The Belkan War
Prologue
February 2nd 2151, United Earth Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco.
"I trust that you all know why you're here?"
The assorted assembly of human officers and politicians and the Vulcan ambassador and his aides gave Admiral Forrest their undivided attention.
"To discuss the artefact discovered in Pluto's ice moon," Admiral Black answered.
"Indeed," Forrest agreed, sitting down and activating the projector, which displayed the image of the object sitting in a small ice field with large concentrations of ice steadily cracking and breaking off.
It was roughly the shape of a tuning fork with two large rings in the centre that held a large sphere that was glowing very softly, there was a small cluster of pylons rising vertically from the top of the ring but off centre so they weren't over the axis of the ring's rotation. The whole thing was ten kilometres long.
"What is it?" Commodore Gardener asked.
"No one knows," Forrest replied solemnly, "However, images of such artefacts have been recovered from the ruined base recently discovered on Mars, if what our analysts suspect is true, this could be one of a large number of artefacts that can be used as an interstellar transport system, catapulting vessels dozens or even hundreds of light years to another artefact."
"What does this mean?" one of the Vulcans asked.
"It means that a potentially hostile race could appear in our backyard with virtually no warning, the only saving grace is that this is the only one in our spiral arm if the techs are reading the starcharts right," Forrest replied.
"On the other hand, it could allow us to explore and colonise in areas previously unreachable," Admiral Black pointed out.
"Both are distinct possibilities," Commodore Gardener said, "Possibilities we must take action for."
"Agreed," Forrest said, "Which is why I called this meeting, Earth and Starfleet have been trying to get our deep space exploration program going, despite opposition," he looked at Soval and his aides, "But now there is no choice but to expand the fleet and send expeditions through the artefact, we must do whatever possible to put a buffer between Earth and what may be at the other end of the artefact… but we can't do this alone."
Soval gave his friend a curious look, "You wish for our assistance?"
"We barely have adequate forces to defend our current territory and can only spare Enterprise for exploration until either Columbia or the first Exeter-class ships are finished, your people may no longer have the same drive to reach out into the unknown but we both know you are better prepared for it. Yes this will be a joint operation, both Starfleet and the High Command providing ships to map and police the territory beyond the Relay," Forrest answered.
"We should get the Andorians and Tellarites involved," Commodore Frost declared to his colleagues surprise and the Vulcans horror, "this is too big for us to deal with on our own, and it is the ethical choice to inform them of a potential threat to their people."
The Vulcans shared a look, "Do we have any idea of the area covered by these… Relays?" Soval asked.
Admiral Forrest brought up a map of the known Primary Relays closest to the Charon Relay, followed by a map of known Secondary relays being laid over it. The Primary Relays were dispersed across the galaxy with distances of hundreds of light years between them; there was literally a path from the Primary the Charon Relay connected to all the way to the counterpart in the spiral arm on the opposite side of the galaxy, the Secondary Relays spread out in a spider's web from each of the Primary Relays with three exceptions in the form of long chains of Secondary Relays that branched off several times into areas that seemed oddly empty of Primary Relays.
"Dear God!"
Everyone in the room shared Admiral Black's opinion, even if they didn't voice it.
"I would like our researchers to examine the Archive before a decision is made," Soval replied diplomatically, he knew the suggestion of informing the Andorians, never mind proposed joint operations or even an alliance, would cause uproar but if this was true there wasn't really a choice if they wanted mutual protection, the human fleet and military would not be up to strength for some time.
"I will see what I can do, access will be restricted obviously but you should be able to verify this," Forrest said.
The meeting broke up after that, the Admirals exchanged a few theories and worries but then returned to their posts, not knowing the effects that meeting would have decades later.
January 1st 2152, UES Columbia NX-02
'Today is the day', Captain A. G. Robinson thought as he looked around the bridge, glancing at the nervous but excited command crew and the stoic Vulcan observers, 'Today we make History.'
"All systems ready, sir," Commander Erika Hernandez reported.
"Archer should be in position by now," Robinson said, "Helm, take us to the Relay, one half impulse."
"Aye, Sir," the helmswoman, Hannah Shepard, acknowledged, imputing the course and taking the new ship on its first steps towards its date with History.
Waiting anxiously in the void were several Alliance ships and twelve Starfleet ships, all anticipating the success of the first Relay transit but also very fearful, according to the Prothean archives no vessel with such a large amount of Anti-matter or a Warp reactor had passed through a Mass Relay, there was no idea of what could happen.
This was why most of the crew on the four Andorian and two Tellarite ships believed that Warp travel, while significantly slower, was exponentially safer than an untried interstellar coil gun.
Thousands watched with baited breath as the NX-02 approached the massive satellite, coming in to the rear and then turning onto a parallel course 150m away.
"The Relay computer is requesting transit mass, Sir," Ensign Oliver Shepard reported.
Robinson nodded and Ensign Shepard transmitted the ship's mass to the Relay.
There was silence apart from the sounds of the ship's systems before the Relay's power output surged and lightning shot from the rapidly spinning core to the exploration cruiser.
The lightning arced over the view screen for less than a second, when the stars streamed back in white lines like the scene of the Imperial shuttle jumping to Hyperspace in Return of the Jedi, giving way to a split second of darkness then blue waves of energy forming over the bow to slide over the ship turning purple then red as they passed, before finally decelerating next to a Mass Relay pointing in the opposite direction.
"Sir! There's a ship approaching from bearing 135," Lieutenant Shepard reported.
"They're hailing us…"
"Open a channel!"
"It's…"
"Welcome to Arcturus, A.G."
"…Enterprise," Ensign Shepard finished lamely, looking sheepishly at his wife, who smiled back.
"Glad to be here, Jon," Robinson replied over the comm channel.
"The celebration may be a bit premature; there are three other Mass Relays in the system."
"Damn," Robinson murmured, his exclamation echoed by half the bridge crew, "We need to explore each one individually to guard against any threat."
"My senior officers and I came to the same conclusion."
"Lieutenant, take us a safe distance away from the Relay and drop Echo-4,we need to inform command."
"Yes sir!"
The two starships moved away from the massive station and toward the centre of the system, after ten minutes one of the launch bays on the NX-02 opened and a large, drum shaped object fell away.
After five seconds of free-fall, two wings bearing solar panels extended from the body of the object as several small ion thrusters fired to arrest the satellite's momentum, ten seconds after that a transmitter inside activated, broadcasting a test signal across sub-space to a partner satellite in Sol. Two minutes later, the first mission progress logs were sent to the Sol satellite, marking the first small step in the Alliance's expansion through the Mass Relay system.