The Way Home – Going Home rework
by Warringer
Chapter 37
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Helo glared down at the display of the plot.
A few moments after the last Cylon Basestar had jumped away, most Raiders had followed suit, jumping somewhere. A few had jumped towards the Thylium Asteroid, but most hadn't.
Right now there was a good amount of activity at the asteroid and Helo didn't like it. The whole situation was a trap. The Cylons had jumped at them, even somehow managing to get through the stealth system of Leonidas. And now they had pulled only a small number of forces back to the Asteroid.
He lay a finger down at the tactical display, drawing a circle around the asteroid. The advanced touch sensitive display of the plot recognized the gesture and the asteroid zoomed in until it filled the display of the plot.
"Astral," he called out and eyed the Ferron woman for a moment." Can you get me a full scan of the asteroid."
She looked back at him and mimicked Kijoshi's raised eyebrow.
"I can, sir," she noted." Should I get a drone to it?"
Helo shook his head.
"No. The drones may be stealthed, but the Cylons have somehow managed to breach our stealth. Just do a normal scan."
Astral nodded and Kijoshi eyed him.
"You got a gut feeling, eh?"
Helo nodded.
"Yeah. That depot of Thylium can supply a fleet like ours for several years. And right now the Cylons are only putting up a token resistance against us. It doesn't quite add up."
Kijoshi nodded as they both watched how the data from the scan was layered over the display in realtime.
"They might have increased the ground based defenses," Kijoshi noted.
"Or they have rigged the whole asteroid with nuclear warheads."
The Shin'bi looked at Helo and again raised an eyebrow, before nodding again.
"Sounds very much like something a Shin'bi would do," he noted with a chuckle." Detonate the warheads and you get an increased yield from the detonation, ripping the asteroid to shreds. And those shreds act like shrapnel against all objects surrounding the asteroid. Like spaceships."
"Not to mention reducing the rest of the Thylium to worthless material thanks to the nuclear radiation..."
Helo frowned as yet another layer was placed over the display and pressed a small icon in one corner of the plot. Immediately the two dimensional display of the asteroid seemed to raise from the plot until if floated above it, slowly rotating.
"Astral," Kijoshi said after a while." Can you get us a display of radiation gradients around th asteroid?"
Astral nodded the hologram changed, showing a flow of colors around the asteroid, raging from blue to red. Once again Helo was baffled about the effectivity of Galactic sensors. He had never thought that they would be able to scan for radiation moving into any other direction than theirs. But such was technology that was able to get around the Uncertainty Principle by doing two different scans for direction, followed by speed of particles using some sort of quantum interference with vacuum energy.
Thinking of something like that was giving him headaches...
"Red are the highest radiation areas?" he wondered.
"Yes, sir."
Helo nodded and eyed the hologram. There were several areas with heightened radiation, mostly orange in color. The only red area was the mine.
He poked a finger into the hologram before slightly crooking it and pulling out one of the orange dots, the plot sensing his motions. The area he pulled out, zoomed in, showing the area in a large resolution. But it wasn't large enough to actually see anything.
"Looks like we have found our nukes," he noted.
"Sir," suddenly came from Communication." Flash message from Galactica. We're ordered to stay put and wait for reinforcements. Galactica and an allied fleet will jump in in approximately five hours."
Helo blinked and looked at Kijoshi.
"That was fast," he noted." I thought that they would bicker over it for at least a week."
Kijoshi snorted.
"Our politicians would have needed a month, with at least five assassinations..."
Helo edged away from Kijoshi.
"Remind me to never get involved in Shin'bi politics..."
"Noted," the dragonoid said with a grin." Also looks like we're able to tell Grant our story..."
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Commander Franklin Grant eyed the airlock.
For now he wanted to know what the frack was going on. Captain Agathon had relayed a message from Galactica, who had to be several systems away, to stay put for the moment and await the arrival of her and a fleet of their allies.
Only that there hadn't been any Raptor jumping in, not any other fast courier or scout bearing the message.
It only added to the force shield and the energy weapons. Did they have some sort of FTL communication system?
Right now Leonidas was docking with Thunderchild, using the starboard docking port. There were a number of Marines securing the air lock, ready to use anything should this be a very elaborate trap of the Cylons.
The red light above the airlock switched to green and the airlock slowly cycled open.
On the other side a wide eyed Colonial crewman stared into the numerous barrels of the Marines weapons and paled visibly.
"Commander Grant?" the crewman asked with a weak voice after swallowing, looking towards Grant.
"That would be me," Grant noted and frowned.
The crewman looked very young. He couldn't have been older than maybe seventeen, little more than a boy really.
"Captain Agathon waits for you in CIC, sir," the crewman said nervously." He's sorry that he can't come himself, but he is a little busy with the latest sensory data."
Grant raised an eyebrow.
"Well than Crewman," he said and looked at the crewman, looking at his name patch." Stanos, lead the way."
Next to Grant, Pierce nodded towards the Marines. The Master-at-Arms nodded in response.
"Hanson, Wilks, Carver, Parmer, you'll be securing the Commander," the Chief Petty Officer ordered and four Marines moved towards Grant as he walked towards the air lock.
Crewman Stanos swallowed again and walked back into Leonidas. Grant could see that the boy walked with stiff legs and shook his head as he followed him, in turn followed by the four Marines.
The first thing that shot through Grants head was that Leonidas didn't have much space. The airlock ended up in a corridor that was narrow enough that only two people could walk through it next to each other. And even than most of the space was taken up by a number of crates and cardboard boxes that were seemingly placed at random throughout the corridor.
"Sorry, coming through..." a voice called out and Garret could see how Stanos moved to the next bulkhead where no boxes occupied the way. Considering the lack of space that was probably a good idea to have some areas where people weren't getting into each others way.
Garret and the four Marines looked for their own place to get out of the way. The person that had called out carried what looked like a spare part. In this case a part of a breaker system. Garret nodded to himself but than blinked as he looked at the man carrying the spare part.
At first he wanted to tell him to get himself a good shave, but there were many thing off about the Crewman. Namely the fact that a pair of yellow eyes with slitted pupils looked at him. As the man gave him a slightly embarrassed smile, Garret could see enlonged canines.
"Wha..."
Garret was stopped cold by a blue skinned and copper red haired being that was just about four feet tall but nearly wide enough to completely filling up what little space remained in the corridor. A rather thick copper red colored beard covered a good part of the beings face, neatly made into several braids. To make it even stranger, the being carried the rest of the breaker system, a part that had at least two hundred kilos like it was only about a tenth as heavy.
Garret and the Marines stared after the two crewmen carrying the spare parts down the corridor before Stanos called out behind them.
"Sir? The CIC is just around the corner."
Garret could only nod a little dumbly, trying to wrap his head around what he had just seen. The Marines were not much better off as they followed Stanos the last few meters towards Leonidas CIC.
The door to the CIC opened showing that the CIC was rather small, compared to most other ships, but still looking very much like a standard CIC.
Half of the CIC crew however made Garret and his Marines stop right at the entrance. There were one of the blue skinned 'dwarfs' and two of these hairy, cat-eyed people. The most shocking part however were two other beings.
Colonial myths did know dragons, some of them were dumb beasts, while others were wise beings and now Garret saw two humanoid dragons in the CIC of a Colonial frigate. Both dressed in Colonial uniforms. One sat in front of a console, while the other was standing at the plot table next to one of three humans in the CIC, Stanos, Garret and the Marines not counted.
"What the frack..." one of the Marines voiced exactly what Garret thought.
The human and the dragon at the plot turned around and looked up from where they were doing something at the plot. As the turned, Garret could see a glowing green model of an asteroid floating above the plot.
Absentmindedly he noted that the human had the rank insignia of a Captain, while the dragon had those of a Lieutenant.
"Commander Garret," the human said and smiled as he walked up to them." Welcome aboard of Leonidas."
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Tom Marvolo Riddle, currently going by the name of Lord Voldemort, scratched what passed as a chin as he looked at the fat man and the purple woman in front of him.
The current situation was very rare. Especially considering the nature of the Death Eaters. But currently the situation the whole world was in, was far from being normal.
"Well, General," he said and absentmindedly scratched the head of his pet snake." A very interesting proposal."
General Hugo Xinchub smiled thinly.
"I knew that you would say that, Tom," Xinchub noted with a smirk not unlike that of a cat that had just eaten a canary.
What passed as Voldemorts eyebrow twitched slightly at being called by his hated birth name. Normally he would have killed anyone calling him that at that instant, but right now Xinchub could prove to be very useful.
"I am very interested where you have... acquired that ship through..."
Again Xinchub smirked. To Voldemort it was very interesting to see that neither he nor his female companion were intimidated by Azkaban, nor about the fact that the present Death Eaters could kill them any moment they chose.
"Oh... that was relatively easy," he noted." We were actually surprised that the Doranians had such a bad internal security at their ship. And cloaking it via magical means wasn't a problem. Getting it out of there was a little more of a problem."
Voldemort nodded and continued to scratch what passed as his chin.
Getting a second base of operations, elsewhere without any muggles or mudbloods getting in the way and without having to worry about the Doranians had its positive sides. Not to mention getting to know more about the Doranians technology.
Maybe it would enable him to find a way to get that infamous 'Homecoming Prophecy' to have him as the returner.
If he had to work with these American Wizards and Witches, so be it. He could get rid of them later on.
"I will have to think about it," he said and leaned back in his throne." I will call for you if I have decided whether or not to work with you."
Xinchub smiled and nodded.
"Very good," he answered and slowly turned around to leave the room together with his companion.
The door closed behind them and the woman's face showed a frown.
"I still don't know why you want to work with that..."
Xinchub chuckled as they walked down the empty and dark corridor, folding his hands behind his back.
"He happens to be one of the most powerful wizards on Earth, Colonel," he noted." He could be very useful. Especially since he has come back from the dead."
"Ahhh..." she made," The Project."
Xinchub chuckled a bit.
"Galactic technology and genetics combined with magic should get it off quite nicely, don't you think?"
"I just hope we can contain him."
"I'm sure he will be able to the job quite nicely himself..."