A Left Turn at Albuquerque
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit whatsoever from their use. So please keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Author Edit Note: After some feedback on other sites and careful thought I've rewritten and posted parts of this chapter and added in a scene with the Imperial captain that should hopefully explain why they opened fire.
Chapter Two
The star system had no name, just a number and a brief description in the navigational databanks of those who knew of it, it did not deserve one. It was a barren place three rocky planets, that either had no atmosphere or atmospheres so toxic and caustic that not even the hardiest of microorganisms could have survived upon their surfaces, and two very lacklustre gas giants orbiting a main sequence K-type star. Two wide and diffuse asteroid fields completed the ensemble. It was in other words as mediocre a place as it was possible to get anywhere in the galaxy.
Save one factor.
The system was located barely four light years from the junction of several major hyperspace lanes between the Core Worlds and the rest of the Outer Rim territories. As such it had been a major strategic site during the galactic firestorm that had become known as the Clone Wars with both Republican and Separatist forces clashing repeatedly – and often pointlessly – over the control of it during the entire length of that war. As such in a poignant reminder of the brutal – and ultimately futile – conflict the wrecks of dozens of warships from both sides drifted blacked and silent in the eternal stillness of death through the system. Each wreck surrounded by its own micro-nebula and debris field, each composed of the remains of fighters, vented atmosphere and the parts of capital ships.
Into this graveyard came an intruder.
Several degrees above the plane of elliptic space abruptly seemed to shiver with a heat-haze like distortion. A particle of space the size of a quark abruptly warped and distorted, twisting in upon itself and sending out waves of distorted gravity, as the barrier between normal space and hyperspace came under sudden and massive attack from within. With a brilliant flash of light the space-time warp expanded and for a handful of seconds the very fabric of space itself seemed to briefly tear open.
Tiny spheres of energy emerged from the rift, each shooting forward like bullets fired from a gun until a grand total of twenty-two of them had been thrown back into normal space. The spheres came to a stop and for a second floated their sedate before abruptly expanding rapidly growing from objects no bigger than a tennis ball to spheres kilometres in diameter, sending out rippling waves of gravitational distortion as they did so. In microseconds, the spheres were at their full size and in the centre of each a shape began to form, skeletal and indistinct at first but rapidly becoming the completely solid forms of warships. A ripple of blue energy abruptly raced through each sphere in a gyroscope like fashion before the energy spheres vanished, taking the gravitational distortions with them leaving their contents behind.
The SDF-3 and the rest of Admiral Hunter's battlegroup were finally back in normal space.
There arrival had not gone unnoticed. Floating amid the closest cluster of spacecraft wreckage an object shaped vaguely like a mutant mechanical octopus instantly detected both the fleet of ships and the gravitational-spatial distortions that had preceded their arrival. One of dozens deployed throughout the sprawling debris fields – more to watch for anyone attempting to either salvage the more intact wrecks or pilfering the vast arsenals of weaponry still packed in the magazines than concern for disturbing the rest of those who'd died aboard said warships – the Imperial probe droid studied the newcomers with a cold mechanical precision.
The fact that the clear majority of newcomers were warships was not lost on the probe droid. Nor was the fact that the ships did not register in its memory banks of known ship designs – especially which designs it should pay special attention to watching out for. Obeying its contingency programming the probe droid immediately extended its holonet transceiver arrays and broadcast a brief report on the discovery to the nearest Imperial ship or base. As soon as that was complete it retracted the twin antenna and set back to watching the newcomers…
…watching and waiting for the chance to possibly gain more information on them for the Empire.
Bridge
SDF-3 Pioneer
That Same Time
Admiral Rick Hunter groaned as consciousness returned, bringing with it a dull pervasive ache that made him feel like his whole body had been turned into one giant bruise. With what seemed like glacial slowness his senses began to clear allowing him to hear the wailing of the ships emergency klaxons, the hissing snap of sparks and the faint groans of the bridge crew. He could also smell smoke in the air along with the acrid stench of burned plastics and overheated circuitry.
Groaning again he forced his eyes open. He somehow wasn't surprised to find that he'd been pitched out of the command chair to the deck by the violent convulsions that had gripped the ship. Such things were a normal side effect of having to space fold inside a gravity well, especially one as strong as the fledgling black hole created by the neutron-s missile detonation. I wonder where we've ended up, he thought knowing that the other side effect of space folding inside such a strong gravitational field was the complete randomisation of a ships hyperspace entry – and consequently its emergence – vectors, thus you never knew exactly where you were going to drop back into normal space.
After a moment, he shook himself and climbed back to his feet, swaying as he did so only quickly grabbing onto the side of his command console preventing him falling back down again as a wave of vertigo washed over him bringing with it a dreadful feeling of nausea. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, with the exhalation doing his best to push the feeling away. He repeated the process several times until eventually the nausea and vertigo faded away as his inner ear stabilised and stopped sending distress messages into his brain. Opening his eyes again he looked around at the bridge.
What he beheld was a scene from every captain's nightmares.
The bridge was in semi-darkness filled with a thin but noxious smelling smoke, the legacy of systems that had overloaded and burned out during the incredibly violent fold. The only illumination coming from bluish-white emergency lights, illumination that was harsh and uncomfortable dispersing as it was through the hazy smoke. He ignored that as best he could, consoling his complaining retinas with the fact that he could see that his bridge crew were alive and appeared to be largely unhurt.
And were like him picking themselves up off the deck and getting their wits back. He quickly glanced around, searching for Lisa and was relieved to see that she was also back on her feet. Back on her feet and already back to helping the same wounded marine that she'd been helping earlier as the poor young man had gotten hurled against one of the auxiliary consoles at the back of the bridge when the fold had made the ships AG field go completely berserk, exasperating his already cut forehead.
Which left him free to focus on both the ship and the rest of the fleet.
"Damage report?" he ordered slipping fully into admiral mode.
"Sir main power is down all over the ship, it appears that the reflex furnaces have scrammed. Engineering is already working on them and should have them restarted within another couple of minutes," Lieutenant Richardson reported from the combined engineering/damage control station. "There are electrical fires burning in sections twelve, thirteen and fourteen on decks six, nine and eleven. Fire control crews responding.
"We're detecting minor structural damage along the ships portside it appears that some of the more exposed defensive laser cannons on that side of the ship have been sheared off their mountings," Richardson continued.
"Is the hull intact," Rick asked.
"It is sir the damage is confined to the outer hull the inner pressure hull is undamaged," Richardson answered before continuing with his report. "Our primary sensor arrays both short and long range are inoperative. All port side hanger bays report considerable damage to fighter launching and retrieval systems. All propulsion systems are offline we're dead in the water. All weapons and defensive systems including the shadow device are off line. Repair crews alongside automatic systems are responding but it will be some time before any of the systems are back online."
"Casualties? And what about the fold drives do we still have them?" Rick asked mentally crossing his fingers that a) his crew weren't badly hurt and b) that their fold drives hadn't mysteriously disappeared on them in the way that the SDF-1's had more than thirty years earlier had when they'd space folded inside a strong gravity well. And thinking of side effects of space folding inside a strong gravity well I wonder where the hell we are, he thought, though until we get our sensors back there will be no way to know. I just hope we're not too far away from home.
"Casualty reports are still coming in sir but so far we have reports of sixty-three major injuries, three hundred and eighty-five minor injuries but no fatalities so far," Richardson reported, "as for the space fold drives engineering reports that we do indeed still possess them but that they are… well somewhat hot."
"How hot?" Rick asked.
"Dangerously hot sir, drive core temperatures are near the red line and the air temperature in the surrounding engineering compartment is over three hundred degrees. Doctor Lang has had to evacuate everyone from that compartment due to the heat. Coolant is flowing into the drives at maximum capacity but they're only slowly cooling down."
"Understood. Are our comm systems still online?"
"Only short range ship-to-ship sir," Robertson reported, "long range communications are still down, the primary hyperspace comm antenna appears to have been physically ripped off its mountings."
"Short range is fine for now. Communications contact the rest of the battlegroup, I want full damage and casualty assessments from all ships as soon as possible," Rick ordered a moment before a faint whirring sound came from deep within the ship, mere seconds before the main overhead lights flickered once then came back on at full power as the ships reflex furnaces restarted. Simultaneously there came the sound of powerful fans kicking in as the ventilation system began to clear the smoke from the bridge and replace it with fresh, clean air.
"Aye sir," the communications officer, who like all the fleets communications officers got the nickname 'Sparks' acknowledged immediately.
"Admiral short range sensors and astral-positioning systems are coming back online," Lieutenant Pren reported. "Attempting to determine our position now. Wait this can't be right."
"What is it lieutenant?" Rick asked.
"Sir the navigational computer is not recognizing any of the star configurations around us."
"So, were lost?"
"It's worse than that sir. Even if the space fold threw us to the far side of the Milky Way, or even into one of the Magellanic Clouds, we would still be able to lock onto a few key astronomical markers. The only reason we wouldn't be able to is..." Pren's voice trailed off.
"Is what lieutenant?"
"Is if we're not anywhere near our own galaxy anymore sir?" Pren answered reluctantly. "But I do not understand how that can be possible as while folding so deep inside the black hole's gravity well will have seriously randomized our hyperspace entry and exit vectors it shouldn't have affected them that badly. Plus, we have travelled way beyond the range of we should have been able to travel in a single fold operation."
Rick scowled slightly at that. He knew that Lieutenant Pren was quite correct as the maximum range of any single hyperspace fold was ten kiloparsecs or thirty-two thousand two hundred and twenty light years. It was one of the seemingly immutable laws that came with hyperspace folding technology that you couldn't travel farther than that in a single fold operation as nobody not even the Robotech Masters – who had arguably been the most technologically advanced and dangerous enemies they'd ever faced – had been able to figure out a means of building a fold system that went further than that in a single jump. So how could they possibly have travelled to another galaxy in a single jump as well intergalactic travel using sequential space folds was theoretically possible nobody known to them had ever done it.
"Are you sure that the navigational computer is working correctly?" he asked.
"Yes, sir it is. As impossible as it seems we've been somehow hurled into another galaxy."
Silence greeted that announcement as everyone on the bridge glancing at one another as they struggled to comprehend just what it was they'd been told. They had all expected to emerge into normal space at random coordinates but they'd expected to still at least be in their own galaxy. Thus, while they'd still be somewhat lost they wouldn't be completely, hopelessly lost in space in the way they were now and would have – eventually – found their way home.
"Pass your findings onto the Deucalion," Rick ordered after a few moments, breaking the tense, shocked and horrified silence that had descended upon the bridge like an invisible, but all smothering, blanket. "Tell Exedore and the other scientists aboard to begin working to explain a) how we could have possibly gotten here and b) trying to develop a means to get us back home."
"Aye sir."
"Sparks?"
"Sir?"
"Contact the rest of the fleet. I want all commanders to meet me here in an hours' time so we can begin hashing out exactly what we're going to do about this."
"Aye sir."
"Flight ops can we launch any fighters?"
"Only from the starboard bays sir," the flight operations officer answered.
"Understood. Deploy three squadrons to form a CAP around the fleet."
"Aye sir."
As the bridge crew set about carrying out their various tasks that he'd just assigned them Rick sat down in the command chair and leaned forward to kneed his brow. He could feel a headache beginning to beat away inside his skull as the seriousness of the situation fully dawned upon him. How the hell was he to deal with this situation? Until the neutron-s missile test had gone so spectacularly pear shaped his biggest concerns had been a) the frightening power – power he'd obviously been right to be wary of as the neutron-s warheads had been shown to be far more powerful and devastating then he'd ever thought possible – of the new weapon and what its long-term consequences would be. Then b) liberating Earth from the Regis and her Invid hoards hopefully without having to genocide the Invid as at the end of the day everyone be they Terran, Zentraedi, Invid or whatever had all been victims – in various ways but victims nevertheless – of the Robotech Masters evil.
He certainly hadn't expected to be put in the situation he, and everyone under his ultimate command on all twenty-two ships of SDF-3's battlegroup, was in. Perhaps for the first time he began to get an inkling of exactly what Captain Gloval must have felt thirty-five years ago, when the SDF-1 had been flung to just inside Pluto's orbit. He too had had to face the reality that they faced a long and possibly impossible journey home as at that time not a great deal had been known about what dangers – other than the Zentraedi of course – might have awaited them on the long sublight voyage home. It wasn't quite the same though as Gloval had at least had the advantage of knowing where home was, he had absolutely no idea.
A hand touching his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. He glanced up to see Lisa had come to stand beside him and had put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Her expressive green eyes telling him without needing words that he wasn't alone in his, that she was here for him. He smiled warmly, gratefully back at his wife letting her know how much her support meant to him.
"Admiral short range scans of this system have been completed," Lieutenant Pren reported drawing Rick's attention back to her.
"What have you found?" Rick asked.
"The fleet is currently a few degrees above a large but quite diffuse asteroid field," Pren reported. "Curiously our sensors are indicating a number of large metallic objects, almost certainly spaceships of some sort, drifting admit the rocks and dust. We cannot get precise information on them, there's a lot of interference from the asteroids and dust clouding our screens."
Rick frowned. "Flight ops dispatch a fighter squadron to the closest ship to investigate," he ordered. "And tell them to be careful, if the battle here took place recently then the victors could still be hanging around outside our immediate sensor range."
"Aye sir."
"Do you really think that will happen Rick," Lisa asked her husband.
"Of course, it would. It's the way our luck tends to run."
"Good point."
Razor One
Razor Squadron
"Roger that command," Lieutenant Commander Leon Bennett acknowledged nodding at the open comm window on the main screen of his powerful and brand spanking new Super Shadow veritech fighter. "We're moving to investigate now."
"Take care Razor Leader," Lieutenant Christina Englewood replied from the bridge of the SDF-3.
Leon raised an eyebrow. "Don't I always Christina," he asked before signing off, cutting the signal before he could get what would certainly be an extremely sarcastic response off the young woman. Before she could override and re-establish contact with him he opened the squadron command frequency. "Razor Leader to Razor Squadron, command wants us to take a quick looksie at a derelict ship," he said, "so activate your data transmitters and follow me."
As a chorus of 'rogers' came over the radio Leon manipulated his controls and brought the veritech around before heading right for the derelict alien vessel floating admit the asteroids that they'd been detailed to investigate. White hot ions burst from his tailpipes as he hit his afterburners causing the veritech to burst into motion like a startled rabbit. He didn't have to look at his screens to know that the other fifteen veritechs of his squadron had matched his manoeuvre and we're now all accelerating towards the target – not that he would have seen anything even if he had looked at the screens as shadow stealth went both ways unfortunately.
After what only seemed like a few seconds – but was really a minute or two – they entered the asteroid field. As regulations – and honestly common sense – demanded he immediately reduced his speed as his sensors screens immediately began to become cluttered with contacts. It was immediately obvious to him that there had to have been one hell of a scrap here as he entered a cloud formed from the ruins of what had to have been some very sleek and sweet looking fighters. Bodies floated admit the debris – all naturally both mummified and frozen by the vacuum of space – bodies that looked very, very human or at least humanoid.
"I wonder who these guys were," he muttered to himself before wincing as a body bounced off his windscreen. Then he was through the cloud of debris and bodies and streaking around an inconveniently placed asteroid before coming to what had to be the very heart of this battle zone as a vaguely wedge-shaped vessel coloured white and red floated dead in space.
The vessel had obviously taken quite a savage beating as even from here he could see multiple large holes blasted into the hull some of which were honestly big enough to fit a battloid through. Rising from the top surface of the ships aft section was a bridge tower that looked like it had literally been blown in half by something tremendously powerful. More bodies along with debris floated around the wreck.
"Bloody hell someone was in a hell of a scrap here," Razor Two said over the radio. "Anyone have any idea who these guys were?"
"Could be Tirolians," Razor Four suggested. "Maybe some group that fled the rise of the Robotech Masters only to meet their ends out here – wherever here is – at someone else's hands. The bodies look to be the right size and proportions to be Tirolian as they're certainly not Zentraedi – they're far too small – and there is no way they can be Terran."
"Possibly," Leon agreed as he checked his sensor readouts. "But something isn't right here, sensors aren't picking up any materials in the debris or anything at all that matches Tirolian technology. Even if these guys weren't using robotechnology we should be getting some positive matches."
"How'd you know that boss?" Razor Two asked.
Leon frowned and was about to remind his absentminded junior officer that his mother was a specialist in Tirolian history and technology, but before he could do some movement admit the debris caught his attention. He looked over and immediately saw a mechanical monstrosity – that honestly looked like something out of a Lovecraftian horror story – appearing from behind the wreck and angling to attack his second who was also his wingman. Before he could open his mouth to shout out a warning the metal beast fired sending a salvo of red energy bolts flying towards his wingman.
It was immediately obvious however that the alien attacker's sensors were affected by the fighter's shadow device as the bolts missed by a mile succeeding only in immolating a few motes of space dust. Not deterred in the slightest the alien – which from its size had to be a drone of some type – fired again and again only to miss by miles as Razor Two took evasive action.
So, did Leon as he locked onto the alien and sent three Hammerhead micro-missiles flying from one of his weapons bays. The alien machine immediately detected the missiles and started taking evasive action while spraying blood red bolts of energy at the incoming projectiles. It did the drone little good as being designed to run down and destroy even the most insanely fast and agile of robotech mecha the missiles matched its manoeuvres while evading its wild weapons fire before slamming home and detonating instantly incinerating the drone with the brilliant whitish-yellow flash characteristic of plasma explosives.
"Razor Two are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah I'm fine boss that thing – whatever it was – had absolutely lousy aim. Nice shooting by the way," Razor Two answered.
"Thanks," Leon replied before switching channels on his radio. "Razor Leader to SDF-3 come in please. Repeat this is Razor Leader to SDF-3 come in please."
"This is the SDF-3 we read you Razor Leader," Christina's voice responded a microsecond before her image appeared on his comm screen. "What happened Leon? Our sensors just picked up three plasma detonations."
"We had an unfriendly encounter with a local," Leon replied. "Some kind of armed drone opened fire on us before we could do anything more than ran an initial scan of the target ship."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"Negative SDF-3. Its sensors don't seem to be able to penetrate our stealth protection, either that or it was just a totally lousy shot. Request instructions."
"Stand by," Christina replied before looking away and though he could see her lips moving he couldn't hear what she was saying. Then again, he didn't need to as it was perfectly obvious that she was passing along his request for instructions to Admiral Hunter. After a moment, she looked back at him. "Razor Leader you are ordered to return to the ship immediately. We'll investigate the derelict later."
"Roger that SDF-3 returning now," Leon replied before changing channels again. "Razor Leader to Razor Squadron, bad news boys the missions been scrubbed and we're to head back to the ship."
A chorus of groans accompanied the chorus of 'rogers' that came from the rest of his squadron but nobody objected at least not aloud. Leon for his part immediately reversed course and headed back towards the SDF-3 and the rest of the fleet. This time he was careful to skirt around the edges of the plume of fighter debris and bodies as he had no desire to have another dead body bounce off his windshield. While it would take much more than hitting a dead human-sized body to do any real damage to the cockpit windows it was still not a pleasant thing to have happen.
Within minutes he was guiding his Super Shadow out of the asteroid field with the fleet back in sight. Huh from the looks of things they've got their manoeuvring thrusters back, he thought noticing that the fleet was no longer drifting but had re-established its standard cruising formation with the SDF-3 in the centre of the fleet. Here and there he could see the blue flares of ion thrusters as the last of the ships moved back into their normal positions. A few more squadrons of fighters were also now visible indicating that some of the other ships had also deployed squadrons bringing the fleet CAP up to full strength. Though he did note that most of them were standard shadow stealth equipped Alpha or Alpha/Beta combinations as only the SDF-3 yet carried Super Shadow fighters as her standard veritech fighter.
Leon allowed a small smile to tease his lips as he saw that things with the fleet were starting to get back to normal. The smile vanished when out the corner of his eyes he could have sworn he saw something, a flicker of almost pseudo motion a moment before a cruiser-sized ship appeared out of nowhere. As cruisers went it didn't appear to be that large, barely twice that of a Garfish-class scout cruiser and from the look of it was built by the same race who'd built the derelict. It had the same general wedge-shape though much smaller and a greyish white in colouration without any of the red highlights the other ship had its bow also had a slight split in it going back at least twenty metres. The command tower was also smaller and vaguely T-shaped. Four quad cannons appeared to be its only real armament unless the split bow also concealed a weapons system like how the bows of the SDF-3 contained the powerful heavy synchro cannons of the ships main battery.
"Razor Leader to Razor Squadron looks like we've got company boys," he said into the squadron command frequency. "Keep your eyes peeled and your weapons hot," he ordered while flicking a few switches bringing all his weapons systems on line including the fighter-scale synchro cannon whose barrel was literally a few centimetres above and behind his head – separated from him only by the cockpit canopy and about three inches of clear space. He hoped it wasn't necessary but given how everything had gone today – and the fact that they didn't exactly have the best track record when it came to meeting new people – he wasn't about to take any chances.
A precaution that was sadly proven to be justified as with a startling suddenness the unknown ship opened fire sending four bolts of an odd emerald energy towards the SDF-3. Unprotected by her shadow device, as said system was still off line, the bolts ran straight and true slamming into the hull of the mighty battlefortress causing bright white flashes to erupt as almost all the energy was almost immediately refracted straight back out into space. As the flash faded the SDF-3 appeared unharmed as the remaining energy of the blasts was dissipated in a molecule thin layer across a dispersion/ablative strip.
Seemingly undeterred the unknown fired again this time with all four batteries sending sixteen of the emerald green bolts towards his mothership. Again, they didn't appear to do much damage to the battlefortress beyond causing brilliant refraction flashes where the bolts hit the incredibly strong and resilient robotech armour covering her hull.
"Attention all veritechs we are under attack, repeat we are under attack," Christina's voice abruptly blasted across all squadron radio channels. "All veritechs break and attack, disable the targets shields then target engines and weapons only the admiral wants them disabled not destroyed. Repeat all veritechs break and attack, target hostiles engines and weapons only."
"Razor Leader to Razor Squadron," Leon immediately said into the squadron command frequency. "You heard her boys, I'll use my synchro cannon to take out those shields the rest of you target their weapons and engines. Fire just after I do."
A chorus of 'rogers' from his squadron mates came in his ears even as Leon flickered a switch telling the synchro cannon to prime a shot while also looking straight at the hostile vessel and blinking – causing the smart tracking system in his helmet to lock onto the vessel. A moment later a green light appeared on his screen confirming that the cannon was ready to fire and that he was both in range and had a solid weapons lock on the enemy vessel. A vessel that had just sent another volley of fire towards the SDF-3.
"Eat this," he said with a warrior smile before he pulled the joystick trigger sending a coruscating lance of pure destruction streaking towards the enemy ship.
Imperial Cruiser Vigilance
Ten Minutes Earlier
Captain Gideon Tyrus resisted, just, the impulse to sigh as he stood before the bridge viewports gazing out upon the endless sea of stars. This patrol was turning out to be one long assignment that consisted of just moving from system to system, essentially showing the Imperial flag in those Outer Rim systems that didn't rate a major garrison of ships – unlike Garel or Lothal both of whom had Star Destroyers permanently stationed there – reminding everyone that the Empire was forever watching. It was a routine assignment, exactly the kind of one light cruisers like the Vigilance were designed specifically to carry out.
Unfortunately, it was also turning out to be an extremely boring assignment.
Since beginning their patrol a month ago, they'd encountered nothing no smugglers – even though the Outer Rim was supposedly rife with black market activity – no pirates and no sign of Rebel Alliance activity. The latter was somewhat understandable as it had been barely six months since Grand Admiral Thrawn had dealt the Rebels a major defeat and destroyed their base on Atollon – thus the rebellion was currently and understandably keeping its head down while they licked their wounds – but the lack of either of the former was quite vexing.
"Captain," one of the junior officers abruptly called from the lower level of the bridge. Now what, Gideon thought as he turned in place to look down on the lower level of the cruisers small bridge.
"Yes, what is it?" he asked.
"We've just picked up a weak signal on Imperial frequencies," the other officer answered, "the signal quality is extremely poor and we cannot make out any real details."
"Do we know where its coming from?"
"Yes, sir we do. The signal originates in System M-77677 it's an old Clone Wars battlefield located just off the main hyperspace routes between the Coruscant Sector and the Lothal Sector."
"Hmm could be anything then. Still we should investigate," Gideon said aloud. "Navigation set a course and engage the hyperdrive."
"Yes sir," navigation answered.
"Should we inform command sir?" the junior officer who'd initially spoken asked.
"No this could be anything. For all we know a drifting asteroid could have knocked some old Republic ship and activated its emergency beacon as it wouldn't be the first time that's happened. There's no reason to alert the sector commander until we have something to report."
"Understood sir," the other officer replied even as a whirr of sound echoed through the ship and a thrum of power ran through the deck as the cruiser jumped into hyperspace. Satisfied that the crew wouldn't question him any further Gideon turned back to the viewports which were now filled with the swirling blue tunnel of hyperspace travel.
He didn't get long to enjoy the almost mesmerizing beauty of hyperspace as within minutes the tunnel turned back into star lines that rapidly pulled back into the normal distant points of light. The cruiser was back in normal space and ahead of them was a sight that left him momentarily stunned in shock and disbelief.
A fleet of large and blocky ships, that from their very visible armaments were obviously warships, hung in space a few hundred kilometres above the first of the systems asteroid fields. From his position, Gideon, couldn't tell how many there actually were but his attention was immediately grabbed by three things. First was the seventeen-hundred-meter-long monster that was filling space ahead of them. Second the ship appeared to be unusually dark, with what looked like only its running lights on and with the main thrusters at the back dark and silent. Three the ships were not Imperial, which meant that they either belonged to some particularly well equipped group of pirates – who often modified ships in the oddest of ways – or they were rebels.
"Sensors report," he ordered.
"Sir we read twenty-two individual contacts arrayed around us," one of the few other officers on the bridge reported. "Curiously most of their core systems and all their weapons systems appear to be off line, in fact some of them appear to be operating entirely on emergency power."
"How in the name of the Emperor could twenty-two ships lose core systems all at once," Gideon wondered aloud knowing that should be impossible, not even the largest of ion cannons could disable so many ships at once. "However, it happened it doesn't matter. Whoever they are they're trespassing in a restricted system. Hail their command ship."
"Yes, sir hailing."
For a moment, nothing happened then the trapezoidal screen on one wall of the bridge switched on and washed with static. Gideon turned to look at it in time to see the static resolve into the face and torso of an older but still extremely fit looking human male. He was dressed in a strange white uniform with gold piping and an odd red undershirt. It was a uniform that he was completely unfamiliar with which only confirmed that whoever this man was he was not affiliated with the Empire.
Gideon straightened up as much as he could and spoke with full Imperial authority. "Attention unknown vessel this is the Imperial cruiser Vigilance. You have violated restricted space, in the name of his most gracious majesty Emperor Palpatine you are hereby instructed to stand down and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply with this notice will result in your immediate destruction."
The man on the screen frowned, looked confused as if he didn't understand what he was saying, before speaking himself. Only what emerged from his lips wasn't the familiar sounds of Galactic Basic but were words spoken in a language that Gideon did not understand. He was familiar with both Mandalorian and Huttese – which were the most common other languages for humans to speak and even then, they'd still speak basic as a second language – and this language sounded like neither of those two tongues.
"Speak basic," he demanded. Again, the other man just looked confused before looking off to the side and speaking again in that strange language clearly speaking with someone else on the bridge of his ship.
"I know you can speak basic, every human in the galaxy does, it's pointless pretending that you don't," Gideon answered getting annoyed now with this charade. "Answer me immediately or you will face the full force of this vessels weapons." When no reply was forthcoming he sighed before gesturing for the comm link to be closed.
"Weapons fire a warning shot," he ordered "let's see if that gets their attention."
"Yes sir."
Gideon turned back to look out the viewports in time to see one of his ships quad light turbolaser turrets fire upon the unknown ship sending four bright green bolts of energy toward the mysterious warship and its insolent crew. The four bolts slammed almost instantly into the bow of the ship creating a brilliant white flash that rapidly dissipated… revealing no damage at all beyond a few slight blackened smudges where the bolts had struck the hull.
"Impossible," Gideon breathed his jaw dropping open in shocked amazement. Though they were light turbolaser bolts those blasts should have punched sizeable holes in the vessels armour plating. Yet they hadn't done so. "Fire all batteries," he ordered, "we'll destroy this ship then hail one of the others. They should be willing to answer our questions then."
"Yes sir."
Bridge
SDF-3
A Few Moments Earlier
To say Rick was startled when the unknown vessel appeared out of hyperspace would have been an understatement. There had been virtually none of the normal warning signs that a ship was about to drop back into normal space certainly there had been no gravitational distortion to indicate that a warp between hyperspace and normal space was forming. All there had been was the alpha and delta wave phase shift literally a second before – with a pseudo motion flicker – the ship just appeared.
"Sensors report," he ordered.
"Unknown vessel appears to be a light cruiser of unknown design," Lieutenant Pren reported. "The hull is composed of titanium mixed with an enhanced steel-like material, it's not going to be anywhere near as strong as our robotech alloy hull and I very much doubt it has the same refractive, dispersive and ablative properties that our armour does. There appears to be an odd energy field over the hull I suspect its some kind of energy shield though I cannot hazard a guess to how strong it is."
"Weapons systems?"
"We read four large quad turrets, weapons type unknown," Pren replied. "We also read two torpedo launchers with twenty torpedoes per launcher – scans confirm proton based warheads."
"Do we have any idea what yield were looking at," Rick demanded knowing how powerful proton based explosives could be. The REF did have some in their arsenal after all though they were quite awkward to use and stow safely as proton-based explosives could be extremely unstable. It was one of the reasons why most modern anti-ship and anti-mecha missiles used plasma explosives in the warheads instead as until armed a plasma explosive was perfectly harmless.
"From these readings, roughly equivalent to a standard anti-ship missile warhead, maybe slightly lower," Pren replied. "It's hard to be certain without physically examining the warheads themselves."
"Admiral we're being hailed by the alien vessel," communications reported. "Audio and visual."
"Put it through," Rick ordered. Immediately a projector field activated and a holographic screen pixeled into existence bringing with it a visual image of the commander of the alien vessel. Someone Rick wasn't surprised to find himself facing what appeared to be another human being. What is it with aliens looking like us, he thought, first it was the Zentraedi and then the Tirolians. Both subspecies at worst and genetic cousins to us at best. Now which are these guys?
He carefully studied his opposite number. The commander of the unknown vessel was a young man in his twenties with pale grey eyes and hair cut short in the military style that had been popular on Earth before the Global Civil War really kicked off. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored olive-grey uniform with two sets of odd pen-like objects on either side of the chest. Over his right pec, the young man wore what were obviously a set of rank bars consisting of four red squares above four blue squares. For a moment, nothing more happened and then the other commander spoke, and did so in a language that he didn't quite understand but which sounded vaguely familiar.
"I am sorry I don't understand you," Rick said to his opposite number. "Sparks can you identify that language?"
"Yes, sir it's Tirolian," the communications officer answered, "but according to the computer it's a very, very old form of Tirolian one that has not been spoken aloud in at least ten thousand years. I'm working to extrapolate and develop a translation matrix now. Try to keep him talking it should speed things up."
Rick nodded and opened his mouth to speak to his opposite number again. But before he could do so the other man, looking both frustrated and annoyed, vanished causing the holoscreen to pixel out of existence. Well that was rude. It's not our fault that he was speaking a – to us – almost forgotten language, Rick thought a moment before alarms went off.
"Unknown vessel powering weapons," Pren reported. "We're being targeted."
"Barriers?"
"Still off line sir," Pren replied. "They're firing."
Rick nodded as through the viewports at the front of the bridge he saw a brilliant green flash as the unknown weapons fired. A distant thud, accompanied by a faint rumble – like distant thunder – echoed through the hull and the deck gave only the faintest of shudders as the blasts slammed into the hull. "Report," Rick ordered.
"Unknown weapons appear to be a plasma-laser hybrid sir," Pren reported. "They appear to be laser particles wrapped around a plasma core. Plasma composition unknown. No damage. The bolts are well within the capabilities of our armour to withstand. They're firing again all batteries this time."
No sooner than Pren spoke than another rumble of thunder – this time slightly louder – accompanied a faint but slightly more noticeable shiver in the ships artificial gravity field. "Multiple hits sir. Again, no damage. Another salvo incoming."
"Persistent buggers aren't they," Rick replied as the deck shuddered a little again. "Alright enough is enough. Flight ops order our CAP to engage but have them target the shields, engines and weapons only I want that ship disabled not destroyed."
"Aye sir," Christina answered from flight operations.
Rick turned his attention to the holographic tactical screens floating at his eye level. Screens which currently showed the unknown warship that had opened fire on them, a warship that had just fired yet another salvo of green bolts. You'd think they'd realise that those plasma-laser bolts aren't powerful enough to really pose a challenge to our latest generation of starship armour plating, he thought knowing that their latest forms of robotech armour were designed to resist not just particle beams and lasers but the powerful protoculture-generated plasma weapons of the Invid.
Abruptly a bluish-white beam of energy came from somewhere below the line of the external cameras feeding the holographic display. A beam he'd recognise anywhere as being the discharge of a synchro cannon and – from beams small bore – a fighter based synchro cannon. It slammed hard into the unknown warships ventral shields causing lightning like arcs to momentarily flash all over the hull before vanishing as the energy barrier collapsed allowing the remaining energy of the beam to cause a sizeable explosion where it hit the hull. The beam disappeared only for a salvo of four Derringer anti-ship missiles to slam into the vessels ventral weapons and detonate the multiple plasma detonations not so much shattering the two quad turrets but completely vaporising them and opened two wide, burning, holes in the ship's hull.
What happened next shocked him speechless.
Even before the afterglow of the missile strikes could fade secondary explosions erupted on the other warship, explosions that burst up through the hull blowing off the two dorsal turrets and sending them flying through space. More explosions followed rippling along the entire length of the ship sending debris and the bodies of dead and dying crew members flying into space. The dying vessel immediately lost all attitude control and began to nose down and drift away explosions continuing to erupt as the vessel literally seemed intent on tearing herself apart.
All that from just four missiles hitting the hull, Rick thought shocked and a little horrified as he beheld the dying ship. Even though her hull was made of far weaker materials than he was used to facing there was no way just four Derringer missiles could have destroyed her so completely, especially as the Derringer was one of the oldest missiles still left in the REF inventory with the first models having made their appearance way back in 2005. Like the Foxfire interceptor they'd only been continued in service because they were simply the perfect weapon as they were, though naturally over the decades the guidance systems had been upgraded and the warheads changed from older high explosives to modern plasma explosives. "Lieutenant Pren report, what the hell happened?" he ordered.
"Sir it appears that the missile detonations set off their main magazines," Lieutenant Pren reported checking her screens. "Whatever fuels those pulsed plasma lasers of theirs is apparently not only extremely volatile but not that well protected. There burning up from the inside out. Sir their reactor is going critical." No sooner than the words left her lips than a brilliant flash filled both the holo-screens and the bridge viewports as the hostile vessel erupted into a massive explosion that seemed to momentarily rip the fabric of space-time apart. When the blast faded all that was left of the vessel was a few fragments spinning away still trailing plasma flames.
"Any survivors," Rick asked.
"Yes, sir we read one escape pod but it's pretty banged up."
"Flight ops have that pod brought aboard. Make sure whoever is in their gets medical attention if they need it before chucking them in the brig for interrogation later. I want to know exactly who they are and why they so readily chose to open fire on us. Then have Razor Squadron land for full debriefing," Rick ordered. "Lieutenant Robertson tell engineering to try and speed up the repairs to our sublight engines as well as to do their best to increase the cooling rate of the fold systems. I would rather us not be here when more hostile ships show up."
"Aye sir," both officers acknowledged.
Imperial Palace
Coruscant
That Same Time
Emperor Sheev Palpatine allowed himself a small smile as he read the latest report from Director Orson Krennic on the progress with the Death Star. Finally, after so many years of delays and setbacks – more than a few of which had been caused by that rabble who now called themselves the Rebel Alliance blowing up kyber crystal shipments, which had forced a complete redesign of the superlaser systems – the great mobile battle station was nearing completion. From the report, they just had to finish assembling the final pieces of the massive focusing array – that would merge the various kyber generated superlasers into one massive synchronised blast of power that could destroy an entire planet – then install it and a few other minor subsystems and the station would be ready to go.
In the privacy of his private chambers Palpatine chuckled in a soft, evil fashion that would have given anyone who'd been watching a clue to his identity, an identity that very few still living people in the galaxy knew. That he was really the Dark Master of the Sith Darth Sidious and the man who'd pulled off what had to be the greatest coup in galactic history in not only successfully bringing down the Jedi, the ancient and much hated enemies of the Sith, but in transforming the old and ineffectual Galactic Republic into the model of efficiency that was a Sith Empire. An Empire that, once the Death Star was completed and certified fully operational, would soon be his to rule alone as he would at last can disband the Senate and with it the last vestiges of the Republic. With the Death Star, nobody would dare to stand against him any longer, if they did then their home planets would be destroyed.
It was all he could do not to cackle in glee at the prospect.
Abruptly his euphoria turned to unease as what he could only describe as a shiver in the Force caught his attention. Now what could this be, he thought in a combination of surprise and annoyance before he closed his glowing yellow eyes and reached into the Force to investigate. Something was happening, something was changing. But what is it, he thought as he attempted to search for the answer only to find next to nothing. Only one, deeply concerning fact, stood out. This change whatever it was wasn't coming either from the dark or light sides of the Force but from a part of the Force that he very rarely paid any attention to as it was so small as to be normally inconsequential next to the power of the dark side. The distortion was coming from the middle ground of the Force, what the Jedi had referred to as the grey path, and it was setting off waves of change and turmoil in both the light and the dark sides.
Mental alarm bells sounding at full volume, Palpatine attempted to use his gift of foresight to see exactly where this practically unprecedented distortion in the Force was going to lead. Alarmingly he saw nothing, for one of the very few times in his life he could not pierce the veil of time to see where events were going allowing him to mould them onto a path of his own design. All he could see was that something that was both new and powerful, something that had never been present in the galaxy before now, had arrived.
And that it was currently somewhere in the Outer Rim.
Opening his eyes, he frowned in annoyance. He would not stand for this, he could not allow a such a potential wildcard to exist in his galaxy. Not now, not when he was so close to achieving incontestable dominion over the galaxy and its trillions of sentients. He reached out and touched a control on the arm of his throne. "Get me Lord Vader, Grand Admiral Thrawn and Grand Moff Tarkin immediately," he ordered.
"Yes, your highness," Mas Amedda answered immediately.