A Left Turn at Albuquerque
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly Robotech, Star Wars and all associated characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Lucasfilm Ltd and Disney respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, 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.
Authors Notes: When I first began working on this chapter – before carrying on with working on the stories set in the This Isn't Kansas series – I found myself torn between going with my original plan as mentioned at the end of the previous chapter or focus on the other events taking place with the expeditionary force. Thus, I ran a poll over on spacebattles to let my readers there decide which they wanted to see first. The results were conclusive and thus this chapter was born. Now that the explanation is out of the way less get on with the chapter shall we.
Chapter Fifteen
Horizon-T Transport
Calanda Expanse
That Same Time
Colonel Dana Sterling, formerly of the fifteenth tactical armour corps of the Army of the Southern Cross currently both the chief of security and ground forces commander on the UES Agamemnon, felt like there were rattlesnakes performing a mating dance in her stomach as the transport – and two companion transports - drew closer to the entrance to the apparently abandoned asteroid base that the Tanganyika had stumbled across after the captain of the Twilight Monsoon suggested this system as a hiding place. She believed that she had particularly good reasons to be worried, given what had happened to Angelo and his boarding party when they'd boarded one of the seemingly lifeless derelict warships that had been littering the otherwise very mediocre system that they'd first defolded in after escaping the neutron-s missile generated black hole.
The presence of those strange security droids on the derelict – and which appeared to have been activated by Angelo and co boarding the ship – had been a nasty surprise. Though one that had been relatively easily dealt with by the heavy particle firepower of the boarding parties' Valiant rifles. It had still left one of the boarding parties marines with nasty burns from where the heavy plasma bolts from the droids – admittedly formidable – weapon had partially breached the marines CVR-4 armour. The unfortunate marine was alright now, though he'd had to spend a few hours floating in a regeneration tank while the burned flesh was regenerated, and underlying soft tissue damage repaired. She couldn't discount that there could be more of those things here, plus Captain Edmodarn had warned that there was a possibility that the battle droids that were certain to be currently inactive aboard the station had a reactivation protocol if the stations internal security systems were tripped.
Of course, if we do have an unpleasant encounter this time we will have even more of a firepower advantage, she thought as they weren't going to take chances this time. This time every single member of her boarding party would be clad in a full armour-mode Cyclone from the moment they boarded the station. Between a mixture of particle beam rifles of various calibres, Scorpion micro-missiles, Recluse rocket-propelled grenades, railguns and CADS-1 arm shields they would have more than enough firepower to tear apart any force sent against them. Hell, even the Invid would generally think at least twice before engaging such a large group of well-armed Cycloners unless they had an overwhelming advantage in numbers on their side.
Which the protoplasmic menaces nearly always did, vile creatures that they were.
"Colonel Sterling."
The voice of the Horizon-T's pilot drew Dana out of her thoughts. She looked up to see that the wall monitor had come on showing the crystalline face of the Spherisian who was piloting the transport backdropped by the rest of the cockpit module and the crew. A crew that was truly an interspecies crew being a mixture of Terrans, there Spherisian pilot, a Karbarran and a Tirolian – distinguished from the Terran by the fact that Tirolians were generally much taller though considerably slimmer, and generally physically weaker, due to the fact that Tirol's gravity was considerably less than Earth's.
Standing up she approached the monitor. "Yes," she asked.
"Colonel we are in position outside the space doors that lead into the asteroid base however our sensors confirmed that the doors are closed and sealed by a combination of magnetics and some quite substantial locking bolts," the Spherisian – whose name she couldn't remember and at any rate would struggle to pronounce as the Spherisian language had numerous subharmonic tones that were beyond the hearing range of most human stock species though paradoxically not the Praxians – reported. "The flight controller on the Agamemnon says our escort squadron could get them open for us they are however giving you the choice on how they do so."
In other words, command wants me to decide whether the veritech's should laser the doors open or blast them to bits with a few Hammerheads, she thought with an inward smirk. Her Zentraedi half urged her to take the second option, there was a reason after all why the Zentraedi had come to really like that old combat engineer saying about how there was no problem that could not be solved by judicious application of high-explosives. Her Terran half however urged the other path, after all lasers were cheap – using them only cost a little bit of easily replaced protoculture – in comparison to missiles. Though missiles were not that expensive either, they wouldn't use them so readily if they had been expensive and time consuming to fabricate
"Tell them to use there lasers first," she decided after thinking it over for a few minutes, "if they can cut through the magnetic clamps and locking bolts there battloids should be able to get the doors open. However, if they cannot for some reason have them use missiles to blast the doors to fragments."
"Aye ma'am."
"Also advise both the Agamemnon and Delta Squadron that doing either could trigger some automated defence protocol and to be ready for anything."
"Understood ma'am."
"Then put the video feed through down here so I can see how they're doing."
"Yes ma'am."
Delta Leader
Once more cocooned in the cockpit of his beloved fighter Lieutenant Commander Daniel Holland listened intently to the order from the Agamemnon, regarding the Horizon transports that his squadron had been tasked with escorting from the cavernous hangar bays of the twelve-hundred-meter-long battleship to the asteroid station. He had to admit he had been surprised when they'd been tapped to be the escort. He had fully expected that one of the battleships own veritech squadrons would have been given the mission, thus it had been a surprise albeit quite a nice one for his own squadron to be given the escort mission. There was a certain symmetry to it that was very appealing after all it was his squadron that had discovered the asteroid station after they'd defolded here it was only fair that they get the job.
A job that was getting a little more complicated though nothing that they couldn't handle.
"I understand command," he replied at last knowing that the fighter controller on the Agamemnon was waiting for his response. Thus, as per protocol he confirmed the orders he had just been given. "We'll attempt to open the bay doors by lasering the magnetic clamps and locking pins on the doors. If that doesn't work, then we'll blast our way through with some of our Hammerheads."
"Just be careful and assign some of your squad to watch your backs Delta Leader," the flight controller reminded him, "there is after all a chance that doing either could trigger some type of automated defence response and neither Captain Leeds nor Ambassador Hunter want anyone getting hurt."
"Don't worry we'll be careful," Daniel replied inwardly frowning in concern. He could see where the senior officers were coming from in giving him such a reminder. The very last thing that any of them wanted was yet another battle with a civilization native to this galaxy. Each time one occurred it potentially made them more enemies in this galaxy, enemies that they could ill-afford to have as while one on one their ships appeared to be considerably more powerful than native warships – which wasn't a surprise when you considered just how powerful robotechnology based weapons could be – they only had a grand total of twenty-two ships of which twenty-one were warships. A formidable force to be sure but one that the natives – having the natural advantage of far superior numbers, which could be a quality all its own as the Invid, their galaxies undisputed masters of swarm warfare, had painfully demonstrated to them on numerous occasions over the last few years – could potentially take down if they just threw enough ships at them.
Putting aside those thoughts he closed down the communications link with the Agamemnon and switched to the squadron command frequency. "Delta Leader to Delta Squadron," he said slipping fully into his role as squadron leader, "we have new orders. We're to open the space doors of this asteroid base by whatever means are necessary. Delta's two and three you're with me, we'll try to laser open the doors. All other fighters continue to surround the transports but be mindful our attempt to breach the space doors could trigger some automated defence response so be ready."
A chorus of 'rogers' came in acknowledgement from his squadron mates. A flick of a switch turned the audio simulators back on – if there was the possibility that they could end up engaging in combat he would need them – before he increased power to his engines and moved away from the three Horizon-T's that they were escorting to the station. In no time at all he was close enough to the massive hexagonal shape of the space doors, doors that were at the moment closed and sealed.
Deciding it was best to see what exactly he was up against he instructed his Alpha's sensors to scan the space doors, focusing especially on the locking bolts and magnetic clamps. Within a few moments the results appeared on his screens and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. While the vast majority of the doors were made of titanium and that strange, enhanced steel composite that seemed to be the most common starship building materials in this galaxy, however the locking bolts and magnetic clamp housings had been reinforced with something that they had never seen in this galaxy before.
"Kalderite what's that doing here?" he mused aloud.
Kalderite – named after Tal Kalder the Tirolian astrogeologist who had first discovered it and figured out how to refine it – was an extremely strong and durable metal that was the base metal in many of the older robotechnology alloys. It hadn't always been as the Tirolians had used kalderite for hundreds of years before the rise of the Robotech Masters – many of Fantoma's other moons were rich in the stuff even now after over twelve centuries of mining – and indeed it had been one of Tirol's major exports to the Sentinels and other worlds. Kalderite had many properties though the one that would be the biggest hurdle for them in cutting through the locking bolts was the fact that it was highly resistance to directed energy. Oh, his lasers would still break through it, they were designed after all to burn through such materials, it would just take more time than expected and cost a little bit more power.
"Delta Leader to Delta's Two and Three," he said into his radio, which was still tuned to the squadron command frequency, causing his central screen to split and show the images of his two fellow pilots instead of the scan data. "I've scanned the doors," he told them "We should be able to cut through the locking pins and magnetic housings have been reinforced with kalderite."
"Kalderite what's that doing here," Delta Two – a former Tirolian triumvirate clone named Taro – asked in surprise.
"I have no idea," Daniel answered, "though it shouldn't stop us given its relatively low purity level, we just need to use a bit more power. Set your lasers to setting five. Delta Two you target the magnetic clamp housing on the starboard door, Delta Three you target the ones on the port door. I'll focus on the central locking pins."
"Roger Delta Leader."
"Roger Delta Leader."
"Alright then let's get too it," he added before breaking off contact and lining his Alpha's nose cone – and the lasers mounted there – up on the central seam of the doors and the locking pins hidden behind a layer of titanium and that odd steel material that would be there. There were three sets of them spaced equally along the height of the door. His screens showed the other two veritechs moving into position themselves targeting their own lasers on the housings of the magnetic clamps at the sides of the door that would normally prevent it opening without being commanded to.
Okay here goes nothing, he thought as they all reached their assigned positions. Accessing his tactical systems settings, he set the lasers to setting five, the second highest setting they would be on which would also lock them into beam firing mode as opposed to the standard pulse fire mode, then after mentally crossing his fingers for good luck he fired.
Instantly two brilliant lances of white-hot, supercharged, compressed photons birthed from the nose cone emitters and slammed into the top of the space door. For a few moments nothing happened as the outer casing resisted the intense, focused heat of the lasers, then the metal yielded, and he began hitting the first set of locking pins which – due to the fact that they were made from a titanium-kalderite composite – resisted the laser attack for several seconds before beginning to glow first a faint red that quickly brightened to yellow then white as they became superheated before, after fifteen seconds of sustained fire, melting away to nothing.
One set down two more to go, he thought even as he checked his proximity scanner for any sign of hostile reaction from the station. Surprisingly, there was none. Allowing himself to feel some relief Daniel smiled slightly as he began slicing, the length of the doors with the lasers and reached the next set of locking pins. It took another minute or two for him to slice through all the locking pins and reach the bottom of the doors. At the end of which warning lights were flashing on his console, warning that the laser emitters were running hot and that the laser capacitors were down to twenty percent capacity and would take nearly five minutes to fully recharge from the Alpha's protoculture energizer module. Understandable that they would run hot and be so drained since an Alpha's lasers are usually only fired in pulse mode as a secondary weapon, he thought knowing that the dual laser cannons built into the Alpha fighter were meant to be used as a backup/secondary energy weapon to the particle cannon gunpod. They were not really designed – though they could obviously serve in that role if the need arose – to generate and maintain a high intensity cutting beam like the beams he'd just been using.
Glancing at Deltas Two and Three he noticed with a smile that they had also finished cutting through the doors magnetic clamp housings, the doors now only needed to be pushed apart. Something that could be very easily arranged. "Delta Two, Delta Leader," he said once again into the squadron command frequency. "Switch to battloid mode and grasp the port side door, I'll do the same on the starboard door. Then on my signal we'll use our jets and push them apart."
"Roger Delta Leader."
At the acknowledgement from the other pilot Daniel reached out and manipulated the mode selection lever, a lever that would only move between positions – and thus mode selections – if you pressed a button on the side at the same time as you moved it. He quickly switched position from fighter to battloid mode and immediately felt and heard the wonderous, near-magical robotechnological process that Doctor Lang had long ago described as mechamorphosis take place transforming his veritech from a fighter plane into a giant techno-knight. In less than three seconds the transformation completed itself.
After a few more moments he had his battloid in position to push the starboard door open, his screens showing that Delta Two was in position opposite him on the port door. "Delta Two, Delta Leader. Hit your jets in three… two… one," he said engaging his main engines – which now formed the base of his battloids feet – Delta Two doing the same a few nanoseconds later.
For a few moments the doors didn't move then, with a notable jolt, they began too slowly open. Over the next minute or so the two veritechs pushed the doors back into their housings on either side opening up the long hexagonal tunnel that led into the core of the station. As the doors slid into their locked positions, they must have tripped something as lights, flickering faintly at first as if the power system were struggling to awaken from its long slumber, came on along the length of the passageway. Several seconds later a shimmer came across where the doors had been and the veritech's sensors confirmed the establishment of an atmospheric containment field.
Daniel smiled before switching radio frequencies again to call the Agamemnon. "Delta Leader to Agamemnon. Mission accomplished, repeat mission accomplished."
"Roger that Delta Leader," the flight controller on the Agamemnon answered as he appeared on his comm screen. "Resume your escort positions around the transports, remain with them when they enter the station."
"Will do command, Delta Leader out," Daniel replied before switching back to squadron command and informing his squad of the orders to resume escort.
After a few moments the ion fusion engines on the transports started up again and the three vaguely swan-shaped ships began moving towards the space doors. Daniel moved into position ahead of them, the rest of Delta Squadron falling in around them in tight escort, as they headed towards the space doors. I wonder what we're going to find in here, he thought even as he felt a momentary surge of resistance as his Alpha passed through the atmospheric containment field. After a moment he sighed…
…he guessed that only time would tell.
A profound sense of confusion and unease filled Dana as the three Horizon-T's and there escorting veritech fighters slowly made their way down the access tunnel towards the very heart of the asteroid. Whoever had constructed the station inside this asteroid had spent an absolutely huge amount of resources doing so, especially as the people of this galaxy seemed to lack the kernel technology that they'd inherited from the long-since vanquished Robotech Masters, and yet here it was simply abandoned and left to rot.
"Colonel Sterling we're coming up on the central chamber," the transports Spherisian pilot reported from the cockpit. "We're running continuous scans for any anomalous signatures."
"Anything?" Dana asked.
"Negative Colonel," the crystalline alien replied. "Station power emissions have increased but they are still on a very low level, just enough to bring the artificial gravity and life support systems online. It's likely all the power for them is coming from the stations remaining backup generator."
Which means it's probably not going to last very long, Dana thought before making a mental note to have one of the combat engineers wire in a micro-fusion generator or two ensuring that they didn't run out of power in the middle of their explorations. Though she also had to acknowledge that it would be quite a risk to take, especially as the sudden increase in available power could potentially cause whatever droids were on the station to reactivate. Still, it was one that they would have to take as she really didn't fancy floating about in zero gravity and in complete and utter darkness if the stations backup generators failed.
"Understood," she answered a moment before the transports and their escorts came to the end of the entrance tunnel revealing the vast expanse of the central chamber.
Despite the fact that she was used to seeing such spaces, Dana couldn't help but be impressed by what she was seeing. The central chamber was a cavernous cylindrical space approximately ten kilometres in diameter. All around the perimeter of the space were docking bays and construction slips of various sizes some big enough to only produce fighters, bombers and possibly small corvettes and dropships – like the Roil Tiluvo-class attack corvettes the Robotech Masters had used and their own Crusader-class heavy dropships – others were clearly for capital ships of various sizes and configurations. Most of the small fighter-sized bays had sleek looking fighters docked in them that from there small size she was willing to bet had to be drone fighters of some kind similar to their own Vandal drone veritechs though only a handful of the larger bays had ships in them.
Two of the latter immediately grabbed her attention even as the dropship began to manoeuvre in for a landing on one of the docking platforms. One was a huge ring-shaped ship that kind of reminded her of a donut with a chunk of the ring bitten out. Filling the centre of the ring – directly facing out at them was a large spherical structure that was attached to the rest of the ring by a thick neck – behind which she could see a large number of towers. It was clearly a warship given that there were a large number of heavy multi-barrel turrets all around the perimeter along with numerous smaller turrets that ranged from single barrel things to quad turrets. Torpedo or missile tubes were also present in significant numbers which was somewhat surprising as from what they had seen in this galaxy so far torpedoes and other powered projectiles were rare weapons – unlike there plasma-laser hybrid weapons which seemed to be everywhere – unlike back home we're they were as common as sand. Looking at it Dana guesstimated that it was at least three kilometres across if not larger.
The other ship that caught her attention was even larger though it was a completely different design. Instead of a donut shape it was long and slender, almost needle like and narrowing at the bow into a beak-like prow. Atop the bow as a very exposed section that looked like a command citadel though it seemed a bit stupid to put something like that so close to the bow which in any warship could be guaranteed to take heavy fire as that were the heaviest weapons were usually located. It seemed to be the case with this warship as well as slung under the nose and extending back a kilometre or more were two very large and intimidating looking weapons. Rising from the stern section – and again looking painfully exposed – was a long slender tower or spire that ended in a platform-like structure. While she was no expert on naval combat – unlike her sister she had never been a fleet officer being a tanker by training – she could see how easy it would be to not only destroy both the tower and the command citadel at the bow leaving the vessel heavily damaged and leaderless.
I wonder what the shipwrights who designed it were thinking, she thought with a mental shake of her head a moment before a shiver ran through the deck beneath her feet as the transport set down. A moment later the distant rumbling, thrum of the engines faded then died away entirely as the pilot powered them down. Knowing that it was time Dana stood up and turned to speak to her squad.
It was time to get moving.
A Few Minutes Later
Now clad in a VR-41 heavy armour Cyclone Dana descended the embarkation ramp of the Horizon-T holding an EP-37 heavy particle beam rifle. Behind her the rest of the squad followed, most of them armed the same way she was though the combat engineers were far more lightly armed, carrying only rifle mode Gallants and the Scorpion micro-missiles on their Cyclone forearm plates. Carefully she looked around eyes and rifle scanning for threats by sector. There were none, the docking bay was eerily quiet. Just like the rest of this place, she thought with a shiver as the silence of this place was rapidly graduating from eerie to downright ghostly.
"Clear colonel," one of the marines reported after a moment. Dana activated his comm.
"Commander Holland anything on your sensors," she asked.
"Negative colonel," the veritech pilot replied immediately. "No motion detected and no other energy signatures beyond the emergency generator. Its output is slowly but steadily dropping though, according to my computer it's not going to last more than an hour."
Which means it's good we're going to tie in a micro-fusion generator, Dana thought. "Understood we'll definitely have to wire in a micro-fusion generator into the power grid to properly explore this place," she replied, "check your sensors see if you can find a control room or something we can access."
"On it Colonel," Daniel answered and for a few moments went quiet as his veritech's sensors scanned the area around them, finally he came back on. "Colonel there is what looks like a bay control room two levels above your current location. I can't probe too deeply due to the presence of some ferrous metal in the rocks partially scattering my sensors, but it looks like there is a wide stairwell approximately eight meters deeper into the asteroid from our current location. I'm sending the coordinates to your HUD now."
"Understood," Dana replied before the HUD in her helmet came to life, specialized lasers in the helmet scanning the information straight onto the retinas of her eyes. A small translucent map appeared showing a path from their current location to the stairwell, and from there up to the landing bay control room. Hopefully from there we'll be able to wire in a micro-fusion generator and bring up a map of this place, at least one good enough to lead us to whatever passes for station operations here, she thought. "Alright then Carter, Michaelson remain here and guard the transports alongside the veritechs."
"Yes ma'am," both marines responded.
"The rest of you move out." Even as she finished speaking Dana began moving, keeping her EP-37 ready just in case, heading first for the open blast door between the landing bay and the corridors beyond and from there the stairs to the landing bay control room where they would hopefully begin to get some answers as to what this place was, why it had been build and why it, and the fleet of warships outside that had obviously been here to protect it, had been so suddenly abandoned and left to rot.
Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust. It is a little bit shorter than what I originally intended for this chapter but where I ended it felt like the right place to end the chapter. There was originally going to be a whole other section set back aboard the Agamemnon with Lisa and Captain Edmodarn but the more I thought about it and the more I tried to write it the more extraneous it seemed to be. Therefore, I removed it from the chapter.
Now before anyone says that my descriptions of some of the ships in the bay are not correct for their types – you can guess what classes they are lol – they have been heavily modified and upgraded as part of a plan that only three people in the entire CIS knew about. These people being Count Dooku, Admiral Trench and General Grievous nobody else in the entire organisation or who were connected to it behind the scenes *cough* Palpatine/Darth Sidious *cough* had any idea that this plan had been put into place or even conceived of. Make of that what you will for the future especially as what you have seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg for what this station was and what plan that villainous trinity were working on. What else there is well you'll have to wait and see.
Until next time stay safe everyone.