Short postings twice a week for the next 3 weeks people: then a break until Feb while I catch up on everything. Please Enjoy. Skeet
Chapter Eight
Journeys
The United Planet Cruiser C-57-D cruiser-a true flying saucer by anyone's definition-swept by yet another star system that previously didn't exist on established stellar charts. And with the exception of one, all sixteen members of the ship's crew were more than worried. At the speed that they were traveling, the navigational computer calculated that it would take another six months and fifteen days to reach Earth. But at the moment, no one fully trusted those calculations. Data of the surrounding stars consistently showed minor but significant errors. What frightened them were the differences in some of the closer stars. Certain stellar objects were where they were supposed to be and others didn't exist at all. The Sol system appeared to be in the right place but that was about all they could ascertain at this distance. It was as though someone had ripped the universe apart like a puzzle and hadn't quite put it back together in the correct order. The klystron-hyperspace beacons weren't transmitting and that was impossible since the directional beacons had been put in place over seventy years ago and none of the forty devices had ever been de-activated.
The only good piece of news is that whatever had happened to them some six months ago hadn't damaged the ship. Things had been knocked around, but that was it-if one didn't count the two and a half hours of absolute and previously unimagined pain that had all but paralyzed them as they went through what had only be described as a tear in space. The best guess was that it was a field of distortion caused by the passing of a black hole perpendicular to their flight trajectory. The gravity waves that hit them almost tore the ship apart and according to a couple of computer analysis, it had. But nothing appeared wrong-except the universe at large.
Captain John J. Adams was as tense as he had ever been. If ever a mission was cursed, this one was. They had come seeking survivors and had found death instead. Five of his crew had been lost during an encounter with a monster strong enough to resist the four million electron volt thrown at it point blank while standing in the middle of a defensive energy barrier. The thing killed three of his men without trying. By a miracle, and the greatest of sacrifices, they had survived and now the woman who would be his wife was by his side. But his friend 'Doc' was gone. So was Chief Quinn.
-And Lieutenant Farman.
-All of the senior officers.
And the others were killed as well. That left him with the non-coms, an average of twenty-six years old, all looking for him to pull a miracle out of his hat. The few positive things that happened on this voyage could never balance out those deaths, however it was a decent start. At least, the hyperdrive engines were working perfectly and Rob, his astrogator kept them in fine shape.
Doc would have loved this.
Aw, Doc. Why did you have to go and get yourself killed? You could have figured out what happened to us. We can't even raise the beacons. What's happened to Earth? The star is there but what about the planet?
"Commander," Rob said.
Adams, deep in thought didn't answer.
"Commander Adams," the Astrogator repeated, louder and more forcefully this time. "We are being scanned. A ship, sir."
"At the speed we're traveling? I know it's possible to detect our ship, but scanning? How are they doing that?"
"Unknown, sir."
"Radar confirms, sir," Ensign Anthony Wilson, hunched over the light-radar, said. It's pretty far out, but it's gaining on us, fast. At that speed, they'll be on us in two hours."
Immediately Adams moved over to the screen to take a look himself. The Ensign was correct. It was a ship, definitely alien, and moving far faster than they were and was now increasing its speed dramatically. "Gunnery, positions," he ordered. "Blaster teams, start powering up your weapons." He looked around at his anxious crew. Everything that the book said had to be thrown out. They were in completely unknown territory with very little hope of backup, being approached by unknown ship ten times their size.
"This is a first contact situation," he informed his crew. "The ship that appears to be following us does not conform to anything we've seen before. They may not be hostile and we will try to communicate with them, but I want you stay on your toes."
Altara moved towards the screen and observed the incoming ship carefully. The young blond woman, age twenty-two as of a month ago, frowned at the image. "John, I studied ship design for years. In fact, it was a hobby of mine, but I don't recognize this one at all."
"That's good, because we don't either," he said to her. "Tony, see if we can contact them."
"Aye, Skipper. I'm powering up the Klystron transmitter now-ready."
"Hook in the universal translator," he ordered.
"Hooked and waiting," Williams replied.
The entire crew was looking at him. He smiled as much to comfort his and took a breath. "Unidentified ship. This is United Planet Cruiser C-Fifty-seven-D. You are approaching on an intercept vector. Please adjust your heading. If you can understand us please respond."
For a moment there was nothing, then the ship's vector began to change to roughly parallel the cruiser's course, matching their speed but not moving any closer. "Sir we're getting a response. It's on an unusual frequency. I can barely make it out." He adjusted the frequency slightly. "It's clearer now." He listened for a moment, and then his jaw dropped. "Skipper, I think they're responding in English!"
"…C-Fifty-seven-D, this is the United Federation Starship Yeager. I repeat you must change your trajectory," the heavy, male voice said. "You are entering a war zone."
"This is Captain John Adams. Who are you? Your voice sounds human? Are you from Earth or one of the colony worlds?"
"I am Captain Benjamin Sisko and yes, I am human and from Earth. Do you have visual capabilities?"
Yes, Captain. We need to modulate our signals. You're transmitting on a rather unusual frequency, but our systems should be able to talk to one another."
As receiver and transmitter cooperated with one another, the visual transmission came through, blurry at first, then quickly changing into fine detail. There were two human looking people onscreen, one a very imposing black, bald-headed male in his early forties and the other, a dark-haired woman with striking eyes, both wearing uniforms that he'd never seen before. What little he could see of the bridge indicated that the technology or at least the engineering designs were radically different from what he was used to. "Is Earth at war?" Adams asked. "I've never seen uniforms like that before and your ship doesn't conform to anything on the Earth database. Who are you people?" His voice betrayed more than a hint of suspicion.
"Captain Adams, I am Captain Sisko and this is Doctor Deanna Troi," the man answered. "Earth," he said, drawing the word 'Earth' out, "is at war. There's a lot to explain and some of it may be rather hard to believe. You are not where you are supposed to be."
"And what does that mean, Captain Sisko?" Adams asked. "And exactly where are we supposed to be?" By the tone of his voice, this Sisko knew that he didn't trust him for an instant.
"Before I answer your questions, Captain, have you noticed anything different in your scans of the surrounding area-stars missing or added or in the wrong positions? Does it seem as though your stellar maps are slightly off?"
Adams wasn't about to admit anything but his look had said it all. Instead he muted the audio and looked towards his astrogator. "Rob?"
"Confirmed, Sir," Robby answered. "There is a three percent difference between our present scans and standard stellar coordinates. My conclusion is that we are not in our universe."
If he weren't standing ramrod straight, he would have swooned. First the Krell, now this. "That distortion we entered, took us somewhere else. That's when everything changed."
"That is the logical conclusion at this time."
"Can we get back?" he asked Wilson, his science officer
"Sir, I don't even know how we got here in the first place."
He and the crew were completely stunned. Next to him, Altara shifted nervously as he reopened the channel. "There have been some discrepancies between our scans and our maps," he admitted.
"You and your crew are victims of a temporal-spatial anomaly which temporarily joined your original universe to this one. "You most likely passed through it six months ago and it brought you here."
Adams' mind reeled with the implications. "Again, where is here?" he asked.
This time the woman Doctor answered the question. "It's hard to explain, but this quantum universe is similar to our own in many ways, but different in others. Instead of a Federation of Planets Government, there is an Earth and the Government is called EarthGov and it resides over the Earth Alliance. The seat of power is called EarthDom and the EAS or Earth alliance ships are part of EarthForce. And right now it's at war with a government called the Centauri. It is their territory you are about to enter." She shrugged apologetically. "The politics are complicated here, to say the least."
"Then we should turn around and go back through the anomaly and get back to where we belong," he said. "This war has nothing to do with us."
"You can't get back by the way you came," Sisko said. "It's closed off. We attempted to to get back to our own reality. We tried and failed."
Tried? Federation? His mind was in a whirl. "You're not from this universe either," he concluded.
"No. I was told of your presence. That's how we found you," Sisko said. "I would recommend that you not consider going to Earth at this time. The government may decide that you and your ship are a valuable and exploitable resource."
Adams frowned. "Exactly what does that mean?" He didn't like the word 'resource' and the inferences it carried. "Who told you where we were?"
"It doesn't matter, right now," he answered, politely ignoring the question. "Your FTL drive is different from the hyperspace travel use by most people in this reality as are your weapons systems. That is why you have not been noticed by the other powers here. For all practical purposes, you are invisible to most scanning systems. You might become a valuable commodity."
The crew of the cruiser didn't like those comments. Plus there was the fact that this ship had scanned them and their systems so deeply without their knowledge. All of them were feeling venerable.
"There is a place where you'll be welcomed and you will be safe," the black Captain said. It's called Babylon Five." He smiled. "Call it a port in a storm, because that is what you are in right now."
"Excuse me." Adams cut communications. Wilson was motioning for his attention.
"Permission to speak, Sir?"
"Yes."
"Sir, that was a load of crap," he started. "No way we're in another universe. There's got to be a better explanation than that. Maybe they've somehow broken into our computers and changed our data."
"For what purpose?"
"I haven't the faintest idea, sir," Wilson answered. "But did you take a look at the so-called Captain? He's got the word 'killer' written all over his face."
"So you think that they're pirates of some sort?"
Wilson's eyes turned icy. "With the size of that ship out there? It's quite possible that they're renegades."
Another crewmember in the background agreed. "Let's not take any chances."
The Captain sat back down. Essentially he agreed with the comments of his crew. "Gunnery. Fire on that ship if they approach any closer. Wilson re-establish audio and video."
"We have them, sir."
"Thank you for your offer," he stated. "However we will continue on our journey to Earth."
***
Captain Sisko stroked his chin, disappointed by the Captain in the light gray uniform.
Next to him, the Doctor was equally frustrated. "They don't trust us," she announced, her empathic abilities picking up everything on the flying saucer in front of them. "Specifically, they don't trust you. They're not sure what has happened to them and they are all afraid, except the Captain. He's suspicious, but wants to make the correct decision. I feel that he wants to go to Earth, to talk to an established government."
"That ship and its crew have to make it B5," he said flatly.
"We can't force them to come."
"True," he admitted, frustrated by the situation playing in front of him. "I don't want them firing on us. That would just make the whole situation worse."
"You knew they were going to be here."
"Yes."
"The dreams?"
"Yes. These people are going to be crucial to the coming fight."
"But how?" she asked. "Their technology isn't quite as advanced as those in this universe. I don't see what they can do."
"You might be surprised at what they can do," Sisko answered. He paused for a moment. Then: "I won't press it, but we'll send them the data that we have and let them come to their own decisions."
Deanna sighed. "Are you still in communication with the aliens?"
"No. They're gone, but, I do remember." It was a cryptic answer he gave her, he knew. But that was what he intended. "Open a channel." Again Adams came online, his body language exhibiting more antagonism than ever, something that Sisko noticed immediately. He had all the signs of a man expecting a battle. "Captain Adams, I am sending you a data packet detailing everything that we have encountered and the political situation. What you do with it is your decision. We hope to see you at Babylon Five. Good luck." He signaled to cut the channel.
"You didn't give them time to respond," Lieutenant Commander Williams smirked. He understood exactly what his Captain was feeling.
Sisko's eyes narrowed. "They would not have responded positively to anything I had to say at this point. They need time to adjust to the truth, just as we did. But they are one tiny ship, all alone even more so than we and therefore Captain Adamswill err on the side of caution." He waited for the Doctor to say something, but she remained silent. "Plot a course to B5, best possible speed and let the Klingons know we're coming. I need to talk to Worf."
The Yeager's warp engines powered up and the ship moved away from the flying saucer at warp nine.
***
Adams, and his second in command, now Lieutenant Wilson looked over the data sent to them with increasing concern. In spite of their doubts, there was simply too much information that corresponded to their own preliminary findings.
"Did you see how fast they moved off?" He threw up his hands. "Six months ago," Wilson started, " if someone had told me everything's that happen since then, I would have called all of this a load of crap, but now…"
Adams nodded slowly. "I've been conferring with Rob and he agrees with much of the data we've gotten. The whatever-it-was, closed behind us and I'm not sure if we should waste time trying to find it right now. Even if only ten percent of this is true, Earth may not be the same place we knew."
"It also explains why we haven't detected any other ships since we started the return trip. No eddies, no hyperspace gravity trails, nothing." He continued looking of the data sent by the Yeager. "It seems clear that these folks use an entirely different system to achieve supra light speeds. And that made them and us affectively invisible to each other because we didn't know what to look for. Now, we do. So, Skipper, what'll we do?"
"If we are headed into a war zone, then first we will alter our course and try to remain as invisible as possible. We now know what the Earth vessels look like. If there are any this far out, then I want to make contact with them and get their side of the story. If it checks out then, maybe they can help us get back."
"And if it doesn't check out?"
"Then we take a look at this Babylon Five," he said, frustrated by this situation. "I don't know. We'll have to take this one step at a time. And," he added, "We'll keep one finger on the trigger. I don't want to start a fight, be I will be prepared for one if need be.
"Aye, Sir."
"Robby, make a course correction here," he said pointing to the navigations console. The system consisted of a transparent globe with a replica of the ship in the center. Detailed info flashed onto the small console screen, constantly updating nav-statistical data. "Then return to our original vector. It'll put us two weeks behind schedule, but better safe than sorry. And watch out any more visitors.
"Aye, aye, Skipper," the robot answered.
***
The Klingon battle cruiser K'mpec's Honor, upon discovering the Centauri Imperial shuttle drifting in normal space, should have vaporized it as per standard procedure. It was somewhat of a surprise to see such an important ship unescorted, so close to Babylon Five's space during these times. The Klingon Narn squadron had split up with the Narns returning to B5 with First Citizen G'Kar, who had transferred from the Klingon ship to one of the undamaged Narn heavy cruisers. The Drakh destroyers had taken a toll and the Klingons and Narn had been forced to retreat against their far superior numbers. For the Klingons, it was good times all round. The Drakh were worthy-if not honorable-opponents, even when they threatened to overwhelm the shields. The fact that they callously flew and fired through the very convoy they were supposed to protect, gave ample evidence of their orders to destroy the Klingon vessel.
The war had barely begun and already Earth Force was feeling the pressure. The Centauri were technologically more advanced and experienced in space combat as compared to the humans of this reality. And with their Drakh allies fighting so fiercely, it was entirely possible that Earth would lose the war and be subjected to the same sort of the treatment suffered by the Narn homeworld. Illegal accelerated mass weapons had turned that planet into a wasteland, with tens of millions dead and hundreds of millions starving under the oppressive Centauri regime. The Klingons were still an independent entity and the Centauri had fired the first shots against them. And now they had just set a trap for Captain Koral's ship and the Narn vessels. It failed, but just barely.
The Imperial shuttle showed signs of having taken weapons fire and only four life forms were registering. The Captain would have moved on, leaving them to their fate, but his first officer Commander Worf suggested-respectfully-that there might be worthy prisoners onboard. Worf and three security guards, including one Narn materialized on the bridge and witnessed carnage. They found that most of the occupants were dead from radiation poisoning, however four members situated well away from the damaged section had survived, two males, and two females. To the shock of the Narn, one of the survivors was the former Ambassador of Babylon Five, Londo Molari. He pointed his weapon that the Ambassadors head, but was stopped by Worf. The man was an important prisoner and as such Captain Sheridan and his people would want to interrogate him, if he lived. Transporting the survivors, and tractoring the shuttle, they returned to Babylon Five.
***
First citizen G'Kar sat quietly in his quarters reading the diary that had been pulled from Mollari's clutches. And pulled he mused was the correct word. The man had it in a death grip as though his life depended on it. Upon reading it he understood why. He closed the diary and shivered; Sheridan and the rest would have to know and prepare.
***
Londo was immediately taken to the medical bay on B5, suffering from radiation poisoning, dehydration and multiple cuts and bruises. Stephen's people worked on the majority of the injuries and Dr. Selar of the Ambassador began radiation treatments, all under the watchful eyes of the ambassador's ex-assistant Vir Cotto and his guardian Marcus Cole.
"Will he be alright?" asked an anxious Vir to the doctor as soon as he came out of surgery.
"We believe so," Stephen responded wiping his forehead. "But he and the others took a pretty big dose of radiation and even with the new radiation protocols we've accessed from the Dr. Crusher, it'll be touch and go, for him in particular. His cardiovascular system took another hit and if worse comes to worse we may have to replace one of his cardiovascular organs.
The look on Vir's face made Stephen sigh. He knew friendship when he saw it. Even with everything that had happen, Vir was standing by him until the end.
"He's been calling for you, Vir," the chief of staff said. " Evidently he was the one who altered course for Babylon Five, even if it was an automatic death sentence."
Vir stood speechless. Stephen was correct. Cartagia would never allow even a hint of dissent from his cabinet members. Most of them were rumored to be dead and the others were to frighten to voice any objections to this pointless war. "I need to talk to him," he said quietly.
Stephen nodded. "Don't take too long, he's very weak."
"Okay," Vir's said, delighted that he would be allowed in. "I promise this won't take long. I mean, I understand that-"
"Go, before I change my mind."
The short Centauri lifted his hands up, compliant. Slowly, with Marcus in tow, he entered the secured medical bay.
Londo rested on the medical bed attached to monitoring equipment. Doctor Selar watched over him administering some type of drug with an instrument he had never seen before. She looked at him with cool eyes, raised an eyebrow and move away to give him some privacy. The Vulcans really did remind him of the Minbari, but without emotions. Well, that wasn't exactly true. They did have emotions. He could see that, but for some reason they covered it up. He didn't understand why but one day he would ask, because they didn't seem as cold now as when he first met them.
"Vir," Marcus whispered, breaking him away from his train of thought. He was pointing at Londo.
"Vir," Londo hissed through clenched teeth. "Forgive me. I didn't know what Cartagia was planning. He's completely mad. He'll destroy our people if he's not put down. We must put a stop to this war, or we are all doomed. The Shadows-my diary. Sheridan must know. Read my diary, Vir. They will be coming."
Vir's hearts each skipped a beat. A full-fledged attack, by Morden's associates was the one thing everyone feared. "The Shadows are coming? When?"
"Not the Shadows. Read the diary."
"Where is it?"
***