Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders, only much of the convoluted plot, Night Wolf and a few other things are of my own creation (but inspired from many things under copyright, which aren't mine).
Chapter 42Birmingham shoved his hands in his pockets as he continued to walk along the length of the ship as he thought through the various bits and pieces of information that he'd collated and ideas that he'd noted down for the Brigadier's perusal.
They would need Birmingham had decided after many long and seemingly endless days a large base of operations, not on Earth, he'd actually decided upon this from speaking to the people in the engine and power management area on the ASCS Flinders, in which he was currently in.
Given the spacing of their research outposts, and the probability that they were going to accumulate more Night Wolf would need another base of operations, an planet where ships could touchdown, make repairs, take on supplies, relay information and whatever else.
A research base would need to be like a university, which was what Birmingham had really decided on, a place where they could research while not on Earth, so Night Wolf could collect personnel and train them, teach them, teach students how to…
"Live and not think the sky will fall and that aliens exist…and aren't friendly." Birmingham muttered to himself and smiled grimly, that was what being locked inside a ship for nigh on two weeks was doing to him, he was talking to himself.
Night Wolf would also need experienced teachers, to teach and learn along side their students and who ever else studying under them…
In the process of his research it was clear they were in dire need of people in various fields, xeno-archaeology needed a boost, astrology (taking into account a non-Earth central position), even temporal theory…not something they wanted to dabble in, but something they would need to know about, considering the amount of temporally active individuals who visited Earth…not just the Doctor in any and all of his faces, the Master, the Daleks, and who knew how many more would start showing up.
Sorcerers would be excellent in many of the roles, especially those who were disenchanted with the 'wizarding world', in Britain…Birmingham knew from living in it what a secularised world it was, a world that had barely moved beyond the Middle Ages.
There were only so many wand users accepted to Hogwarts each year, a group of that size would be trying, though not impossible to track with the right group on it, they and their parents or guardians could be spoken to either directly as the United Nations or some sort of intermediary…not every wand user wanted to become a paper pusher serving the self proclaimed aristocrats or rearing dragons…
In other countries within Europe and in Australia and New Zealand there was more openness and disclosure, they weren't as secularised as Britain and therefore other techniques could be explored.
It was about options rather than a choice of one or two paths.
There were also many specialists within UNIT who had…experience with…'outside influences', be it actual travel into space…and time and others who had direct experience, they could be approached over the natural course of setting up such an endeavour.
Birmingham sighed to himself and turned around as he felt the gravity diminish as he walked further out of the gravity field and started on his way back toward the main parts of the Flinders where gravity was stronger.
Birmingham sat at a table in the mess as he waited for Captain Jennings to come for their what had become regular breakfast.
Birmingham scowled at the full breakfast before him with its amazingly fresh mushrooms and tomatoes, he'd been on this ship for close on two weeks and not once had he had a bad meal, it was slightly irritating for him.
Paul Jennings sat into his field of view.
"Birmingham."
"Captain Jennings…how long until we reach our destination?" Birmingham asked, the question he'd asked for the past 11 days.
Jennings chuckled. "You're not the only one who's been thinking that Birmingham…but it shouldn't be much longer my crew's pushed the engines a little harder so we should be able to disengage our hyperspace window generators a day earlier than we expected."
Birmingham nodded. "How's your work going?" Jennings asked as he stirred a mug of coffee.
"Next time I'll bring something with me other than work…" Birmingham shook his head making the captain laugh. "Lethbridge Stewart will have plenty of recommendations to read through when we get back…" Birmingham frowned at that thought.
"Yes…all the way there, a light show and then we get to turn around…isn't space travel a marvel Sorcerer?"
"Like the sailors of old Captain…except not even the stars to guide us…or a window to gaze out of…the next time Harry wants to blow up a star I'm ordering someone else to go along."
"There's going to be a next time?"
"Let's hope not Captain, though it seems when Harry makes enemies…"
"He wants to make sure they stay dead?"
"Precisely." Birmingham acknowledged as he chewed thoughtfully on a garden fresh tomato.
The following 'day', not that there was much separating day from night aborad a space ship travelling along the edges of hyperspace, but it was the following time from when Birmingham had gone to sleep and awoken.
Birmingham stood on the bridge waiting for them to emerge into the (still unnamed) system.
"Approaching coordinates now…"
In a flash of energy the Australian Space Core Ship Flinders was spat back into normal space between a desolate planet and a large star.
"There it is Sorcerer our target…"
"It's Harry's target Captain…we're merely the transport…it's his finger on the trigger so to speak."
"Ready to light the fuse on what is probably the biggest explosion in history…and this guy hasn't finished school…" The captain muttered the last part to himself.
"Yes…" Birmingham muttered equally to himself staring at the image of the sun for a few moments.
"Constantine are we receiving data from the probes left behind?" The captain asked his Secondary Systems Co-ordinator.
"Sensor analysis is already coming through, they're uploading the data since they were placed."
"Prepare to transmat additional monitors to the planet and surrounding space Night Wolf want a full sensor capture when Mr Potter lights his fuse. Have we got confirmation that this is the sun and the planet has the Q40 element?" The captain asked as he regarded his own smaller display which had dropped down from the ceiling.
"Yes sir, more than substantial amounts of the Q40 element beneath the surface…sensor analysis and the other departments are…" Constantine Townsend paused for a moment. "Very excited large and concentrated quantities of the element sir."
Birmingham stepped back watching them work, it was he had to admit to himself quite a bit more interesting than the day to day workings of the ship that he'd been treated to when he'd come to the bridge previously, the checking, the scanning of nothing as they flew towards their destination.
"Captain…I will go and check with my colleagues in the transmat area with the dwarf star alloy…Harry could arrive at any time."
"Of course Birmingham…we'll inform you when he arrives…if everything is running to schedule he should appear within the next couple of hours…or at the most within a day."
Birmingham nodded and walked calmly toward the matter transmission area and to the area which dealt with the transmats.
Many of his fellow sorcerers were waiting, some nervously, some just wanted it over so they could return to Earth and their familles…many of them just wanted out of this ship that they'd been confined within for the past 12 days…though a walk outside probably wasn't recommended.
The dwarf star alloy a black and grey substance was sitting ready on a raised pedestal, each of the sorcerers spread out again regarding the small piece of unearthly substance born from the heart of a dying star, they had met in this room several times during the voyage.
They'd met, talked over how they would proceed, they'd studied te very acoustics of the room and the element that they were to charm, how each sorcerer would begin to charm it, the very coordinates which would set into the charm.
Now they spread out re-familiarising themselves with the room, the element and what they would about to be doing when the moment arrived.
Around twp hours later almost all of the Flinders' crew was still hard at work deciphering, analysing the data around them.
"Energy spike!"
"Is it Harry Potter?" The captain asked as one of the main screens switched to show a small black as black craft sweep away from it's own hyperspace window and come along side them.
"Open communications and put it through to Sorcerer Birmingham." Jennings hit a button. "Birmingham, Harry's arrived comms is coming through now…"
"Harry, How've you held up?" Birmingham asked after a few moments of silence.
"Birmingham, next time I'm taking a bigger ship. Ready here, let's finish this."
Birmingham chuckled but noted the tiredness of Harry's voice and the determined edge to it.
"We're just about to charm the portkey."
Birmingham nodded to his fellows who were mainly sitting around reading, they each removed their wands, Birmingham looked over at the person manning the transmat controls.
"Ready on your signal Sorcerer Birmingham."
"Good. Ready?" He asked the assembled Sorcerers, they each stood a perfectly measured distance from the allow to maximise their charms, their placement also in relation to it and each other also assisted in the power transmutation and alignment.
There was a comment of affirmation.
"Then we begin." Birmingham said as he started his own murmuring to himself and the others.
That was how it would begin, an almost silent murmuring, muttered the charms involved up to the spell, working the power through their wands into the alloy around it and through it.
Each one of them marginally different but thinking on same course of action, on the same coordinates, on for the same purpose.
The very precise wand movements, tight and controlled, the murmuring upped a notch into muttering and the muttering into talking…soon the talking was speaking and the speaking chanting, the power expressed by these individuals was almost buzzing around them as they focused on the small piece of a long dead star before them.
Birmingham blinked the sweat away from his eyes counting down in his head as he continued to chant jabbing his wand and gripping it tight he wrenched his eyes away from it and broke the chant. His voice almost carried away by the others.
"5 seconds, transmat 5 seconds…mark."
4 seconds, the chanting was building to a crescendo.
3 seconds, the final pieces of the power of the most powerful portkey were falling into place.
2 seconds the chanting reached its crescendo and there was an almost swirling as the everything dropped into the portkey.
1 second…it was finished and looked unassuming, but the countdown within it was already running, nothing could stop its countdown now.
Then it disappeared moved through space into the missile attached to a craft flown by a man prophesied to destroy someone who was once a man named Voldemort.
"Transmat in progress, you have the element Shadow Blaze."
"Ready to launch Flinders."
The captain nodded to his comms officer.
"Clear for launch Shadow Blaze."
Captain Paul Jennings looked at the timers on the left handed screen on the bridge, they had various countdowns.
The portkey countdown was still running it had begun as soon as the transmat had placed it inside the Shadow Blaze's missile.
There was a second countdown for the for when the missle was launched and then reached it's target.
Then a third would activate counting down to the exactly right moment when they would activate the transmat removing Voldemort from the transmat cage, just before the sun exploded.
They didn't want to activate it too soon…just in case the mad bugger some how got himself away from the extreme heat, radiation and the vaccum of space, they didn't, and neither did Harry Potter, Night Wolf or UNIT command in Geneva want any problems, they only wanted to go through this once.
"Shadow Blaze has launched missile."
"Track it as far as we can."
"Running through test sequence on Transmat Cage and Transmat systems."
The captain looked at the screen four minutes until the portkey activated transporting a sizeable chunk of the star's mass some distance away and began the destabilising sequence of events which would lead to a quite large explosion.
"Shadow Blaze is moving into final position. Transmat systems are synced and locked for transmat."
"Our escape trajectory?"
"Ready sir, and three alternatives should anything go awry."
"Good."
Two minutes later the countdown for the portkey reached zero.
"Energy emissions detected, portkey has activated...sensor analysis confirms energy mass at assigned coordinates."
"Countdown to sun critical mass 2 minutes and counting." Constantine said automatically as the next timer kicked in.
"Run another check on the transmat system and link between us and the Shadow Blaze." Jennings almost shouted.
There was a pause as the countdown hit 1 minute.
"All checks done, all power stable, ready."
As the countdown clicked to 40 seconds the captain nodded to himself, he needn't give an order his personnel in the transmat controls knew what and when they were doing their part.
"Zero in on transmat coordinates…let's make sure it worked and start backing us away, prime hyperspace window generators."
"Ready…"
With 30 seconds until critical mass the transmats engaged removing Voldemort, he-who-must-not-be-named, Tom Marvolo Riddle from the transmat cage and into the radiation filled unforgiving vacuum of space, unfreezing him in an instant.
"Captain, Shadow Blaze is drifting it critical range of the sun, if he hasn't been exposed to lethal amounts of radiation he soon will be."
"Harry, get out of there, the sun will reach critical mass in…20 second…Say again Harry, wake up in there, sun detonation beginning, get out of there!" The captain stared at the screen, 15 seconds.
"Get us out of here."
The large ship moved quickly the hyperspace window forming and the ASCS Flinders shot away from the system.
15 seconds Harry Potter was transfixed watching his enemy perish as the forces of a star slowly ate away as the wizard tried desperately to escape.
10 seconds…
2 seconds…
Then the sun expanded outwards engulfing the thing that was Voldemort at that same moment the Shadow Blaze back flipped away from the exploding star and shot quickly into hyperspace towards an agreed rendezvous.
The ASCS Flinders shuddered slightly as it came out of the hyperspace window at some speed.
"Are we still receiving telemetry data?"
"Yes captain…however much of the data isn't breaching the radiation field, we'll have to go back and retrieve from close by."
"Any sign of Harry Potter?"
"Not at the moment…from what sensor analysis got before we departed the Shadow Blaze was drifting very close inside the radiation lethal area…."
"Have the doctor get ready anti-radiation treatments…just in case."
Constantine nodded typing in the requests.
A moment later a small crafted exploded out of its own hyperspace window and drew along side request entry to one of the side bays.
"Grant him access…I think I'll go down and meet him Constantine…tell the doc to get a medical team down there as well as well as the rad detectors…"
"Reading low levels of radiation on the craft from here captain." Constantine said as he rose from his chair.
"Fatal?"
"No…but recommend full decontamination and safety procedures…"
The captain nodded he'd keep his distance from the craft and Mr Potter and allow the med team to get to him first…
Jennings informed Birmingham of the situation as they met at the bay entrance doors.
"Do you think…" Birmingham began slightly worried.
"Let the med team get to him first, they suited up for this…just in case."
They walked out onto the deck where the medical team was already waiting, just off to the side.
The canopy of the Shadow Blaze opened and Harry Potter looking very much worse for wear pulled himself out, Birmingham made a move to help but was held back by the captain.
"It's over…" Harry slurred slightly.
"Yes Harry it's over…" Birmingham said.
"Good." Harry promptly passed out, but was caught by the medical team, two of which held Geiger counters.
"Minimal ambient radiation off of the patient captain…recommend full decontamination on the craft reading high levels from it…"
"Do we need to go to decontamination?" He asked them as they moved Harry onto a stretcher.
"No…the craft appears to have a concentrated radiation profile…it's limited to the craft…it shouldn't be doing that." The man of the medical team replied.
"I'll begin full procedures." The captain said as they followed them out of the bay.
Birmingham went to follow them but was held back by the captain.
"Don't…he'll be in de-contamination for a while for them to asses to exact exposure to the radiation…meet the doctor in quarantine…" Captain Jennings said Birmingham nodded before walking away at a controlled pace.
Jennings walked back to command and sat back into his chair.
"Status of all systems?"
"All systems ready, still receiving partial telemetry from the monitors."
"Plot a course back to the system, put in relative area of the port key end coordinates. Also, begin decontamination procedures on the Shadow Blaze."
"Captain already got requests coming in from sensor analysis and the astrology people…they want to get at the data before we start any decontamination on the ship."
"Give them an okay, but I want them focusing on retrieval of data from our monitors in the system, they can retrieve the data tell them to be careful…it's still an intelligent ship."
"Sir."
"Course plotted."
"Take us back in."
The ASCS Flinders spun on a wide turn and its powerful hyperspace window generators pulsed with life as they created a window again for the second time in the past 30 minutes and the ship disappeared…and reappeared in a quite hot system.
"Radiation readings?" The captain asked looked at the filtered images that were being displayed, the planet with the Q40 was still glowing as the outer layers burned away leaving the heavier elements behind on the surface it was still hotted than Mercury and just as dangerous as dancing in front of a Dalek.
"Within expected levels."
"Prepare to do a run around the system, have the absorption material ready to transmat."
The absorption material was a composite material created in a joint effort between Night Wolf's sorcery and apothecary department and the Gibson Desert research facility, they would be transmatting it near the planet to absorb some of the nastier radiation and to slowly cool the planet to make it viable for mining. The charms laced into the absorption material would activate slowly over the next few months hastening the natural process. Variations of the material would also be dropped around the system latching onto any particles to make it safer for work in the system.
"Loading commencing captain, should be ready in 10 minutes."
"Have sensors located the dwarf star alloy?"
There was a pause and the centre screen switched to show a highlighted small thing like a rock.
"Yes sir…as far as we can tell it's intact…still very hot…"
"It would be Constantine, earmark that area for the first of the absorption material, than have it transmatted and encased in a sealant and seal it away vacuum."
Birmingham stared as Harry was moved onto another hospital bed, his clothes were gone, being treated separately, he appeared to have been washed down, and now another medical professional still in a protective suit was running another Geiger counter over the young man.
From his face it looked optimistic, he moved calmly over to one of the cupboards removing a syringe and vial and then injected Harry with something, then he withdrew another jar of something and started to smother Harry with it. From his vantage point behind the protective screens it appeared to Birmingham to be an absorption balm of some kind, in texture and appearance it appeared similar to a balm used to extract lead from inside ancient bullet wounds. But it was the several shades too dark to be that specific balm.
"He should be alright Sorcerer Birmingham."
Birmingham chastised himself for not hearing the doctor approach.
"Will he…how much radiation was he exposed to?"
"Less than he should have been…we're just taking precautions."
"The balm…?"
"It's a radiometric frequency absorption paste…it will draw what radiation he was exposed to out into the paste which can then be removed safely without and problems to the patient…we've used it before…not on such overall coverage but he should recover Sorcerer."
"Is Harry injured elsewhere…aside from the radiation?"
"I'll know better when I get a look at him after he'd been through the paste treatment. But from the initial report…" He withdrew a small handheld computer. "He's got several gun shot wounds…though they've healed we'll be double checking for any bullet fragments, a stab wound possibly two, his initial blood work is just coming through but we'll be taking another after the treatment…he must have had life support on almost nothing…"
"Why is that Doctor Whitemore?"
"He's got dangerously high levels of CO2 in his blood stream…and also lacking several primary vitamins which will have hampered his recovery and left him more open to radiation exposure…we'll have him on a drip to get everything back up…"
"So…" Birmingham looked back to the unconscious young man who just blew up a star and destroyed one of the more insane tyrants.
"I'll contact you when he's out of quarantine and we're finished our tests…"
"Thank you Doctor." Birmingham looked at the not awake…and not sleeping figure and walked out, determined to fill his time with something other than concern.
The deploying of the material was going to plan the ASCS Flinders swung back around away from the planet.
"All of the material has been deployed captain."
"Have sensor analysis got all the data from the detonation?"
"Yes sir, they will continue to record telemetry and hold it in the memories of the probes until the next UNIT vessel comes back here." SSC Constantine Townsend reported.
"Good. Do one more sweep of the system and then plot a course home."
"Aye sir."
Moments later the ASCS Flinders opened a hyperspace window and shot through it aiming for Earth.
--//
Not the end.
There are still several things to sort out, multiple story lines to address and more than a few other things which will appear.
I included a bit more on the radiation than in Sorcery, mainly because as that story was from Harry's POV (and he was a little obsessed at that time) he wouldn't have thought about it, but here obviously it's more of a concern.
Thanks for reading (there is more of this story on the way).