Destiny's Child
Chapter Five
The fleet of five top-of-the-line Goa'uld Shalkra-class motherships hung silent in the depths of space, waiting for their latest mission assignment to come from their god Anubis.
A tel'tac came out of hyperspace at that moment and moved unerringly towards the lead mothership. Within seconds the tiny vessel was alongside the giant, hanging directly underneath its ring. After a moment a matter stream flashed into existence between the cargo ship and the mothership - a condensed pulse of light shot along the matter stream as someone transported aboard the mothership. The matter stream disappeared and the cargo ship moved away from the powerful battle group before jumping into hyperspace its mission completed.
Tanneth along with his lotar materialised in the main ring room of the mothership. The two Jaffa waiting for him dropped to one knee.
"Welcome my lord you honour us with your presence," the most senior of the two Jaffa said respectfully.
[Rise,] Tanneth ordered even as he recognised the Jaffa. He still bore the mark of Apophis even though Apophis was now irrevocably dead incinerated when Vorash's sun went supernova and decimated a large chunk of his fleet. The rest of the fleet had been brought under Anubis' control by Apophis' son Klorell - who wasn't that well respected by the System Lords having once been captured and deprived of his first host by the Tollan. Anubis - an outsider to the System Lords himself - had had no such problem with Klorell and given him a position of considerable power. Currently Klorell and the detachment of the fleet he was in charge of would be off making life miserable for the System Lord Baal.
"What are your orders my lord?" the Jaffa - Tanneth vaguely remembered his name to be Yalshak - asked.
[Is the fleet ready for departure?]
"Of course my lord. All systems are operational. All the damage we sustained in our last engagement against Lord Olokun has been repaired. We can depart whenever you desire it."
[Excellent. Escort me to my quarters then lay in a course for Tollana.]
"Yes my lord."
As the Jaffa escorted him and his lotar through the corridors of the mothership towards the quarters designated for him Tanneth thought about his mission. He was both gratified and irritated by it. Gratified that he was returning to Tollana to confront the Resolution with a force that she couldn't possibly defeat, irritated by the fact that he was not allowed to destroy her.
An analysis of the sensor scans he had done during their last meeting had revealed many interesting things about the Resolution. On board her were technologies that we completely new to them and her tactical systems both offensive and defensive were highly advanced. The Resolution carried weaponry that was allot more powerful than theirs and then their was her shields and the armour beneath them. Analysis had indicated that the armour would be nearly indestructible. And the shields were obviously more advanced even than their newest shielding and analysis had indicated the probability that the shields might be regenerative. The analysis of that ship was so impressive that Anubis had ordered that the ship be captured intact and brought to him. When its power was added to his it would make him and his fleet invincible. Even the Asgard would fear them.
And so it was that Anubis himself had ordered Tanneth to capture that ship intact. Anubis had said that he could do what he liked with the captain and crew, he just wanted the ship. Tanneth had already decided that he would take great pleasure in painfully killing Captain Parker, before reviving him in a sarcoughogus to begin again, and again. Eventually when he grew tired to torturing the man he would either kill him or take him as a new host.
Smiling evilly Tanneth walked down the corridors of the mothership towards the quarters assigned to him. Yes this was going to be a good day.
Little did he know how wrong he was.
*****
U.S.S Resolution
A Few Hours Later
Lieutenant Rakan sat before the main console in the astrometrics lab frowning at the chronometric readings displayed before him. This can't be right, he thought studying the readings. According to these readings the Resolution had not just been displaced in universes by the quantum fissure but in time as well by three hundred and seventy-seven years. If it was the case it added a whole new set of problems to the quest to find away to recreate the quantum fissure that brought them here.
With quick commands to the console Rakan run another scan of the space-time continuum with the temporal sensors. The results came up and he groaned. They were exactly the same as the last time. With a sigh Rakan tapped his combadge. Captain Parker was not going to like this.
"Rakan to Parker." For a moment their was silence.
"Go ahead," Captain Parker's voice responded sounding a little out of breath. In the background Rakan could hear the chatter of Tameries - bird-like creatures native to the colony planet that Darien Parker hailed from. He's running in the woods again, Rakan thought.
"Captain can you come to the astrometrics lab there's something you should see."
"I'll be right there." Rakan tapped his combadge again closing the channel. Then he turned to the young Human ensign assisting him.
"Ensign go over our sensor readings of our passage through the quantum fissure. Look for a temporal distortion."
"Yes, sir." The young woman responded calling up the data on another station.
A few minutes later the doors to the lab slid open and Darien Parker came in still dressed in shorts, T-shirt and running shoes from his regular jog in the forests of his homeworld.
"What is it lieutenant," he asked walking up to the main console where Rakan was working. Rakan looked over as he approached.
"Take a look at this," Rakan instructed. Darien raised an eyebrow but did as he was told. Ugh oh, he thought.
"Are these readings correct?"
"Yes sir. I ran the scan twice. In addition to being displaced across universes we've also been temporally displaced by three hundred and seventy-seven years Earth time." Darien sighed and rubbed his temples to ease the headache he could feel forming. Darn it. He hated temporal mechanics. He knew of no one who actually liked temporal mechanics. The future is the past. The past is the future. All that stuff gave him a headache. Like many a starship captain.
"Terrific. Just terrific. Not only have we been hurled into another quantum universe but now you tell me we've been hurled back in time as well," Darien moaned shaking his head. "What else can go wrong?" Rakan grinned slightly.
The sensors bleeped abruptly. Rakan immediately turned his attention from his commanding officer to the sensors.
"What is it?" Darien asked.
"Two groups of ships are approaching through somekind of subspace slipstream similar to Borg transwarp technology."
"Isn't that how the Goa'uld mothership left this system so quickly after we disabled her weapons?"
"Yes. This form of faster than light travel is a bit more efficient than standard warp drive. The speed a ship can travel seems to depend on its energy reserve. I've already passed the sensor readings from the motherships departure to engineering. Lieutenant Barrett is right now working on a means of modifying our warp engines to travel in this manner. The warp core produces allot more energy than the reactors the Goa'uld use. We could travel allot faster than them if we are successful in adapting our engines. Theoretically with the power generated by this ships warp core we could navigate from one end of the galaxy to the other in only a few hours."
"Interesting. Have Lieutenant Barrett send a copy of the data to my quarters. Maybe I could of assistance." Subspace field theory had always fascinated him ever since childhood. He'd been top of the subspace theory class at the academy. Starfleet's core of engineers had offered him a research position because of it. But he'd refused preferring an assignment in the fleet.
"Yes sir."
"Can you identify the approaching ships?"
"Yes. Six have energy signatures similar to the Goa'uld mothership but their much smaller and do not appear to have any armament. The other three are completely different. Their travelling a bit faster for one thing which indicates a much greater energy reserve. Two are quiet small and have limited armament. The third is much bigger and very heavily armed. Its definitely a warship."
"Could these ships belong to the allies that High Chancellor Travell and Narim mentioned."
"Possibly. The first three ships will be here in about ten minutes. The other six five minutes after that."
"Contact the surface. Advise High Chancellor Travell of the approaching ships. Since the Tollan don't have any operational long range sensors at the moment I don't want them startled unnecessarily."
"Aye sir." Darien glanced down at himself.
"In the meantime I'm going to my quarters to get back into my uniform."
High Chancellor Travell sat behind the desk in her temporary office off the main control room. Her main office was currently a pile of rubble like the rest of the Currier building. Once her people got back on their feet reconstruction would not take long with their technology - but the Currier building would be the last to be rebuilt they would concentrate on homes, schools, hydroponics facilities and hospitals first. Until then the government would operate out of the main planetary control centre.
The door chime sounded.
"Come in," Travell called. The door opened and Narim came in.
"Your eminence we just received a transmission from the Resolution. Their sensors have detected the relief ships approaching," Narim reported.
"How many?"
"Nine. Six are Goa'uld cargo ships i.e. it's the Tok'ra. Two are Asgard cargo ships, one is definitely an Asgard battlecruiser." Travell looked relieved that relief ships were coming, but a little nervous about the fact that an Asgard warship was with them. The Asgard were not likely to be very happy with the Tollan at the moment. They were probably only coming now because the Humans had asked them.
"It's good to know that there coming I didn't think that the Asgard would come. If Tanneth does return he's going to be in for a bit of a shock when he sees an Asgard cruiser in orbit."
"There probably only coming because the Humans have probably asked them to. Remember your eminence the Asgard do owe the Humans one for saving them from the Replicators."
"True. Have we heard from the Nox?"
"No your eminence. But according to the Resolution's sensors theirs heavy ion storm activity in the vicinity of the Nox homeworld. It's very likely that our request for assistance never reached them."
"The Resolution could tell that from here?" The Nox planet was nearly three hundred light years from Tollana well out of range of standard long-range sensors.
"Apparently they have sensors that they refer to as astrometric sensors. Their range is extraordinary and the precision nothing short of amazing. They primarily use them to produce highly accurate starmaps. But they can be used for other things as well."
"I must remember to request a tour of that ship from Captain Parker," Travell said. "It sounds remarkable."
"Believe me your eminence it is." Travell smiled slightly at Narim's tone. She'd looked at the results of some of their short-range scans of the Resolution. The scan results were limited in the fact that they couldn't scan certain areas of the Federation ship - for example the engineering section - but what she had seen had already told her a little about the highly advanced level of Federation technology. From what she'd seen so far the Federation was more advanced even than her people - not by much but they were definitely more advanced in most areas and possessed some technologies that the Tollan didn't have transporters for example.
"We had better prepare for the arrival of the relief supplies," she said after a moment getting up from behind her desk. "Our people desperately need them."
"Yes your eminence."