Chapter 06
Over an hour and a half had passed since the Tau'ri started towing the trans-universal starship. Sensors on the Prometheus showed that the ship was ever so slowly coming back together as her weary crew did their absolute best to bring her back from the brink of death. Even visibly, she was improving as the lights that lit up her designation stopped flickering thanks to power being directly restored to all external and internal lights.
Thanks to the shield from the Prometheus, some of the crew was actually able to make some external repairs as well. The armor plating that covered the impulse engines, bridge, and sensor dome was all being replaced with fresher armor. Other areas just had minor repairs done to electrical systems and piping. Understandable as it seemed to Captain Shumer that some truly needed a fresh shower on the NX-01.
"How much longer until we reach Valhalla?" he asked his pilot.
"We should arrive within ten minutes, sir," the pilot stated. Shumer nodded his head before turning toward his comm officer.
"Send a message to the Enterprise. We will be arriving at Valhalla within ten minutes and we recommend that her crewmen working on their hull be inside the ship for exit. We are lucky that they can stand out there with the shield up. I don't want to see what happens when we rapidly decelerate," he finished.
"Aye sir," she confirmed before she turned to her console to send the message.
(Line Break)
"Sir I'm receiving a message from the Prometheus Captain. They are telling us that we are ten minutes from Valhalla and that we should pull all of our external work crews back inside," Hoshi relayed.
"Alright. Tell our crews to stop what they are doing and get back inside the ship. I don't want to lose anyone in another universe," Archer states before pressing a button on his command chair. "Trip, can we use the impulse engines?"
"Only up to three-quarter power. If you try to go to full power, I can't guarantee the engines won't either overload and blow or just shut down permanently," Trip warned.
"I'll take that under advisement. Archer out," Archer said before pressing the same button again. He gave out a sigh before turning back to Maywhether. "Be ready to fly Mr. Maywhether. I don't want to be carried the whole way into the docks."
"Roger that sir," Maywhether confirmed. It was an agonizing ten minutes as the bridge crew waited to see what planet the Tau'ri had called Valhalla. The work crews from the hull had quickly returned to the interior of the ship after they were given notice. Seems that they were ready to get back inside at any moment. Once the ten minutes were almost up, T'pol's sensors picked up an energy burst and a dramatic speed decrease. They came out of their blue tunnel to a planet that looked similar to their Earth without the scars of history.
(Line Break)
To General of Planetary Forces Samantha Carter, the wait for the trans-universal ship was agonizing. Most of the other multiverse events that the old Stargate program had run into weren't quite friendly with the most recent being a Super-Hive ship from the Pegasus galaxy getting the coordinates of Earth from a Wraith in a different universe. She was hoping beyond hope, even though being a scientist generally meant she didn't believe in things like that, that this event would go a lot better than those other events.
She was watching out of one of the many windows available on Valhalla One, the first self defense station that was built in orbit of the planet, for the new craft. As she waited, she could see the civilian trade vessels that ferried cargo to and from the colonized Tau'ri worlds. She could also see Valhallas 23 and 24 still under construction.
All of the other colonies only carried twelve self defence stations however every Capital planet, such as Earth and Langara, received twenty-four. Valhalla was an exception to that rule as it was the first planet that the Tau'ri colonized under a united planet Earth. As such, it was a major target for any Lucian Alliance members who thought they were big enough to go after the Tau'ri.
Carter was thinking of the several skirmishes that have occurred between the Alliance and the Tau'ri when a larger blue portal appeared signifying the arrival of a large fleet of ships. Then the battlegroup that was supposed to return to Pegasus came shooting out of the portal with an extra vessel in tow.
From what the GPF could see, it was heavily damaged from combat. On the starboard side cylinder there was a dome that was flashing red however it's port side brother was dead black. Many holes could be seen all over the ship from energy weapon strikes. Burn marks show where the weapons couldn't quite make it through the hull. She could only imagine how many lives have been lost from such an attack. Especially since scans showed only a small number of people on board when it came through the anomaly.
Through all the damage and grime, however, she could see a beautiful work of art that most likely made its creators and crew proud. She hoped that she may be able to see it fully operational if things went well. She was trying to imagine how the NX-01 would look without all of the damage when her aide walked up to her.
"General Carter, ma'am? General Sheppard wishes for permission to join us on the station with a few members of the damaged ship's senior officers," she stated.
"They have permission to come aboard. Have a small security team waiting as a precaution. Only two men should do," Carter ordered.
"Yes, Ma'am!" the aide announced and saluted before heading off to follow her orders. Carter returned her imagination's eye on the new ship one last time before turning to meet her new guests.
(Line Break)
"Shuttlepod One, you are cleared to enter the bay," the flight control officer said as Archer slowly inched the small craft into the much larger hangar bay. He wasn't expecting to see people walking around the bay without space suits of some type but soon broke out of his surprise as force field technology was most likely going to be on the short end of the list of scientific wonders to be found within the Tau'ri vessel.
The craft approached its designated landing area and set down. With a whine, its nuclear engines shut down and Archer turned to his small team that consisted of himself, T'pol, Trip, and Phlox.
"Let's go meet the Tau'ri," he said before opening the port side hatch to the hangar bay. He and his team were met by two armed guards with helmets too dark to see inside of but Archer guessed they could see quite well. A bit a ways was two gentlemen in what looked like dress uniforms. The one on the left was Bald and carried a navy blue uniform with many honors to be found all over his jacket. The other looked a tad younger with salt and pepper hair and sporting a dark green uniform with even more honors than the first. The only similarity Archer could find between the two men was a single pin on their collars. It was a silver pegasus with its wings spread, ready to take flight.
"Captain Archer. My name is Admiral Caldwell of the Pegasus Naval Tau'ri Forces," the bald man, Admiral Calwell, stated before motioning towards the other officer. "This is General Sheppard of Pegasus Army Tau'ri Forces. Welcome aboard the Achilles,". Archer took a moment before responding.
"Hello and thank you on behalf of my crew for assisting us when you did. It is a pleasure to meet humans from another reality altogether," Archer said before walking up to the two men and shaking their hands. He turned to face his crew and began his own introductions. "This is Charles Tucker III, however we call him Trip," he said pointing to the man who moved to shake the Tau'ri's hands.
"This is my Science Officer and second in command T'pol from Vulcan, he said pointing to his pointy-eared commander. She shook their hands as well before Archer motioned towards the last member of his away team whom had smile on his face despite how tired he looked.
"And this is Dr. Phlox from the planet Denobula. He is my ship's doctor," Archer finished as the Denobulan shook hands with the two men. After shaking hand the man identified as General Sheppard spoke up.
"It is a pleasure to meet all of you face to face. As much as I believe Admiral Caldwell would enjoy first contact taking place on his flagship, I'm afraid that we will have to transport over towards Valhalla One where GPF Samantha Carter would like a word with you about maybe repairing your vessel and getting you back home as you are on a time limit if I remember correctly. Maybe we can have a trade of technologies to go along with it all," he said with a small grin. Archer noticed that the smirk wasn't malicious, it was just part of the General's charm.
"That would be fine just allow me to contact my ship to notify them of my location change," Archer said.
"Of course. Take all the time you need. Just notify us when you are ready." Archer nodded his head before pulling out his communicator from his left bicep pocket. After making the call, he placed the small device back inside its pocket and turned toward the two officers.
"Ready to go when you are," he said. General Sheppard nodded his head before pulling out his own version of the communicator, but before he made a call he turned toward Archer.
"Are you all ok with using beaming technology to get to V1? It would be quicker than using one of our shuttlecraft," he asked.
"We have beaming technology of our own so we are quite fine with it. All I ask is that our shuttle remains untouched while we are gone," Archer requested.
"Not a problem," Sheppard said before turning toward his communicator and saying, "Beam us out." In a bright flash the six people were gone without a trace. The only thing that said that something was out of the ordinary was a single shuttle that now sat behind a large force field so that it would remain untouched until its owners returned. However long or short that wait might be.