Into The Fire
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement - sadly all Robotech and Babylon Five characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, Babylon Productions Inc and Warner Brothers 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.
Author's Note: I am honestly surprised at how quickly this chapter came together. As I said before this does not mean that I am ignoring my other fics, I am part way through writing updates for A Legacy of Chaos, A Legacy of Chaos: The Babylon Addition and A Left Turn at Albuquerque and hope to have at least one of them ready soon, it's just the muse for this chapter refused to leave me alone so here we are.
~~~/~~~
Chapter Two
Altair System
Earth Alliance
March 22nd 2246
To an outside observer the star system known as Altair did not look to be either interesting or particularly appealing. Four rocky planets, long deprived of any form of atmosphere, orbited a bright main-sequence A-type star backdropped against a diffuse nebula cloud that glowed softly in tones of green, brown and blue from reflected light. All in all it was not an appealing place, unless of course one looked much closer at the airless worlds.
Both the second and third planets were rich in several rare and strategic metals, with the third planet especially having extensive deposits of quantium forty so vital for interstellar travel. Both of which had prompted the Earth Alliance to develop the system when the other space faring races - including the former reigning power in the region the Centauri Republic - had taken one look at the system and decided that it had no worth to them. It hadn't stopped the Earth Alliance however.
In the several decades since the Earth Alliance Senate made the decision to develop the system a number of mining colonies had been established in pressurised domes on and below the surface of both the second and third planets. In addition, as human space expanded especially in the aftermath of the Dilgar War, the third planet's orbit had become home to a sizable fleet anchorage and the command station for all EarthForce forces in this sector of Alliance space.
Thus it went without saying that the moment a disturbance appeared far beyond the orbit of the forth and final planet of the Altair system it was noticed.
Earth Alliance Command Station
Altair III
Sitting at one of the main perimeter sensor stations in the station's main operations center, and quietly enjoying the feel of the pseudo-gravity caused by the station's rotation, Lieutenant Salvator Rosenberg frowned as his sensors came alive without warning. What on Earth, he thought puzzled as he brought up the sensor feeds and immediately noticed that a very large spatial disturbance of some type was forming three astronomical units beyond the orbit of the fourth planet and half an au above the plane of the solar system.
Initially he thought it was a jump point, though who would open a jump point so far out he had no idea, but the more he looked at the readings he realised that he was in error. The spatial disturbance was completely different to the signature of a jump point, he was also now picking up a large spike in graviton particles as well as beta phase tachyons - neither were produced by a jump point and the latter really only existed in tachyon physics laboratories and then only in very small quantities since beta-phase tachyons - for all their potential uses - were very unstable in normal space.
"Commander you better come and have a look at this," he called out looking over his shoulder at Commander Julianna Simmons, who was acting as the officer of the watch.
"What is it, lieutenant?" Simmons asked as she walked over in response to his summons.
"Ma'am our long range scanners have picked up a massive disturbance three astronomical units beyond the orbit of Altair IV and half an astronomical unit above the plane of the elliptic."
"What kind of disturbance! Jump points?"
Unsaid was the sudden fear that everyone in the command centre felt at his report. That fear of course being the Minbari, the mysterious but immensely powerful alien race that Earth was currently at war with. Well if you could call getting slaughtered without mercy, with even escape pods being targeted and destroyed, while the Minbari warships sat nearly invulnerable behind their stealth technology. Everyones fear was that the disturbance was related to the murderous, literally boneheaded aliens.
"No it's not jump points," Salvator replied, making everyone sigh in relief. "It's a spatial-gravitational disturbance of some kind. We're also picking up beta-phase tachyon emissions."
"Beta-phase tachyons?" Simmons questioned, "aren't those purely theoretical."
"No they do exist but they're very unstable in normal space and only exist for a second or two before collapsing back into regular tachyons."
"I see," Simmons replied, she was well aware that Lieutenant Rosenberg had a background in advanced particle physics, indeed he had a masters degree in the field himself, and was only serving in EarthForce to gather enough money to go for a phd in the field as his father and elder sister had done the same before him. Thus he would know about these things. She was brought out of her thoughts by Salvator's console bleeping again.
"The spatial disturbance has vanished," Salvator reported scanning the new information blinking slightly in surprise at how quickly such a large spatial disturbance had vanished, "we're picking up residual graviton particles and two large anomalous contacts. One is definitely an asteroid, the other I cannot get a solid reading on it. There's too much residual graviton interference to cut through at this distance."
"So we need to send someone out there to investigate. Fleet operations," Simmons called out.
"Ma'am?" one of the fleet operations staff replied immediately.
"What's the nearest patrol group to the area where the spatial disturbance occured?"
The addressed officer immediately checked his screens, looking for which group of ships was available and in that general area. It wasn't as easy as it would have once been as a significant chunk of the fleet normally based here at Altair had been deployed throughout the sector to attempt to protect both their shipping and their colonies from the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that was the Minbari fleet. Aside from a few patrol groups the only ships left here now were the ones to protect the mining facilities and General Bradshaw's command battlegroup. Finally after a few moments of checking he found what he was looking for.
"Group seven ma'am," he reported. "They're currently in orbit above Altair IV. They can break orbit and jump to the location within a few minutes."
"Order them to do so," Simmons ordered knowing that Group Seven was a formidable force composed of two Hyperion-class heavy cruisers, four Artemis-class railgun frigates and six Olympus-class corvettes. It was an array of power that would prove daunting to any foe who didn't go by the name Minbari. Thus they should be more than powerful enough to deal with whatever was out there, assuming it was hostile.
"Aye ma'am."
"I'll advise General Bradshaw of the situation. In the meantime LIeutenant Rosenberg keep monitoring that area. Let me know if anything changes."
"Yes ma'am."
Bridge
SDF-1
Captain Henry Gloval groaned as consciousness returned. Slowly he opened his eyes and wasn't surprised to find himself flat on the deck next to his command console, his whole body feeling as though it was one giant bruise. What happened, he thought for a moment before he remembered, they'd initiated the space fold only for everything to go absolutely berserk. He had been pitched to the deck by the force of the shaking that had ensued, shaking that was even worse than the shaking he'd experienced that one time he'd been at a naval base on the Kamchatka Peninsula and they'd experienced a sizeable quake, courtesy of magma moving beneath one of the many volcanoes on that peninsula.
Then there was awful pain. Pain that had made him feel like he was being both pulled apart and burned at the same time, it had not only been the most unpleasant thing he had ever experienced in his life - which was saying something given all he'd seen and been through over the years of first his service to Soviet Russia and then the new United Earth Government - but what had made it worse was he had clearly not been the only person experiencing it. The entire bridge crew - going on their agonized screams - had been subjected to it as well and possibly everyone on the entire ship.
Worried for his crew he forced himself to first sit up then stand. It wasn't easy as his head was swimming as if he had downed an entire bottle of vodka. But with purely Russian stubbornness he pushed through the pain and disorientation to look around the bridge. Though the main lights were off - indicating that the ship had lost main power - there was just enough light from the emergency battery lights to see that the crew were all intact and were beginning to stir from the unconscious state that had all of them slumped over their consoles.
A faint whirring sound came from somewhere deep within the ship a moment before the main lights flickered once then came back on as the ship's self-repair systems reconnected the reflex furnaces to the power grid. Computer screens also lit up and began running start-up diagnostics as power began flowing through the main systems again, bringing the battlefortress back to life.
A groan from the front of the bridge drew his attention. He looked over in time to see Lisa stand back up from where she'd been slumped over her console. "Are you alright Lisa," he asked even as the last of his disorientation passed and he was able to reach down and scoop up his hat from where it had landed unceremoniously on the deck and put it back on his head. He always felt strangely naked without it on.
"I'm alright sir," Lisa replied immediately before kneading her temples. "Oh my head."
"Take a couple of deep breathes and try not to move for a few minutes it will pass," Gloval told her, even as he moved to assist a starting to recover Claudia.
"Understood sir," Lisa replied.
Over the next couple of minutes they both moved around the bridge, Claudia joining them as she fully recovered from the effects of the fold, helping the other three members of the bridge crew - the so called Bridge Bunnies or the Terrible Trio depending on who you talked to - recover from the excruciatingly painful experience that they'd all just been put through. Once he was sure that the bridge crew were fully corpus mentis again Gloval's attention turned to the ship - and the alien giants who should still be out there.
"Alright then Lisa, Claudia begin checking all departments I want full crew status reports as soon as possible," he ordered, "Vanessa can you determine our position and the position of the alien fleet. Sammie, Kim begin a complete status check of all systems."
"Aye sir," everyone acknowledged.
As the crew began to attend to their tasks, Gloval for his part moved to the command chair and sat down with a wary sigh. He was somewhat troubled by what they had just been through, none of the information from the ships computers that they had translated on space folding had indicated that the process would either be that violent - though apparently some minor sensory disorientation was not uncommon during the initial formation and during the dissipation of the fold field - or anywhere near that painful. Which meant that either they hadn't translated the information on space folding properly - which cast serious doubts on the accuracy of all the other translations of the alien language that they had done - or something had happened that wasn't supposed to happen when you folded space. He suspected that it was the latter that was the case as the former didn't bear thinking about.
He was brought out of his thoughts by a report from Vanessa Leeds. "Preliminary scans complete sir. No sign of any enemy warships nearby there are however several enemy fighters drifting nearby - no life form readings - as well as a large mass probably an asteroid," the young woman reported before frowning. "Sir if these astrological readings are correct we have travelled sixteen light years and are in the Altair System."
Altair! How the blazes did we end up here, Gloval thought incredulous before turning his attention to the nearby asteroid. However before he could ask Vanessa to gather more information the young lieutenant emitted a gasp of surprise and no small amount of horrified shock. It was such an unusual reaction for the young woman when on duty that it immediately garnered his full attention, just as Vanessa spoke up again.
"Sir the asteroid it's…" she said, her voice trailing off in shock.
"It's what lieutenant," Gloval asked.
Thankfully his professionally worded question brought Vanessa out of her shock. "Sir the asteroid it's Macross Island and what looks like a sizable chunk of the surrounding ocean. It's all deep frozen now."
"What!" Gloval exclaimed in shock moving to the front viewports and looking out. Sure enough a few kilometres away from them was Macross Island and the damaged city that occupied the massive caldera created when the SDF-1 first collided with the island and completely wiped out the volcanic cone that had once been there. All of it was now covered in a deep layer of snow and ice that made it look like a scene from a snow globe. A sizable chunk of water was around the island though as with the island it had been frozen solid. Sitting partially submerged in the ice were the large forms of the submersible carrier Prometheus and its cousin the submersible landing ship Daedalus as well as a number of other ships including the huge container ship that had been docked in the islands port to offload supplies and luxury items for the denizens of the city.
"Vanessa scan the city and the icebound ships immediately, look for life signs," he ordered after a moment of staring at it in stupefied shock and horror as he imagined all those who could be dead or dying down there. Bozhe moi how many innocents have I killed by executing that space fold, he thought.
"Aye sir scanning."
"Captain Gloval all sections report no damage," Sammie reported from her console, "all ships life support systems and propulsion systems are reading as fully operational, though engineering indicates that our reserve capacitors are depleted and will take an hour to fully recharge."
"Weapons systems and defensive systems are fully operational," Kim added a moment later, "however as with the main power system reserve capacitors are depleted though are recharging. Full power to defensive systems will be restored within ten minutes. Flight bays report all fighter launching and retrieval systems are fully functional though there is currently no power to the atmospheric containment field generators, the main power conduit has been damaged. Damage control is working on it as we speak and report they will have the system back online within thirty minutes."
"Understood keep me updated on it Kim," Gloval acknowledged.
"Yes sir."
"Lisa, Claudia, what's our crew status?"
"Sir most of the crew appear to be alright though we have a number of reports of injuries from people being flung against bulkheads and machinery during the fold," Lisa reported, "nothing serious so far just minor blunt force injuries."
"Sir the main sickbay is reporting that several individuals were rendered unconscious during the space fold but are slowly recovering," Claudia answered, "including Commander Fokker and two civilians, identified as Rick Hunter and Lynn Minmei, who were discovered unconscious outside the crew lounge closest to the launch bays. It appears that they were slammed hard against the bulkhead then the deck."
"Ouch," Gloval commented with a wince knowing that would hurt, especially as the hypercarbon based alloys that this ship was built from were the hardest materials they knew of.
"Sir scans of the island are complete," Vanessa reported, "we're picking up numerous life signs in the deep shelters, the civilian population are alive and well though probably disorientated due to being in zero gravity. Several of the shallower bunkers near the base are also showing life signs though far fewer in number. No life signs on either the Prometheus or the Daedalus or the container ship."
"No surprise they were probably exposed to space and would have died in moments," Gloval replied wincing knowing that death by vacuum exposure would be quick but at the same time not the nicest way to go. Though he was grateful that the civilian population were alright, albeit likely highly distressed, and that the seals on those bunkers - designed as they were to defend against all manner of threats from the occasional tropical cyclone to a full on nuclear or biochemical attack - had held.
Of course they now had to figure out how the hell to get them out of there and to the relative safety of the ship. He was just starting to consider just how they were going to go about doing that when the proximity alarms went off.
"What is it," he asked, turning to look at Vanessa.
"Sir, two spatial vortex's are forming twenty-five thousand kilometres away on our port side," Vanessa reported, "Ship's emerging… tally twelve individual contacts. Six of the ships are four-hundred and forty-four metres long, four are six hundred and eighty-three metres long, the remaining two are read as being one thousand and twenty five metres long. Sir all of them are warships though their power readings are considerably lower than ours, with the two biggest ships having a power level comparable to an Oberth-class destroyers power plant."
"Claudia bring us around to face them," Gloval ordered, "Vanessa can you tell how many and what kind of weapons systems they have?"
"Sir we're being scanned," Vanessa reported as he finished speaking.
"Sir we're being hailed by the lead ship, audio only," Kim added.
Gloval frowned slightly. At least they're not firing at us, he thought not that those ships would be, going on their power levels, that much of a threat to the SDF-1. Still he would rather not get into another battle, especially as they were apparently in the space of some other race and they had enough on their plate right now. "Put it on speakers," he ordered after a moment.
"Aye sir."
Moments later the overhead speakers crackled and then a female voice, a female human voice, came over the radio. "Attention unknown vessel this is Captain Arianna Darsk of the Earth Alliance starship Dauntless. You have entered Earth Alliance territory, identify yourselves immediately and state your business or we will fire upon you."
"If they're Earth ships shouldn't they recognise us," Lisa questioned.
"I would have thought so," Gloval replied with a confused frown.
"Sir I think I have an explanation," Claudia commented, "according to our recorded telemetry when we folded space there was a sudden change in the quantum and temporal readings of the space around us caused by some type of overload in the fold field - possibly the result of enemy weapons fire. I just checked the quantum and temporal readings of the space around us."
"And?" Gloval questioned.
"They match the readings that were changed during the fold. Sir I believe that we are not only no longer in our own universe but that we have travelled forward in time by two hundred and thirty-seven years."
"What! Confirm that."
"I have sir, the readings are correct."
Before Gloval could respond Lisa's console chimed a warning. "Energy spike on the Dauntless. They're firing," she report a moment before a pair of bright blue-white bolts flew past the bridge viewports.
"Sir sensors confirm that that was some type of plasma energy bolt," Claudia added, "powerful but not strong enough to do more than minor damage to the hull."
"Alien vessel that shot was your one and only warning," Captain Darsk's voice said again over the radio. "You have sixty seconds to identify yourselves and state your business for being here or we will be forced to use deadly force against you."
"Okay this has gone far enough," Gloval commented, "Kim put me on with her. Claudia have gunnery control to prepare to target the Dauntless. If they fire at us again I want us to be ready to return fire." Unsaid was the fact that he was sure, based on their power readings, that their own conventional weapons were more than powerful enough to rip apart the Dauntless and the other ships with her.
Though he would of course rather avoid such a pointless exchange of fire.
"Aye sir," Claudia and Kim both acknowledged. A moment later the light by the phone on Gloval's command console lit up indicating that it had a connection to the bridge of the Dauntless.
Mentally crossing his fingers that he would be able to avoid starting a battle, he wasn't the most diplomatic of people at the best of times after all, Gloval picked it up and spoke into it. "Captain Darsk I am Captain Henry Gloval of the United Earth Defence Force, commanding officer of the SDF-1. Stand down your weapons, we mean you no harm."
For a moment there was no response then Captain Darsk spoke again. "Negative, it is you who will stand down and prepare to be boarded," she said, sounding annoyed. "You have thirty seconds."
"Negative as I said we mean you no harm but if you fire on us we will be forced to defend ourselves which will result in your destruction. If you require proof of my sincerity," Gloval replied before putting his hand over the mouthpeace. "Claudia have one of the secondary particle cannons fire a warning shot across the Dauntless's bow."
"Yes sir," Claudia acknowledged and relayed the command to one of the gunnery control rooms. A moment later one to the triple barreled secondary particle beam/laser cannon combination turrets that formed part of the SDF-1's secondary energy armament rotated to bear on the Dauntless. Had anyone been watching they would have seen one of the barrels glow a microsecond before a brilliant whitish-blue beam of supercharged highly-compressed particles blasted forth. It crossed the distance between the two ships nearly instantly passing just in front of the blunt prow of the Dauntless in a deliberate miss but one that was still close enough for the particle backwash to violently rattle the cruiser.
"Captain Darsk that was a warning shot," Gloval said uncovering the mouthpeace. "There is no point in us fighting a battle here, it will only end in a pointless loss of life. However since this is your space I am willing to meet you halfway. If you stand down your weapons I will stand down mine."
For a tense few moments there was no response.
"Agreed," Captain Darsk said at last, sounding a bit like she had bitten a sour lemon. It was the voice of someone who knew they were outmatched, outmatched and didn't like it one bit. But who was doing what she must to preserve the lives of her crew and the crews on the other ships, ships that would have certainly been seriously damaged if not destroyed if a battle erupted.
"Sir the Dauntless and the other ships are powering down their weapons," Vanessa reported, "they also appear to be retracting some of them and closing ports."
"Power ours down Claudia," Gloval ordered, relieved that the armed standoff was ending peacefully, though if Captain Darsk hadn't seen reason he wouldn't have hesitated to destroy her ship.
"Aye sir."
"Sir we're receiving another transmission," Kim reported, "audio and visual this time. It's coming from deeper within the system and being relayed by one of the other ships. We are also picking up another highly encrypted signal to the Dauntless from the same location. The original hail from the Dauntless is closing down."
"Put the new transmission on screen," Gloval ordered as he put the phone down. He would use the external pick up this time.
"Yes sir."
Immediately one of the overhead TFT screens came to life bringing in the image of a middle aged, well-built man with Nordic features. He was dressed in a dark blue uniform with a thick leather strip, lined with gold braid down one side. He also had a compassionate but commanding air about him.
"Captain Gloval," the man said in greeting, sounding much more friendly than Captain . "Allow me to introduce myself. I am General Kyle Bradshaw, I am the officer in charge of all EarthForce operations in this sector of space. I apologise for the aggressive actions of Captain Darsk, they were uncalled for and I will be having words with her about them."
"I hope you do," Gloval replied, "as the next person she threatens without provocation might be a lot less forgiving than me."
"Indeed but moving on from there might I inquire where you came from and how you came to be here? I have never heard of a United Earth Defence Force. As far as I know the only authorised military force of the Alliance is EarthForce."
"There is no reason that you would," Gloval admitted, "it does not exist in this reality. As shocking and impossible as it might seem, we are not from this universe."
"How can that be possible?"
"It's a very long story and one I will gladly fill you in on when we have the time," Gloval replied, "unfortunately we don't have that time at the moment. Instead I must ask for your help, if possible."
"What kind of help do you need and why?" Bradshaw asked.
Gloval quickly explained about Macross Island, how it had been transported here from their reality with them, becoming exposed to space and frozen as a result. He then explained about the civilian population trapped alive in their shelters buried deep within the volcanic bedrock of the former island and how they needed to get them out of there. Bradshaw stayed silent during his explanation, though he could see from the look in the man's green eyes that he desperately wanted to ask some questions like what space folding technology was, however when he mentioned the state of the civilian population a look of real concern - the concern any good military officer had for the civilians that they were charged by both duty and honour to protect - appeared in his eyes. At the end of the explanation he was nodding.
"We can certainly be of assistance there," Bradshaw said at last. "I will send some more ships out to you along with as many medical ships as I can muster up at such short notice. They will be able to assist you in rescuing your civilians."
"Thank you, General."
"You're welcome. Once rescue operations are complete the ships will escort you here to the station," Bradshaw answered, "there are a few things we need to talk about, a few things you need to know about this reality that you've been dumped in."
"I understand," Gloval replied. "Until we can meet face to face General."
"Until we meet Captain Gloval. Good luck. Bradshaw out."
The moment the other man finished speaking, the communications link with the distant space station closed down. The monitor went black for a moment before returning to its normal feed on the status of various ships systems. Gloval turned to his crew.
"Alright people, we have a great deal of work to do," he said. "Let's get to it."
Author's Note: Well another chapter bites the dust. Before anyone questions me about the aggressive actions and posturing of Captain Darsk I would say that EarthForce cruiser captains do have something of a reputation of being quite gung-ho - exactly the kind of attitude that contributed to the start of their current war with the Minbari - plus Captain Darsk is angry, frustrated and frightened by the war and saw a chance to realize her emotions a bit. Of course that will bite her in the arse as General Bradshaw - who was monitoring what was going on having been brought in by the captain of the Nuremberg, the other cruiser who is more cool headed - is not at all happy with her.