Disclaimer: as always, I own none of the worlds this passes through and am not worth suing. Hard to squeeze blood from a rock.
Chapter Eleven
It really is amazing, thought Todd Marshal as he drifted, how pretty a planet is from orbit. And how nice a distraction the sight is when you're waiting for the air to run out.
He'd realized perhaps a minute after ejecting that beacon built into his pilots couch wasn't working. Shortly thereafter he'd had the colossal bad luck to have a piece of floating debris bounce off his shoulder, knocking out the one on his flight suit. He'd spent a few minutes haranguing God for doing this to him before shutting up to safe oxygen. It was unlikely, but still at least plausible that someone would spot him – probably Enterprise with their insane sensors – and scoop him up before he ran out of air or fell out of orbit.
Not for the first time he wished they'd managed to get his Morningstar working in time for that fight. They were brilliant fighters, but temperamental. It was probably just as well, though – they weren't that much faster or more agile than a Sabre, and lacked the tailgun, which had kept the tri-winged fighter at a distance for at least a little time.
Anger, denial... guess I should skip to bargaining with God.
So... what do I have to bargain with?
Damn.
The pilot sighed. At least it's a nice view.
Suddenly, his body started to tingle, and his vision vanished behind a wash of blue light. "What the-
The wash of light faded, depositing him- suddenly standing and not belted into his seat – in a gray-walled alcove at the back of what looked like a shuttle cabin. "-hell?" he finished weakly.
It was a good sized cabin, with benches running down either side. Against one bulkhead, he saw a young female pilot from Concordia, one of Starlight's Ferret jockeys. He couldn't rembember her name - she was cute in a girl-next-door sort of way, but not his type. One of the Broadsword gunners was seated next to her, looking slightly green. They were being attended by a young female with mousy looks, brown hair, and what looked like a pattern of tattoos running along her hairline and down her neck. Idly, he wondered how far down those tattoos went.
On the opposite bulkhead sat five guys in black flight suits, vaguely skull-like helmets at their feet. They were being covered by a no-nonsense type with some kind of gun, his black uniform having yellow shoulders instead of the blue the lady had. And at the bow, he saw a third guy in black-and-colours, his trim being red. The guy turned to where he stood and grinned. "Welcome aboard the Fraser. You off of Concordia?"
Maniac found his voice again. "Yeah. Lieutenant Colonel Todd Marshal."
"Tom Paris. Have a seat, I'll call your ship and let them know you're okay."
Sizing up the options, Maniac decided to take a seat next to his temporary shipmates, exchanged nods with the gunner. The Ferret pilot looked shaken up, but she seemed to be in good hands with Mousey. He looked at the black suited pilots. "Who're these jokers?"
"Imperial pilots," said Gun.
"You're picking up the bad guys?"
From the front of the shuttle, Tom said, "This is an equal opportunity Search and Rescue ship. If you don't like it we can always put you back."
"No need, this works."
"Thought so." He keyed something on his console. "USS Fraser to TCS Concordia. I found another one of your EVA pilots – a Todd Marshal."
Even through the com distortion, Blair's voice was distinctive. "Rodger that, Fraser, though you could've left Maniac out there, we wouldn't have minded."
"I love you too, Mav," he muttered. One of the Imps smirked.
"Sadly, we have to keep what we catch, or I'd throw him back. I'm going to make one more sweep of the battlefield, then I'll bring this load in."
"Rodger that. Concordia out."
"Guess there's one in every flight group, eh, Squadron Leader?" said one of the TIE pilots to the fellow next to him.
"One if you're lucky. Between you and your cronies I've got a squadron's worth."
The gunner next to him was smirking. Maniac studiously ignored him, and the others.
Now this just ain't fair.
"The good news is that the wards we have covering that rupture are holding, preventing anything from escaping. The bad news is, it's still expanding. Something is forcing it to continue to expand despite our wards and other spells. The worse news is that at the current rates of expansion, the wards won't be able to hold it any longer after another ninety-six hours or so." Admiral Haralowan looked very tired.
Commodore Hoss nodded agreement. "That matches our estimates. Actually, it's better than our estimates by about four hours." In the face of a massive space-time breach, hostilities had been deferred indefinitely. "We've tried to probe the rupture, but there's so much free-floating magical energy, our probes overload and fry in seconds."
"As do our own," said Chrono, glancing around the conference room.
"Our probes are able to scan within the rift," began Picard, "but their Impulse drives do not function properly within, limiting them to thrusters. I've already forwarded our sensor data to your people; perhaps they can determine what is going on from that. I can definitely confirm that there is something alive in there, as several of our probes detected Voidspawn. Generally just before the probes were destroyed."
"Fracking wonderful," muttered Adama. The older man looked exhausted, face drawn. "The one we put in there worked fine," he pulled a sheaf of their odd, corner-clipped printouts from his jacket, "Here's the raw data. Doctor Baltar is still analyzing what he can from it."
Chrono took the sheaf of paper, nodded thanks. "Well. As it stands, we, plain and simple, need more data. Admiral Tolwyn, do you have any kind of probes that might be of use?"
"Not for a situation like this. Our usual scout is a Ferret, and I am not putting a manned fighter into some kind of anomaly inhabited by things that eat starships."
Nods went around the table as the various commanders thought that over. "Well," said Chrono finally. "We'll simply have to work with what we can gather. For now," he paused a moment, "For now, I think we need to repair our ships. And for that, we should at least consider pooling our resources."
Hoss shot him a look. "Under the circumstances, Admiral, I hope you'll understand if I respectfully decline to allow any TSAB personnel aboard my ships." The How stupid do you think I am? went unsaid, but all heard it.
Before Chrono could snarl anything back – the fleet's alliance was frail but, at the moment, necessary, Picard jumped in. "As a neutral party in this, I believe Enterprise would be willing to assist." He looked between the two commanders. "Whoever needed the assistance."
Silence stretched for a moment. Adama broke it with a strained chuckle. "I'll take some of that assistance. Galactica is in bad shape. We've got a thirty-meter hole in our armor, one of the primary turrets is a writeoff, and one of the others is welded to its turret ring thanks to that Imperial. Artificial gravity is a bit spotty, and we're still inspecting a few sections of the keel for damage. I'm not too proud to take help, at this point."
Joffery Hoss absently rubbed at his forehead, trying to will a headache away. He'd waited until the rest of his injured crewmembers had been healed before accepting healing himself – he wasn't in the process of bleeding to death, nor was he concussed; he could wait – and the wait had been less than helpful. His temper was frayed, and he'd let Haralowan get to him. With his fleet in its current state, he needed this alliance with the Bureau as much, or more, than Haralowan did – even if Galactica had been in fighting trim; hells, even if Galactica was another Metropolis class battlecruiser and not an oversized relic; Haralowan's fleet could crush his own. Losing his temper could be fatal to the men and women under his command.
Exiting Claudia's briefing room, he almost ran into a young man in a vaguely familiar uniform, who was glaring at him. "Can I help you, mister..."
"Ranma Saotome," said the youth as he drew himself up. "JSDF. You're the Bradie commander, right?"
JSDF... Earth. Oh. Joy. Perhaps that black-jacketed Time Lord will show up and make my day even worse after this. That's about what it would take. "Commodore Joffery Hoss, yes. What do you want?"
"I gotta question. I watched that last fight. You people looked like you were tryin' real hard ta not hit the planet."
"Yes. Standard Rules of Engagement." Oh, this is not going to go well. I think I recognize him from the troop debriefings. He could probably break me in half if he really wanted to.
"So, when you got your clocks cleaned back at Earth, why'd ya try an' flatten my hometown?"
Hoss sighed. "Queen of Ice and Darkness, I wish I knew what in the hells Admiral Kallson was thinking."
Ranma shifted slightly. "You were there?"
No point in lying about it; I'm sure the Bureau has that much intel on us. "Yes. I lead the retreat after we withdrew. Admiral Kallson was in overall command, I was his second. The last transmission from his ship was an order to withdraw. Then he maneuvered to fire into the city." A deep breath as the memory of that awful sight played again. "I tried to contact him, ask him what the hells he thought he was doing... but he didn't respond. And then he died."
Ranma studied him in silence. "You ain't kidding, are ya?"
"No, I'm not." He shook his head. "I served with Konrad Kallson for five years. I'd known him for almost two decades before that. I have spent damn near every day since Earth trying to figure out what he was thinking. I'd have sworn he would never even consider an orbital bombardment of any surface target, to say nothing of a civilian one." A pause. I have to know... but Saotome is probably not the best man to ask. And yet, he's listening, thinking and not trying to tear my throat out... "How many... how many casualties did the bombardment cause?"
"The bombardment itself? None. Sa-" he stopped himself for a moment, then continued. "One of the mages on the ground pulled a miracle out of her ass and threw up a shield. Saved the city."
None. Merciful gods, thank you. "I... Thank you. I'm genuinely glad to hear that." He felt himself tearing up. "I'd seen the population estimates for the city and..." He took a ragged breath. "I have spent the last two years thinking that over thirty million people were dead because I couldn't stop Kallson's madness." Another breath. "The next time you see that mage, please, give her my thanks. For what little it's worth."
Ranma's expression was conflicted. "I'll pass it along." For a long moment, the two men gave each other measuring looks. "I'll get outta yer way, I guess. We gotta deal with this rift, after all."
Ranma watched the man walk to the Claudia's teleporter, looking like he'd just been handed an unexpected reprieve. So they don't know why he did it, an' it ain't the kinda thing they'd normally do. An' I'm pretty sure he was tellin' the truth. This was an unexpected side to the enemy, and he wasn't sure how to take it. Feh. It was easier when I could just hate them.
Tritanium, Chief Tyrol decided, was a stone bitch to weld.
That said, the Enterprise people had brought a lot of it – enough sheets to patch up the gaping hole in their armor, and extra to brace the internal sections of the crater. Apparently, they had some kind of manufacturing facilities aboard their ship, and lots of raw materials. The kind of logistics you'ld need to pull off the sort of exodus we've been jury rigging ourselves through.
The Enterprise people had brought a lot of other stuff, too. Electronics, wire, some kind of miracle sealant that was going a long way to dealing with all the little microleaks in their hull, and lots of engineers. The first shift of engineers had been headed by a dark skinned man with strangely brilliant blue eyes. LaForge had gotten heads-together with him to figure out what all on the Bucket was broken (or, as his mind quirked, the shorter list of what wasn't) and gotten his people to work helping with just about everything. Several old, slapdash jury rigs were replaced with much more efficient, new parts. It had taken a little fiddling to get Starfleet power conduits to mate with their Colonial equivalents, but they'd gotten it done, and assembled a long list of parts and materials needed.
Then LaForge and his crew had headed home, relieved by another shift of engineers. A shift lead by a fracking alien. There were a few more aliens in her bunch, too, and it was more than a little disconcerting. He'd been incredibly grateful when Torres suggested they suit up and tackle the armor damage first.
Tom Paris, he thought upon reflection, was not quite right in the head. He seemed like a decent guy, for a pilot, but... his chosen lady was nice enough to look at, until you got to her forehead, anyway, but how could he get over that? Insanity.
At least in suits, he didn't have to look at her. He could concentrate on the work. And he had to say, she did damn good work with that welder. So did her people. His own were stepping it up to try and match them, but between their unfamiliarity with the material they were working with, and the fact that it had been a long time since neatness counted for much of anything on Galactica, they were struggling.
Still, they were patching up the hole in the Bucket's hull. They were fixing marginal circuits, replacing stuff that he'd personally written off as unrepairable out of their own resources. One of Torres' people had said something about wanting to go over the No. 3 Turret's mounting, in case they might have a way to crack the welds locking it in place – which would be a hell of a trick, but worth giving them a look at.
It had been a long time since Gaius Baltar had had his nose broken. It hurt about as much as he remembered, though the Bradesons had provided much better drugs for the pain than his father's liquor cabinet had yielded. The Bradeson team had stayed aboard Galactica just long enough to patch up the worst of the air leaks and injured, then turned their attention to the strange golden rift. As it was, the pain was a dull throb, just enough to feel in the back of his teeth when he breathed deeply, the nose itself still wrapped neatly by Cottle. Say what he might about the old Doctor, the fellow knew his business.
Still, the pain couldn't keep him too badly down, not right now. For right now, he was aboard the USS Enterprise and surrounded by technologies that beggared his imagination. It also seemed to be beggaring Six's imagination. Ignoring the way it aggravated the pain in his face, he smirked.
From what he'd gathered from the Admiral, after a near-blowup aboard Claudia, it was decided by all concerned that in the future, meetings between the higher-ups of the fleet would be best conducted aboard the relatively neutral Enterprise or Concordia, rather than either fleet's flagship. Both those ships had the ability to get themselves home without outside help, and levelheaded commanders. Even if Galactica wasn't essentially part of the Bradeson navy now, she was hardly in the condition to host any kind of meetings.
As it had the best science facilities of either of the neutral ships, Enterprise was currently hosting the data analysis/brainstorming session as everyone went over the data gathered by their probes and 'scrying.' He and Felix Gaeta were there, representing Galactica, and to their credit they'd reacted well to meeting Enterprise's resident scientific geniuses – those being an albino robot and a woman who would be a vision of beauty to rival Six if she wasn't a cyborg. The younger man was still a little off balance, but doing well as he applied himself to his work. He was talking animatedly with one of the Bradesons involved in the discussion, Mage-Captain Dolce, as they went over the datas gathered by the Colonial probes.
The man's steel-coloured eyes were, in their own way, just as disconcerting as the robot. But Dolce was an intelligent man, and one who seemed to have a knack for conversions between different standard notations. He'd make an excellent scientist, if not for the whole 'mage' thing. And even that... their notion of magic was remarkably well structured, almost a scientific discipline itself.
Still. Something to ruminate on later. For all their oddities, the Enterprise people were genuine scientists. It did his heart good to work with such again. Comparing and contrasting their data, looking for indicators that might help them unravel the mysteries of what that rift was, and how to close it.
He was referencing DRADIS data against the Enterprise probe's life scans at the moment – there were a rather frightening number of Voidspawn within the rift, many of them even larger than the one he'd seen brush aside a BaseStar like it was so much tin foil. Something was niggling at him from the data however. Putting aside the padd for a moment, he picked up another, this one with visual data.
Within the rift, virtually all was golden light. A black mist seemed to permeate it, however, and the 'deeper' the probe had gone, the thicker it got. The deeper portions of the rift were almost impenetrable to the DRADIS. And yet... that didn't quite seem to be what was happening. He made mental notes of that data, checked it against the rough map the StarFleeters had sketched out into a hologram as casually as he might sketch something on a piece of paper. "Interesting," he muttered.
For the first time in an hour or so, Six decided to make a nuisance of herself as he picked up another padd, this one with Enterprise's radiological scan. "You seek to divine wisdom from things you know nothing about. This is futile, Gaius. Give up and save yourself the trouble."
"And you seek to distract me from solving this fracking problem," he muttered under his breath. The mutter got him odd looks from a few of the others, but he ignored them for the moment. The radiation spread... "Felix, you're better with DRADIS readings than I am... Can you tell me if there was a proper contact at these co-ordinates? I can't tell through the interferance." He scribbled down the numbers for roughly where he thought his radiation source was.
The younger man quickly checked. "It... definitely could be."
Baltar started adding the information he'd found to their map as mages of both fleets began looking more closely at the radiation data.
"So there's some sort of structure in there?" asked Picard.
"Yes, Captain," said Data. "Based on the radiation it is emitting, both the Bradeson and Bureau mages believe it is responsible for the rift's continued expansion and refusal to close."
"Fascinating. From this data it appears to be rather deep in there... and, I notice, surrounded by Voidspawn." He glanced from the padd to Data. Thank God the android had been there – he'd kept Picard in check during the battle, kept him on an even keel. And he'd done it without appearing to do much of anything. Why Starfleet refused to give Data a command of his own continued to baffle him, for he had proven that he most definitely had the requisite qualities.
Still, for the moment, he was grateful to have him as a subordinate. "Thank you, we shall have to work out a way to deal with that structure."
Data nodded, then frowned at his console. "Sir... I am detecting a subspace carrier wave."
That shouldn't be possible... thought Picard. They were, after all, in the wrong dimension. He turned to his own console. "Now that's interesting..." There was indeed a carrier wave, and some Starfleet traffic on it. "I need a full spectrum, long-range scanner sweep."
The system itself seemed unchanged. Planets, one inhabited, the rift, Star Destroyer stationary near a rogue asteroid in the outer system, still appearing to suffer from some kind of power fluctuations. Beyond the system...
Beyond the system it seemed as if space... split. They could see what almost looked like reflections, the same stretch of interstellar space repeated dozens, if not hundreds of times. "Put me through to Claudia, now."
"Tacoma's going to be remembered for something. He's managed to find an entirely new way to imperil the multiverse." Chrono pinched the bridge of his nose, frustrated.
"So this isn't something you've seen before?" asked Captain Picard over the link.
"No. It's something we've speculated about, but mostly as a 'worst case scenario' sort of thing. For all intents and purposes, this star system currently exists in every universe across the multiverse. Which means that when our wards fail, the Voidspawn will be able to attack everywhere."
"Unless we stop them here, or find a way to close the rift."
"Yes. I've contacted HQ, and unfortunately they can't get any significant re-enforcements to us before the wards fail. It's a tossup if Hoss will have better luck."
"I shall put in a request for reinforcements to Starfleet Command right away." A pause. "And Admiral, the thought occurs... if this is an immanent threat to all universes, if we can see them all... perhaps there are other groups like your own, who might be able to help. We might consider calling for aid more... generally."
It had taken damn near all of a shift, but they'd gotten the hole patched over, and an almost perfectly airtight seal – made better by application of the Starfleet sealant from the inside. More Starfleeters would be along later to help some more, but for now, they were on their own. Tyrol wasn't about to let stop all the work, though – the lucky bastards who'd been off duty while his bunch were out on the hull went to work on the internal bracing.
After getting that crew moving, he took as long a shower as he could get away with. It felt damned good after being stuck in a suit for so long. Toweling off, he pulled on his least dirty overalls and headed out, in the general direction of the bar. He needed a fracking drink...
"Chief, we need to talk."
Tyrol paused, turned. "Yes, Admiral?" What did Adama want with him? At the older man's nod, he followed him to a side corridore.
The Admiral's expression was grim. "Chief, we have a problem."
Just one? "Sir?"
"Right now, we've got the best chance we're ever likely to see to get this ship back in proper fighting trim, because the Enterprise people want to help us. I just got off the horn with Captain Picard." Adama's eyes hardened. "He's not happy with you, and from what I'm hearing, he's got every right." A glare cut off his attempt at justifying himself. "I don't give a damn if you're not comfortable around some of his people. They're trying to help us. We can't afford to lose that help. So your people had better stop antagonizing them."
"I... Sir, it's just talk.. we.." A pause as he gathered his thoughts. "You're right sir. I wasn't thinking. It's just..."
"They aren't human, so why give a frack about what you say?"
Tyrol winced. "Yessir."
"You know better than that, Galen." A pause, and a glare that should by rights blow a hole straight through the hull. "You were fracking Boomer, after all."
Tryol winced hard. That hurt. That hurt a lot. He'd really... "Point taken, sir. I'll tell everyone to rein it in."
"Do that. Torres is going to be back with the next crew in eight hours. I'm not expecting your people to be perfect gentlemen, but you will be respectful and professional. Am I understood?"
"Absolutely, sir."
Lina was still pale this morning, but less so than she'd been at the end of the space fight. She'd collapsed then, crumpled to a heap at his feet. Zel and Amelia hadn't been in much better shape. Now though, she looked like the far side of a bender, but she was standing on her own. As far as Gourry was concerned, that was a definite improvement.
"So they aren't still up there?" Asked Lina.
"Not all of them," said Zelgaddis, "But most of them. I don't think they've gone far, though. You remember Nanoha, don't you, Lina? I don't think she'd leave people behind."
"True."
Nanoha.. Nanoha... Right! That fight against five major Mazoku with the guy with the massive sword. I think she was the one in white? "She'd be really nice to have around here when that Mazoku army gets here," said Gourry.
"Yes, she would," agreed Lina, nodding slowly. "Zel, do you still have that grimoire they gave you? It might have some way to contact them."
I should know better than to open my big, fat mouth, thought Lina as she sat within a well-crafted but still rather uncomfortable array of spells. Claudia's bridge was larger and better appointed than Pauline's was, but that didn't make this much more comfortable.
And her seat wasn't really the issue. She didn't have to look through the main viewport to feel the presence of the massive rift, a rift that felt as though it lead directly into the Sea of Chaos. And yet, it wasn't... pure. It felt like there was something else there, something tainting the energy. It had her on edge. Thinking back, it was probably what was putting her on edge for the last few weeks.
Ah well. At least they knew that Seyruun's White Magic wards were working properly – Claudia had tried to scry for her yesterday, and hadn't been able to find her. With the wards working, they had a chance.
Gourry was sort of hovering near her, talking swords with the blonde mage, Fate. He'd been doing a lot of hovering lately. She wasn't sure what she thought about that. It wasn't like she cared about him in that sort of way, but having him close was kind of... nice. In a 'all mages like having a meat shield around' sort of way.
Energy arced across two runes of the spell matrix, not for the first time. She winced. There was just so much raw power floating around that rift, power that seemed to flow into her even without her trying. It was a thin flow, and she could feel something trying to cut it off, but it was constant, and every so often the spells around her tried to overload because of it.
Nanoha lead the ship's captain over. "It looks like we've isolated as much information as we can."
"Can I get out of this, please?"
Nanoha nodded at one of the techs, and the array shut down. Lina stood and stretched. "Thanks." She saw Zel start back towards them.
The captain said, "It looks like the energy you're tapping is the primary energy in that rift, but it shouldn't be forcing it open further. But the information let us isolate what is causing it to force itself open."
"That's a good thing, right?"
"Yes. Yes it is. We should be able to fix this now," he said with a smile.
"I'm glad to hear that," said Zel as he joined them. "Now that that's out of the way, we've got a bit of a problem, too..."
"So. There's something in there that doesn't belong. From what all your experts, and the people from groundside, are saying it looks like it's in that structure we got on the DRADIS." Adama waited a moment for a nod from Haralowan. "Looking at the data, given where it is it'd be a hell of a trick to shoot it from here. I take it we're sending something in to take it out?"
"That is part of the current plan, yes," said Admiral Haralowan. "That said... The extremely magic-rich nature of the rift would cause it to overload and destroy our systems, and the Bradesons." He and Hoss exchanged nods. "And from previous experimentation, we know that Enterprise's main drive won't work in there."
Oh, I think I see where this is going... He turned to Tolwyn. "And Concordia?"
The Admiral gave an apologetic frown. "My tech teams have analyzed the rift as best we can from here. The energy in there would cause our Anti-Matter Cannon blasts to detonate almost as soon as they left the barrel. We'd be effectively helpless."
I knew it. Frack. "So that means we're the goat."
Chrono winced. "I wouldn't put it quite that way... but yes, Galactica is the only ship in the fleet that can get in there and take direct action. We plan to hit the Voidspawn before you go in, try and draw their attention squarely upon us. The scan data we have suggests that the Voidspawn are avoiding the structure as well."
Adama thought it over, reviewed the probe data in his head. "And even if we weren't out of missiles, our anti-capital ship missiles don't have the endurance to reach that far under power. If anything made them drift off course they wouldn't be able to correct." A glace to Hoss. "And yours would just overload?"
"A disadvantage to magically powered tech is the rare case where you find a place like this. But under most circumstances, they're quite excellent."
Picard broke in over Adama's frustrated sigh. "I dislike the situation as well. And while there is little Enterprise can do directly to aid in this, we will continue to aid your crew in repairing your ship, and if possible upgrading some of your components. If nothing else, if you have the design specs of those anti-capital ship missiles, we should be able to manufacture some. Likely with upgraded warheads."
Adama couldn't help it; he smiled a deadly, razorlike smile. "I like the sound of that, at least."
A few chuckles rounded the room as the officers relaxed slightly. Then Chrono cleared his throat, bringing the meeting back to order. "That brings us to the next issue. While they were aboard assisting us, Mages Inverse and Graywords informed us that their home city is under seige by an army of demons. An army of demons that began to march when the anomalies we've been investigating started forming. Given the energies of those anomalies, they believe, and my analysts agree, that these demons are being driven by those anomalies, at the very least becoming more aggressive because of them. They've requested military aid to deal with the attack." A pause. "If nothing else, I feel a little responsible – if we'd been faster tracking this down and defusing it, they might not have this problem." He let that sink in for a moment. "I've already conferred with my own Marines and Enforcers. They'll be aiding in the defense."
Hoss was quick to speak up. "I'll speak to mine as well, though my fleet doesn't have a dedicated troop component. We've got a few squads of marines per ship, and the security teams, but not much of our heavy gear." The look he shot Haralowan said this was as much a desire not to be seen as callous as much as a desire to aid the strangers.
Tolwyn and Picard were silent. The former frowned, the latter looked stricken. "I can't spare any of my troops," said Tolwyn. "They've got the best part of three-hundred Imperial prisoners to keep in line. Unless that Star Destroyer skulking around the outer system wants to take them off my hands."
"They left shortly after the multiverse opened," said Picard. "And as best I can tell, they made no reply to our reports of having made prisoners of their pilots." A pause as Tolwyn snarled. Adama could feel his own face twist – that was no way to treat your men. "I fear my hands are tied – The world below is manifestly not a warp-capable one, and Starfleet's Prime Directive is quite strict." An apologetic frown. "I have few personnel to begin with."
"I think I'll have to say no as well," said Adama. "I don't like the idea, but if we're heading into that rift, I'm going to need our Marines on Galactica to work damage control."
Chrono nodded. "I understand, gentlemen. Let's move on; we have much to do and little time."
Despite his worry and stubborn, niggling headache, Luke couldn't help but smile as he put his X-Wing down on Mon Remonda's flight deck. Shutting down, he popped the canopy and swung down to the deck, ignoring Artoo's muttered bleep about him not waiting, and pulled Wedge into a hug. "Good to see you Wedge. Hope you didn't catch it for offering to help me at Sluis Van. I heard you guys had a weird run-in."
"A squadron leader's too small time to make an example of," Wedge said as they headed for the ready room, exchanging nods with a few other Rogues. "We did, Luke, but we're still here. What brings you out here?"
"Intuition. Something happened last night..."
Corran Horn started at Luke's statement. "Wait, you too? Huh. It woke me up, whatever it was. And you felt it clear out on Coruscant?"
"Yes. A disturbance in the Force. And I felt another, smaller one while I was on my way out here."
"Interesting. And funny you should head out this way, because we just intercepted the weirdest transmission..."
The Klingon Bird-of-Prey Rotarran looked like it had received a few upgrades since last Picard had seen it. He smiled at the thought – Chancellor Martok, it seemed, was still bound and determined to do his duties on his terms and no-one else's. The ship almost looked out of place leading a squadron of Vor'cha class ships and an additional wing of Birds-of-Prey. A lone Negh'Var class warship lurked at the tail of the formation, looking almost forlorn.
"Incoming transmission from the Rotarran, sir."
"On screen." Picard hid his smile as the view switched to Rotarran's bridge. Which looked downright cramped with its normal complement plus half a dozen Imperial Guard surrounding the Chancellor. "Chancellor Martok. I confess that I did not expect you to personally respond to our call for aid."
The one-eyed Klingon smiled. "A coincidence, Captain. I was inspecting one of our border squadrons when your call came through. As we were closest, I decided to lead our response personally." The smile widened slightly. "And Ambassador Worf is with me. How is your force organized?"
"If you'll join me aboard, I'll be more than happy to help integrate your forces."
The transfer elevators clanked as they locked into the flight deck, and USS Fraser's hatch popped. Tyrol and Paris exchanged nods. "Welcome back, Lieutenant." Further down the flight deck, Shuswap opened as well.
"Thanks. How're the repairs going?"
"A lot better. You're early."
"Not picking up, just dropping off. We've got the first batch of missiles for you."
Tyrol shot a glance at a few deck crew who'd been loitering to listen. "Hear that? Make yourselves useful and grab the dollys, people. We've got ordnance to move." He turned back to Tom, who was opening the rear hatch of the Runabout. "How many?"
"Three dozen missiles, so we're going to need a few trips to get 'em all over."
"I envy you your machine shops. I'd kill to have that much manufacturing capacity at my disposal."
"It does come in handy from time to time," he said with a wistful look. "Anyway. Here's the first set."
The dimensions looked the same, thought the casing was the paler gray that Starfleet favored instead of the Colonial gray he was used to. "They look about right."
"We used the same guidance package you guys gave us, matched the dimensions. The warhead and detonators are ours though."
"What's the new warhead?" asked Tyrol as he leaned in to inspect some of the casing seams.
"Three kilos of antimatter."
Antimatter... Eyes wide, Tyrol took a step back. "Are you serious?"
"Yep. Should be a hell of a lot more potent than the fission device you were using." Tom's eyes had a mischievous twinkle. "Don't worry – the containment fields are perfectly stable, they're safe until they hit their target."
The first dolly arrived at the hatch. Forcing himself to keep his voice steady, Tyrol said, "Guys, be extremely careful with these."
There are times, thought Xellos, when I genuinely envy humans. Right about now is one of them. I would kill for the ability to just tell Zelas to drop this idea. Contrary to his thoughts, he could only say, "Greater Beast, I urge you to think again. We have all felt the changes in the Sea of Chaos these last weeks, and the greater change just past... There is more going on than we can see."
His patron waved away his concerns. "What is there to know? Something is affecting the Sea of Chaos. Whatever it is, it keeps the Lord Of Nightmares from hearing us, but leaves Her power available. Indeed, in greater amounts than we've had at our disposal since the Koma War."
"Certainly, but that something is not in Seyruun. I don't even think it's on this world."
She gave him an amused look. "You worry too much, Xellos. I think you've been spending too much time around Humans." She shook her head. "Something not of this world. It's certainly not the work of the Shinzoku; it's energy is all wrong for that. And I doubt it to be from beyond this world – what is there beyond this world? Just play your part, Xellos. Our victory is assured."
She vanished into the Astral, leaving Xellos alone with his thoughts. They ran to a strange fanged boy, who sure as all hells wasn't from this world. If I spend too much time among humans, you have not spent enough, he thought. But he had no choice, his nature prevented him. He would see this siege through and crush Seyruun. After that, who knew what the future would hold?
He just hoped that, whenever this blew up in his patron's faces, he'd be there to say 'I told you so.'
Colonel Christopher Blair felt the urge to whoop as he pulled the TIE Interceptor through a loop.
The captured fighters were hellaciously fast, decently armed, and extremely maneuverable. Just testing it out was a thrill. But he wouldn't fly one in combat on any kind of bet. Hits that even a Salthi would have shrugged off had shredded these things in the big brawl.
Unfortunately, some of their people would probably have to. Sparks and her fellow techs were working miracles, repairing and rebuilding damaged fighters, even digging wholesale into the spares and putting two Rapiers together out of them entirely, but that wasn't enough to replenish their losses. They'd captured a lot of TIE Fighters and TIE Interceptors, which were being put to the test now.
If they were lucky, Maniac would be one of them. But he'd seen Sparks and some of her better techs underneath his Morningstar. They were desperate enough for fighters to try and fight with the temperamental things. And truth to tell, he wished them luck. The Morningstar would never be his fighter of choice, but it had its merits. And they needed every fighter they could get.
Which included these TIEs. After Stalker left the system and abandoned them, several of the captured Imperial pilots had come forward, offering technical help with the things. A few had reacted... less well than that. One of them, Stalker's wing commander, was currently under sedation in the medical bay, both to repair his throat and keep him from trying again. He felt particularly betrayed by the situation, and had apparently considered Stalker's captain an old friend. Several of his fellow prisoners seemed surprised at his reaction, and said that they were surprised the Star Destroyer had stuck around as long as it did.
If the suicide-sleds they called fighters hadn't soured the Confederate pilots on the Imperial navy, the way it considered its fighter jocks expendable certainly would have.
Still. Joyride time was over; it was time to head back to the barn. One impressively quick run back to Concordia later, he gently landed the fighter and popped the hatch.
Angel was waiting for him on the deck. "How was it, mon ami?"
"A racing ship with guns on it. But I wouldn't fly one in combat for any money." He glanced towards the deck crew starting to scramble over it. "Sparks have any luck finding a way to mount some shields on them?"
"Non. She says it's mostly a power issue – their systems use a much higher amperage and she hasn't time to cobble up a converter."
"Lovely. How are we deciding who flies these things when we go after the squids?"
"The Admiral has left that to me to decide." She was frowning. "I want to ask for volunteers, given how unsafe they are, but we need our best pilots where they have their most experience. So if it becomes necessary, I will likely be assigning them to the backup pilots, and regulars without a fighter for this mission."
Blair looked back at the TIE Interceptor he'd just tested out. "Hopefully it won't get that dangerous."
"Le temps nous dira."
"Incredible. It's like we've jumped into the middle of somebody's godawful fanfiction," said Colonel Steven Caldwell.
"Or Super Robot Wars: Spaceship Edition," muttered Rodney McKay.
John Sheppard was scrolling through the imagery they'd captured of the ships around them. "This is nuts. There's got to be a hundred ships here, and lots of different designs. There's one that looks like a World War Two battleship of all things."
McKay looked through the scans. "I think it kind of is. That's the Space Battleship Yamato." He paused. "I suppose for the sake of argument it could be the Argo instead, but I doubt it." There was another brief silence as they all considered the collection of ships around them. "Am I the only one here who would love to try and get some autographs? Picard, Leary, Adama, Blake..."
Lt. Simons, from SG-2, muttered, "Starwind, Okita, Harlock..." At a glance from O'Neill, he said, defensively, "What, a man's not allowed to enjoy Anime?"
"Aren't two of the people you want autographs from space pirates?" O'Neill asked mildly.
"Uhm..."
Carter rescued him. "That's somewhat besides the point. If you want autographs, they'll probably want to know why. And I don't think any of them will like the explanation 'because you're a famous fictional character where I come from.'"
O'Neill broke the ensuing silence with a chuckle. "Either way, we're here. Fleet flag was Haralowan, yes? Let's let them know we're here to help, and see what needs to be done."
Keeping half an eye on his Bradeson counterpart – a tough battleaxe of a woman in one of the relatively few power armored suits their shipboard security teams kept handy – Tomas Aston resisted the urge to snarl. The city of Seyruun sprawled below him as he walked behind Enforcers Takamachi and Testarossa-Haralowan. Ranma was to his left, and the younger man wasn't making an effort not to snarl at the commander of the Bradeson detachment. He was glad to have the aquatransexual along for this. Gladder that they were leaving Ryoga aboard - the fanged boy's apology for attacking his squad had rung distinctly hollow, and he didn't trust him.
Leading them along the tall marble wall were four locals – three mages and a swordsman. Ranma'd worked with them in the past, and he rated them highly, especially the redhead. Several others were with them, some from the Daedalus – lead by a man who wore general's rank but whose bearing screamed that he was a proper soldier and not some desk jockey taking a quick trip to look like he actually cared about his men – and a few big, heavy-foreheaded aliens called Klingons. The leader of that pack had introduced himself, but Aston doubted he'd be able to pronounce his name without mangling it horribly.
One of the Daedalus people was looking at something in the city, pointing at some bit of architecture or another and babbling about what cultural influences must have gone into it. Aston looked at the building he was pointing at, and failed to see anything special about it. It looked like most any building kicking around this city. It was a nice city, in a quaint sort of way. And given the general tech level, that was as well as could be said.
These buildings wouldn't look all that out of place in a few places on the Mid. Weird thing, this travel. At least the city looked decently defensible. They'd need that edge; there were some frighteningly powerful beings in the horde marching on them, their progress marked, like any other army, by the smoke and fire of its passing.
The people of the city seemed friendly enough, and confident that their armies and mages would hold off the attack; especially with the aid of outside help, some of whom apparently knew the local Princess. He'd have to pull the details out of Ranma at some point, because he'd managed to miss that part.
The glasses-wearing talky one was pointing at another building. Truth to tell, it was an interesting looking city. And a clean one for the general tech level. Aston wasn't totally sold on the whole 'all major boulevards are on top of the walls' part, but he could see some merit to it defensively. And all those walls probably worked a treat for keeping the poor in their section of the city and away from the rich and powerful. A snort. I'm getting cynical in my old age.
Strange though the city might be in some ways, some things a man could recognize right away. Like that tavern in the wall's shadow, near the main gates. And the establishment next to it, which looked rather like a house of negotiable affection. He might have to recon those places. For the mission, you know, in case the outer wall got breached.
Certainly not because it'd been... a while. And even so, he was a single man on deployment, not some plaster saint.
Another look around the gathered soldiers. This one was going to be interesting, but at least he was in good company for it. Even with the Bradies along, though at least their commander – Captain Mito Cagiva if he remembered the introductions right – seemed a competent woman. She caught his gaze, smirked. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"Wondering how much of a bitch this fight's going to be."
Cagiva shrugged, an exaggerated motion in the armor, and said, "Unless they're ridiculously powerful or invulnerable we should be able to hold them at the outer wall. If we can't hold them there, the ground-level streets should make for one hell of a street fight." A shrug. "And from what my armor is telling me, the entire damned city is a ward. Should weaken those ugly suckers if they get inside."
"Huh." She gave him an odd look. "Thought you weren't a mage."
She snorted. "The armor's not just for show."
"Fair enough. Even with that ward... well, absent intelligence to the contrary, assume the enemy is not an idiot. They have to know about that ward, and they're coming anyway. They've probably got some kind of counter."
Ranma glanced back from where he was walking. "We gotta lot of firepower on our side. I've seen Lina in action; she's a match for Nanoha when she's tryin'." A pause. "But yeah, they probably gotta trick'r two. From what Zel an' Lina 're sayin' ta Nanoha an' Fate, the boss demon is a smart guy who loves tricky plans."
Cagiva and Tomas were both giving Inverse a measuring look. If he's serious... well, another S+ mage can't hurt for this kind of nonsense. "So a powerful trickster is leading the invasion. Hope they have some ideas to counter him."
"They could be double-bluffing," said Mito with a frown. "I mean, if this guy's so famous for being tricky, having him running the show over there would get the good guys second guessing everything, and planning for anything but the obvious..."
I see where she's going with this. Damn. "Then if he gets here and goes 'hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle,' it'll take them by surprise. Hope someone thought of that."
Ranma closed his eyes for a moment. "Nanoha says they're keeping that in mind."
The marine blinked. "Did you just telepathically contact the commander of your detachment out of the blue and tell her what to do?"
"Uh.. yeah. It's kinda what I do."
"Gods below, how did you survive long enough to become a Warrant in any decent Service?"
"Captain Cagiva," said Tomas, trying not to laugh. "He's in a special situation. His planet needs every special talent it can get its hands on."
Ranma nodded, wearing a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Yep. Ya know the JSDF is hurtin' fer bodies when they come an' draft a guy like me." The pretense at humor vanished. "But either way, we c'n hold our own inna fight."
Her eyes widened at his mention of the JSDF. "Oh. That Ranma Saotome. You made an impression on our troops."
Ranma turned back to the front of the group. "Good."
There are more would-be heroes in the universe than I'd expected to see. It's actually quite heartening. Chrono looked over the tactical view at the gathered impromptu fleet. In twelve hours, their wards would fail and their gambit to draw the Voidspawn close to the rift would begin. If it went well, Galactica would be able to jump into the portal and blow the device holding it open to atoms by liberal application of antimatter. Gods, Starfleet was certifiable, using that stuff as fuel. If ever a pure-science substance was created that did a better job of destroying anything it touched, the TSAB had never found it. Hell, it beat out most magical substances in a pure volume to destruction ratio, which was impressive. Enough of it would do the job nicely on just about anything.
Still, they'd have to lure the creatures away from the rift to give Galactica enough time. They had quite the fleet for it; rag tag, yes, but while several ships had arrived alone – Roj Blake's Liberator, Captain Vivian's Nirvana, James Raynor's Hyperion, and a dozen others – several had arrived in groups. Captain Onoma's Mon Remonda was at the head of a small fleet, Chancellor Martok at the head of his Klingons... they would fight well, he thought.
A few... he was less confident about. Not about their courage or willingness to aid – one could not spend five minutes in the same room as Daniel Leary and not think the man sincere – but of the technical merit of their ships. Those, he planned to place in a reserve formation. He was not so ungrateful as to turn down an offer of help, but he wasn't about to deliberately get them killed if he could at all avoid it.
Though if that 'Doctor' with a blue box and a scarf-of-many-colours showed up, he'd consider it. The obnoxious prick seemed to be a walking nexus of havoc, and that they did not need.
A glance at the board. Shuttles were converging on Claudia from all over the fleet. Time to get ready to organize this fleet for battle.
Commander Jane Shepherd, Alliance Military, Spectres, shook her head as she walked away from the audience chamber. Haralowan's briefing had been... enlightening. There were a lot of strong willed captains in this scratch fleet, and that didn't bode well. But none of them, after looking at the rift or the fractured space around it, could deny that this was major.
A hole in space that threatened at least one inhabited system. And the planet's largest city was about to be besieged, by what the locals claimed – and the fleet's nominal leaders agreed – were demons. And why not? You spent months hunting a myth. She suppressed the urge to shudder at the thought of Sovereign.
Walking beside her, Wrex said, "An interesting situation, Shepherd. And a dangerous one."
"Agreed." A city under siege. A rift about to dispense killer space monsters. Hell of a choice. Absently, she rubbed at her scars. They ached, sometimes. "We'll help with the space battle. The ground fight's certainly not trivial, but one planet doesn't weigh up against the universe." A sigh. "God. Dimensional stuff. I didn't like it last time and I don't much like it now. If that Brit with the phone box shows up again, I'll jam that sonic screwdriver of his where the sun don't shine."
Wrex nodded, the big Krogan seeming content with that. He hadn't been around for that incident, but he'd heard the stories.
About two intersections before they reached the hanger, two humans came up from a side corridor. They wore green uniforms that looked oddly familiar to her eye. One of them had the look of a soldier or pilot, the other a scientist. The soldier looked at her and Wrex, and started. She wondered idly if it was because of the Krogan or her rather vivid scars. "Uh, hi."
She gave him a look. "Hello. Who might you be?"
He collected himself. "Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, Stargate Command." He pointed a thumb at his companion. "Rodney McKay, also Stargate Command." The shorter man nodded in acknowledgment of the introduction.
Oh, what can it hurt? "Commander Jane Shepherd, Alliance Military, and my compatriot, Wrex."
John smiled. "Good to meet you both. Can't say I'm looking forward to this fight, but it's nice knowing we've got a S-" McKay elbowed him in the ribs. "Uh, nice knowing we've got some solid backup."
That drew a smile from her. "It'll be a nice change for us, too. Later, then." She started off.
John smiled, nodded to her compatriot. "Wrex."
The Krogan returned it. "Sheppard."
John and Rodney watched Shepherd and Wrex walk down the corridor. As they rounded the next bend, John turned to the Canadian. "I called it. Renegade FemShep. Pay up."
Grumbling something unflattering, McKay reached for his wallet.
Sitting in his cockpit, Wedge felt the adrenaline begin to flow. They'd be getting this party started shortly. Luke was flying with the Rogues, filling in for one of his pilots who'd been injured in their last big fight. It was good to be flying with him again, even under the circumstances.
The Rogues, Wraiths, and other assorted squadrons of their task force was formed up just ahead and below Mon Remonda, preparing for what promised to be one massively confused fight. At least they, and the other assorted fighter groups, had managed to find a common comm frequency to co-ordinate with.
It was one hell of a big fighter force. He'd co-ordinated with the various wing commanders involved, Devereaux from TCS Concordia, Susumu from Yamato, Felix from EAS Titans, and Gisborn off of Nirvana. They'd mostly be trying not to shoot each-other while they dealt with the Squids. A memory twigged yet again; they'd co-ordinated aboard Concordia, and while he'd only really talked to Devereaux, he'd seen a few of their other pilots kicking around. One of them niggled at him, like he'd seen the guy before, impossible as that might be.
At least, visually, the Starfuries off of Titans and her cohorts were a reasonable visual match to X-Wings, and their foes were nothing if not distinct. That'd make it easier on his people and theirs. But this was still going to be painful.
Speaking of... He keyed the group comm. "This is Rogue Leader to all New Republic fighters. When they drop the ward, we're the first line against any of those little squids. Stay sharp and watch your fire – I don't want to have to explain any friendly fire incidents to our allies. Especially don't shoot the TIEs. They're friendly."
He paused a moment for a breath, and perhaps perdictably, Wraith Leader – Face Loran – chimed in. "Not like that's new for us Wraiths."
Wedge couldn't help himself, he smiled at that. "Yes, we've all heard about how bad your supply situation could get." Nevermind hearing about it, he'd been there for most of it personally. "And if the spooks can manage to keep it straight, the rest of us pilots shouldn't have a problem." The clock was ticking down now, in less than a minute it'd be time to fight. "Stay sharp, and may the Force be with you."
The comm was overridden by Admiral Haralowan. "All ships, this is Fleet Flag. We will be dropping the ward in thirty, three-zero, seconds."
Wedge exhaled slowly, long honed instincts checking over his instruments and readouts. He was as ready as he was going to be.
In a crimson flash, the ward vanished, and the oily glow of the rift shone brighter. For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen...
And then a thing out of some mad old tale; a leviathan that put even the greatest of the Squids they'd seen previously to shame; surged out.
It's main body was almost half a kilometer in diameter, five kilometers long, and with scores of tentacles trailing behind it almost half-again as far. Around it, lesser creatures swarmed, looking like minnows in its wake.
Its baleful red eyes glared at all who surrounded it with a fire to burn clean to the soul, and it opened it's beak, loosing a mental scream that stunned every living man in the fleet.