Disclaimer: This is a tribute. I'm making a note here, nothing claimed. It's hard to overstate how little I'm worth suing.
Author's note: no sooner did I start this than my boss called to tell me I'd have to work through my next couple weekends. I'm going to try to keep up the story, but I may miss an update due to overwork. Sorry.
Chapter 1
The Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera sat in orbit of a nameless world.
She was preparing to rendevous with the Judicator, still recovering from the damage she'd received raiding Nomad City in the Athega system to take on her stolen cargo. The Star Destroyer, her armor half melted and sensors burned blind, limped slowly and hesitantly to her orbit, two of her shuttles flying point and taking the place of her ruined eyes.
On Chimaera's bridge, Captain Gilead Pellaeon looked at Judicator and shuddered. No New Republic capital ship caused that; no weapon designed by man or alien. Just the hard, uncaring glare of a mighty star. The thought occurred that perhaps they would never be so powerful that nature could not crush them. The thought was not pleasant.
Still, they had succeeded in their mission. Pellaeon still wasn't totally sure what the Grand Admiral was planning, or even if all the pieces were in place yet. Once they were, he would probably be able to puzzle it out. Possibly even before the plan unfolded in front of him.
He listened with half an ear as Chimaera's comm officer conferred with his counterpart on Judicator. She was the latest ship to arrive, one of a half-dozen thus far. More Star Destroyers were coming soon; as they prepared for their attack on Sulius Van.
They were putting together an impressive weight of metal for the strike; a stronger order of battle than the Imperial Starfleet had thrown into any one battle in quite a while, save some of the fleets tasked with bringing down Warlord Zsinj. Of course, a fleet that actually intended to go after a Super Star Destroyer, much less two of them, had to be big.
Still, this was going to look a lot more like a conquest than a raid. It was probably just as well; based on the intel he'd managed to look at, there were probably going to be upwards of forty Mon Calamari Star Cruisers present, and skeleton crews or not, those ships could be all manner of trouble. To say nothing of the fixed defenses and assorted escort ships.
Finally, Judicator took her place in the fleet's holding formation. She was close enough to Chimaera that Pellaeon could actually see some of the damage to her hull, and he winced in sympathy. I should talk with the chief engineer – see if we can spare some repair crews.
He continued to walk along the edge of the crew pit, watching the technicians at their work to avoid looking at the ruin floating nearby. He nodded respectfully to the Grand Admiral as he passed his command chair, but did not stop. Too much to do, and too little time. He paused a moment at the Operations station, watched as the rating on duty worked through his reports, supervised by a Lieutenant who was taking great care in helping the newcomer learn his job. Pellaeon approved. They might have to make due with poorly-trained and too-young officers and crew, but if the seniors took up the slack they'd manage yet.
Whatever the New Republic might say, the Empire had not lost yet.
The sensor tech on duty interrupted his train of thought. "Captain Pellaeon! New contact, bearing 214 by 335. It's another one of our Star Destroyers."
He frowned slightly. He disliked having reports shouted across the bridge as if it was nothing but a marketplace. Lips pressed tight together, he walked with a crisp, deliberate stride towards the section of the crew pit where the tech had shouted. The start of a second call was stifled almost before it began. A small point in favour of the duty officer, but too little, too late.
Pellaeon glared down into the crew pit, skewering the rating at the sensor board. The duty officer, next to him, was not entirely spared his ire. The poor ensign was pale, and looked like he wanted to vanish into the deckplates. In an icy tone, Pellaeon said, "Were you trained to simply bellow routine information?"
Very quietly, he replied, "Nosir."
"What is the correct procedure for relaying routine information?"
"Tell the duty officer, who relays it as needed."
"And you were unable to remember this why?"
"No excuse, sir."
Pellaeon let the silence hang for a moment, shooting the duty officer a glare that said, his failure reflects poorly on you as well. The duty officer swallowed, nodded.
"Now," continued Pellaeon in a more normal tone. "Identify the contact, please."
The rating turned back to his display, then whispered to the duty officer. "The Star Destroyer Death's Head, Captain."
"Excellent. Communications, please relay them their place in the formation. Carry on." He resumed his stalk along the deck.
A gesture from the Grand Admiral stopped him. "A moment, Captain."
He moved close to the command chair. "Sir?"
"Please relay a message to Death's Head. I would like to speak to her Captain in person at his earliest convenience."
Captain Janos Harbid resisted the urge to adjust his collar as he entered the darkened anteroom. The captain of the Imperial Star Destroyer Death's Head was one of the more senior members of Grand Admiral Thrawn's fleet, and this was hardly the first time he had been called into the Admiral's presence. He knew Rukh and his habits well, and was resolved to not react to the inevitable ambush.
"Captain Harbid, reporting to the Grand Admiral, as ordered," he announced to the room, glancing about the gloom.
Rukh mewled "The Admiral will see you now," just behind his left ear, and the human nearly jumped out of his skin.
Harbid glowered at the Noghri for a moment, then gathered himself and walked into the Grand Admiral's main audience chamber. What shall the décor be this time? He wondered. The Grand Admiral tended towards art displays in his audience chamber. Sculptures, flatpics, paintings... rumor had it that he went through them all, mostly holos but some real ones, supposedly divining some great wisdom and understanding of a species from its art.
Harbid supposed there was some merit to that kind of idea, and if nothing else, it might explain the Grand Admiral's brilliance at predicting the actions of his foes. He stepped into the Grand Admiral's audience chamber, and found himself surrounded by metallic sculptures, each of them a complex array of cogs, gears, and assorted mechanisms, copper, brass and steel with details and highlights picked out in silvers.
He suppressed the urge to whistle. He'd spent enough time on ships to recognize skilled engineering when he saw it: every one of these was designed with some task in mind beyond simply looking complex and beautiful, though he was unsure what task some would be put to. For a moment he paused, trying to divine the purpose of one of the cogged mechanisms.
The Grand Admiral's voice cut through his musings. "Omnisian Jasgaline sculptures."
Harbid managed to not jump this time. "Remarkable craftsmanship."
"Indeed. A world of artisans."
"My apologies for being distracted, Admiral. Reporting as ordered."
"Thank you, Captain. I have decided that Death's Head shall not be part of our strike at Sluis Van."
"I... see, Admiral. Might I ask why?" That attack was set to be a resounding triumph for the Empire, stealing a sizable chunk of the New Repub- the Rebel's capital ship assets and throwing their chain of command into chaos in one stroke. He'd been rather looking forward to it.
"You may, Captain Harbid. I have an important and confidential mission for you, in the Unknown Regions. I believe you have done a tour of duty there before."
"I have, as Executive Officer of the Stormhawk." He paused for a moment, remembering. "I do recall a visit to Omniss on that tour, sir."
"Excellent. Their techno-mystics are highly skilled at working with... unusual technologies. I would like to commission some work from them."
The light came on. "The Voyager incident?"
The red gaze inclined slightly in a nod. "Indeed."
Harbid thought hard. "At our best speed Death's Head should be able to make the journey to Omniss in just under two weeks, Admiral. I would have to consult my astrogator for a more precise estimate. We are to set out at once?"
"As soon as the materiel and data is loaded. That will be all, Captain. Good day."
Claudia's deck shook as the TSAB Cruiser's shields absorbed a volley of plasma blasts.
The Bradeson flotilla they'd stumbled into had them outgunned, but not by much – both forces seemed to be scouting groups, not battlegroups. As the most powerful ship under his command, Claudia had taken point, absorbing the majority of the Bradeson fire. The guns – plasma cannons fueled by raw magic – lacked the elegance and physics-violating targeting of the TSAB's Mystic Blast Cannons, but they made up the lack in power.
Claudia replied to the latest Bradeson volley, both her broadsides lashing out at the black-on-bronze battlecruiser. The port batteries fired first, blasts making a pair of ninety-degree turns in space to lance at their tormentor, the starboard batteries a split second behind them. The time-on-target volleys finally cracked through the larger ship's shields, energy blunting the knife-edge of the battlecruiser's prow.
Admiral Chrono Harlaown glanced at his status board, frowning. His was a scouting force, not intended for war. One had to find one's foes before one could go to war. So they had spent the last two months scouting across the multiverse, starting bare days after the end of the Battle of Tokyo, and until an hour ago they had seen no sign of the Bradesons.
There were only so many ships dedicated to the scouting, and it was, to be frank, a damned big multiverse.
The deck shook once again, this time more violently, as Claudia's own shields crumbled beneath the onslaught. They couldn't take much more of this pounding. "Signal the task force- retreat. Prepare a runecharge to cover us."
"Aye, Admiral."
The fleet began to disengage, maneuvering to jump-distance from the Bradesons. Seeing this, and seeming unwilling to let their quarry escape, the Bradeson forces shifted their fire from Claudia to her consorts. Plasma beams and missiles lashed out at the cruisers Maybel and Jaenen. Maybel weathered the unexpected fire well, but Jaenen's shields, already weathered from a handful of prior volleys, crumbled at the leading edge of the volley, leaving the majority of it to savage the light cruiser terribly.
"Put me through to Jaenen's captain."
A slightly wavery hologram of Chev Kolo faded into view at the comm. "Admiral. Our jump drive is out. No estimate on repair time yet, but my gut says too long." The younger man quirked a smile. "I need to stop leading with my chin."
Chrono returned the smile for a moment. "Get your people out of there, Chev. We should be able to keep them off you long enough."
"Will do. We've started purging the nav database and setting the scuttling charges. They won't get anything out of Jae when we're gone." Chev cut the comm.
"Signal the Maybel and Hilda. Have them teleport Jaenen's crew clear," Chrono barked, snarling at the hostiles on his screen.
"They're already on it, sir."
"Guns, hit those missile boats! Draw their fire off of Jaenen and onto us until they're ready!"
Cannons blazing, ECM blasting a scree of jamming, the cruiser moved to shield her compatriots for the critical seconds they needed. Two of the Bradeson light cruisers belched missiles at them. A dozen of the fifty missiles could not lock on, MIDAR blinded by the jamming. A dozen more were destroyed by desperate counterfire from Claudia and Hilda. But the remainder bored in on the wounded cruiser.
"For what we are about to receive," muttered one of the bridge crew, "May the Gods make us truly thankful..."
The deck bucked like a wounded beast, and for a brief second Chrono heard the distinct whoosh-THUMP of atmosphere venting and control bulkheads slamming shut. He cringed, put the thought out of his mind for the moment, and watched the status reports of the ships under his command. After too-many agonizing seconds, the ships reported ready, and he barked the command to retreat.
As the dimensional drive kicked in, he saw Jaenen break up from her scuttling charges and the glitter of a runecharge. As they slipped between dimensions, the runecharge detonated, sending a wash of raw magical energy in all directions, obscuring their trail.
We got off light, all things considered, he thought to himself hours later. There had been relatively few fatalities, and while all of its ships had taken damage, the scouting force was only down a single vessel. They'd destroyed two of their foes, possibly crippled a third. Tactically, from a cold blooded standpoint, it was not a bad exchange.
Strategically... he had no idea.
The TSAB was in an information vacuum where the Dimensional Republic of Bradeson was concerned; a position it was not familiar with. They knew nothing of their enemy's motives, or their home dimensions. They knew little about their techbase – the wreckage from the Battle of Tokyo had been sifted with a fine screen, but most of those ships had died very hard indeed. Nor had they managed to take many prisoners, and those they had couldn't give them the information they needed. What data they had could only really lead them to infer a few things: the Bradeson's Magitech was only broadly similar to their own, seemed less refined and favoring the 'tech' part of magitech more than their own did; and, based on the lack of temporal anomalies around them, operated from a dimension or dimensions with a similar flow of time to their own.
It didn't help that most of the Admiralty was divided. Some, faced for the first time in their careers, with a foe that could potentially overwhelm them in a straight fight, wanted to go entirely on the defensive, and fortify all the home systems and protectorates beyond any possibility of attack. Others called for a preemptive assault – never mind that they did not know where to aim such a thing – and to make an example of any who would challenge them. And a small but vocal faction thought that they should do nothing – repository of a remarkable number of Lost Logia and excellent source of recruits or not, Earth was, to them, nothing more than an Unadministered backwater, not worth the lives that had already been lost in its defense, to say nothing of more. That faction was calling for the heads of everyone involved in the Battle.
Chrono, understandably, wished them no luck. But he still wished he knew more. If we'd been ready for that fight, perhaps we'd be learning more right now. He sighed. Too late, now, to try and second guess the day's acts. They'd gathered some useful tactical data, if nothing else. Perhaps someone in the Archives division could divine some greater wisdom from it. Beyond perhaps calling Scrya personally, he'd done all he could – and he really didn't have the data to make contacting the head Archivist worthwhile.
The young admiral sighed once more. He'd done all he could for now. Perhaps the best thing he could do would be to send a message to his wife, and get some sleep. Tomorrow, he hoped, there would be some answers.
If not, they would just have to keep looking.
It had been a long journey, but Death's Head had reached her goal. Omniss turned below them, her cities cloaked by a miasma of their own making. Satellites glittered like gems above the smog, long chains of them drifting in precise orbits, looking more an intricate dance than traffic patterns. The planetary traffic control had demanded their identities and business on arrival, and they had spent the hours since waiting patiently, diplomatically and politely ignoring the various orbital weapons platforms that were almost, but not quite, tracking them.
Janos Harbid hadn't lasted this long in Imperial service by being an impatient man, and he had more experience than most of his fellow captains in dealing with isolated worlds. Most worlds in the Unknown Regions held little fear for the Empire, knowing that their distance from its seat of power was a solid armor: it would take a great deal for it to be worth the Empire's time to send an assault force against remote worlds. They would seldom do anything overtly rude or hostile, of course, but if one did not at least pay lip service to local customs, one would be politely ignored.
Omniss was both better and worse than some. Better, in that they had relatively simple motives: they found all forms of technology fascinating, and could seldom resist seeing something new. Worse, in that their orbital works likely had the firepower to stand off any single Star Destroyer with ease. They were hard to offend, but if you did...
Best not to think of that now. He forced his mind away from such speculation. Much as he might find backup a comfort, it would be counterproductive at this point. Grand Admiral Thrawn wanted their co-operation, which meant that he could not use the stick, only the carrot. He would be patient, polite, and efficient in his dealings. His ego was nothing in the face of the needs of the Empire.
He was jolted from his reverie by the comm officer. "Captain Harbid, transmission from the surface. They are asking for you by name, Sir."
"Understood. I'll take the transmission from my station, Lieutenant." He quickly straightened his cap as the screen resolved into the Techno-Mystic who they had contacted earlier. "Mystic Nassistor, greetings."
The hooded being's voice was a low rasp. "Greetings, emissary of Grand Admiral Thrawn. We have considered your data and your patron's offer."
Harbid kept his expression neutral. "I see. And your decision?"
"The puzzle you present interests us. We shall take the offer."
The Great Hall of Qo'noS shook with cheers as the Rites of Succession finished and Emperor Khaless pronounced its closing. The victor of those rites was no suprise to any of those gathered, and even Councilor K'Tal, who had run against him, cheered, as Chancellor Martok was draped in the ceremonial robes of office. The one-eyed Klingon looked resigned to his fate; all gathered knew he had not sought it, and had insisted on Arbitration in an attempt to get out of it. It was not the first time in Klingon history that a reluctant Chancellor had been inducted, though the event was indeed rare.
Jean-Luc Picard, Arbiter of Succession for the second time of his life, applauded. The diplomat in him was well pleased to see this. While the war with the Dominion was over, the Federation had a need for strong allies. Martok had spent much of the last year working with Starfleet and was both liked and respected by a sizable portion of the Admiralty. There were already rumors that the old officer exchange program was to be reinstated.
Though that might be more the doing of his ambassadors, thought Picard, glancing towards Worf and Jadzia. The two had formally left Starfleet to take up their rolls, and while having the Klingon Ambassador to the United Federation of Planets married to the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire was somewhat unusual, none could deny that it kept the lines of communication open.
The proceedings – not particularly solemn to begin with – quickly developed a celebratory air. Ever the diplomat, Picard accepted the mug of bloodwine he was presented with politely, though he didn't do much more than sip at it. It wasn't the worst drink he'd ever had to get through in the name of diplomacy, but it was vastly stronger than anything he drank regularly. Still, it had been a good day. He made his way towards his former security chief.
Worf was speaking in low tones with the former General, who gave Picard a sour look. "Captain. I suppose I should thank you for acting as Arbiter for us." His frown deepened, "Though I mislike the results of your Arbitration. I'm an old soldier, not a politician."
Picard smiled. "I suspect you will do as well at this as you have every other task the Empire has asked of you."
"True enough. I shall certainly try."
Worf smiled. "You will succeed. It is in your nature." The big Klingon chuckled for a moment. "And after watching you kill Gowron, I am not surprised that this was little more than a formality."
Martok looked slightly embarrassed for a moment. "He should not have struck a woman of my House in my presence. I could tolerate what he was doing to my personal honor for the good of the Empire, but that..." He shook his head. "Jadzia will probably be the death of me yet."
Picard asked, "Then why did you make her your ambassador?"
Jadzia herself walked up, planted a quick kiss on her husband's cheek. "So that he could at least pretend to have some brake on my antics." She smiled. "I'm a little wilder than appropriate for a member of a noble house. Captain Picard, it's an honor."
"Likewise, Ambassador."
Dax turned to the Chancellor. "And I stand by what I said to Gowron. What he was doing to you was dishonorable and wrong."
"Perhaps, but for the good of the Empire, I did not want to disrupt things in the middle of a war."
The conversation stopped temporarily, as a number of lesser Klingon nobles and officers of rank arrived, each wanting to give the new Chancellor their congratulations. Martok bore up under their attentions remarkably well, though when the last of the politicos took his leave, the old soldier couldn't keep the distaste from his face. "Phaug. I should have tried harder to avoid this."
"I'm sure you'll learn how to manage them," said Jadzia.
"Exactly. Manage them. Manipulate them. I am a soldier! Give me an enemy to fight and a quartermaster to bargain with, not some dance of sweet words and d'k tahg in the back. I do not want to be a.. politician." The last word dripped with distaste.
The Trill grinned impishly. "Just think of it as a polite sort of duel." That roused a low chuckle from Worf.
Martok turned, waving them off as he walked away. "Bah! Such disrespect! I can get that from my wife."
The three watched him leave, then Worf asked, "Captain. Have you been told your next assignment yet?"
"Not yet, Ambassador. I've asked for an exploratory assignment, but I suspect the Diplomatic Service will have us on another 'show the flag' tour."
Dax fought the urge to laugh at his frown. "You make it sound so terrible."
Picard took a sip of his bloodwine. "All a matter of perspective."
The Omnisian shuttle was a strangely elegant thing, all smooth lines and curves. From his vantage point on the hangar deck, Captain Harbid could see no welds or seams – a remarkable feat of craftsmanship. This far from the core, he was out of even Hypercomm range with the rest of the fleet, and had fallen back on the Grand Admiral's orders to wait for the techno-mystics to produce results. It had been a very, very long two weeks of drills and assorted busywork.
Still, the techno-mystics were here now, hopefully with at least some information. The shuttle's ramp lowered – even watching it go down, he couldn't tell where the seam had been, a hell of a trick – and two robed figures descended. One was unfamiliar, but he recognized the marks on the other's sleeve. They moved with an inhuman smoothness, as if not walking but floating, and every motion was accompanied by faint mechanical clicks and whirrs.
Harbid shuddered involuntarily at the sounds, but quickly policed his expression back to neutrality. "Welcome aboard the Death's Head, Mystic Nassistor."
The techno-mystic wasted no time on preamble. "You have given us a greater gift than you know. These Borg are everything we have wished to be; a perfect communion of life and technology. You have shown us the Way."
Harbid blinked. He'd expected many things. Religious fervor was not one of them. "It... was my pleasure. I am only following the Grand Admiral's orders."
"Then our thanks go to Grand Admiral Thrawn. And I believe his ambitions will be served by what we have done."
"I.. See. Might I ask what you have done?"
"We interfaced with the Borg computer banks, and shared in its knowledge. The High Mystics communed with She Who Is As Gold; and shared this knowledge with Her. With Borg knowledge, Her divine inspiration, and Omnisian craftsmanship, we have created an Engine the like of which has never been seen. An Engine that will help the Grand Admiral win his war."
The 'Engine' the Omnisians had brought with them was a small thing, all told, perhaps four meters in length and a meter and a half in height and breadth. Runes and flowing scripts adorned its outer casing, and even just sitting there, attached to the backup hyperdrive, it seemed... energized, as though the slightest touch would blast one back with shock.
The Techno-Mystic's explanation of what it did had been steeped in religious terms and dogma, but he had the rough idea that it was supposed to allow nigh-instant travel between any two points you cared to map, by way of a third. He wasn't entirely sure what the third point was – that section of the explanation was particularly dogma-choked – but it certainly was, in theory, the sort of secret weapon that could cause incredible amounts of havoc.
All that said, he would be vastly more comfortable with the situation if they could test it first in something that wasn't his Star Destroyer. But the Mystics were being insistent, and the orbital weapons platforms that surrounded them were being equally so. Apparently, She Who Is As Gold was quite insistent that they test this device now, and test it on the Star Destroyer.
The weapons platforms, combined with the fact that his orders required him to be polite to the natives, kept Harbid coldly polite. Attempting a drastic refusal would likely not go well for them. While his orbit was high enough that Death's Head would be able to jump out of the edge of the planet's own gravity well, one of the weapons platforms had some equivalent to an Interdictor Cruiser's Gravwell generator. Jumping quickly would not be possible. His best bet – only bet, at this point – would be to co-operate, and pray to any deity who happened to be listening that the kriffing thing didn't blow up in their faces. For now, at least, the air scrubbers were keeping up with the incense wafting through the Bridge. He took some minor, irrational comfort in that; a victory of Imperial efficiency over alien mysticism.
Five Techno-Mystics stood in a circle around what looked to be the unholy offspring of an incense brazier and a navicomputer, arms and voices raised. He had been assured that this was very scientific, and required to make the Engine work.
Finally, the moment came. The droning liturgy of the techno-mystics had risen in volume and fervor for several minutes, sounding simultaneously like an engineer's status report and a prayer; in a perfect clockwork cadence. Harbid wished he had a protocol droid or some other translator available – he rather wondered what they were talking about. Finally, Nassistor turned from the group towards his command chair. "We are ready to activate the Engine, Captain Harbid. What system shall we meet the Grand Admiral in? We owe him great thanks for his gift to us."
Do they seriously think I'll just give them classified information? Harbid resisted the urge to snort derisively. Remember. Polite. Diplomatic. "To be honest, I am unsure of the best system to reach the Grand Admiral in at this time – but I know a good initial destination, where we'll be able to contact him from via the Holonet." His mind quickly considered and discarded a dozen possible destinations before settling on one– he wanted a known Imperial world, unremarkable and unimportant, far enough from the front to be safe from the New Republic but still in Holonet range of just about anywhere the Grand Admiral could be. "The Kalarba system."
"Thank you. If your Astrogator could bring it up for us?"
Harbid gave the young officer a short nod, and he bent to his console. Quickly, the system appeared on the console nearest the Techno-Mystics, a blinking dot amid the stars.
"Excellent. We can begin, Captain." He turned back to his fellows, said something in their strange, clicking tongue. Then, in Basic, "She Who Is As Gold has heard our prayers. Hallowed be Her name." Then he pressed the large, cog-shaped button at the center of their ceremonial console. There was a sound like chiming bells-
And the bridge seemed to twist around them for a moment, a darkness pervading every cubic centimeter of the bridge, and just as suddenly it was gone. Janos Harbid shut his eyes for a moment, willing his guts to settle. His nose told him that several others were struggling with nausea as well. Whatever the hell that was, it had been very intense and blessedly brief.
One of the duty officers suddenly hissed, "Emperor's Black Bones!"
Harbid turned towards the swearing officer by instinct, ready to chop him off at the ankles for the unprofessional outburst. He swayed in his command chair as his vision began to swim once more, but he fought it down and opened his mouth to lay into the offender. Then his clearing vision caught sight of the viewport.
Gone was the smog-choked world of Omniss. Gone were its deadly, glittering necklace of satellites and its network of orbital factories and stations. In their place was a healthy, beautiful blue-green world. What in the galaxy just happened? He thought, dumbfounded mind trying to restart. Silence fell over the bridge as the rest of the crew took in the sight.
Nassistor broke it. "Praise be unto Her Name. The Engine works perfectly. Now, to Kalarba."
The bridge twisted again, and when his vision cleared, Harbid found himself staring at another world. Two moons orbited it, only one of them natural, and a brief glance at his console confirmed that it was indeed Kalarba. Impossible. A week and a half's journey at flank speed, and we made it in seconds. The possibilities this Engine presented began to swim through his mind, and he felt himself smile.
On board the RNS Farstrider, Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Harold Davidson had been trying not to doze off when the scoutship's sensor board pinged. "The hell?" he muttered as he turned towards it, brought up the alert.
Behind him, he heard the Lieutenant (Senior Grade) who had the bridge watch pointedly clear her throat. Oh, right. He needed to report this properly.
"Dimensional disturbance detected, Lieutenant. I'm attempting to localize it now." He worked in silence for a long moment, aware of Lieutenant Opel's gaze. This is why I hate bridge duty. Too much attention... It didn't help that there was a lot of kruft in the signal – whatever this was, it was a long way off, and he was seeing more an echo of it than the incident itself.
"There doesn't seem to be enough data to localize this, Lieutenant. I'm getting a lot of interference."
Opel crossed the bridge, reached past him and started working his console. Her frown deepened. "That is a lot of interference. But wherever it is, it was powerful. And there appears to be some temporal interference as well."
Davidson tried not to jump – he'd missed that entirely himself, but now that it was pointed out he could see it clearly. "Indeed, Sir. Shall I log this for now?"
"Of course. If it happens again, we'll need to be on alert. Who knows who this is, or what they want." She returned to her station.
Oh, he wished she hadn't said that last. The Dimensional Republic of Bradeson was already fighting a war with one power whose borders, forces, and extent, they did not know. Adding another to the mix could have dire consequences.
I hope we find them first. And that the diplomats don't screw everything up.