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 Twenty-Five

Ancient Space Station

Orbiting Mars

Rick Hunter listened intently as Primus explained, and through the neural interface showed him, both how big the Alteran industrial facility beneath the Martian surface was and just what it was capable of manufacturing. It was much larger than he had been expecting extending over the whole of the five thousand square kilometre expanse of the region known as the Tharsis Bulge and itself extending nearly two kilometres down beneath the surface of the planet. While still considerably smaller overall than the Robotech Factory Satellite currently sitting in the L4 Lagranian Point above Earth the Ancient facility was still built on an impressive scale.

What could be built here was equally as impressive. While the factory satellite was primarily programmed to build entire, million strong fleets of robotech warships – as well as all the weapons, battle mecha and grow the Zentraedi crews – in just a month the facility on Mars was designed to be far less specialized. Instead it could make just about everything that you could imagine with the only limits being on if the blueprints were in the memory and there was enough raw materials and energy available to do the job. The only thing it couldn't do was make weapons be they energy or projectile since those required specialist military fabricators that simply were not present here. However anything else a warship could need, from shield generators and emitters to hyperdrives and sublight engines, could be made.

Honestly between this place and the factory satellite – once it repairs were complete and some of the lines, fabricators and forges reprogrammed for less military things – the sheer level of industrial capability that had fallen into humanities lap was beyond insane. It was not lost on him, and certainly wouldn't be lost on Admiral Gloval and the others, that if they had had just the Mars facility during or before the outbreak of the Robotech War the battle first with Breetai then with the Zentraedi Main Fleet, and Dolza, would have been a great deal easier. Certainly both would have been a lot less costly in terms of lives lost and resources destroyed.

"You mentioned to me earlier that this place is powered by potentia modules," Rick said to Primus, even as he mentally crossed his fingers that he was saying the name correctly. "Can you explain what they are to me and how many of them does the industrial facility require in order to function?"

"A potentia module is the last great power source discovered by my creators," Primus explained as the industrial facility around them disappeared and he found himself reunited with his body on the orbiting station. Rick opened his eyes to see a new hologram floating in front of him, what it revealed was a vaguely cylindrical device about the length of his forearm made of various coloured crystals. It honestly looked like something that belonged in a pre-Rain New Age giftshop and not an advanced alien power source.

"Potentia modules extract vacuum energy from an artificial region of subspace contained within the core of the module until it reaches maximum entropy and the pocket collapses at which point a new one will need to be created inside the depleted module," Primus continued, shocking Rick by the nature of the alien power source, more because of how different it was to protoculture than because of its existence. "The yield is considerably higher than the vacuum energy-based power source aboard your fighter or aboard the Zentraedi cruiser."

"Wow," Rick breathed even as some of the information on how powerful these things were flowed into his mind through the interface. Enough for him to get the gist of what they were and how they blew reflex furnaces and protoculture energizers – themselves incredibly powerful sources of energy – away in terms of the sheer amount of power they could produce. If he was understanding this right even one of these things could power the factory satellite at full capacity for over a hundred years and if he was understanding Primus and this right they were like lithium-ion batteries and could be recharged if depleted. "And the industrial facility and the terraforming plant are both powered by these things?"

"Yes each facility requires two modules in order to function at full capacity. Once in place even if the time dilation field is used the ones placed in the terraforming plant as you called it would still retain enough power generation capacity to be useful for about a century before the subspace pocket collapsed and the module would need to be essentially recharged.

"The two the industrial plant would require would even at maximum use be able to provide the facility with power for a thousand years," Primus continued, "at the end of which they too would die and need to be replaced and recharged."

"But there are none of those modules on the planet right now?"

"No though there are a number of potentia modules stored here aboard the station ready for use that I can release to you. If you find any depleted modules I also have the device here needed to recharge them I just cannot manufacture new ones. The process involved in doing so is long, complex and some of the elements involved in the synthesis process are highly volatile. Thus it was done at a series of specialist facilities in otherwise dead solar systems. I do not know at this time if any of those facilities still exist in this galaxy or where they would be if they did still exist. Though they would also be cloaked and thus the chances of anyone stumbling across them would be remote indeed."

"I see," Rick replied somewhat disappointed that they would have no ability to manufacture more of this advanced alien power source, that could have been used to supplement or replace protoculture. Still what they had here was a lot and well, you could never have everything. "How many of these modules are stored here?"

"Twelve. By tradition it was the maximum amount of potentia modules that could be stored at any one location at a time, why this tradition existed I do not know."

"Traditions can be funny things like that."

"Indeed. Is there anything more you wish to know about the industrial facilities?"

"No though when you transcribe what we talked about to a crystal will you include a list of basic products both for civilian life and for starship construction that can be manufactured there."

"As you wish, I will begin the transcription process now it will only take a few minutes and most of that time will be taken up growing the crystal."

"This whole crystal technology is new to us," Rick admitted, "could you include information on it and how the crystals are grown, programmed, how data is stored on them and so on."

"Of course though I am surprised that you do not use control crystal technology," Primus commented even as it accessed the station's library files and began to extract the information on control crystal technology and all the theories behind it. "How do your ships and those of the Zentraedi function without them?"

"We use something called adaptive circuitry that as its name suggests can adapt and reconfigure itself depending on the situation and needs at the time. For information storage and manipulation we use fluid data cores and routers as well as quantum matrix processors."

"Ah similar basic principles but applied in a different way intriguing."

Rick smiled slightly as the Ancient artificial intelligence was clearly intrigued with the systems that they had developed after the SDF-1 first fell out of the sky and crashed into Macross Island during the last year of the previous millennium. It was nice to see that while the technology here was obviously far more advanced than their current technology was that they could surprise and impress Primus. A change in the station's sensor feeds caught his attention and brought him away from those thoughts. With an ease that surprised him – this neural interface thing was really strange but at the same time really cool – he accessed the sensor feed…

…to see that the ship that they had first been sent here to investigate was now clear of the flanks of Arsia Mon's and was being towed up into orbit by the vessel that he somehow knew was called a gateship. Though why anyone would call a small craft like that a gateship was odd unless… it was designed to go through the Stargates as with the engine pods retracted it would certainly be just small enough to fit through the event horizon. Curious about the vessel that had brought them out here – and led to the discovery of this station and the Ancient technology and facilities hidden on Mars – he reached out with the station's sensors and scanned it.

The results of the scan and the stations analysis of them registered on his mind immediately. The vessel wasn't that large only fifty-eight meters long and about thirty meters wide and vaguely resembled a horseshoe crab in shape. The hull was composed of an alloy of trinium and titanium that while light and strong wasn't as durable as the hull of the SDF-1 or other Robotech vessels. It was obviously a light warship like a corvette as not only did the vessel have shielding and the thickness and layering of the hull suggested it was armour but it was surprisingly well armed for something so small possessing four beam cannons. Cannons which, after a few seconds, the systems identified as particle beam weapons.

He wasn't surprised to find that there were no lifeforms aboard, though there was no obvious reason as to why it had been abandoned and left on Mars. The hull was completely intact and the atmosphere inside a normal nitrogen-oxygen mix in the ratios compatible with human life. There were no harmful biological organisms present aboard and nothing harmful in any other way either. Even the power source was still intact just powered almost completely down as the fuel cells were definitely still filled with a fine powdered material that the computer confirmed was sekitan.

"An interesting and quite advanced little vessel," Primus commented as Rick browsed the analysis, noting that the projected output of the ship's particle beams was considerably less than what even the smallest Zentraedi warship could generate while being naturally stronger than mecha generated beams. "Though I am surprised that a vessel this sophisticated is using that power source. It would be far more efficient for them to use naquada as a power source."

"It's probably all they have. From what the Tok'ra and the Asgard tell us the majority of the naquada rich worlds in this galaxy are under the control of the Goa'uld Empire."

"I am not familiar with that species. But then my database has not been updated fully since my construction ten thousand years ago."

"As I understand it they're a race of serpentine sentient parasites. They burrow into the body of another sentient being and take over complete control of the body suppressing the mind of the host, essentially making them a prisoner in their own body. They've apparently taken humans to worlds all over the galaxy where they're kept as slaves, labourers, sources of potential hosts and worshippers as the creatures believe that they are gods.

"We have only fought them once so far when the Goa'uld Hades led a raid on our planet through the Stargate," Rick continued, "neither of us enjoyed the experience though the Zentraedi forces we sent against him, since our own fleet is still being rebuilt, were ultimately victorious over Hades."

"How was such a species able to evolve?" Primus asked both appalled by the Goa'uld behaviour and curious about how they could possibly come about. Knowing that normally his creators, in their self-appointed role as the caretakers and shepherds of life in this galaxy would never knowingly allow such a race to evolve or at least develop in such a… well… evil, as they would have defined it since the Goa'uld took away their hosts freedom of will, fashion. His historical files confirmed that there had been a number of incidents where races with that kind of megalomaniacal mindset had risen, each time the Alterans had stopped them either through diplomacy or, if they refused to heed the Ancients warnings and change their ways, through military force.

"I don't know we only learned of them recently or rather relearned of them. My ancestors drove them from Earth a few millennia ago and buried the gate so they couldn't return easily. We only rediscovered it recently."

"I see I have finished transcribing to the crystal for you," Primus answered, prompting Rick to come out of the neural interface and stand up as soon as the chair turned back to normal.

"Thank you Primus."

"You are most welcome. However before you return to your fighter and leave the station would you like me to show you the potentia modules? I can even release one to you for your superiors to have examined."

Rick blinked in surprise at that. "That would be very nice Primus," he said knowing that the many scientists that the UEG had in the employ, the vast majority of the planets remaining scientific minds, through groups like the Robotech Research Group would go absolutely ga-ga to examine such an advanced alien power source. A power source that put the immense power of protoculture to shame. The prospect of having access to some more of these potentia modules – though there would certainly be considerable disappointment that they didn't have the device needed to manufacture them though Primus could recharge depleted modules for them should they find one or one the modules he'd give them reach maximum entropy and die – would certainly make the UEG and UEDF even more inclined to allow the terraforming of Mars than they no doubt already were.

"Very well then. If you follow me I will show you to the storage room or would you rather I transport you there?"

Rick considered that for a few moments. On one hand he had to admit that the transporter beam was a very quick and efficient means of getting around - and given what was buried on Mars he wouldn't be surprised if in a year or two they gained the technology to do it themselves – he, honestly, had had quite enough of being teleported around for one day. Truth be told it would be quite a while before he got quite comfortable with the idea of going through a real-life version of a Star Trek transporter beam. Especially if the real-life version had anywhere near the potential problems and pitfalls that could – and frequently did if you happened to be on a ship called Enterprise or Voyager – occur.

"I would rather walk Primus to be honest," he said at last. "I've had quite enough of being teleported around for one day, it's a bit disconcerting."

"Understandable considering your species has never encountered the technology before today. Come this way," Primus answered, turning, and beginning to walk out of the room. Rick quickly followed the holographic avatar out of the chair room into the rest of the station.

It really didn't take that long to reach the storage area for the potentia modules. Which really didn't surprise Rick that much as based on the overview of the station he had seen in the neural interface most of the station was given over to storage bays and docking facilities. The crew habitation areas, where he was now, were mostly in the core of the station. Thus getting anywhere on foot was relatively easy.

The door to a small room opened and Primus led him inside. The room was fairly plain saved for a mushroom-shaped device in the centre of the room with a single circular opening in the middle of the top, surrounded by softly glowing controls. He didn't have to ask Primus to know somehow that the device was the potentia charging station and that it itself was connected directly to the stations main power core – something that the system had identified as a gravitic reactor – which is where it got the power to do whatever it did to recharge depleted potentia. Alongside the central device set into the walls of the room were a series of circular openings in each sat a potentia module with a small, illuminated panel next to it.

"The modules are unlocked," Primus told him, "choose one and put your hand on the panel. Then you will just have to order through the interface the module to come out."

Rick nodded and walked up to the nearest wall. Without hesitation he reached out and touched the glowing panel and immediately once again felt the station's systems in his mind. The interface here wasn't anywhere near as extensive as when he was sat in the chair and he could tell it only allowed operation of the systems in this room including the charger. With a thought he ordered the system to let him have one of the modules, immediately he felt it scan his mind to check his authorisation before accepting the command. With a click and a whirr the module obediently slid forward on the cradle it had been sat in. Removing his hand from the interface panel Rick picked up the module, it felt slightly warm in his hands confirming that it was indeed made of crystal.

"Please hold out your other hand," Primus said to him. Rick raised an eyebrow but did as the artificial intelligence indicated and a moment later, with the golden shimmer of a transporter beam, a card-like crystal appeared and dropped into his palm. "That crystal contains all the information that you asked for as well as the analysis of the scan data of the alien vessel. I have already placed a private reader with a copy in a tools compartment on your fighter."

"I see thank you Primus."

"I am grateful to be of service. Is there anything more that you require of me or do you wish me to show you back to your fighter?"

"Nothing else at this time Primus. Just show me back to my veritech."

"Very well follow me."

Ten Minutes Later

Once more cocooned within the cockpit of Skull One Rick smiled as, with the faintest of jolts, the veritech passed through the force field that kept atmosphere in the station's main hangar bay and into space. He had to admit that he had enjoyed his time there aboard the station interacting with Primus and learning a bit more about the station and the facilities on, or rather beneath, the surface of Mars. In a very real sense seeing it with his own eyes, through the neural interface, had been a remarkable experience. The fact that it had been so utterly effortless – just thinking a command and it would happen – had been amazing and in a way quite frightening.

Especially when you realized that anyone sat in the control chair, their mind connected to the station's computer, could control the station's weapons systems. He had no idea what quantum slicer beams and drone weapons were – somehow he didn't think they were anything like the drones they used as the way Primus had said about them indicated to him that they were some type of missile or torpedo weapon – but he didn't doubt that they were capable of inflicting vast amounts of devastation. Possibly to an even greater degree than most robotech energy weapons this side of a reflex cannon. Which was quite a terrifying thought given the devastating power of robotech weaponry.

Mentally he shook off the thoughts about that and instead of focused on re-joining the rest of the expedition team sent out here. His scanner showed that the gateship had released the alien vessel from its tractor beam and returned to the station leaving the vessel floating free just outside of high planetary orbit – just far enough out of the gravity well to execute a space fold without graviton particle interference becoming a problem and scrambling their hyperspace vectors – and that the Zentraedi cruiser had manoeuvred so that it was directly over the derelict. The rest of the veritech's and the shuttle were all nearby, waiting for his return so they could return home.

As he approached his comm came to life with an incoming hail. He immediately answered it and the central screen switched to showing Lieutenant Sinclair in the cockpit of his Valkyrie. "Welcome back Skull Leader are you alright," Sinclair asked. "Did you accomplish what command wanted?"

"I am fine lieutenant and yes I did," Rick replied, glancing down between his legs to where the potentia module sat securely in the footwell. "I did what they wanted and more. Admiral Gloval and the rest of the Defence Council are going to be very interested when I make my report."

"Sir I should advise you that we monitored some kind of scanning beam sweeping the derelict from the station while you were there."

"I know lieutenant I was the one who ran the scan," Rick answered, "I have the analysis of the scan data with me as well for the scientists and robotechnologists to look over once we dock the derelict with the factory satellite… what's wrong?"

Alarm bells immediately began going off in Rick's head when Lieutenant Sinclair went a little pale at the mention of the factory satellite. "Sir a few minutes ago we received a message from command and factory station operations," Sinclair reported, "there has been an incident on the station and all docking is suspended. We're to take the derelict to the L5 shipyards instead."

"An incident! What kind of incident?"

"Some kind of explosion that's caused a major fire sir I'm afraid I don't know any more than that."

"I see," Rick replied with a concerned frown knowing that both Vince and Jean Grant were aboard the factory satellite, knowing Claudia she would be in a worried panic about her younger brother and his wife right now. Especially as he knew that Jean had recently discovered she was pregnant, Claudia had comm'd both him and Lisa in excitement to share the news. He pushed aside those thoughts for now. He would comm Claudia when they got back to check if she was alright, though if he knew Lisa she would already be on her way to assist her best friend even if that meant flying back across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to Fort Minotaur.

Assuming of course Admiral Gloval allowed it which he probably would since the hardnosed Russian did have a major soft spot for every member of the SDF-1's command crew.

"Has the Zentraedi cruiser adjusted its fold computations," he asked.

"They have sir. As soon as your in position they'll fold us back. We should come out of fold behind the moon."

"Hopefully it will go better than the last time we tried to fold to the moon," Rick commented, while he had not been a member of the Robotech Defence Force at the time he well remembered what had happened when the SDF-1 had attempted to fold to the dark side of the moon from Earth's atmosphere. They had ended up at Pluto with no fold drive and a long sublight flight to Earth all the while playing that most delightful of games called Dodge the Zentraedi.

"I hope so sir I've seen enough of Pluto to last a lifetime," Sinclair replied.

"Me too lieutenant, me too," Rick answered even as he glanced at his instruments and saw that he had almost reached the fold perimeter of the Zentraedi vessel. "I'm almost in position. Lieutenant make sure that the rest of the squadron and the shuttle are ready for the space fold while I finish getting in position."

"Aye sir." Sinclair signed off and Rick sighed softly as he guided Skull One into the correct position in the formation for the fold back to Earth. As he did so he found his thoughts turning to what Sinclair had said about an explosion and a serious fire on the factory satellite. He couldn't help but wonder just what had happened to cause that and why did it suddenly give him a very bad feeling that they were all missing something about what had caused it…

Something terrible.

Ascended Planes

"Well that's unexpected."

Zor's words hung pregnant in the air around his viewing font where he was standing with both Oma and Janus. All three ascended beings exchanging surprised and somewhat confused looks as to how Captain Hunter seemed to know, at some subconscious level, that there was something more to the explosion and fire on the factory satellite than what they had been told. It wasn't the only odd thing they had noted about him since he had begun interacting with the supervisory AI he'd renamed Primus. There had been a few times when he had just seemed to know things about the Ancient technology on the station without needing to be told.

"Indeed what could be causing that," Oma agreed, "I am not surprised that he carries the genetic marker of our kind, many of us did interbreed with humans when we first returned to Earth from Lantea after the war but still that doesn't explain an ability like that however minor it is. Terran humans aren't evolved enough yet for even minor psionic abilities like that. They shouldn't be for at least another thousand years as they record time."

"There is a possibility," Zor mused aloud as he mulled it over in his head. The same incredible intelligence that had spawned the protoculture matrix and much of the technological advances that had catapulted the Tirolian race to its current position coming into play, "as you know the ambient energy field generated by protoculture-based power sources is actually very beneficial to organic beings. It is possible that it is interacting with the genetic marker in unique way and acting as a catalyst for a low-level psionic ability. Protoculture does that with the Invid, they create a crude version of it when they ingest and process the seeds of the Flower of Life. It acts as a catalyst for sentience as well as creating ever stronger levels of psionic ability until you reach the Regis and the Regent."

"An interesting side effect," Janus noted.

"Indeed the Flower of Life is a universe of mysteries and enigma's in and of itself," Zor answered with a smile, he had studied the Flower of Life for centuries before his ascension. While he had learned a great deal from it, some of which he had given to the Robotech Masters as was required but a lot he had kept to himself as it would be too dangerous in the hands of Nimuul and the others like him, he knew he had barely scratched the surface of that plant's mysteries.

"Given that it is one of the few true wonders of the universe that is not surprising," Oma pointed out with a smile, "still I would suggest we watch young Mister Hunter. He might one day become worthy of joining us here on the ascended planes."

"Agreed."

Authors Notes: Well another chapter bites the metaphorical dust; I hope you all enjoyed it. I am honestly surprised by how quickly this chapter came together as I started working on it just after posting my last update to A Left Turn at Albuquerque and it practically seemed to write itself. Now before anyone accuses me of overpowering Rick his ability to sense things is a very minor one and is just the result of his exposure to protoculture based energy stimulating his ATA gene sequence in away to promote the development of the ability – Max has a similar ability due to his ATA gene but with him it manifests in his near-superhumanly fast reflexes which make him such a lethal pilot and hand to hand combatant – as such things have happened before in Stargate canon when the sequence has been artificially stimulated. Like for example both Jack and Rodney developed the ability to heal someone to the point of bringing them back from death – like Rodney did with Radek after the latter got a fatal electric shock – by touching them, Daniel developed telekinesis and electrokinesis and so on. Yes those are extreme examples that were ultimately undone but it opened the door for lesser and more minor effects to be a thing. Another thing it also fits in with how the Masters were able to – through their mastery of cloning and bioengineering – create the low-level telepathic link that binds triumvirates together. Until next time.