7: ON A GOOD DAY
The month after the Romulan battle went by awfully quietly. Only one freighter entered the system, and landed at Teysa's spaceport. Perhaps nobody wanted to take on the Boros now since the newssheets were all over the story. Piss the Boros angels off, and the sky will be full of starships! There were a lot of reporters coming and going from Sunhome the week following the battle, and the Orzhov wanted compensation for the damages caused. We told them to see Teysa, as her ships were also involved. That shut them up. Then there is this new crater in the outskirts of Ravnica City. At 15 kilometers across there is a whack of prime bedrock real estate available. The Azorius were fuming, as they had not authorized the action. I gently reminded them that a single torpedo can be down loaded, making the crater just a touch bigger than the footprint of a single building, such as Prahv, their senate. That shut them up also. The Parhelion II just so happened to be facing the senate when I mentioned this! Most other guilds were keeping their noses clean and staying away from the Wojeks on the streets.
The Fantom, Fury and Aleya were back in mothballs as their borrowed Aven crews had returned home. We weren't waiting around though. Three new Ares class cruisers were building at our docks.
I awoke with both Sara and Razia. Finally their feathers had grown back and we no longer needed blankets on the bed. OK, I didn't need blankets on the bed. What do we face next?
A quick check of the newssheets didn't reveal anything. All is quiet on the Ravnica front. And all is quiet from my mana-less universe according to our subspace relay…
Down time? Just relax and have a few new academies to bolster our starship ranks? Enjoy our company and let things be?
I planned on just enjoying the company of my two angels. But events conspired against that, in a good way, as I was making my speech to another batch of cadets. This time the Nimbus III was parked on the garrison in Utvara, as that building became our academy building. Since the battle the number of recruits had grown! The Nimbus would be packed with cadets!
"Hard about!" I ordered as a spread of torpedoes struck our aft port shield. "Roll ship!"
The 'Helion flipped onto its side as she swung around presenting her top shield pole to the enemy. Two type three phaser cannons and another spread of torpedoes slammed into the shield poles.
"Shields holding, but barely. Outer shields are down," Sara announced from ops. The Aleya flashed past at warp 7. "She's coming about!'
"John, arm all forward weapons. Razia prepare to execute evasive pattern theta, followed by attack plan alpha, on my mark," I ordered. Razia and Sara were on ops, John was on tactical, and Pense was on engineering. We waited. I was ticking down the time when Ericanj would be planning the killing blow into my backside. "Maya?"
"Not yet … wait … energy build up on target!"
"Razia, execute!"
Razia's fingers flew across the control board, the 'Helion rolled to port, 'slammed on the brakes', then flipped back to starboard while accelerating. We watched the Aleya's torpedoes go by, his phasers, a full strike, went wide. Then all of a sudden he was right in front of us. "Fire!" I ordered.
John had locked on and fired everything. It crawled up the Aleya's backside and slammed into their shields. The computers registered the hits, assigned the damage and shut down the appropriate systems. The Aleya stopped dead in the water.
"All right, stand down from the exercise and hail the Aleya," I ordered. That meant the weapon settings would go from training mode to full power.
K'Tee fired up the comm., and Ericanj's face was on the view screen. "Where did that come from? I had you dead to rights, and all of a sudden you shoot my engineering section out from under me?"
"I still have a few tricks up my sleeve yet. Just because you command a big powerful ship you do need to avoid getting cocky. Actually I set you up. I deliberately took the first spread of torpedoes before rolling ship. You fell to the classic: being suckered in! Have your bridge crew report to my briefing room for debriefing," I finished with.
After the debriefing we were in the lounge. Alejo and Ericanj were picking my brains about ship tactics and how to avoid obvious mistakes. Alejo was Ericanj's X.O. for this training exercise. Both still needed some more center seat time, and a return to the auto-teacher, which was in the process of being duplicated. An entire bay was being devoted to them on board the Nimbus. It would accelerate the training program enormously, as we had a lot of new recruits to train – three ships worth! Currently even the Aleya was fully staffed as the crew of the Nimbus was aboard for the exercise. There were so many recruits that every available body was put aboard to train the large number of cadets. But I retired early, as Sara dragged me out of the lounge…
I woke up in Sara's arms. Razia was elsewhere. She was just hugging me, but didn't say a word. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"It's just a feeling I have. I don't know why, but today I don't want to let you go," Sara answered.
"Then don't," I replied as I hugged her. Both of us weren't letting go, so there we lay…
Eventually Razia entered our quarters, and came to a stop as she saw us embracing. "What's with this?"
"Sara has a feeling I shouldn't leave this bed today," I answered.
"Then don't!" Razia stated as she crawled into bed with us. "Bridge, the flag crew will not be available today. John has the con," Razia ordered over the intercom. We were heading back to Ravnica from our designated training ground, and would take another day to get there anyways. So we hung out in our quarters, watching 20th and 21st century movies. Sara finally saw Jaws! She found it humorous, as she didn't understand why they just didn't get some big weapons out and just kill it. But that's not the point of a movie! I even found the mythbusters episode… But that didn't matter as an angelic feeling was not to be ignored!
We awoke the next day in Ravnica's system, less than an hour from our perch atop Sunhome. "How do you feel today?" I had to ask Sara.
"Fine, I don't have that feeling," Sara answered.
"So what was it?" I had to ask.
"I don't know! It just was a feeling of dread. And as an angel those feelings usually lead to something." Sara stated. We avoided the dread.
"How are we this morning?" Razia asked.
"Apparently fine! There is nothing in our way, as far as I know!" I stated. I felt nothing new. The skies were clear, and there was nothing out there, but Sara's feelings from yesterday. "Hey maybe we just needed a down day without some burns. Relar is still out there, and I bet Szadeck is too. It seems that you can't kill someone who is already dead."
"Unfortunately, being dead doesn't mean you don't have work to do on Ravnica. Just ask Kos," Razia mentioned.
"So, after my five millennia…"
"If you want, we will try to bring you back. It won't be the ideal existence, but we can love you still," Razia answered. "I want you forever if I can!"
"Works for me," I responded with.
The 'Helion landed atop Sunhome, while the Aleya returned to dock in orbit. A quick check with the guild mages – there was absolutely nothing stirring on Ravnica. It was quiet. Too quiet! Maybe that's what Sara had picked up on. Edana checked in on Centerfort, and it too quiet there as well. The Wojeks were getting edgy, as even the usual instances of petty crimes and street violence had seemingly disappeared overnight. Not even a kill-suit cultist to be found!
We descended on the Imp's Wing. Teysa arrived when she was notified that we were dropping in. Pivlic has a special dinner planned. There were a lot of angels and companions in the Imp's Wing. This was going to be celebration round two! And Pivlic's' crew did an awesome job on dinner.
I awoke to Sara's iron grip again. Looks like the dread has returned! But this time Razia was here and she wasn't letting go either. "You feel it too?" I asked Razia.
"Yes I do. It's really a strange feeling! Like if we let you go something terrible will befall you," Razia replied.
"Now what could be worse than being engulfed by plasma?"
"That's the problem. This feeling is that something worse will happen, if we even break physical contact with you this time," both Sara and Razia replied.
"All right on the count of three, let go of me," I ordered. "1 … 2 … 3" both angels let go, for almost a whole second! "See, I didn't burst into flames or anything. Lets try that for 5 seconds." The 5 seconds passed by uneventfully. "Want to go for a whole minute?"
"… OK …" They really sound enthusiastic about this… A minute later and absolutely nothing out of the order happened.
"Still have that feeling?"
CLAMP! "Yes!" Both angels responded. There were beads of sweat on both their foreheads, and it looks as if the separation for even a minute was somewhat painful to them. Back to where we started…
I decided to call the bridge, initially to tell them the flag's are down again.
Nergat answered, "Where is everybody? No one showed!"
"What do you mean, no one showed?" I asked.
"None of the officers showed up for duty! There's only Anezka and myself on the bridge. There are precisely two ensigns and three cadets in engineering. Nobody's in medical!" Nergat replied.
"Put Anezka on, will you?"
"Anezka here," she replied
"How do you feel this morning?"
"What a strange question. I feel fine just like I normally do," Anezka answered.
"So you are fine. Patch John in. He should be still in his quarters," I ordered.
"Bridge to captain Gardner,"
"John here. I seem to have a problem," he replied.
"Let me guess. It has to do with a death grip that Pense has on you, doesn't it," I guessed.
"How did you know?"
"Trying to deal with two simultaneously. Hang in there. Anezka, I need you to get … let's see … Ashni from the Nimbus and go to my quarters." I hit the intercom. "Ensign Calrea Estefan, report to the bridge. Ensign Tristana, report to engineering. Ensign Peilanne Lorekeeper and ensign Reatha Kane report to medical."
Anezka and Ashni arrived at our quarters. "Enter," I commanded they entered and … stopped. They did not know what to make if the situation. There I was with both Razia and Sara wrapped around me, both absolutely refusing to let go. Ashni came to her senses first and pulled out her tricorder, scanning us.
"Physically there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. No abnormalities in essential body function, even angelic backup systems. Elevated seratonin levels in Stephen, but not out of range."
"Then it's not physical. It's magical. Here's what I need you to do. I need both of you to help separate us and then I need you to check over the life links," I ordered.
"The life links?" Ashni queried.
"It's the only thing I can think of, as every life linked angel is in this boat and every one not is just fine."
"So that's why you got me over from the Nimbus III." Ashni concluded.
"And get Concordia to look in on Erela."
So that's what we did, for a whole minute. Then I was stuck in my angel sandwich again. "Something has definitely tampered with your life links! It is strong and black!" The shock on both their faces told the tale. Even Anezka with no medical training sensed it.
I contacted the bridge, "Red Alert. Shields up! Have all non-bonded crew report to their stations. Cloak the ship and put it into a random standard orbit. Order the Nimbus to do the same."
As soon as we leapt into the sky, both Razia and Sara let go. "It's gone!" They both exclaimed at once. I hit the intercom, "All life linked angels report in."
Sure enough everyone was back to normal. "All right stand down from red alert. Maintain shields and cloak and orbit. Alpha shift please report to your stations when ready." Shutting down the intercom, "Anezka and Ashni, please meet us in medical in about 30 minutes." The two angels left us to get ready. The next two hugs were normal and sincere.
In medical I had the spectrum analyzer up and Ashni was trying to match the spectrum to what she sensed. What she came up with was oddly familiar. But the shift was different from the one surrounding Sara. The ugly purple was there in spades, as was some green, instead of blue. Once she was sure we had a match, I sent the spectrum to sciences. I wanted a full scan of the planet and surrounding area for such a spectrum. We found a whole whack of point sources on the planet but nothing powerful enough to affect two starships thousands of kilometers apart. "They are all Golgari down there," Razia informed. "Makes sense. They use black and green mana."
"But what did that to us was capable of penetrating a ships structural integrity field, apparently over quite the distance. Either raising shields blocked it, or it's directional. That means that they now can't find us, and we can't find them if they are switched off. I'll be down in sciences,"
"What are we doing there?" Razia asked.
"Going over the sensor logs of our trip in," I answered. "I bet that we were hit by this thing before, and somebody has been doing some improving on the first version."
I was pouring over the sensor logs of our return trip to Ravnica, especially the time scan that corresponded with Sara's feeling of dread. I was looking for a point source that matched the spectrum, and wasn't finding it. But then … that's a flash that's awfully close! I had missed it, but Razia didn't. The spectrum was almost the same, but not quite. But a source was beaming a black mana based beam at the 'Helion that entire day. Unfortunately, there was no visible source of the signal.
"That's because it's cloaked," I stated. Now it was time to hunt for the telltale sins of a cloaked ship at the beam source. It didn't take long to find it. The cloak was as old as generation 5 or 6. The size of the signal told me exactly what it was – I'd seen it before, an Orion cruiser. And it was parked less than 1000 km off our port beam. The only reason we didn't see it originally was the fact that we weren't looking for it. It looks like either a test, or an unsuccessful attack run.
Now we knew what we were looking for. A quick crew shuffle and we returned to our perch atop Sunhome. It looks as if Endara has a new toy!
I woke up the next morning, back in a double death-grip. But that was expected. "Stephen to bridge," I called over the intercom
"On it!" Anezka replied. "Sciences go!" She ordered from the bridge.
It took less than a minute to locate the offending signal. It was coming from orbit. That cloaked ship again. "It does look like Endara has tuned up his weapon. Bring up shields to minimum," I ordered the bridge.
As soon as the shield came on, both Sara and Razia let go, Sara giving me a 'thumbs up'. "Order the station to triangulate," I ordered. The currently crewless Nimbus was docked to the station. Everyone at stations in the 'Helion were currently unbonded!
Soon we had the coordinates of the offending ship. Anezka cloaked the ship and sure enough the beam disappeared. The unknown ship was still beaming the uncloaked Nimbus.
Good. Lets go kill it. But stuck in bed this was Anezka's show, along with Nergat et al. By the time we got ready, the show was over. But then the show was only five minutes long. The 'Helion sneaked up on the other ship, de-cloaked and fired its phaser cannon. The Orion was cut cleanly in half, and two torpedoes removed the halves. There were no survivors. Let's hope Endara was onboard…
Another month went by without any feelings of dread. Yet another packed starship academy was held. Apparently the Golgari didn't have the funds for a backup ship. We may have eliminated one of our alphabet soup of problems facing the Boros!
We had an official christening ceremony, including an orbiting bottle of champagne. The Aleya was finally fully crewed, and officially entered service, captain Ericanj commanding. Commander Alejo was formally inducted to the command of the Nimbus III. We had a new training crew, and a second starship crewed. But there were still three new Ares class cruisers building, and even converted to angel decks they needed a crew of about 200 to man, each. That means we need 600 new recruits!
I awoke with both my angels again. Nothing out of the ordinary, but then the bridge contacted us. A message had come into Sunhome sometime during the night. The Inquisitor's Omen was coming into dock with our space station. There was apparently a late delivery from Avalon. Well, Bant actually. At least Elspeth and Reya. Apparently Jace had his starship visit Alara and was convinced to bring back a cargo to Ravnica – angels. This time there was a whole shipload of them! There were 90, all refugees from the late Serra's Realm. And Jace's goblins didn't try to take their heads for war drums!
"OK, we have an inbound invasion of angel neophytes," I mentioned. "Are they in for a shock," I concluded.
"But if they join us we can slowly fill out our new ship crews," Razia responded. "I think that your opening speech should convince them, otherwise they aren't Boros material in the first place."
It took a bit to settle in this number of angels. Many had questions, which I decided to answer at this time, with my usual forthrightness. We needed them to integrate with the training as soon as possible, so the training would be done in the whole fleet. They worked with our crew, both angels and mortals, to integrate as starship crew. The Nimbus was fully packed, as was the Aleya. We had enough people; both angels and mortals, to man another Ares class cruiser!
Crew shuffling time again! Promotions and some good-byes always make this time bittersweet. We were at the point where the Aleya was fully crewed, as was the 'Helion. Time to build up a pool for our next three ships. There were now 207 angels wearing the Boros uniform! It looked like we were going to start yet another starship academy, but there was yet a new development, this time from my own mana-less universe. Some of my former crew, as well as a number of new adventure seekers had booked passage to Ravnica. Their ship landed on Teysa's spaceport in Utvaria, but they were seeking he rift runner.
I was in Pravh, debriefing the Azorius about the threats to Ravnica. They were originally going to arrest me as a war criminal, but decided not to. Something about the fact that if the angels wanted me back they would start lobbing torpedoes, and would end up nuking the entire city. That meant that I effectively had immunity, much to the chagrin of Leonios II.
Oh, well. But it was time to educate the Azorius on the 'facts of life', as I saw them.
"Now, don't for a minute feel like you have gotten off Scott free," the Grand Arbiter said. "It's just that I do not wish to go to war with the Boros angels…"
"Don't worry, the angels would not destroy Prahv. They would simply beam me back to the 'Helion. Whether I would destroy Prahv when I was back is another story," I replied.
"How would they do that?"
"The same way we beamed straight to the chorus of the conclave through all their magical defenses. There isn't any magic barrier that could stand up to a starship if we really wanted in," I concluded.
"… I see," Leonios II responded. "But to the matter at hand. Exactly what happened during this battle?"
"OK. For starters, you need to know a little about the universe that I came from," I answered. "It is a vast universe that stretches across many galaxies. Your entire universe consists of a sphere just over 50 parsecs in radius, and it contains just over 15 thousand stellar systems.
"And how much of this 'universe' have you explored?" The grand arbiter asked.
"Only about 100 systems so far," I mentioned. "The Boros Angels have just started to explore the Ravnican universe."
"And in your own universe?"
"At least 8000 systems spread out over 7000 parsecs." That is a minimum, based on the forays into the unknown, as well as routes taken by exploration ships throughout the ages on a mission of discovery.
"And the ships doing the job of exploring those systems?" The grand arbiter queried.
"Well, there is the Nimbus III. But in general the mana-less universe is left too its own devices."
"And our universe?"
"That is the jurisdiction of the Boros angels. I will NOT second-guess Razia. Her purpose will be revealed in time." I was not going to reveal our secret plans to the Azorius. They will have to wait just like the rest of the planet. "But back to your question, the space battle was essentially between the Dimir and the Boros. Szadek had allied himself with a Romulan faction, under one commander Relar. He rolled in with 24 large Romulan war birds. Since the Boros has only 5 operational ships and the Orzhov have 2, we needed external help. I called in a favor and brought in a fleet of Aven ships from my mana-less universe. Thus we actually outnumbered Relar. The fight was actually short and sweet, with Relar's losing badly. To bring closure, we also destroyed Duskmantle."
"Yes, with a massive amount of damage. You mentioned to the newssheets that an entire spread of torpedoes was fired at the building. Was one sufficient?" Leonios II asked.
"In my opinion, yes. But with Razia herself pulling the trigger, and her history, she was trying to make sure. That's the problem of trying to kill someone who's already dead."
"I see. So you didn't order that much destruction?"
"Of course not! But by now you should know one of Razia's mottoes," I answered.
"Which one?"
"Only the chosen are spared," I answered.
"Oh, that one. It figures. She coined that one after dropping her purification spell on some poor bastard. Have you seen it? It's pretty impressive," Leonios II mentioned.
"As a matter of fact I have," I replied. "But not on Ravnica. But get used to it. If House Dimir is still operational they have access to starships. And the Izzet is building an orbital dry-dock, so they as well as the Boros and Orzhov will have ships here."
"I have also heard that there is a brisk small arms trade as well…"
"That you will have to talk to the Orzhov about. The Boros is not in the arms business except as a customer." I went on, "There is a spaceport in Utvaria, so if your are looking to buy I'd go there."
"So if people on Ravnica appear with weapons from your universe?"
"Then you'd better have an appropriate response. Even a disruptor pistol can put someone on par with a guild mage. Look, things are changing here on Ravnica. The rift to my mana-less universe is now stable, and the technology of that place is now available. You can't put the genie back in the bottle," I concluded. That ended the meeting with the Azorius. Whether they liked the information given or not, It isn't my problem.
