This chapter will actually have Mass Effect stuff in it. It won;t be as one sided like the first, and should be the last of such chapters.
1st Fleet, Earth Systems Alliance- Earth vicinity
"Admiral, our joint turian virtual telescope has picked up very unusual readings."
Admiral Steven Hackett was a busy man, even when he was looking out the view windows at Earth's curvature. He had a datapad in hand; lists of possible Spectre canidates from the Alliance, places and missions to coordinate with a Council Spectre. All on top of maintaining the safety and security of the Alliance. A light day by comparison. Turning to the leuitenent, Hackett lowered the datapad and levelled his steeling gaze on the junior officer.
"Natural or artifical?" the man inquired.
"We aren't sure, sir. We just got the data from the telescope and both our and the turian teams are analyzing it. It looks like a massive burst of energy followed a few hundred milliseconds later a series of objects on various trajectories. The energy is washing out the scans, no way to tell what the objects are, sir, but they are scattered all over the galaxy from what we can tell."
"Are any of them near Alliance territory?" Hackett asked, clasping his hands behind his back.
"Not official Alliance territory. One small one is somewhere in the Attican Traverse. Initial estimates put it a little too close to the Kite's Nest. No word if the Batarians are on to it. Another large object is in the Athena Nebula, we can't track it very far into Asari space. A third was tracked into the back half of the Terminus but the galactic core is obscuring the resolution. The last one might be in geth space, the reading seemed to disperse after it appeared."
The admiral looked back out the large window for a moment. Since Alliance space was not breached, no action was required. But, his concern natually spread to their tenious allies.
"Keep in contact with the turians and find those objects. Notify the asari if they somehow are unaware of the event. And keep an eye on the Traverse. We can't do anything about the Terminus but I don't want the batarians getting their hands on anything they can use on our colonies."
The leuitenent saluted and rushed off to carry out the admiral's orders. While his curiosity was obviously piqued, he still had other concerns and tasks to focus on.
On the fringes of geth controlled space, the trio of Romulan vessels drifted. Singularity drives were in flux, as if the normal laws of physics were altered slightly. But it was a mixed blessing, all ships were undamaged with minor injuries reported. Subcommander S'Rae was thankful for that at least. The engineers were close to getting the warp engines online, but that did them no good without any idea where they were.
"What's the status on those sensor logs? I want to know what happened to the task group," the irritated Romulan demanded.
"The computers are recovering the short term data storage. I'm surprised that it isn't much worse than waiting on routine computer processes," a leuitenent said, uniform in poorer condition than the normal Empire would allow for. New Romulus may have been little more than a colony, but that made little difference to the stalwart crews of the top of the line ships they were constructing. They were moving on, determined to leave the likes of the Tal'Shiar behind.
"What about the D'deridex? Any reported disturbances? Tal'Shiar moles threatening to rise up in mutany?" S'Rae asked, loathing of the old Empire and the insidious agents they lived in fear of.
"Nothing to report for now. Their comm systems are still malfunctioning, nothing new in that regard. Which makes it hard to track covert communications, as well as maintain contact. We're still communicating through tightbeam data transmissions."
The subcommander lowered her gaze, thinking for a moment. "Lets focus on getting back to friendly territory. Does astrometrics have any clues as to the task group's location?"
A moment passed as the leiutenent accessed his console, a little disturbed by what he was seeing. "Sir.. according to initial scans, we're somewhere in the Delta Quadrant."
The bridge fell silent instantly.
"The Delta Quadrant? How can that be? Even with the engine improvements the Federation has given us, we'll be stuck here for decades," the leiutenent said. "Run a dianostic on the astrometrics computer."
"This is after a level 4 diagnostic. Furthermore, based on our scans, we may have undergone a superdimension journey."
This was well beyond S'Rae's expectations. It was one thing to always say 'expect the unexpected', to actually be blindsided like this was tough to stomach. It made their predicament bleak. "Run... Configure our scanners for quantum scans, then make adjustments to our warp engines. I want a course plot to the Alpha Quadrant within the hour," the woman said, pushing herself to her feet and exiting to the turbolift.
USS Hallowed Pillar- Advanced Oddessy Cruiser
Athena Nebula- Ialessa System
"We're starting to pick up chatter on the low band subspace, still can't make much of it out though. And we still have yet to crack the encryption on that communication satelitte."
Ma'velo Bur'kol heaved a sigh at the latest report. But, at least things were progressing. After whatever happened to the Task group, her ship and the Starfleet Corps of Engineers vessels ended up in this system. From what their astrometrics computer indicated, they were somewhere in the unexplored portions of the Beta Quadrant. While that made her Cardassian, Bajorian and Trill crew somewhat happier with their situation, she kept most of her thoughts to herself. Though it did nothing to stop a Cardassian's prying.
"I know it wasn't exactly an electrifying piece of news, but surely you have something to say?" Gul Tkuran said, leaned forward in his chair as he watched the Klingon woman wrestle with her thoughts.
Ma'velo was tall, as beautiful as a Klingon could be without the garish brute nature. It tended to make her emotions easy to read. Her chin rest on her knuckles, leaning on the arm of her chair, gazing dully at the currently blank view screen. She sighed again and sat up straight, straightening her skirt and tucking a well tended dreadlock behind her ear.
"I'm thinking. The scenerios. They run in my head all of the time. Which one will end up coming true? The unexpected? Q's interferance? Something natural, a freak accident? My choices need to be the right ones. I have a couple thousand lives across five ships to worry about."
The Cardassian flashed a knowing smirk and sat back in his chair, tugging a his uniform yet kept his gaze on the admiral. "Whatever you end up deciding, we will support you, as the crew should. I know Klingons are not prone to doubt, but think of it as seeing the bounds of your influances, and how you can extend them for your benefit."
An ensign interrupted from a console to their left.
"Sir, Engineering reports all systems back online and fully opperational. The Yan Zhe- the Soviergn class cruiser- is reporting green across the board, and the light cruisers Westchester, Isesaka, and Prague have warp power and engines. However their weapons are down. They couldn't replicate parts so they had to scavenge their phaser relays to get engines back online. They are working on their replicators now, the Yan Zhe is assisting. And... we have vessels on intercept course."
"Can you Identify them? Has the science labs finished their scans of the ship?" Gul Tkuran inquired, leaning forward in his seat, on it's very edge.
"The science teams are reporting our ship is intact and experiancing no abnormal effects from the event. Quantum scans did, however confirm that we are in an alternate universe. Completely different from any we have visited previously."
Ma'velo buried her face in her hands then stood up and walked to the viewscreen.
"Put the ships on screen. I want to see them. Maximum magnification."
The ensign brought the sensor feed up to the monitor. There was about five large dreadnaught cruisers, ten cruisers, and several wings of recon fighters, all of a foreign configuration.
"They are coming into range, sensors are getting more defined information. Very strange power readings, I'm trying to clear up some of the radiation coming from the vessels' interior. Shields seem comparable to standard shielding, not appearent beam weaponry. I am detecting directed mass accellerator weapons, but until they get closer, I can't get much specifics."
The admiral watched the screen, thinking silently. The Cardassian rose from his chair and walked up beside the Klingon. The ships were smooth in apperance, completely dissimilar from any ship he had seen before. Numbers like that suggested a gassioned self defense force.
"How is our universal translator, I have a feeling we will be putting it to work," Tkuran said said, walking down to the comm officer's console and looking over the young Vulcan's shoulder. "Huh, they're already hailing us. Curious, they seem to be using holographic communication, the bandwidth they are broadcasting is massive."
"Damn, we'll need time to allocate data transfer and hardware. get crews on it. Hopefully they can get us online before they get too close."
