Robotech: The Stargate Saga

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech and Stargate characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold and MGM 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 Six

Secure Medical Section

Fort Minotaur

Maria Hunter looked up from where she was sitting at her son's bedside at the sound of approaching footsteps. She wondered if it was one of the nurses or another member of the base medical staff coming to check on Nathan's progress as the last time Doctor Johnson had looked at his neural scan, he'd told both her and Rick that Nathan could wake up at any time now. However, it wasn't a nurse or anyone like that, it was just her nephew returning from wherever it was he had been called off to about an hour or so earlier. He looked concerned about something though he was also holding two mugs that from the steam rising from them and the smell contained coffee.

"Welcome back," she said in greeting as he arrived and held out one of the mugs for her to take. "Thank you, Rick. Milk and two sugars, right?"

"Yeah, I remember just how you like your coffee Aunt Maria," Rick replied as he sat down in another chair. "Anything?"

"Doctor Johnson came in and checked him just after you were called away," she answered. "According to him the latest neural scans show Nathan could wake up anytime now."

"So, it's a waiting game again."

"Unfortunately. Though if I can ask why were you called away? Assuming you can tell me."

Rick frowned slightly and took a swig of his coffee. He honestly wasn't sure if he could tell his aunt about it but then again, the news media were soon going to learn about a large underground explosion in the Dolomites and it wouldn't take them long to realize what caused it. Enough independent experts survived in the world to confirm that the explosion was nuclear in origin or at least looked nuclear. Plus, there was EBSIS who had also detected it and were already screaming murder about it accusing the UEG of illegal underground weapons testing and other such political bullshit. They would no doubt brief the worlds media on it and there were enough anti-UEG media outlets out there still – all of whom had access to the steadily being rebuilt internet – to let the whole world know what had just taken place.

Thus, there was no reason for him not to tell her.

"I can," he said at last. "Sensors on our orbital satellites detected a small-scale nuclear explosion, roughly comparable in strength to the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima, beneath the Dolomites. Ground based seismometers registered it a few seconds later. We've determined that it came from somewhere beneath Marmolada."

Maria blinked. "Someone detonated a nuke beneath the highest peak in the Dolomites," she asked incredulous, vaguely remembering that she and Nathan had planned to climb the Marmolada during their trip to Italy, after exploring the old World War One trails that the Italians had cut into the very rock of the mountains, as they were both were – or in her case had been as she was a bit too old for it now, the ravages of time in the form of arthritis beginning to take their toll, years of worrying about Nathan and the surprise death of her brother to a previously unknown heart condition hadn't helped there either – keen and experienced mountaineers. Well until Nathan ran away – which she now knew to be the result of some kind of mind altering/controlling biological organism that he'd been infected with presumably when he'd gone to that disco/party the night before he vanished – to serve whoever this Vosegus character was.

"It looks like it," Rick confirmed. "The working theory is that Vosegus – whoever or whatever he is – is behind it, probably to destroy whatever base he had hidden there as he had to know that we would find it eventually, though we cannot be certain. Though its really set off a political shitstorm both within the UEG and with those independent groups like EBSIS."

"Maybe it was part of his plan? Cause chaos while going to hide somewhere else," Maria suggested though she didn't comment on how they would have eventually found the bases location. That was obvious as they would simply ask Nathan as she was sure that, if he were well enough, her son would have to answer some questions about what had been going on these last three and a half years with him and with Vosegus.

"Very likely. I know that possibility has occurred to Admiral Gloval. The council will look into it."

"You respect Admiral Gloval a great deal, don't you Rick. I can hear it in your voice."

"Yeah, I do all of us who were on the SDF-1 – either because they were assigned there or like me and the citizens of Macross City got caught in the space fold and dumped out near Pluto – do. Because he earned it as I don't think anyone else would have been able to get us back to Earth in the way he did not with an entire fleet of Zentraedi warships in the way. He's a good man, tough as hell, ruthless in the way only Russians can really be when he wants to be but compassionate and fair."

"You'll have to tell me a bit more about that voyage I don't know anything really about it. Hell until just after the Rain I thought that…"

"… that I and everyone who was on Macross Island was dead," Rick finished for her, "you can blame the late, and very unlamented by just about everyone, Senator Russo, and his cronies for that. They wanted to hide the fact that we were attacked by the Zentraedi to a) avoid causing a panic and b) to buy time to finish their white elephant Grand Cannon projects."

"Politicians," Maria said with a snort, letting the distain she'd long had for politicians show in her voice. Rick chuckled at her response and was about to reply when a soft groan from the direction of the bed caught both their attention. Both their eyes shot to the bed…

…just in time to see Nathan open his eyes. Before abruptly shutting them again as he was suddenly dazzled by the overhead lights.

"Ooh bright light, bright light," he said a hint of humour in his voice, making both Rick and Maria chuckle as he sounded so Gizmo from the Gremlins movies. Obviously despite everything he'd been through Nathan's sense of humour – which according to his mother he'd inherited from his father – was still intact. At the sound of their chuckles Nathan looked over and blinked. "Mom? Rick?"

"Yes, we're here," Maria replied with a smile even as Nathan raised a hand to shield his eyes from the overhead lights, only to pause gazing in shock as he saw his arm.

"What, what's happened to me," Nathan breathed, before looking back at them again. "Where am I? And Rick you're in a uniform! I thought you said you would never join the military?"

"You're in a recovery room in the infirmary of a military base on Crete," Rick answered, "and I know I said that, but life has away of changing all your plans, so does getting dumped out by Pluto in a battlefortress with seventy four thousand other people and having to fight against a thousand ship strong alien armada across the length of the solar system to get back home after your fold drive mysteriously goes bye-bye."

"Huh when was this?" Nathan asked confused as he didn't remember any of this. "And does it have something to do with me suddenly looking like I've had a body transplant from Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

Rick and Maria exchanged a look. "What's the last thing you remember baby?" Maria asked, making her son pout slightly at being referred to as baby. She knew he hated it when she did that not that she was going to stop as no matter what had happened to him, what he'd been through or how big he was Nathan was and always would be her baby and that's all there was to it.

Nathan frowned puzzled by the question. "I went to that party at the nightclub I was invited to. I remember drinking a lot like you do. Someone must have slipped me something when I got tipsy as I remember feeling euphoric and…" his voice trailed off as he was suddenly assault by a barrage of images, memories, and feelings. They were his and yet not his at the same time and swept through his mind like a flood making it impossible for him to ignore them.

"What's happening," Maria demanded looking at her nephew as Nathan's eyes abruptly shut and he suddenly started gripping the sheet on the bed with a white-knuckle grip. Behind his eyelids she could see his eyes moving rapidly and his breathing was getting faster too.

"I can't be sure, but I think he's remembering everything that's happened to him over the last three and a half years," Rick answered a moment before Nathan abruptly screamed and writhed on the bed as though he was in tremendous pain. It only lasted for a moment or two before he went still but maintained his death grip on the bedsheet before his back arched again and he began talking in a language neither of them had ever heard before. Though that ended a few seconds later being replaced by shaking and shivering before he seemed to calm.

Nathan's eyes opened again. "Mommy," he breathed sounding like a small, frightened child and not the six-foot tall two hundred- and thirty-five-pound man that he now was. His expressive green eyes shining with tears of pain, humiliation, rage, shame, and regret.

"It's okay Nathan," Maria said standing up and moving to sit on the side of the bed. Gently she reached over and pulled him over to her, letting him bury his head in her lap. "It's over now, your safe, Vosegus cannot hurt or use you anymore."

At her words the floodgates opened, and Nathan began to weep. Maria gently wrapped her arms around him, comforting him as she had done ever since he was a small child. Rick for his part reached out and put a comforting hand on his cousin's arm. Neither said anything, they didn't need, to nor was there really anything that they could say, all they could do was what they were doing and offer as much support and comfort as was possible while Nathan cried out his grief and humiliation.

After what seemed like hours the tears slowed and then finally stopped. Nathan slipping back into an exhausted sleep. Maria gently laid him back on the bed, stood up and placed the sheet back over him. Then she stood there and just watched him sleep, her own emotions churning as she gazed upon his reddened, tear-streaked face. It was going to take him a long time to really recover from this, if he ever truly could, and that infuriated her to no end. After a moment she felt Rick's hand touch her shoulder.

"Rick, I want you to promise me something," she said at last voice thick with numerous emotions. "Find this Vosegus character whoever he is, whatever he is and wherever he's hiding. Find him and kill him for what he's done."

"Oh, you can bet I will Aunt Maria," Rick answered as his expressive blue eyes – normally so full of kindness and warmth – turned colder than artic ice as he let his own anger and hatred for the person/being/whatever who had done this to Nathan – and who knew how many others - show. "I will find him, and I will kill him."

Wind Tunnel

Fort Minotaur

A Few Hours Later

Dressed in Tristan powered armour Colonel Louis Ferretti would admit, if asked, to being slightly nervous as he gazed down the length of the repurposed wind tunnel at the Stargate. He had seen and done a lot over the course of his military career, first in the US Air Force and then in the STORM Commandoes after they'd been formed, but he would admit that the prospect of walking through an alien device and being instantaneously transported to another planet six hundred light years away made him slightly - well alright more than slightly – nervous. He was also worried that by going through this thing, by opening this doorway to other worlds if the Zentraedi legends about these Stargates/Star Portals were true, that they could be opening another Pandora's Box. And do we really need to do that, he thought, after all we are still dealing with the aftermath of the first one.

After a moment he mentally shrugged. It really wasn't his place to question why the top brass had decided to go ahead with this mission through the gate – a mission that was also going to see a Zentraedi cruiser dispatched from Breetai's remaining fleet to the orbit of the planet they were going to as backup in case they needed it – he just had to lead it and do the best he could to get his people back alive. At least they were going through in full armour and weapons and not unarmed as some of the more peacenik members of the UEG had wanted. As he heard it both Admiral Gloval and General Maistroff had put their foot down on that issue and the peaceniks weren't strong enough politically to ignore either of those two heavyweights.

"Colonel Ferretti are you and your team ready," General Richards voice abruptly said over his helmet speakers. Ferretti gazed at the other members of his twelve man squad, all of whom nodded in agreement as did the scientists and technicians – who looked so small in their armoured environmental suits which were naturally much lighter and less resilient to damage than the Tristan was – who would be accompanying them.

"Yes, sir we are," he replied into his radio after a moment.

"Excellent," Richards replied before obviously switching to the PA system. "Doctor Carter if you wouldn't mind entering the coordinates again."

"Understood," Carter replied from where she was standing by the control pedestal. Ferretti found himself wishing that she was coming with him, having been a captain in the US Air Force before the arrival of the SDF-1 and having done combat tours in Iraq she knew how to handle herself in a fight should they end up in one. Sadly, she would not be coming, being needed here on Fort Minotaur to continue research into both the Stargate and the modified destroids that had attacked the base a few days ago. Truth be told he was also wishing that Doctor Jackson was coming with them, the archaeologist had had quite a hard life since he'd been laughed out of academia in the pre-Rain days and there was something about him that said he could handle himself just fine in a fight, as his skills and knowledge of ancient cultures could be useful but sadly he wasn't.

Instead, he turned his full attention back to the Stargate and watched as it began to turn and one by one the chevrons locked and lit up. It really was an amazing thing to look at and think about. That millions of years ago some ancient, now long gone alien race, had created these devices. Devices that by creating stable, traversable wormholes in a planetary atmosphere and gravity well in the way they did defied the laws of physics as they currently understood them. Not even the revelations that had come with reverse engineering robotechnology from the SDF-1 had challenged their understanding of physics to quite the same level as these things did. Which was saying something as what they had learned from the SDF-1 had opened up fields of science and engineering that had never been discovered, let alone explored, before that ship fell out of the sky back in ninety-nine.

The Stargate roared to life a silver-blue explosion of energy erupting from it and coming halfway towards them before abruptly dropping back and stabilizing into a shimmering water-like curtain of silver-blue energy. Okay I have to admit that's a pretty impressive effect, he thought with a slight smile. Which naturally nobody could see through the opaque faceplate of his helmet.

"Alright people move out," he said into the shared radio frequency. "We'll go through two-by-two and make sure that you're on your guard when we get through. Even with the footage from the Eagle drone we don't know exactly what kind of situation we'll be walking into."

"Sir yes sir," the other commandoes acknowledged followed by more muted understood from their little gaggle of scientists and technicians. Taking the lead Ferretti brought his rifle up to the ready position – taking a moment to marvel once again that he was holding an actual laser rifle instead of the P90 he would have used just a few short years ago – and began advancing slowly, cautiously towards the Stargate. The HUD in his helmet showing another commando – identified by his Tristan's ID as Captain Julian Chandler – walking beside him. The rest of the squad and the scientists following closely behind them.

In seconds he was face to face with the event horizon of the wormhole. He took a few moments to collect himself and steady his nerves. Then he resolutely stepped forward and crossed the event horizon and the world went crazy…

… suddenly he was travelling down a twisting ethereal tunnel of bluish-green light. Beyond which he could see stars, moons and planets streaking by at impossible speed. Pulses of energy in the shape of the Stargate's outer ring chevrons pulsed along the conduit at regular intervals, while the conduit itself twisted and turned in all directions and at angles that would have given even the craziest rollercoaster designers nightmares. All the time there was the feeling to tremendous speed yet paradoxically no sense of any gee forces affecting him. The tunnel/conduit thing straightened out and ahead came a brilliant point of light. The light enveloped him…

…and suddenly he was stepping out the gate on a planet six hundred light years from his own.

"Whoa now that was a rush," Chandler said from beside him as they cautiously moved down a concrete ramp to the ground level.

"It was," Ferretti agreed as they reached the bottom of the ramp. As they did so he heard a strange slurping sound and the ID's of the next two commandoes in his squad appeared as they finished transiting the Stargate. While he waited for the rest of the team to arrive themselves, he carefully swept the room, eyes and rifle sweeping by sectors looking for any and all potential threats.

Naturally there were none.

What he did see however was the same evidence of the battle that had taken place here as the Eagle drone had seen. Somehow seeing it in person like this, seeing the skeletons wearing odd brown uniforms laying sprawled where they'd fallen cut down by unknown alien energy weapons, was even more disturbing than it had been on the recording. Plus, he could see things that the drone had missed like the shell casings littering the floor like metallic confetti, which confirmed that whoever the people who had been here had been they'd put up one hell of a fight against whoever or whatever had attacked them. We really should do something for these poor people's remains, he thought sadly gazing at the bodies. Given the skeletal state of the remains it was obvious that it would be a tricky thing to do, but they'd do if when they had the chance if only to give these dead soldiers the peace their souls deserved.

"Jesus I'm surprised nobodies cleaned up these bodies," Chandler commented as the last of their expedition team came through the gate from Earth. A moment later the gate shut down with a momentary flash of vapour as the wormhole disappeared. "Surely there are people on this planet who would honour the sacrifice of the dead and give these people a proper burial or whatever other funerary rites are appropriate for this culture."

"Maybe nobody has because nobodies left alive on this planet," one of the scientists, his ID indicating a Doctor Peter Hall, commented. "Whoever attacked this place might not just have attacked through the Stargate. They could have attacked from orbit as well."

"You mean done to this planet what Dolza tried to do to us Doctor," one of the techs asked.

"Yes."

"Well, that's a cherry thought," Chandler commented even though he knew it was the most likely outcome as anybody advanced enough to have energy weapons like the ones that had to have been used here would be advanced enough to have fold capable starships. Thus, it would have been incredibly easy, not to mention logical, for them to have brought warships into orbit to bombard the planet from space. It was certainly what they would have done if they'd wanted to attack a planet, though they would never gone to the extent that Dolza did during the Rain of Death. Having been on the receiving end of one themselves they would never subject a people or a planet to such a devastating bombardment.

"It's also quite idle speculation at this point in time," Ferretti said bringing an end to the quite morbid discussion. "The Zentraedi cruiser dispatched to support us by Commander Breetai will arrive in orbit in about half an hour. I want to have something to report to her captain when they arrive that can be relayed back to Earth. So here is what we are going to do. We know that there is far more to this place than what the Eagle drone was able to investigate, areas and sections sealed off by heavy steel doors. We will split into two teams and begin investigating the rest of this bunker, see if we can find out more about who these people were, what they knew about the Stargate and anything on the people who attacked and defeated them.

"Doctor Hall, Technician Grayson you two and six commandoes will come with me," he continued using a small control panel on his left vambrace to designate who would be going with who, "the rest of you will be with Captain Chandler. I want radio checks every five minutes, just because this place looks abandoned after the attack doesn't necessarily mean that there are no dangers here. Any questions?"

"Should we not leave someone here to watch the Stargate?" Doctor Hall suggested.

"There isn't any need for that doc," Ferretti replied before gestured to something above Hall. "Our little friend there will watch the gate and alert us if it activates. It auto synced up to my armour's computer when we came through the gate."

Hall blinked, wondering what Ferretti was getting at, before looking up to see the Eagle drone sent through yesterday still here floating like a silent sentry above the gate. How is that thing still working, he thought until he remembered that the Eagle drone used a protoculture flat cell as a power source and not a polycrystalline battery. It could stay operational for several days if needs be before the cell would need to be replaced.

"I forgot the Eagle drones use protoculture as a power source," he admitted looking a little sheepish.

"That's easily done if you're not used to working with them," Ferretti replied with a smile. "And it was a fair question, nevertheless. Does anyone have any more questions?"

"Sir no sir," the commandoes all chorused. The scientists and the technicians for their part merely shook their heads to indicate that they had no questions.

"Alright then we all know what we're supposed to be doing so let's get to it."

Planetary Orbit

Half Hour Later

High above the orbit of the planet a section of space suddenly rippled with a heat haze like shimmer. Space the size of a quark warped alarming as the barrier that separated normal space from hyperspace came under sudden, massive attack from within. The warp expanded until a tiny ball of light – roughly comparable in size to a tennis ball – materialized in normal space. In moments the sphere expanded till it was over four kilometres in diameter and to a casual observer would have looked like a whirling ball of golden frosted glass. Within the sphere a shape began to form, skeletal and indistinct at first before rapidly solidifying as the ship fully integrated into normal space-time. With a gyroscopic flash of blue Cherenkov radiation, the fold sphere evaporated leaving the vessel floating free in orbit.

The cruiser dispatched by Commander Breetai had arrived and it did not go unnoticed.

Sitting in orbit, hidden from both the naked eye and sensors by a field that put it slightly out of phase with normal space-time, a small satellite immediately detected the arrival of an unknown alien vessel. A vessel that did not match any design known to its masters, nor did its means of arrival match anything in their database. For a few moments the satellites computer deliberated on what to do, running through a number of different decision trees and logic matrices to determine the correct course of action.

Finally, after ninety seconds of considering the issue the decision matrix came up with a solution. A small but highly advanced engine powered up and the satellite began moving closer to the unknown vessel. Invisible beams of subspace energy reached out from sensor arrays on the satellite and began to probe the mysteries of the unknown ship ready to report them to its masters when the time was right.

Bridge

Zentraedi Cruiser

That Same Time

"Defold operation complete sir."

Standing in his command blister Captain Serval, formerly of the Imperial Zentraedi Forces and now a proud member of Breetai's Free Zentraedi Forces, smiled at the report from helm control. He was pleased to find that their period of time sitting in orbit above the Terran homeworld hadn't done anything to impede his crews operating efficiency. Especially given the distracting effect that micronian culture – with its strange allures and revelations that it was possible to have a life without being at war all the time – could have upon the Zentraedi.

He was pleased to note that if anything, learning some of the Terran methods of passing the time, had done wonders to improve efficiency aboard ship. As had the fact that while understandably mostly focused on repairing their planet after Dolza's assault the Terrans had taken the time to teach the Zentraedi how to maintain and repair they're technology properly instead of relying completely on automated systems that had been malfunctioning more and more often – or stopping altogether – as their supplies of protoculture fuel had dwindled. Something that was worth allying with them to learn on its own as its knowledge that the Robotech Masters, for reasons known only to themselves, had never let the Zentraedi have.

"Very good. Navigation, take us into a standard orbit please. Sensors begin running scans of the planet's surface. Communications attempt to contact the Terran team on the surface," Serval ordered. "See if you can determine their status."

"Yes sir," came the response from the appropriate consoles on the lower level of the bridge.

While his crew set about their tasks Serval turned his attention to the holographic screen floating in a projector field that showed an image of the planet that they were entering orbit of. Even from orbit it was immediately obvious that something had gone seriously wrong for the planet and that it had likely been attacked from space. There were vast areas of desert present where there should not have been deserts and he could see evidence of craters on the surface through the clouds. Craters that from their size and distribution patterns could only have been made by someone firing at the planet from orbit.

"Preliminary scans of the planet complete sir," sensors reported, "sensors indicate that the planet has been subjected to a sustained bombardment from orbit. We are detecting heavily damaged remains of urban areas as well as indications that numerous fault lines and volcanic systems were deliberately targeted."

"Any radiation?" Serval asked, "and is their any indication of how long ago this bombardment took place and what weapons might have been used."

"We are picking up very limited amounts of radiation sir. Not enough to be harmful long term. Residual patterns in the impact craters indicate that the planet was bombed from orbit with some type of plasma-based energy weapon. While we cannot be certain as we do not have any information on the exact weapon used, I believe that the bombardment took place sometime within the last decade. I am sorry but without knowing more about the weapons used we cannot be any more precise than that."

"Any sign of survivors?"

"I believe so we are picking up some clusters of micronian life signs in some of the more remote areas of the planet along with some indications of campfires burning. Curious."

"How so?"

"The campfires we're detecting are burning much hotter than would be expected," the other Zentraedi replied with a puzzled frown, giving interrogative commands to his console. "They're also emitting an energy signature that I am sure we have seen before stand by… confirmed sir the energy signature matches sekitan being burned."

"Sekitan! Here? Confirm that."

Like only a few of his fellows Serval knew exactly what sekitan was. It was a coal-like ore found on numerous worlds across their native galaxy though the largest known deposits of it were known to be in the region of space claimed by the Karbarran Commonwealth. Like coal sekitan could be burned for heat and to produce energy but unlike regular coal when burned it released small amounts of a type of subatomic particle that could not exist in normal space for more than a few seconds before it broke down releasing additional heat, energy, and very small amounts of antimatter. It was quite a formidable power source, one that had been used to power a number of civilizations – including that of the Robotech Masters – in the centuries before Zor had created protoculture.

Still to find it here was surprising even if it wasn't being used properly as he was aware that Karbarrans especially burned it in highly pressurised chambers that allowed them to get as much energy out of the ore as possible.

"Confirmed captain. Whatever survivors are down there they're burning sekitan presumably for heat and food preparation. Scans indicate that the planet has numerous rich deposits of the ore. It looks like the natives were just beginning to mine it when they were attacked."

"Interesting," Serval commented making a mental note to inform Commander Breetai of this finding. Knowing that sekitan actually existed in this galaxy, alongside naquada, in mineable quantities certainly gave them and their Terran allies additional options when it came to power generation.

"Captain, we have successfully made contact with Colonel Ferretti's exploration team on the surface," communications reported. "Colonel Ferretti reports that they are making progress examining the underground base containing the star portal device however it is slow going due to lack of power and water ingress on the lower levels of the base. They think they have located the bases main information storage archive but haven't reached it yet due to a number of sealed blast doors that they're having to laser their way through."

"Understood. Ask Colonel Ferretti to keep us appraised of their progress. Also advise him that we have determined that the planet was attacked from orbit with plasma weapons by an unknown party sometime in the last decade."

"Captain we're being scanned," tactical reported.

Serval blinked in surprise. "Source," he demanded.

"Unknown. The scanning beams are originating from a point in orbit on a bearing of zero two four mark zero one nine. However according to our sensors there is nothing there."

"Odd. Flight operations dispatch some fighters to investigate."

"Yes sir."

Less than two minutes after Serval gave the order a flight of three Gnerl-class fighter pods launched from the starboard flight deck of the Thuverl Salan-class cruiser. Immediately the three bell-shaped fighters arced around and began making their way towards the source of the scanning beams sweeping their mothership. The satellite immediately noted their approach and determined that its scans had been picked up and traced by the unknowns.

Logic and decision circuits went into overdrive and after a few moments the satellite – maintaining the full integrity of its cloaking field – began to manoeuvre away from the area it had previously been in. Before it did so however it sent a brief subspace message to its creators informing them of what was happening over this punished planet.

And prompting some action to be taken.

"Captain the fighters report no contact at the coordinates indicated."

Serval frowned. This was strange as by all accounts there should be something there, even if it was just a probe of some kind, as subspace sensor beams didn't just come out of nowhere. Yet there wasn't and he began to wonder if the beams had been there at all or if it was some kind of sensor malfunction.

"Check our sensors make sure they're working correctly," he ordered.

"We have sir all sensor and data gathering systems are operating within normal parameters."

"Curiouser and curiouser," Serval muttered a moment before communications spoke.

"Captain we've just detected a subspace message beamed into deep space from near to those coordinates."

"What! Can you determine what it said."

"Negative sir the transmission was too brief for us to lock onto and was also encrypted."

Serval scowled at that a number of mental alarm bells now ringing. He didn't like this, he didn't like it at all as someone was obviously spying on them, someone who had a form of stealth technology that they could not defeat.

"Deploy an enhanced CAP around us and bring the ship to alert status two," he ordered after a moment. "Communications advise Colonel Ferretti that we might have to send a dropship down to retrieve him and his team. Make sure to tell him why. Engineering, begin preparing the fold drive for an immediate return to Earth."

"Yes sir."

As his crew began to go about their assigned tasks, and alarms began to sound throughout the cruiser summoning the crew to stations though not quite to battle stations, Serval went over to the chair in the command blister and sat down mulling over everything that had just taken place. It bothered him greatly and to quote a Terran movie trilogy he had watched a few days earlier he had a bad feeling about this…

…a very bad feeling.

Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust. I hope you all enjoyed it. I think you can all guess whose satellite that is and who is going to show up to gate crash this particular Terran and Zentraedi party in the next chapter. Hopefully it will not be too long in coming. Until next time.