A Left Turn at Albuquerque
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, all Star Wars and Robotech characters remain the property of Lucasfilm Ltd, Disney and Harmony Gold respectively, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As such please continue to keep the legal attack dogs, also known as lawyers, firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give anyone.
Chapter Five
Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator
Flagship of 103rd Task Force
A Short Time Earlier
Admiral Durril sighed softly to himself as he read another fleet readiness report. Despite his best efforts to enforce discipline among the ships of the task force the report made it clear that moral and combat readiness on all ships was starting to suffer. He of course knew the reason for the reduction in crew efficiency and morale, it was complete and utter boredom. Unlike the clones of the old Grand Army of the Republic you could only run stormtroopers and navy ratings through so many readiness drills before it got boring and troops started just going through the motions rather than doing their damned jobs. Unfortunately stuck out here in the arse end of nowhere – protecting a single repair and supply depot and not a particularly important one at that as there was nothing here that any insurgents or pirates would really want to steal, certainly nothing that merited a sizeable fleet of frontline combat ships to protect it – there was nothing else to do but run drills.
It was quite frankly a humiliating assignment. But it was what he and the rebuilt 103rd Task Force had been relegated to after their disastrous campaign against the Rebel insurgents on Batonn. Putting down the report he sighed again as not for the first time since his thoughts turned back to that calamitous battle that had stalled his once promising career. He'd gone over it numerous times since then and concluded that he'd not been flexible enough in his tactics, the insurgents having known the standard Imperial siege tactics and had planned the defences of Scrim Island accordingly. He had been both too prideful and too rigid in his battle tactics which had allowed the insurgents to gain the initiative over his force.
Which had eventually led to the ultimate humiliation of not only his flagship being rendered dead in space, the victim of a direct hit from a planetary ion cannon, and needing to be towed back to a space dock for repairs but being taken off the mission. To make it even more humiliating – if that was at all possible – Imperial Command had given the task of subduing the insurgents to that Chiss admiral. Who'd somehow not only defeated them but gotten a promotion to Grand Admiral from the Emperor himself out of it.
To him and indeed most of his men the mere thought of an alien getting so high a rank in the Empire was intolerable. Honestly had his Imperial Majesty not learned the lesson of the Clone Wars? Aliens were trouble, always had been and always would be. As such putting one in such a high position was the height of lunacy. The bleep of his desk comm link broke him out of his thoughts before he could really start raging – again – about the ascension of Thrawn to such a high position in the Imperial regime.
Reaching out he tapped the offending device. "Yes?" he asked keeping his voice calm.
"Admiral we've received an urgent communique from Imperial Sector Command," came the voice of Captain Brandei from the bridge "I'm sending it to your terminal now."
Instantly the desk computer terminal lit up and displayed the urgent message from the local sector command. Durril immediately gave it his full attention. Interesting, he thought as he began reading the report and learned that one of the, admittedly fiendish, traps that the Imperial Security Bureau had left in some of the old Clone Wars battlefields had been tripped. He felt his excitement begin to grow as he read that the sentry droids stationed aboard a derelict Republic Star Destroyer had been activated by the ship being boarded. As programmed the droids had activated their emergency holonet beacon before moving to confront the intruders who, to his mind, could only be rebels. They were the only ones who would be both bold enough and desperate enough to try boarding one of the derelict warships, presumably in search of high yield munitions from the ships magazines.
Imperial Sector Command seemed to agree and were ordering him to take the 103rd Task Force to intercept and detain the rebels if possible or to blast them to pieces if not. Apparently, a light cruiser – the Vigilance – which should have been in the area had ceased responding to holonet communications from Sector Command. Which to the Sector Commanders mind – and honestly his own too – indicated that the ship had likely responded to an earlier alert from the system, presumably from one of the probe droids secreted like mines among the battlefield debris. Upon arrival, the Vigilance would have certainly challenged any rebel forces present in the system and had been destroyed for its trouble. Considering that, and the activation of the sentry droids, the decision had been made to finally let the 103rd get back to doing the job that every man and woman in the fleet felt that they'd supposed to have been doing all along.
Which was bashing rebel skulls in.
He turned back to the comm resisting, just, the impulse to grin at the thought of at last having something productive to do. "Captain instruct all ships to break orbit and assume standard combat formation," he ordered. "Sound battle stations, then set course for System M-77677 and engage the hyperdrive at maximum speed. I will be there momentarily."
"Yes sir. Admiral may I ask what is going on?"
Durril frowned but decided he might as well answer after all his flag captain had been starting to get as frustrated with their incredibly boring assignment as he had been. "Some insurgents have fallen into one of the ISB's little honey traps," he answered, "we're going to arrest them, or burn their ships from the stars if they're stupid enough to resist." He didn't add that he fully expected the rebels to resist as their likely destruction of a light cruiser marked them down as a particularly determined group of anti-Imperial fanatics.
"Understood sir," Captain Brandei answered, a slight but completely understandable note of glee in his voice at the thought of finally doing something productive again, and signed off. Mere seconds later the familiar sound of alarm klaxons filled the air summoning the star destroyers crew to their battle stations. Durril grinned as he stood up even as a new sound joined the wailing of the alarms, the distant rumbling sound of the Judicator's massive ion fission engines roaring into life as they began to propel the massive warship out of orbit of the small planetoid that housed the supply post.
He carefully composed himself as he stepped out into the corridors which were now a beehive of activity as stormtroopers and crew members raced to man their battle stations – all of them moving with an urgency that had been missing from the last few drills, the fact that the ship was moving out convincing all of them that this was a real mission and not just another readiness drill.
In seconds, he was stepping onto the bridge, skirting around a darting mouse droid with the consummate ease of one who was used to dodging the things which like astrodroids were a ubiquitous sight on all Imperial ships and installations. "Status report," he ordered calmly as he walked along the walkway above and between the two crew work pits and the front viewports.
"Sir all sections report battle stations fully manned and ready," Captain Brandei reported as he handed a data pad off to a waiting lieutenant, "all turbolaser and ion cannon batteries charged and ready to fire. All concussion missile and proton torpedo tubes loaded and ready to fire. Deflectors on stand by for combat level. All TIE fighter and bomber squadrons standing by for maximum launch."
"Excellent captain," Durril replied. "Fleet status?"
"All ships report ready sir," Brandei answered, "we're just finishing getting all ships in formation for the jump to lightspeed."
"Very good. How long until we arrive after we've made the jump?"
"Five minutes sir."
"Excellent."
Leaving his flag captain to finish off any last-minute preparations Durril turned to look out the viewports at the endless star and nebula studded blackness of space. From here he could see some of the task forces six light cruisers finishing moving into position for the jump. For a few more seconds nothing seemed to happen then with a bright flare from the thrusters and a momentary flicker of pseudo-motion the first of the light cruisers vanished into hyperspace mere seconds before the viewports filled with first star lines then a swirly blue tunnel-like hyperspatial conduit as the Judicator herself went into lightspeed. He allowed himself a small smile of anticipation…
…finally, they were doing something worthwhile again.
SDF-3 Pioneer
A Few Minutes Later
Admiral Rick Hunter had a puzzled frown on his face as he made his way into the main laboratory section of the SDF-3 – one of the few areas of the ship that hadn't been changed much since the vessel was first built though all the equipment had been upgraded over the years not to mention the repairs they'd had to make to the power conduits after the Invid Regent helped that traitorous bastard Edwards escape – in response to a call from Doctor Lang. He had absolutely no idea what the now quite elderly German genius – the farther of most if not all the Terran applications of robotechnology especially the veritechs – wanted but he trusted him enough to come immediately.
He nodded at the two Cyclone-armoured marines standing before the entrance to the labs – and from there the access passage to the chamber housing the protoculture matrix – who inclined their heads and nodded back in difference to his rank and station before parting to let him through. Passing between the two seven-feet tall armoured marines Rick made his way inside and headed straight for the main laboratory. As he walked he politely acknowledged the greetings from the various staff moving back and forth between the subsidiary labs doing whatever it was the science teams did on a day to day basis.
Arriving in the main lab he wasn't surprised to see Exedore present – the Zentraedi having shuttled over from the Deucalion as the science vessel having been quite significantly damaged during the neutron-s missile test firing fiasco – eyes seemingly clued to one of the microscopes though he was somewhat surprised to see an engineer, wearing the insignia of one of those who dealt with both the matrix and the main reflex furnaces, present having a quite serious looking conversation with Doctor Lang. Ugh oh something's wrong, Rick thought as he got close enough to hear the tail end of their conversation.
"…. showing zero-point energy levels substantially higher than normal," the engineer was saying.
"And you have been unable to determine the cause?" Doctor Lang asked.
"Not at this time sir. We've checked all the matrix settings they are correct. To be honest it's almost like some external force is acting upon the protoculture increasing its energy storage density to a level that we've honestly never seen before."
"When is the next production cycle?"
"Based on our current usage rate and the levels of our storage matrix's we won't need to run a full production cycle for another six days. We'd only just finished our last run when quality control noticed to anomaly."
"Hmm all right I want you to run a limited production cycle. Just enough to fill several storage canisters have them brought here to the labs for analysis. In the meantime, begin recalibrating the all reflex furnaces and energizer modules to cope with the additional power."
"Aye sir," the engineer nodded making a note on the tablet he was holding. "Should we also take some samples from the greenhouses? See if the anomaly is on the Flowers of Life's end?"
"A good idea. Have one of the horticulturists take two samples from both the mature flowers and the spore pods," Lang answered as he belatedly noticed Rick's arrival in the room. "Now if you'll excuse me lieutenant I have other matters to attend to. Keep me updated on what you find."
"Of course, sir," the lieutenant acknowledged before turning and walking away, exchanging a polite nod with Rick as he did so as like most of the other officers onboard the lieutenant had learned long ago that Rick didn't like it when the saluted him all the time. Unlike some officers the former veteran veritech pilot was known to favour a more informal atmosphere at least outside of combat.
"Problem?" Rick asked Lang as the lieutenant left.
"More of a puzzle than a problem," Lang answered with a sigh. "After our last production run we noticed a substantial increase in the amount of energy stored in the recently produced protoculture almost twice that as normal."
Rick frowned. "Correct me if I'm wrong doctor but doesn't the matrix already extract as much energy as possible from the Flowers of Life during the refining process?" he questioned. "The power levels shouldn't go up, go down occasionally due to contaminants sneaking into the storage tanks but not go up."
"Indeed, and that's the puzzle," Lang answered. "Especially as the small amount of data that Cabell gave us on the matrix indicates that something like this has never happened before."
"Are we in any danger?"
"No, I don't believe so. It is a relatively simple matter to recalibrate the computers managing all the reflex furnaces and protoculture energizer modules to compensate for the additional power input. It's just another puzzle to add to the list of puzzles that we've started noticing over the last couple of hours. That's why myself and Exedore asked you to come down here we've got something to show you."
"What is it?" Rick asked as Lang led him over to where Exedore was working. The increasingly elderly looking Zentraedi looked away from the microscope to study them as they approached.
"Greetings admiral," Exedore said politely. "We've noticed something rather curious, curious and honestly a little concerning."
"Oh?" Rick asked. Exedore gestured for him to look at the microscope. Raising an eyebrow at the other man Rick did as he was bid and frowned as he saw what looked like a microbial cell. It was like something he would have seen decades earlier in High School biology class – not that he ever really paid that much attention in biology as it just hadn't interested him, especially as back then he'd always assumed it would have been his destiny to take over the Hunter Flying Circus after Pops retired as Pops had from his grandfather a belief that had held till that fateful first and only space fold of the SDF-1. Like so much else the Hunter Flying Circus had been erased from existence during the Rain of Death – but somehow different at the same time.
"What am I looking at," he asked pulling back. "It looks like a bacterial cell."
"That is what we thought it was," Lang answered. "We found them on the hull of the escape pod that our prisoners were in. While surprising it wasn't that worrying as it's not entirely unheard of for bacteriological organisms to be able to survive in space there are numerous examples in the Tirolian archives of such things."
"So, what's the problem?" Rick asked.
"The problem is admiral that we are now seeing more of them," Exedore answered. "Please look at the next two slides."
Raising an eyebrow again Rick did as he was bid and once again saw the same organism. Once it appeared to be suspended in a gaseous mixture of some kind the other was clearly suspended inside a human cell. "Where did these samples come from," he asked pulling back and giving the two geniuses a questioning look.
"The first is a sample of the gas taken from the plasma weapons fired at our troops by our two prisoners," Exedore answered, "we took a sample from the weapons as we wanted to determine what the composition of the plasma bolts was it turns out to be tabana gas with some helium contaminant which is probably responsible for the reddish colouration of the bolts."
"Tabana gas? I've never heard of a gas by that name before."
"There is no reason that you would have, admiral. It's an extremely rare gaseous element with the unusual properties of having a strong nucleonic energy charge as well as the ability to be compressed at the atomic level," Exedore answered, "coupled with a ready ability to be ionized into a plasmatic state tibana has the potential to be used in the creation of plasma weapons. Though its rare nature back in our own galaxy means that no race known to the Robotech Masters ever did use it to fuel such weapons. It is obviously far more common here if it is fuelling weapons. However, we were not expecting to find this microbe or whatever it actually is suspend in the material."
"And the second sample?" Rick asked getting back on topic though mentally filing the information on tabana gas away for later reference.
"It's from one of our prisoners," Exedore replied. "Based on the test and an on routine medical scans each of our two prisoners has these microbes in their blood and some of their cells."
"So, is it a widespread bug in this galaxy?" Rick asked knowing that in interstellar civilizations it was not at all uncommon for viruses, germs, and other bacteriological agents to migrate from world to world basically wherever any race went it took numerous bacterial and viral organisms with it no matter what precautions were taken to prevent it.
"I believe it to be yes," Exedore answered, "thankfully our tests indicate that the microbe is incompatible with Terran, Tirolian and Zentraedi physiology our immune systems apparently destroy it immediately. Thus, there is no danger from the bug to the health of anyone admit our fleet."
"So, what is concerning you about it?" Rick asked.
Exedore grimaced. "One of our other researchers tested the microbes using one of the bio scanners we use to determine if captured Invid biomatter is completely inert or not," he answered, "each of the microbes is emitting a small amount of the same type of bioenergy that Invid biomatter – specifically the biomatter used in the 'brain' organic computers – emits though on a much lower level and on a different frequency band."
"So, your telling me that these microbes are telepathic?" Rick asked remembering that the incredibly complex biocomputers known as Invid brains controlled inorganic battle drones like the deadly Hellcat and the lower level organic Invid piloted mecha like the scout through a form of technological telepathy. Quite how that worked they'd never been able to work out as there was so much about the organic-based technology of the Invid that they just did not understand. Elements that even the Tirolians – arguably the masters of both advanced cloning and advanced bioengineering given they'd literally created entire species with the Zentraedi being the most well-known of all their creations – couldn't understand.
"At least on a subconscious level yes," Exedore answered, "as to what effect this low-level telepathy would have on the hosts mind it could be no more than a subconscious urging at best or like a post-hypnotic command like the conditioning the Robotech Masters used on my people and on their triumvirate clones at worst. We just do not know."
"So, did the Invid create these things?" Rick asked wondering if the Invid had come to this galaxy before as there was still so much that they didn't really know or understand about the protoplasmic creatures.
"No, they didn't admiral," Exedore said hastening to reassure him. "The telepathic field frequency is completely different to anything created by the Invid. In addition, the microbes have none of the other hallmarks of something created by Invid biotechnology."
"So, are these microbes a threat to us?" Rick asked referring to the fleet and the seeming telepathic ability of the alien microbes. While it was comforting to know that the microbes couldn't infect anyone in the fleet, or rather that their immune systems already saw this bug as an invasive organism and would thus destroy it, that didn't rule out the telepathy affecting them in other ways.
"We don't know," Lang admitted. "It will take more time and many more tests before we can determine if there is a threat to us in these microbes or not. But we both felt you should be informed of these findings before we proceed further with the investigation."
"I see," Rick replied a moment before the comm unit sitting snug on his right ear bleeped slightly for his attention. "Excuse me," he said gaining understanding nods from both Lang and Exedore even as he reached up and tapped the offending device. "Yes?"
"Sir, Colonel Dante's boarding party report mission accomplished they have the star charts we require. Janice reports she is translating them into a format our navigational computers will be able to understand now and will upload them when she has finished," Lieutenant Pren reported calmly from the bridge.
"Excellent lieutenant. Where's the transport now are they still docked with the derelict?"
"Negative sir the transport has just disengaged from the derelict and is making its way back to the ship accompanied by its escort. Admiral they're requesting a medical team meet them in the docking bay, they have a casualty."
"What! Did they say how he was hurt?" Rick asked as alarm bells began to ring inside his head as he recalled the earlier encounter Lieutenant Commander Bennett had had with a hostile drone of some kind in the debris field during their first sweep of the area. Had they encountered more hostile drones aboard the derelict as it wouldn't be the first time they'd encountered sentient non-organic life – the Haydonites were a case in point being entirely mechanical creatures. Though they at least had – according to Ambassador Veidt at least – once been organic beings who'd evolved to inhabit synthetic bodies, though after the fiasco with the neutron-s missiles he now took everything Veidt had ever told him with a battloid-sized pinch of salt.
"Yes, sir apparently, they had just finished downloading the navigational database from the derelicts computers when they were attacked by large bipedal mechs of some kind," Pren answered promptly. "Colonel Dante believes they were probably security mechs activated by their violent breaching of one of the derelicts airlocks as five attacked the expedition team while two more attacked the marines posted to guard the Horizon-T. All hostile mechs terminated but one of the marines was injured by heavy plasma weapon fire. I have alerted the closest sickbay to send a team to the hanger bay."
"Very well keep me informed lieutenant."
"Aye sir."
"Problem Rick," Emil asked as Rick signed off.
"Possibly," Rick admitted before relaying what he'd just been told to the other two men prompting Terran and Zentraedi alike to exchange a look of mutual concern.
"While it could just have been an automated security response the fact that our people have been attacked for the second time in the debris field is most concerning as it could have just as easily been a boobytrap meant to capture or kill anyone attempting to board the derelict," Exedore commented.
Rick nodded back in agreement a microsecond before the sudden wailing of alarms split the air. Now what, he thought with a silent groan before tapping his comm again. "Hunter to Bridge report," he ordered.
"Admiral a fleet of eleven unknown ships has just appeared from hyperspace a hundred thousand kilometres off our bow. Six are identical in size and configuration to the vessel that attacked us earlier, two are of similar size but are even more lightly armed… admiral each appears to be emitting focused artificial gravity wells," Lieutenant Pren reported.
Rick frowned wondering what the purpose of that was, unless they were somehow there to try and stop them folding. "Are the gravity wells strong enough to affect space folds," he asked. "And what about the other three ships."
"Negative sir while the artificial gravity wells are quite strong they're not strong enough to overly affect our hyperspace entry vector should we have to space fold. As for the other three each is almost as big as this ship though their power emissions are much less than ours. Sir all three are launching fighters. All eleven ships have powered weapons and have energy shields over their hulls," Pren reported. "Orders sir."
"Scramble the veritechs, activate defence barriers and bring all operational weapons systems online," Rick ordered. "Then transmit our first contact package to them, maybe we'll get lucky and this group will be in a mood to talk. I'll be right there."
"Aye sir," Pren acknowledged before signing off.
"Do you really think they will be in a mood to talk Rick?" Lang asked.
Rick sighed. "Knowing our history with first contacts probably not," he admitted. "But there is no harm in hoping. Excuse me gentlemen."
Both Lang and Exedore nodded in understanding as Rick turned and hurried away heading back out into the corridors and from there to one of the high-speed lifts that would carry him up to the bridge on the second level of the command citadel. As he walked he mused on the last bit of the conversation with Emil and Exedore. He meant what he'd said about hoping the alien fleet was willing to talk rather than exchange weapons fire with them as it would make an extremely refreshing change from what normally happened when they encountered someone new to them. Stepping into the lift to the command citadel Rick sighed. He would hope for the best, that he would be able to establish some communication with these people and avoid any unpleasantness, but he would also prepare for the worst. If they did come to blows then he would do whatever was necessary to protect the hundreds of thousands of men and women under his command in this fleet.
Even if that required he burn those ships from the stars.
Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator
A Few Moments Earlier
The moment the Judicator dropped out of hyperspace Admiral Durril knew that the situation in this system was very different to what he had first assumed it would be when he received the mobilization orders from Imperial Sector Command. In fact, it was potentially far, far more serious. He had expected there to be a few rebel ships in system either Nebulon-B escort frigates, C90 Corellian corvettes or maybe a former Separatist ship that the rebels had found and refurbished – it had happened a few times before after all – he had not expected to find a fleet this size here.
A fleet composed of ships that didn't look like anything he had ever seen before.
After a few moments surprise at the discovery began to fade being replaced with a bizarre hybrid of concern and excitement as he gazed at the fleet – especially the star destroyer-sized beast in the middle of the fleet – and he began to note details that made him think that whoever these ships belonged to it wasn't the rebellion. The designs were wrong and the writing he could see on the hulls – presumably nameplates – was written in a language that he'd honestly never seen before. The symbols on the hulls, a strange red kite on a white circular background and a large yellow inverted triangle with three ellipses intersecting over it, were also completely unknown certainly they were radically different to the star bird symbol that the rebels had started using ever since that traitorous Senator Mon Mothma had organised the different cells into a formal alliance. And then there were the gun turrets as something about the design of the dual and triple barrels told him that the weapons were not a turbolaser, ion cannon or indeed any other kind of weapon he was familiar with.
Everything pointed to the fact that this fleet wasn't a rebel fleet. It was someone new, someone who'd never been encountered by the Empire before. If they were new to this part of space it would certainly explain why they'd boarded the derelict star destroyer. They weren't after weapons but after the ships navigational database as even though her bridges were gone the Kimbala would still have all her star charts stored in the main navigational computer which in theory a sufficiently advanced droid would be able to access from practically any computer terminal in the command tower area of the ship.
"Sir all fighters have launched and are requesting instructions," Captain Brandei said from behind him. "We are also receiving communications from all our other ships requesting instructions."
"Tell all ships to hold back for now," Durril ordered, "no aggressive moves whatsoever."
"Sir?" Brandei asked.
"Whoever those belong to, captain, they are not rebels," Durril answered. "Whoever they are they're someone new and I don't want to get into a fight with someone whose strength's and capabilities we have absolutely no idea of unless I cannot avoid it."
"Understood sir."
"Admiral we're receiving a signal from the largest unknown vessel," a communications rating called out from the work pit. "Pattern indicates simple mathematical concepts."
"What could be the purpose of that," Brandei wondered aloud.
"Have you forgotten your history captain," Durril asked with a slight amused smirk. "It's a first contact package. Such things were commonly used to establish basic communications between new species in the early years of the Republic. We are obviously as unknown to these people as they are to us. Communications send a basic mathematics package back along with a dictionary of basic galactic basic terms, grammar and syntax."
"Yes sir," the lieutenant in charge of the communications section answered.
"Sensors what can you tell me about those ships?" Durril asked. Beyond the obvious that is, he thought as just looking at them, and the massive ranks of weapons lining the hulls not to mention those two frighteningly huge cannon muzzles in the bows of the star destroyer-size ship made it clear that the ships were warships. Warships that, since they had no idea of their abilities, he would have to be extremely careful dealing with as any miscalculation could cost him and his entire command their lives.
"Admiral com-scan indicates that all but one of the vessels are definitely warships," the sensor section chief reported. "All twenty-one ships are very heavily armed with many cannon and missile ports. We are picking up massive power surges on all ships as well as a massive amount of sub-atomic particle production which appears to be focusing in the turrets. The hulls are composed of an extremely dense metallic alloy that our sensors are currently unable to identify. Admiral they're launching fighters… lots of fighters."
"How many fighters and can you tell me what kind of subatomic particles they're generating," Durril asked. "And what about their power emissions."
"Com-scan tallies over a thousand-fighter craft and climbing," sensors reported stumbling over the words. A thousand fighters, Durril thought in a combination of shock and horror as between the Judicator, Vengeance and Oath Sworn he only had a total of two hundred and sixteen TIE's with eighty percent of them being the basic TIE fighter. Launching so many fighters to be ready to counter his own was overkill, not to mention who in the universe carried so many fighters on their ships in the first place? Not even the Separatists had used that many fighters and they'd been very annoyingly fond of fighter swarm tactics.
He forced down his shock as the officer continued speaking. "Sir the unknown power emissions are incredibly high," the officer reported. "Each of the smaller ships is putting out almost as much energy per second as our main solar-ionisation reactor. The nine largest ships are putting out between six and eight times as much energy as we are. Com-scan identifies the subatomic particles as protons."
"Proton-based energy weapons? Interesting," Brandei commented getting a nod of agreement from his superior officer. Particle based energy weapons were not unheard of, ion cannons were one such weapon, but nobody known to either the Empire or the Republic before them had ever produced a proton-based particle energy weapon before. Not that there had ever really been that much research into such advanced particle weapons given the ready availability of tabana gas.
"What about life form readings? Can you identify who they are?" Durril asked.
"Com-scan cannot be certain but they fall within a ninety to ninety-eight percent margin of either being a new human or near human species."
Interesting, Durril thought with an inward smile. This was perfect if they were indeed humans or near humans – who were just about tolerable to the racial doctrines of the Empire – then who knew he might be able to convince them to voluntarily join the Empire. Though being human or near-human did raise the question of where the kriffing hell they'd come from. The most likely explanation was they were from the unknown regions and could well be descendants of colonists who'd left one of the major human homeworld's like Corellia, Coruscant, Alderaan or even Mandalore tens of thousands of years ago when the galaxy was mostly unexplored by any of the current spacefaring races. If he could persuade them to join the Empire then his majesty was sure to reward him handsomely.
Before he could think anything more of it an incredibly bright flash of light from the direction of the asteroid field momentarily blinded him. At least until the bridge viewports automatically polarized to dim the glare. "What was that," he demanded as the glare rapidly faded causing the viewports to begin to clear.
"Sir sensors indicate that it was a combination of a small thermonuclear explosion and multiple simultaneous proton and concussion warhead detonations," sensors reported. "Origin the wreck of the RSD Kimbala. Admiral we are detecting a single craft heading towards the unknown's flagship. From its size com-scan believes it to be a boarding shuttle of some type."
Well there goes any chance of peacefully persuading these unknowns to join the Empire, Durril thought with a mental sigh of resignation before straightening up. While mining of the Kimbala's databanks could be forgiven, the ISB had been careful not to leave anything more useful than star charts in the databanks of all the ships they used in their little honey trap operations, as could fighting the sentry droids – those things were not only built to be intimidating but weren't the smartest of droids and would just see the unknowns as intruders and targets to be eliminated – deliberately leaving a weapon behind to destroy the ship after disembarking could not. Especially as under Imperial law the Kimbala had remained the property of his majesty Emperor Palpatine and thus destroying her was an act of war against the Imperial regime.
He now no longer had a choice but to demand the unknowns surrender or engage them in battle if they refused.
"Alright dispatch a squadron of fighters to intercept and detain the boarding shuttle," he ordered. "Weapons fire a warning shot across the largest ships bow. Communications send a message to the unknowns tell them that they have been found guilty of engaging in acts of aggression and sedition against the Galactic Empire and that they are to stand down and prepare to be boarded immediately or face destruction. Tell them that they have one minute to comply."
"Yes sir."
Durril turned his full attention to the viewports and watched as one of the Judicator's heavy turbolaser turrets fired sending two brilliant emerald-coloured bolts of plasmatic energy at the unknown flagship. The bolts flying past its bow in a clean miss. Simultaneously he watched as a squadron of TIE fighters began advancing towards the boarding shuttle.
Your move, he thought looking at the unknown flagship.
Bridge
SDF-3 Pioneer, That Same Time
Sitting in his command chair Rick scowled as the unknown flagship fired what was clearly a warning shot across his flagships bow. Things had been going so well, the data packet that they'd received from the unknowns in response to their own first contact package had been proving itself to be extremely helpful in translating the extremely archaic form of Tirolian that these people seemed to speak into Terran standard. Communications had almost got the translation matrix ready, opening the real possibility of communicating with whoever these people were, only for this to happen.
"Admiral we're receiving a transmission from their lead ship," communications reported. "Audio only, tying in the translation matrix now."
"On speakers," Rick ordered.
"Aye sir."
The overhead speakers crackled once and then a human male voice spoke. "Attention unknown vessels this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator. You have been found guilty of engaging in acts of sedition and aggression against the Galactic Empire. You are hereby ordered to power down all weapons, recall all fighters and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply with this demand will result in your immediate termination. You have one minute to comply."
Damn it, Rick thought with a mental groan of annoyance though he could guess what had prompted these 'Imperials' to issue their surrender or be destroyed demand. The destruction of the derelict he'd dispatched Colonel Dante, Janice and a squad of marines to investigate and acquire star maps from. Quite what had happened to destroy the vessel he couldn't be sure – not until Dante was debriefed would he know that – but he could guess as the only things they had capable of creating nuclear explosions were micro-fusion generators and even then, they would have to be deliberately set to overload to cause such a blast. If he had to guess Dante had had to use a micro-fusion generator at some point before his team had been attacked and then with a man down set it to overload rather than attempt to recover it while also tending to an injured man.
"Admiral a squadron of Imperial fighters is breaking off and advancing towards the Horizon-T," Lieutenant Pren reported.
"What can you tell me about those fighters," Rick asked.
"Sir sensors indicate that the fighters are propelled by dual ion engines of some type, the acceleration from them is incredible almost twice that of an Alpha fighter. No armour to speak of, weapons consist of two pulse cannons of some type."
"What are you going to do Rick," Lisa asked softly from where she was, once again, standing next to her husband's command chair.
"I can't surrender. We can't run yet without the star maps not to mention I'm not leaving our people behind. That doesn't leave much choice does it," Rick answered.
"No, it doesn't," Lisa admitted with a sigh knowing that her husband was right. While it would have been nice to have established a peaceful relationship with these 'Imperials' especially if this Galactic Empire was what it sounded like the destruction of the derelict and the Imperials surrender demand made that impossible. They had no choice now but to fight. "We must fight."
Rick nodded. "Here we go again then," he said softly suddenly realising exactly what Captain Gloval must have felt all those years ago on the SDF-1 after the automatic firing of the reflex cannon started the First Robotech War. He didn't want to fight but now there was no real alternative. "Weps lock interceptor missiles on those fighters heading for the transport and fire. All fighters break and engage. Capital ships to engage the Imperial warships, attempt to target weapons only but if necessary take them down."
"Aye sir," came the acknowledgement from multiple stations around the bridge.
"And so, it begins," Rick said softly as he turned his full attention to the tactical hologram that immediately coalesced into existence in front of him…
…mere seconds before a faint shiver of recoil ran through the deck beneath his feet as a storm of missiles was instantly flung into space towards the Imperial fighters threatening the Horizon-T.
For the first time since arriving in this new galaxy the SDF-3 fired her weapons in anger. From two of the forty port side, defensive missile launchers Mark-III Foxfire interceptor missiles were hurled into space by powerful electromagnetic launch rails lining each pepperbox-style launchers firing tubes. The missiles engines fired up immediately sending all twenty of the small lethally fast missiles, that back in their own galaxy all the REF's enemies had learned to fear, streaking towards the single squadron of TIE fighters advancing towards the Horizon transport and its escort of veritech fighters.
The Imperial fighters were caught completely by surprise as the missiles slammed home before the pilots could even begin to react to the missile salvo heading right towards them. In an instant, every one of the mere twelve TIE fighters died, paper thin durasteel armour offering no protection against both the sheer kinetic force of the high-speed missiles and the small but powerful 15kg plasma explosive warhead each missile carried.
The response from the Imperials was immediate.
Like bolts of malignant, emerald green lightning turbolaser bolts shot out from multiple heavy and standard turbolaser cannon arrays on the Judicator. Each bolt heading with unerring accuracy towards the SDF-3. Only they never reached her as a mere two seconds from impact a glowing silver-white tile of energy appeared right in their path. Each turbolaser bolt shattered on impact with the pinpoint barrier, breaking apart and dissipating in space as a luminous green fog as the plasma core of the bolts dissipated.
Unable and unwilling to let the attack go unanswered the SDF-3 fired back, heavy and standard particle beam turrets locking onto their prey and firing sending dozens of brilliant whiteish-blue beams of highly compressed, supercharged relativistic protons towards the Judicator. Travelling at near relativistic speeds the particle beams slammed into the Imperial-class star destroyer with searing force. In a testament to the skills of the shipwrights who'd built her the Judicator's shields absorbed eighty percent of the beams energy the remaining twenty percent breaking through to slice into the armoured hull but not doing much in the way of damage. Well beyond violently rocking the star destroyer.
As if that exchange of fire was the signal that they'd been waiting for the rest of the 103rd task force opened fire pounding out brutal salvos of turbolaser and ion cannon fire. As their capitals opened up with everything they had the Imperial TIE bombers began streaking towards the three largest ships in the REF formation intent on unleashing their cargos of powerful proton bombs on the hulls of the three star destroyer sized ships. TIE fighters falling into escort formation around them.
They only got a dozen kilometres before running into a massive storm of Hammerhead and Foxfire missiles launched from both defending shadow-cloaked fighters and the defensive missile banks of the capital ships. The avalanche of destruction washed over the tiny – by the standards of the hundreds or thousands of fighter and other battle mecha formations that the REF was used to dealing with and had structured their defences accordingly – Imperial fighter and bomber force and just swept them from the sky. TIE fighters and bombers turning into momentary fireballs as plasma explosives reduced every one of them to their component elements.
Even as the last of the Imperial fighters and bombers died the REF capital ships returned the Imperials fire unleashing a blistering hail of high-powered heavy and standard particle beams. Charged particle beams met Imperial shields, punched through to cut into the cold metal hulls of the Imperial ships. Almost immediately an Imperial ship died, a light cruiser its moderate shields and thin armour offering no real protection against heavy beams designed to punch through dense highly refractive, dispersive and ablative robotech alloy armour such as the hull of a Zentraedi battleship and to keep on punching hard. Despite the best efforts of REF gunners to limit their targets to weapons, as ordered by Admiral Hunter, the light cruiser was ravaged the beams cutting right through the ship ripping it in half from stem to stern. The two halves of the unfortunate cruiser drifted apart for a moment before silently exploding together as the ruptured hypermatter reactor detonated.
Amid the rapidly escalating maelstrom of destructive energy the SDF-3 and the Judicator fired upon one another again. Once again most of the turbolaser and ion cannon fire from the Imperial-class star destroyer – power sufficient to rip a fully shielded Nebulon-B escort frigate apart – was blocked by pinpoint barriers materialising right in the paths of almost all the streams of bolts. Only a few shots slipped through the heavy turbolaser bolts melting and burning small but steadily widening holes in the outermost layers of the mighty battlefortress dense armour even as most of the energy was instantly reflected out into space. The few ion charges that got through did slightly more damage the intense electromagnetic flux caused by the alternating positive and negative ion charges causing power spikes and minor systems failures.
Multiple heavy particle beams – each beam having a bore measured in meters – fired back from every one of the SDF-3's forward heavy tri-barrel turrets. As before the Judicator's shields flared, crackled and strained to repel as much of the incoming energy as possible unfortunately this time the SDF-3's gunners didn't let up their assault instead unleashing another hail of the powerful beams. With a brilliant electrostatic flash, the Judicator's shields buckled allowing the full force of the particle beams to slam into the hull. Armour and hull metal vaporised instantly as the beams cut deep into the ship slicing through blaster resistant bulkheads and decks like they were made of tissue paper as they cut their way almost completely through the 103rd's flagship.
The beams vanished but the Judicator's troubles were far from over. Even as venting atmosphere, debris and the bodies of dead and dying crewmembers flew into space through the deep gorges ripped in her hull a salvo of anti-ship missiles launched from the SDF-3 came in the smart seeker heads automatically homing in on the thermal blooms of the hull breaches. Missiles flew inside and detonated sending rippling waves of yet more destruction through the core of the star destroyer, the concussion waves of the explosions and the intense heat of the plasma warheads shattering and melting their way through the innards of the mighty Imperial battleship. Secondary explosions erupted further spreading the destruction as damaged systems and compromised magazines let go making the Judicator buck left and right. Main power died and the great warship, normally such a potent symbol of the military might of the Empire, began to slowly tumble away helpless and out of control.
Bridge
Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator
"Damage report!"
The order from Captain Brandei, shouted as it was to be heard over the wailing of alert klaxons and damage warnings, roused Admiral Durril out of the semi-conscious state he'd been knocked into because of a sudden and violent collision with a bulkhead. Groaning he opened his eyes and looked up…
…into a scene from hell.
The normally bright and airy bridge of his flagship was in filled with a smouldering semi-darkness broken only by the dull red glow of emergency battery lights. Dense, acrid smoke filled the air with one of the very few upper level console banks burning merrily the young officer who had once manned it lying of the floor. The burns on his skin and the odd angle of his neck making it clear even from here that the young man was dead. A pair of astromech droids chose that moment to come trundling onto the bridge approach the burning console and begin fighting the fire with their onboard extinguishers.
Durril started picking himself up even as the crew responded to Captain Brandei's order for a damage report.
"Captain main power is out throughout the ship," damage control reported, "we are down to auxiliary power only. Hull ruptured on all forward upper decks, collateral damage in all sectors. Primary and secondary weapons arrays destroyed. There are electrical and plasma fires burning on all decks, were doing our best but I am not sure if we will be able to contain them for long."
"Hull integrity," Brandei asked even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
"It's not good sir. We're reading massive damage and dangerous structural weakening in all forward sections of the ship," damage control replied grimly knowing that with the fires burning in so many sections of the ship, especially the superhot plasma fires which were certainly feeding off leaking tabana gas as well as cluzon-36 that was surely leaking out of ruptured fuel storage cells, that the structural weakening was only going to get worse. Durasteel was strong and could handle a lot of heat but even it had its limits.
"How long?" Durril asked exchanging a pained look with Brandei. Both knew that with the damage she'd sustained that the Judicator was dying and would certainly soon begin breaking up.
"At the rate, the fires are progressing… no more than twenty minutes admiral," damage control reported.
"Captain begin preparations for an emergency evacuation," Durril ordered.
"Yes sir," Brandei answered immediately turning to a battered looking aide to begin organising the evacuation of all surviving personnel from the Judicator.
"Fleet status," Durril ordered.
"Admiral all our light cruisers are destroyed or disabled. The star destroyer Vengeance is also disabled and currently undergoing evacuation," sensors reported grimly, "the star destroyer Oath Sworn is still in the fight but she's badly damaged and will not survive much longer."
"We've lost so many so fast!" Durril exclaimed in shock and horror. While defeat was always a possibility in any battle to be beaten so soundly and so devastatingly quickly was unheard of. And he had the horrible suspicion that their opponents were holding back in some way that they could have easily destroyed his whole fleet if that were their desire. "What's the status of the enemy fleet?"
"Moderate damage only to some of their ships," sensors reported even as a violent shudder in the deck and a deep concussive rumbling told everyone onboard that something elsewhere in the ship had just exploded, "between those energy shields of theirs and whatever their armour is our weapons have inflicted only relatively small amounts of damage."
"Can we send a distress signal," Durril asked as another violent judder ran through the deck accompanied by the rumble of another internal explosion which this time was accompanied by a shriek of tearing metal. She's beginning to break up, he thought in terror. He pushed down the sudden surge of panic that thought triggered as well as the scared animal that lived in the back of everyone's mind that was screaming 'get out of here before your killed.'
"Negative sir all long-range communications systems are inoperative."
"Do any of our ships still have hyperspace capability?" Durril asked inwardly cursing up a storm that they couldn't send a distress signal that would bring the nearest fleet running to their aide even though it would take a good few hours to arrive given the closest major fleet after his own – now mostly disabled or destroyed – command was Thrawn's Seventh Fleet currently orbiting Lothal.
"Yes, sir the Oath Sworn and both our Interdictor cruisers still have hyperspace capabilities."
"Tell all three ships to withdraw," Durril ordered stumbling again as another internal explosion, once again accompanied by the shrieks of tearing metal, rattled through the ship clearly communicating that the Judicator's death throes were beginning. "Tell them to make for Lothal so they can inform Grand Admiral Thrawn what has happened here."
"Yes sir."
"Admiral we're ready to begin the evacuation," Brandei reported coming up behind him.
"Very well," Durril replied walking back along the upper deck of the bridge to the command console where he pressed the button that sounded the alarm that he had hoped never to hear except in drills. The alarm that told the survivors of the Judicator's crew that it was time to get to the escape pods and abandon ship. He started to turn back to look at his flag captain but before he could an ominous crackling, buzzing sound from the console caught his attention and he instinctively turned to look at it…
…there was a brilliant blast of light and a flash of intense, searing pain then everything went dark.
Bridge
SDF-3 Pioneer
That Same Time
"Admiral the remaining operational Imperial ships are breaking away. Shall we continue firing upon them?"
"No let them go," Rick ordered from the command chair where he'd overseen this whole brief and entirely pointless battle. The Imperials had never truly been a threat to his fleet given he had them outnumbered two ships to one and apparently had them outgunned as well as their own weapons appeared to be far more powerful than the plasma based weapons the Imperials were using. Despite his gunner's best efforts to only hit weapons systems the battle had been a slaughter as the streams of supercharged, highly compressed protons fired by their cannons cut through those ships like they were made of paper. I wonder if this is how Breetai felt all those years ago when our first gen ships challenged his fleet at the beginning of the First Robotech War, he thought gazing at the fleet of broken, burning ships on the holographic HUD.
He pushed aside the thoughts of how pointless and generally one sided this 'battle' had been. He had more immediate concerns. "Damage report," he ordered.
"We have some moderate damage to our forward armour layers," Lieutenant Richardson reported. "There have been several minor systems failures in the ships forward compartments due to electromagnetic spikes from some of the Imperial weapons. Nothing too serious. No additional casualties."
"What about the other ships?"
"All ships are reporting around the same sir," Richardson replied, "no casualties and no more serious damage than a few holes in their outer armour layers and some minor systems damage. But to be honest sir if this had gone on much longer the EM fluctuations from some of the Imperial weapons would have started to cause us some serious problems."
"Understood," Rick replied. "Lieutenant Pren where's the Horizon-T now?"
"They're just coming into dock now sir. Sir Janice reports that she has completed her translation of the star charts from the derelict," Pren reported, "she's offering to connect to the ships wi-fi network and upload them straight to the navigational computer."
"Tell her to do so," Rick instructed. "Flight ops recall all fighters, have them land immediately. Navigation as soon as you have the star charts plot a hyperspace fold jump to another system, preferably one that's quiet and out of the way."
"Aye sir receiving charts now. Beginning search," navigation answered. For a few moments silence reigned on the bridge as the officer carefully scanned the star charts and their encoded information for a potential safe harbour for the fleet to fold to. "Sir I think I've found somewhere an uninhabited system referred to as Hoth just over two kiloparsecs from here. According to the data there is only one world in the system with a breathable atmosphere and it's an ice cube cold enough to make the Siberian arctic look warm."
"Not ideal but it will do for now," Rick replied. "Pass the coordinates to the other ships."
"Aye sir. All ships acknowledge the coordinates and are standing by to fold."
"Are all our fighters docked now?"
"Yes, sir they are."
"Very well initiate hyperspace fold jump."
"Aye sir."
For a few moments, nothing happened then a faint whirr of power ran through the ship. Looking towards the viewports Rick saw the familiar gyroscopic ripple of energy form around the ship before transforming into the familiar frosted-glass effect of a fold sphere. Mere moments later the whirling ball of energy turned into streaking lines of stars as the battlefortress and its escorts submerged into hyperspace leaving behind the old clone wars battlefield and the wrecks of its newest inhabitants.
Author Notes: Well another chapter bites the dust. I hope everyone liked the confrontation between Rick's battlegroup and the 103rd task force, I know it was something of a curb stomp but that was always going to happen as the REF has better weapons than the Imperials do and they had them outnumbered two ships to one. I will admit though that I am not quite happy with the battle and how it turned out but nothing else I tried worked at all hence why the battle is written the way it is.
If anyone is curious as to why the Imperial TIE pilots thought that there were three star destroyers in the REF fleet I would ask you to remember that at more than 1700 meters long the SDF-3 is larger than a standard Imperial-class star destroyer and the two 1200 meter long Tokugawa-class battleships that form part of her escort group are themselves ten meters longer than the old Venator-class star destroyers.