian battleship. Well, their choice. At least it allowed the \`Endurance\` to get out from under fire and get behind one of the three Wraith cruisers.
Having inflicted significant damage on the enemy, Captain Asan, meanwhile, had drawn one of the enemies onto himself, and a maneuvering and ruthless carousel spun up slightly away from the main battlefield.
"This is the Lantian warship \`Hippaforalkus\`," Trebal opened a communication channel with all starships in range. "All Wraith ships, immediately shut down your engines and dampen your reactors, prepare to receive boarding parties on..."
"Commander, they are responding," Ihaar reported to her. "Not with a message, but by increasing the intensity of their fire. Shields at ninety percent and falling."
"Well, I did everything I could," Trebal smirked, perfectly understanding that this would never have worked. With the exception of Alabaster's ship, which was simply physically incapable of any serious activity. "Ihaar, set the impulse cannons to automatic mode, we're hunting Darts. And keep an eye on both damaged Hive Ships."
"You mean one enemy, and the second is allied?"
Trebal wanted to say that they had no allies among the Wraiths, only temporary "traveling companions." But she decided to limit herself to a short:
"Yes."
Closing her eyes for better contact with the mental settings and mechanisms of the control chair, the girl felt the backrest recline under her body, allowing her to take an almost horizontal position. It was easier to concentrate on what was happening, and during a long flight or battle, the body wouldn't stiffen as quickly as it would in a sitting position.
The "basic" model of the chair allowed only a limited number of the ship's systems and devices to be used for controlling homing projectiles. And certainly didn't allow controlling them.
But at least she could receive directly into her mind the picture from the scanners, reflecting the situation around her. Including the impacts on the side shields from the enemy's aimed fire.
The \`Hippaforalkus\` enters the battle.
And she knew for sure that of the two enemy Hive Ships, only one could pose a serious problem right now. And the second — not serious now, but a little later, when it recovered — yes.
The combat-capable Wraith Hive Ship unleashed a salvo from its forward guns on the \`Hippaforalkus\`. Previously oriented towards bombarding Alabaster's starship, this ship would have to maneuver for an effective confrontation.
But Trebal wasn't going to let this or any other starship damage her battleship. HER battleship!
She concentrated on the main weapon of the Lantian ship, automatically ordering the launch tube to open. And a moment later, she received confirmation that Wraith cruisers were approaching from the left.
The enemy wasn't shining with elegance in their tactics, which was quite strange, actually. For ten thousand years, they had been much more adept in maneuvers with a large number of ships on their side.
Deep inside the ship, dozens of Homing Projectiles came to life, sending feedback to their launch initiator: they were ready to carry out their assigned task. Trebal already knew this, so she habitually gave a mental target designation to the undamaged enemy Hive Ship.
And the projectiles heard her.
There exist small predators that can barely kill large prey on their own. Their usual diet, therefore, consists of small game — prey that is manageable for a single hunter. But when these predators gather in a pack for a large target... it no longer matters how many of their kin they lose in an unequal battle.
The prey will be taken.
So it was with the Lantean Homing Projectiles.
The Dorandan woman unleashed her deadly swarm.
The Hippaforalkus is attacking.
Trebal sensed it and mentally reached out along with the projectiles toward the target, sustaining her will within them. This Hive Ship must be destroyed. Absolutely. The "Arrows" that stand in our way are nothing. We must go around them. Yes, that's it, we projectiles have excellent maneuverability, and those fighters can't keep up with us.
Suddenly, she felt that some of the antennas extended into the ship's forward hemisphere had stopped responding. They had been sheared off, as if cut...
And that cost her all thirty projectiles she had launched.
Three were shot down by enemy "Arrows." The rest, having lost mental control for only an instant, turned into harmless, octopus-like creatures, indistinguishable in the blackness of space.
But Trebal switched to backup antennas, and all her deadly predators regained their strength and rushed back into battle.
That would have been the right thing to do, even though the projectiles could have caused trouble for the Wraith on their own.
A munition's targeting computer basically retains the IFF information provided by the Control Chair. Even if the link to the chair is broken, a projectile that loses the signal should switch to automatic guidance after a couple of seconds. Provided the projectile still has power and is close enough to the last target, it will continue its destruction.
If no targeting information is provided upon launch, the projectile will simply seek out the nearest valid target and pursue it until it succeeds or receives other instructions. The Lesser Races were delighted by how the projectiles proved their ability to independently find, track, and destroy targets, evade fire directed at them, and overcome any obstacles in their path.
But few chair operators, aside from the Lantians, Asurans, and Ytrans, could launch projectiles in a unified stream at a single target. The Lesser Races rarely succeeded, and for the most part, they directed one stream at the primary target and a second, dispersed one at secondary targets. As a result, in engagements with Wraith ships, the first stream destroyed the starship, while the second took out its escort of "Arrows."
"Ihaar, we have problems with the primary targeting sensors."
"I know!" the Chief Engineer snapped back. In tense situations, he always answered sharply, without any respectful tone. Trebal suspected he did it precisely so he'd be left alone and allowed to focus on the work he knew best.
Though, she also suspected that in volatile dangerous situations, fear got the better of Ihaar, and it was fear that temporarily shut down the inhibitory centers in his brain.
"What's happening?" Trebal asked. "How did they breach our shield?"
"They didn't!" Ihaar barked. Then he spoke, clearly to the helmsman. "Turn us away from him, the entire bow is exposed! One volley and we'll have an exact copy of the Aurora! Faster!"
"Ihaar!"
"The shield projector fuses in the bow burned out, or the projectors themselves, I don't know exactly yet," the Chief Engineer said. "Looks like the power circuits can't handle the feed from the ZPM. The Ori be my neighbors! It needs to be disconnected immediately!"
"Why?"
"Because our circuits are in worse shape than I thought!" Judging by his heavy breathing, the Chief Engineer was already running somewhere. "The main power bus has an energy fluctuation absorber at the output. That device is impossible to break!"
"But...?"
"It burned out when the ZPM reacted to the concentrated bombardment of the ship by overwhelming Wraith forces!" Ihaar said. "Must be micro-defects that the diagnostics didn't pick up."
Trebal directed the swarm of Homing Projectiles toward the Hive Ship, giving them one final mental command before the attack.
And in the next minute, the Wraith would bitterly regret not agreeing to surrender.
In its active state, a projectile emits an energy field capable of burning through virtually all forms of ordinary matter, and also allows it to easily penetrate energy shielding. This not only makes the Lantean munition capable of dealing serious damage with a single strike, but also allows it to perform multiple attacks on the same target before its power runs out.
Homing Projectiles are high-precision weapons designed to inflict massive damage on small targets without destroying anything around them. This makes them ideal for countering fighters or anti-ship weapons, but less effective for ground suppression, despite their low collateral damage.
The projectiles weren't called self-guiding for nothing.
Actually, in the past, before the war with the Wraith began, the Lantians used them with a "fire-and-forget" tactic, since the projectile has a sufficiently advanced guidance system to find an enemy target and avoid damaging a friendly one, even if the latter is in the way.
When attacking in large groups, the drones use swarm tactics to maximize damage, surrounding the target and attacking it from all sides. All drones that remain active after the attack is completed return to storage for later use. And that's the only reassuring thing when you launch them by the hundreds.
The Lantians designed them so that the projectiles automatically detect and lock onto targets, and a few dozen drones can tear a Hive Ship apart in less than a minute. But only if such data was loaded into the arsenal. Otherwise, the projectiles will search for vulnerabilities through trial and error.
And, unfortunately for the enemy Hive Ship, the modern Lantians knew where the Wraith's weak points were.
Trebal sensed that the enemy Hive Ship, which had been licking its wounds, was also joining the battle. It seemed they had detected the shutdown of the ship's forward shields and the drop in overall defense power, since they decided to risk their damaged weaponry and battered ship.
Or perhaps they were simply hoping that the wireless energy transmission to the projectiles from the power source would now work in the Wraith's favor. After all, if the shields had fallen, there must be problems with power on the Lantean ship, right?
Well then, maybe the destruction of the neighboring ship would sober them up. Though, unlikely.
Trebal felt the Hippaforalkus beginning to turn away from the enemy starships. At the same time, using data from the ship's sensors and detectors, she could observe how the tiny swarm of projectiles she had launched was literally sawing through the enemy Hive Ship.
Lantean projectiles in action.
Maybe the Wraith's organic armor is stronger than the Lanteans' metal alloys, but who cares about that when you have projectiles?
Trebal mechanically noted that information about this Hive's characteristics had been sent to the arsenal from the projectiles involved in the battle. It had been modified, quite significantly. Not only inside, but also outside — the vulnerabilities known to the Lantians were now protected by organic armor.
Well, now the reason for the excessive projectile consumption was clear.
The Hippaforalkus shuddered noticeably.
"Ihaar!"
"The shield on the middle section failed!" he snapped. "I'm doing what I can, but without the power regulator."
The second Hive Ship had frankly become annoying. Trebal concentrated on it, directing another group of drones, but at that very moment a whole series of impacts shook the battleship.
The lighting on the Control Chair went out. The backrest returned to its original position. The girl opened her eyes and realized she was surrounded by semi-darkness — only the emergency lights were working.
"Ihaar, the chair has no power!"
"I know! Half the ship has no power! The cruisers took out our auxiliary power distribution node and damaged half the superreactors! We need to abandon ship! One more volley and we'll all die!"
The girl was stunned for a moment.
How could this be? They had the ZPM, they had a combat-ready battleship, they had a whole arsenal of projectiles that she hadn't even managed to deploy... What was even more frustrating was that she couldn't even launch them all now.
Some would be expended, destroying the Wraith, but the others would become inert and the Ares could retrieve them...
"Is there contact with Mikhail?"
The Hippaforalkus shuddered again.
"No! The transmitter was destroyed, half the systems too! Trebal, I've retrieved the ZPM, heading to the hangar. You need to get there too! The crew should already be in the jumpers. We need to leave, the Hippaforalkus is no longer combat-capable, and we'll die with it!"
The girl, suppressing a lump of pain and emotion in her throat, ran out into the corridor.
"On my way to the hangar."
A ship is just a ship. No matter how much you grow to love it. The lives of the crew are far more important.
The explosion of a control panel threw her against the corridor wall directly opposite a cracked porthole. The girl lifted her gaze and saw the last Hive Ship and two cruisers grouping together, launching their shuttles while also firing at the Lantean battleship's impulse cannons.
These, judging by the yellow streaks of energy, were continuing the fight powered by one of the superreactors. No wonder the Wraith didn't like that.
One of the Nomad ships — Trebal never figured out if it was the Swift or the Sleek — tried to draw fire onto itself, but five Wraith ships — another cruiser had arrived, looking quite battered — drove the brave starship back.
It tried again, intercepting enemy fire with its shields to protect the Lantean battleship's artillery that was incinerating the Wraith.
For a moment, Trebal thought that Mikhail's tactic — showing only a single Ancient battleship that the Scavenger could only know about — was very effective. After all, Styx clearly intended to first draw out all of his enemies' forces — not necessarily thinking they would be Lanteans — and then arrive to finish the fight personally. And keeping the Ares in reserve was smart.
Or, since he had disappeared from the scanners, he might have simply gone about his own business. And might not show up for this meeting of old enemies at all.
In that case, there would be no point in showing the Ares at all — the less the Wraith knew about Atlantis's military strength, the better.
Because one Hippaforalkus would have been enough to destroy the entire Wraith fleet.
If only Trebal could launch several hundred projectiles at different targets simultaneously.
If only the ZPM hadn't played a cruel trick.
"Wraith!" Ihaar's hysterical voice came over the communicator. "Wraith!"
"Ihaar?!" The girl got to her feet, trying to contact the Chief Engineer. But she couldn't — he either didn't hear the call or couldn't answer anymore.
The girl noticed how the bulk of a Wraith Hive Ship was looming in the porthole. Mangled, showing numerous holes, spewing countless debris from its depths, the vessel moved slowly...
And was blocking the other Wraith starships from firing at the Lantean battleship. For a few minutes, to be precise.
Trebal saw a large Wraith ship fly out from the side of this vessel. Large, compared to an "Arrow," of course. And it headed straight for the hangar of the Lantean battleship, where an identical small craft had just entered.
The girl went cold.
Boarding action.
Just what she expected — the enemy intended to capture a relatively combat-ready ship for its own purposes.
The Dorandan woman drew her "Frequency Gun," switched it to kill mode, and sincerely hoped that Ihaar, part of the crew, and the ZPM had left the doomed starship and...
The porthole flashed with a white-blue burst, in which the battered enemy Hive Ship shattered into pieces. Six charges of various calibers slammed into the Hippaforalkus's hull — misses from the Wraith. Though, extra damage on a ship the enemy wants to capture is hardly unwelcome, is it?
Then, the view of the four Wraith starships was blocked by a very familiar Lantean battleship hull.
The Ares's shields flared yellow, absorbing the energy of the Wraith's hits, and then the arriving starship's onboard artillery swung toward the enemy.
The Ares-savior.
And the flagship's guns spoke at the same time as jumpers appeared against the battleship's hull, racing toward the Hippaforalkus.
And Arrows.
Lots of Arrows.
Trebal didn't have time to rejoice at how the first Wraith cruiser exploded, unable to withstand the onslaught of the Ares's shipboard artillery, before the smile slid from her face.
Slightly "higher" and further away from the enemy starships that the Ares was aggressively reclassifying from "spacecraft" to "scrap metal," a window into hyperspace opened.
And three more starships joined the three battered Wraith vessels.
The Scavenger had arrived.
"By the shit of the Ori," the girl groaned, firing blindly at a Wraith soldier who appeared in the corridor. "What kind of day is this?!"