A Left Turn at Albuquerque
Disclaimer: I do not own the universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold, Lucasfilm Ltd and Disney respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SDF-3 Pioneer
Orbiting Hoth
A Short Time Later
Rick Hunter had a grim frown on his face as he arrived at the main engineering laboratory in response to an urgent summons from both Doctor Lang and his engineering deputy Commander Miles Newson. A few hours ago, Exedore had delivered a bombshell when he'd revealed what he believed to be sabotage of the SDF-3's shadow dimensional shift field generators and likely the field generators of every ship in the fleet. There was apparently a device attached to the primary displacement field generator that should not be there, indeed wasn't there on any of the design schematics. A device that, quite suspiciously, clandestinely drew a tiny amount of power from the ships grid not enough that the AI programs monitoring power flow and usage would notice and flag for investigation. Yet for the secret power draw did absolutely nothing.
Thus, he had ordered it removed, removed and brought to the engineering lab for analysis.
Upon entering the lab Rick knew immediately from the concerned look on the two men's faces that whatever they had to say to him about the device it obviously was not good news. And it wasn't the only device there he could see another, slightly smaller looking device next to it. Just looking at it was enough to set any number of mental alarm bells ringing inside his head.
"Doctor Lang, Commander Newson you found something," he asked approaching both men.
"We have indeed admiral," Lang answered, the very fact that he was using Rick's rank as opposed to the more normally informal use of his name was a tell that the increasingly elderly German genius – the father of almost all Terran applications of the incredible sciences and technologies known as robotechnology – was both deeply worried and deeply angered by what they had found. "And I am afraid that it is not good news."
When do we ever get good news, Rick thought knowing full well what their luck was like, Murphy seemed to like to dump on the Terran race for some reason back in their own galaxy and for what he had seen so far it was no different here. "I had a feeling it wouldn't be good news. Anything that set's off Exedore's instincts like that cannot be good," he commented. "What have you found?"
"Admiral this device is a form of interference generator," Newson said pointing to the first device. "From what we have been able to gather when exposed to an external energy charge on a specific frequency band it will generate a destructive interference pattern that uses the dimensional shift field itself as both a resonator and an amplifier. The interference appears to be designed to disrupt the balance within both the primary and secondary reaction chambers of the reflex furnaces triggering first a massive overload and then a quantum implosion."
"Which would completely destroy any affected ship," Rick commented knowing enough about reflex furnaces and how they operated to know just how devastating that would be. Unless they could dump the reaction mass extremely quick enough to prevent the implosion then the ship, and everyone onboard, would be turned into a miniature sun by the resultant explosion. "Do we know which energy frequency its programmed to react to?"
"We are still attempting to determine that," Lang answered, "the device's systems are heavily encrypted though the coding system used in the encryption is pretty clear… it's Haydonite."
"Are you certain of this Emil," Rick asked after a moment of silence.
"I am," Lang replied, "I studied and worked with Haydonite coding extensively during the construction of Janice's second-generation body. There are certain tells in the way the programming is structured that indicate it was made by Haydonites, those same tells are present in the device's encryption."
Rick swore softly. "So, the Haydonites put that thing there? Presumably when they were installing the shadow field generators," he commented in shock at the revelation that the Haydonites had sabotaged the SDF-3 – and likely every other ship they had – for some reason known only to the cybernetic turncoats. Just like they had lied, or at very least misled, them about the true devastating power of the neutron-s missiles. If they hadn't run the field test they would never have found out, at least not until it was too late, that the massive weapons created black holes that they weren't planet killers as they had believed. No, they were far, far worse than that as they were star system killers.
It was a pattern of behaviour that had some deep and truly disturbing implications. Were the Haydonites literally a wolf in sheep's clothing? An enemy who was wearing the mask of an ally? It was a very real possibility as now that he thought about it the Haydonites – unlike the other races they'd met and befriended since the SDF-3 first folded away from Earth in twenty-two – had never been comfortable around them. He had thought it was due to their unique nature as a cybernetic species but was there another, far more sinister, reason for their distance and preference for having others speak for them.
"Very likely," Lang agreed a note of both anger and sadness in his voice as he had worked extensively with the Haydonites over the last few years. He had considered many of the cybernetic creatures' friends, to find out now that they probably were not the friends they pretended to be was thus deeply upsetting and infuriating given how the Haydonites had used theirs – and his – willingness to trust to sabotage their ships. Presumably so that they could destroy them with ease at a time of their choosing. "And it gets worse."
"I'm almost afraid to ask but I assume it's related to the other device?"
Lang nodded. "When Exedore found the first device Miles had a hunch and sent teams to check all the other systems onboard that use shadow technology," he explained before nodding at the other man to pick up the explanation.
"Admiral our checks of the shadow systems detected a few more points of possible sabotage," Miles explained, "mostly minor tampering with some of the systems to make them less effective and efficient than the specifications and blueprints say they should be. However, we did find one other major piece of sabotage in one of the weapons systems – specifically in the synchro cannons."
Rick felt a sudden chill go down his spine. "What have they done to them," he asked, not really wanting to know the answer but at the same time needing to know. Especially if the sabotage was something that would require every synchro cannon in the fleet – be it the small ones or the ship-based ones – to be shut down pending repairs. "Is that where the second device comes from?"
"It is sir," Miles confirmed. "The device was found attached to the regulators that control and harmonize the subatomic particle streams in the projector matrix at the front of the weapon. What we believe it is designed to do is – as with the other device – is react to an external energy charge by causing the weapons firing controls to essentially freeze preventing either discharge or shutdown while allowing subatomic particle acceleration and accumulation in the projector to continue. Resulting in…"
"…an overload and a runaway subatomic particle fusion reaction," Rick finished for him, he had been following the development of the synchro cannon technology quite closely since they first began working on it just after finding Tirol and coming across some research into advanced particle weapons in the ruins of one of the Robotech Masters' weapons research facilities. The Masters' research had been incomplete but there had been enough there for them to begin developing the weapons technology at least until the Plenipotentiary Council – in its infinite 'wisdom' – transferred control of the project along with other alien technology reverse engineering projects to the supervision of one General Thomas Riley Edwards and his Grey Squadron.
As he recalled Edwards had filed a report with the Council after a year or two reporting that the weapons technology was a dead end and too unstable to be of use. With the benefit of hindsight, it was clear that even back then that the murderous, traitorous bastard had been planning his little coup attempt against the rest of REF High Command and the Plenipotentiary Council. They had found out afterwards – when sweeping through the remains of his compounds on Tirol – that he had lied and that the weapons tech was fully viable just somewhat… well… temperamental being prone to potentially dangerous overloads in the particle streams. The Haydonites had helped them – while unknown to them the now rogue Edwards had gotten the help of the Invid Regent to do the same thing – iron out said problem producing the weapon.
"Exactly sir," Miles confirmed even as he mentally kicked himself for forgetting that Admiral Hunter was not only a quite intelligent man, but he was very familiar with how a lot of their robotechnology worked. "However, I want to reassure you that the weapons will continue to work with only some minor adjustments and the removal of this compromised add on component."
"Given how many dimensional shift generators there are throughout the fleet, not to mention all the various calibres of synchro cannon we have how long will it take to completely remove the Haydonite sabotage?"
"It depends the shadow field will be the quickest to correct on the capital ships I would say no more than two to three days to remove the Haydonite device and thoroughly check for any further sabotage or booby traps. Given how sly the Haydonites have turned out to be I wouldn't put it past them to leave some other type of booby trap in the systems if their sabotage was to ever be discovered and removed." Lang replied, "the synchro cannons, that's going to be a bit more time consuming as we have a lot more of them and in various sizes and calibres. I would say at least a month."
"Damn. Alright get started on it until the work is complete all synchro cannons are to be disabled. The same with the dimensional shift field."
"Understood. With your permission admiral we'll begin drawing up the appropriate work plans immediately."
Rick nodded but before he could reply the comm came to life. "Bridge to Admiral Hunter," Lieutenant Pren's voice came from the bridge. Rick tapped the device on his right ear.
"Hunter go what is it?"
"Sir the UES Sumatra, Geneva and Baikal have just unfolded off the fleet and are moving to rejoin our formation."
About time they should have been back an hour ago, Rick thought even as he acknowledged that Captain Zendril had informed them that there would be delay in his ships returning to the fleet. Said delay being caused by having to do some emergency maintenance on the Sumatra's fold drives – specifically the fold stabilizers and interphase shift compensators – which had been overstressed by the rapid sequencing of folds they'd executed to reach Tatooine and the survivors of the crashed UES Windermere before the Empire did. Something that they almost hadn't done in time given fifteen Imperial warships arrived soon after the three ships defolded over the desert world.
"Understood is Captain Solo ready to come aboard this ship?" he asked.
"We have been told he is sir however he would like to bring is own ship, the Millennium Falcon, over instead of taking one of the Sumatra's shuttles."
Rick considered that for a few moments. It was a risk, albeit a manageable one "Alright agree to allow it," he said knowing that there was little danger as throughout its flight here from the Sumatra the rest of the fleet would be keeping a very, very close eye on the Millennium Falcon and would immediately destroy the vessel if they tried any funny business. "Advise me when they dock."
"Aye sir."
Rick signed off and turned his attention back to the other two men. "Begin drawing up and implementing your repair plans," he ordered, "keep me appraised of your progress."
"Of course," Lang replied with a nod.
"Then I will leave this in your hand's gentlemen. If you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to get ready for." The other two men nodded prompting Rick to smile, turn around and leave.
As he walked away from the engineering lab Rick scowled as he mulled over the possible reasons for the Haydonites being so deceptive and underhanded towards them. It made no sense to him for them to be like this given that they had never threatened them or done anything remotely hostile to the cybernetic species or the AI that led them the Awareness. After a moment he sighed it no longer really mattered why they did it, they had, and they now had to deal with their sabotage. Though one thing was for sure this whole thing made him even more determined to find away to get the fleet back to their own galaxy…
…so, he could make the Haydonites pay for their duplicity.
Engineering Lab
UES Agamemnon
Calanda Expanse, That Same Time
Lieutenant Juan Rico carefully studied some of the battle droids that had been carefully transported to the Agamemnon from the abandoned asteroid station. They were reasonably well designed – at least two of the types were – for their job of engaging in combat having an armoured outer casing of the enhanced steel-like material that the people in this galaxy seemed to be obsessed with using. It was a decent defence that would stand up reasonably well against light weapons even a rifle mode Gallant though their heavier weapons like the EP-37 heavy particle beam rifles - designed as they were to penetrate the advanced and durable biomechanical armour of Invid battle mecha – would rip right through it.
The droids armour however was not his concern.
What he was concerned with was their operating system. Getting access to the operating system had been easy, far easier than it had any rite to be, as there had only been a very flimsy firewall to get through. However, the easy bypass had been the only easy thing about this as the operating system on these droids was frankly the most convoluted, god-awful mess he had ever seen in his life. He had thought that the operating system on the station had been a mess but this was even worse. There were so many different versions of the same software, so many patches upon patches, that it was causing numerous inefficiencies and program conflicts due to the various versions not being entirely compatible with one another. Frankly it was a wonder that the droids could even function let alone function well enough to fight.
"Has nobody in this galaxy ever heard of purging old software," he muttered as he tapped on a console ordering the ships computer to begin systematically purging all the old software versions leaving only one version present. From there it wouldn't be that difficult to both get the droid working far better than it likely ever had before and adjusting its IFF system to see them as allies. Once that was done, he would have to both ensure that its targeting system was up to scratch – even if that meant putting in some of the protocols used in the pupil pistol – and add a much more robust firewall to prevent someone hacking or reprograming the droid again without access to their equipment.
The computer bleeped in affirmative a timer box appeared on his screen showing that it would take approximately four minutes for the Agamemnon's powerful quantum matrix computer to complete the work he had just given it. He wasn't surprised by the length of time since the droids showed no sign of having any form of adaptive circuitry and thus could only work so fast, the diagnostic would have shown that reality to the computer and it would have adjusted its protocols accordingly.
While he waited for the computer to do the data purge, he started preparing the additions he would need to add to the programming of the droid to make it work for them. Getting it to work within the confines of the droid's odd analogue-digital hybrid technology base was challenging – he didn't want to overclock its CPU and cause a systems failure – but it was quite an enjoyable challenge. He much preferred these kinds of challenges to engaging in combat operations which was why he had trained as an information technology specialist instead of becoming a generic jarhead marine or tanker. Not that he would ever dare call someone like Colonel Sterling a jarhead as the half-Zentraedi veteran wouldn't hesitate to beat him to a pulp for doing so and if she happened to mention it to her parents – well his life expectancy would be measured in how long it would take Max and Miriya Sterling to get here both ready to pound him to a pulp either with their bare hands or if they were really pissed with the fists of their battloids.
He had just finished when the computer chimed to inform him that it was done. Immediately he checked the results that appeared on the screen and his eyebrows went up in surprise, based upon the computers analysis removing all the old software versions and just leaving one there had improved the droids operating efficiency by over two hundred percent. Whoa I wasn't expecting that big of an improvement, he thought, the people in this galaxy really are hopeless if just clearing out all the old operating systems and the system conflicts they cause produces such a big improvement.
Shaking his head and muttering about how idiotic people had to be in this galaxy not to realise the root cause of any problems their droids were having he got to work inputting his changes. Starting first with accessing the droids IFF database, wiping all the old IFF data and putting REF data in its place, and then moving onto to the target acquisition and tracking systems. With a little bit of surprise, he noticed that there was no predictive programming, so he added a bit and finally adding in the additional layers of system security to prevent both hacking and reprogramming by anyone who didn't have the appropriate REF issue override key.
He was just about to activate the first droid when the door to the workroom opened. He glanced over to see Captain Leeds coming into the room. Immediately he straightened to attention in the presence of the superior officer.
"Stand easy lieutenant," Vanessa said with a smile. "Have you made any progress with the droids?"
"I have ma'am," Rico replied, "I was just about to activate the first of the droids as a test."
"Really? Before you proceed with that lieutenant tell me exactly what it is that you have done."
Rico nodded and carefully – so as not to come across as an arrogant know-it-all which he sometimes did come across as which had earned him a fair few black eye and even some bruised ribs over the years – explained to his superior officer just what it was he had done to the first of these two droids. The projected increase in the efficiency of the droids' operations just by the removal of all the extraneous, outdated operating system data obviously caught his captain with the same surprise – going on the shocked look that appeared on her face – that he himself had felt when the computer reported it.
Nevertheless, Leeds gestured for him to continue with his explanation. Naturally he did so outlining every single step that he had taken, every single change that he had made. Throughout it all Vanessa Leeds asked pertinent questions, listening to his answers in the way that both the late Admiral Gloval and Lisa had taught her that would enable her to determine if he was indeed telling the truth. Though she doubted that Rico would ever attempt to directly, or even indirectly, lie to her face as he knew what the consequences of doing so would have been. Especially as Admiral Hunter had been known to make very clear and unequivocal examples of those officers who crossed anyone of the few survivors of the SDF-1 who had survived the near biblical firestorm of the First Robotech War – Rico had no desire to join that little group.
All in all, it took ten to fifteen minutes to go through all his steps and to answer everyone of the questions that Captain Leeds had levelled at him. When he was finished Leeds looked thoughtful as she stood there. Idly she took off her glasses and began cleaning them while mulling over everything that she had just been told weighing it against the safety of the ship and the rest of the crew. Not that one droid would be any major threat, especially as there were a pair of full armed and suited up Cycloners stationed just down the corridor from here. Cycloners who would make very short work of the droid if it should turn hostile, plus she and Rico both had the standard issue Gallant in pistol form on their belts.
"Alright," she said at last deciding that while this was a risk it was one worth taking as it would reveal if it really was possible for them to both reprogram and reactivate the droids on the station here and any others that were on the other two stations that the Tanganyika and another ship from the fleet – whose name escaped her right now – were on their way to investigate. Something that, if possible, would be a huge benefit to them, especially if it was ultimately determined that they were stuck in this galaxy. "Proceed to activate the droid."
"Aye ma'am," Rico acknowledged before sitting back down at his console and giving a specific command to the system.
For a moment nothing happened then there was a humming sound and arcs of energy suddenly danced over the selected droid as the ship began directing a small, precisely controlled stream of pure energy into the droid recharging its power cells and bringing them online. For a few moments the discharge continued until the AI program monitoring the power flow determined that the droids battery bank was now full. The energy arcs died away and for a moment out of time nothing else happened.
Then the droid began emitting a whirring sound as its systems – for the first time in nineteen years – began powering up. The droids photo receptors lit up with a soft blue light and it began moving its limbs in a manner, almost like the unconscious movements that most human stock species made as they were starting to wake up. Then it sat up, turned to look at them before swinging its legs off the slab-like table and standing up to its full two-meter height.
"Greetings," the droid said in a surprisingly masculine if clearly synthetic voice. "I am Magna Guard 2397. How may I be of assistance?"
"2397 do you know who I am? Where you are?" Vanessa asked.
"You are Captain Vanessa Amanda Leeds, commanding officer of the United Earth Ship Agamemnon. I am currently in an engineering laboratory aboard said vessel in the company of Lieutenant Second Grade Juan Rico, who is responsible for reactivating me. Captain Leeds, as per my programming I recognise you as my commanding officer what are your orders?"
"For now follow me we will need to inform Admiral Hunter of your successful reactivation 2397," Vanessa replied.
"By your command."
Vanessa blinked then looked at Rico who suddenly looked a little sheepish. "Did you put that in?" she asked, amusement clear to hear in her voice.
"Um yeah I have always had a thing for robots and droids," Rico admitted embarrassed, he had always liked old pre-Rain science fiction shows and movies that dealt with sentient robots. The Cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica were a special favourite of his and he'd always found the way they responded to orders with by your command to be quite cool. "I can, ugh, change it if you want me to ma'am."
"No, it's okay leave it in. Begin working on the next droid and start working on developing a means to reprogram and reactivate them all on masse as doing it one droid at a time will get real tedious real fast."
"Understood ma'am I'll get right on it."
"Good. Come this way 2397."
"By your command."
Smiling, still amused at the response, Vanessa turned and walked out of the room with the reactivated, if currently unarmed, magna guard following behind her. Rico watched them leave with a slight smile on his lips…
…then he turned and got back to work.
Authors Notes: Well another chapter bites the metaphorical dust. I hope you all enjoyed it. Now Rick and the REF fleet in Corusca know that the Haydonites are up to no good, though they haven't quite worked out just what the cybernetic creatures and the Awareness are up to. They will find out eventually. Now before anyone says that the synchro cannon is shadow technology it isn't as given how Scott Bernard – despite being on Earth for two years by the point they encountered Sue Graham – knew instantly what a synchro cannon was – and was annoyed at Graham for leaving it somewhere where the Invid could get the grubby mitts on it – and how it worked I have long believed that the synchro cannon is Terran developed technology. Of course, in this reality it is partially based on some advanced prototype particle energy weapons that the Robotech Masters were working on before they left Tirol to make the journey to Earth where they would ultimately be defeated in the Second Robotech War.
Finally, I hope you all liked my little inclusion of the Cylon response to orders in the reprogrammed magna guard. I must admit I have always had a bit of a soft spot for the way they said it especially in the original series. Well, that's all for now. Until next time.