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 Thirty-Six
Bridge
Ancient Destroyer Aurelius
"New Macross City has been attacked."
Lisa's words echoed in Rick's head as he stared at the holographic screen showing her face and torso in shocked silence. While he was aware of the fact that there was a lot of tension growing on Earth, what with the breakaway states and the Zentraedi malcontents, he would never have thought that anyone of them would attack New Macross. Certainly not in the way that Lisa seemed to be implying that the city had been attacked. Oh, there had been a few odd instances of civil unrest, those kinds of things were inevitable from time to time, especially in the early days after the Rain when groups of survivors of the holocaust unleashed upon them by Dolza had been trickling in from the wastelands that had once been the Great Lakes region but nothing like this.
"What happened," he asked even as a report flashed through the datastream informing him that antigravity wave generators and gravitic ion sublight engines were now operational at full capacity thus he gave the order to the navigational computer to begin taking the Aurelius up into orbit, "do we know who is behind it?"
"Khyron happened," Lisa answered. "The attack started with several small explosions across the shopping and some of the residential areas. You know the kind of thing that some of the 'humans first' terrorist groups and breakaway state supporting paramilitaries like to carry out. Naturally we deployed forces to help deal with the issue and rescue trapped survivors.
"It turns out it was all a diversion.," she continued. "While the bulk of our available veritech and destroid units were deployed helping civil authorities a Cyclops recon ship struck the industrial district. They deployed a large force of battlepods confirmed to be led by Khyron himself and raided several warehouses and a factory before we could send a squadron of veritechs to chase them away. As they were leaving, they fired a few missiles and particle beam shots into the city to cause more damage and chaos."
"Damn him," Rick growled wishing, not for the first time, that he had been able to kill that purple haired Zentraedi warlord the last time they had faced each other Valkyrie to Officer Pod in battle before the final confrontation with Dolza and the Zentraedi Main Fleet. It would have saved them all quite a bit of grief as Khyron had been making a periodic, but significant, pain of himself over the last two years and had rapidly become one of the main ringleaders of those Zentraedi who still longed to serve the Robotech Masters. Unfortunately, he had also gotten very good at hiding in that time, striking a target and then vanishing into the dust and rock of the wastelands without a trace.
"Do we know what he took," he asked after a moment of silently fuming over Khyron's actions, and right on Thanksgiving too, almost as though he had planned it that way. Something he frankly wouldn't put past him or Azonia who was known to be aligned with him. "How bad is the damage and do we have casualty figures yet?"
"We're still assessing all of what he took but we do know one thing he took for certain was a full protoculture storage matrix," Lisa answered, "the numbers of dead and wounded are going to be very high as Khyron deliberately targeted civilian areas with his last missile salvo. Rick, I must tell you that Roy is among the wounded, he and Claudia were enjoying a day out in the shopping district when the first explosions occurred."
For a second Rick was silent, not trusting himself to speak. "Are they?" he asked at last desperately hoping that they were alright. He had literally just gotten Roy back, he wasn't sure how he would manage if he lost him again so soon, or ever in point of fact.
"They'll be fine Roy just has a concussion based on the last reports and Claudia's got a broken leg," Lisa hastened to reassure him, prompting him to sigh in relief. "But Rick that's not why I need you back here as soon as possible. It's Admiral Gloval. High Command was hit by one of the beams, he was pulled out of the rubble a few minutes ago."
"Is he?"
"He's alive but Rick he took a nasty blow to the head from falling debris. He's in a coma."
"Oh jeez. Guess that means you're in charge down there right now."
"Unfortunately," Lisa admitted with a resigned sigh. Rick understood all too well why she felt like that as it would mean dealing with the politicians of the United Earth Government, not to mention some of the more political officers on the Defence Council like Colonel Matthews. Something that, in his experience at least, was never a very pleasant thing to have to do however necessary it was. "Admiral Chase is taking charge of the fleet, so I don't have to worry about that but…"
"I understand," Rick answered even as with part of his mind he checked the systems and noted that the hyperdrive was almost back online. The ship was running a few more checks on the system – which had had to go from being completely cold and shut down – as well as the navigational array used when the ship was in hyperspace which should only take another couple of minutes. If everything checked out as it should then he would be able to take the ship into hyperspace within ten to fifteen minutes.
"The Aurelius is almost ready to enter hyperspace," he said, "once I can do that I'll head straight back to Earth. At the maximum safe speed for in-galaxy travel it shouldn't take me more than fifteen minutes to get back to Sol."
"The Aurelius?" Lisa questioned; she of course knew why Rick had been suddenly summoned to Calora but hadn't been aware of anything that had happened since then. With the suddenness and devastation of Khyron's attack she hadn't had time yet to read any of the progress reports that had been sent back to Earth through the Stargate. Thus, she was unaware of the various dramas that had taken place on the planet from the Goa'uld attack to the attempted coup by extremists and a power-hungry fool in the Caloran government.
"It's the name of this Ancient, or technically I should call it Lantean since the Ancients at the end of their civilization called themselves Lanteans, warship," Rick explained. "Believe me Lisa we're going to be busy with this ship for quite a while as there are a lot of mysteries here. Starting with the fact that apparently her original captain a Lantean named Bonran is one of my ancestors."
Lisa blinked in surprise. "How do you know all that?" she asked.
"It's a long story Lisa and I am not sure I really understand it myself yet. But going back to Khyron where is that purple haired bastard right now?"
"I look forward to reading your report then," Lisa answered knowing from his answer that Rick needed time to sort the whole thing out in his head before he could really report on it. Time she was quite willing to give him, plus there were other problems to worry about right now. Like the certain purple haired Zentraedi that Rick had just mentioned. "As for Khyron we're tracking his recon ship its heading towards the amazon basin where the Asgard detected a downed but partially restored battlecruiser. However, we're not able to pursue as he's passing through Gilead airspace right now and they're refusing to let our veritechs follow and their F-16's and F-22's is little threat to Khyron's ship so they're not even trying to intercept him themselves."
"So, we know where he's going," Rick mused as an idea began to occur to him. He guessed getting that battlecruiser fully operational was why Khyron had stolen a full protoculture storage matrix. After all, while they were sufficient to provide electrical power to the lights and life support systems the battlecruisers secondary fusion reactors didn't provide enough power to start the anti-gravity pods or the ion fusion engines. To say nothing of the main weapon systems, though the fusion reactors did provide enough power for defensive lasers and missile launchers. They would need the main reflex furnaces for that, something that with the stolen protoculture they would be able to restart.
"I know that look you've got an idea," Lisa said with a slight grin.
"I do and if we do this right, we can end the threat of Khyron once and for all. Then we will only have Zeraal to worry about."
"Tell me."
Rick grinned in a fashion – that made every predator wherever they were in the galaxy suddenly feel profoundly envious – and did just that.
Asgard Battleship Gungnir
Calora Orbit
That Same Time
Sitting in his command throne on the bridge of his flagship Supreme Commander Thor carefully read through the report on the amount of damage that the Skuld had sustained in the sudden battle with the Goa'uld System Lord Ba'al. Who had obviously felt great confidence in his new weapons systems and improved shields that he had risked a direct confrontation with an Asgard warship, the first Goa'uld to risk doing so for nearly fifteen hundred years.
Confidence that was sadly not misplaced.
While Audun and the rest of his crew had given a very good accounting of themselves, destroying six Goa'uld vessels in total, the Skuld had taken a major pounding during the battle. The new plasma beam weapons that some of Ba'al's ships had been equipped with, beams that their sensors confirmed were at least partially based in robotechnology, had been far more effective against the Skuld's shields than any Goa'uld weapon had ever been before causing significant damage to them with each shot. Something that was most concerning, as was the fact that the Goa'uld had figured out an improvement to their shields – shields that had already seen considerable improvements during their ongoing civil war with the adoption of a new more conformal shield system – that made them more resistant to beam based weapons. By the time the battle had ended the Skuld's shields had actually failed, with her hull armour starting to sustain damage.
Beyond the damage to the hull, which thankfully hadn't been penetrated though it was badly scorched and pitted in several areas, a number of systems aboard the Skuld had failed during the fight. One of the first systems to go down had been the hyperdrive so Audun wouldn't have been able to retreat. It was obvious that if Captain Hunter hadn't intervened when he did, firing a salvo of Ancient drone weapons from the warship on the surface, destroying the Goa'uld flagship – though sadly Ba'al had escaped as a System Lords escape shuttle had been detected entering hyperspace a few moments after the flagship exploded – as well as himself arriving along with Commander Neleya that the Skuld would have certainly been destroyed. Or worse would have been captured by Ba'al's forces giving the System Lords a long-coveted look at his peoples advanced technology.
What was equally obvious was that they needed to find the Goa'uld that had taken the Terran Vincent Grant as a host before it could use anymore of the human's knowledge to upgrade Goa'uld technology with even basic robotech systems. Find and remove him from the host for termination as that particular Goa'uld was far too dangerous – and not just to the Asgard but every other race in this galaxy – with that knowledge to be allowed to live. Of course, finding one particular Goa'uld would be far easier said than done, though it was obviously working for Ba'al which gave them a decent place to start.
And thinking of Ba'al he was going to have to start thinking how they were going to punish the System Lord for his brazen and deliberate attack upon an Asgard vessel. When the High Council read his report on the incident, they would certainly demand immediate and thorough retribution be delivered to Ba'al to both punish him for his insolence and to remind the Goa'uld in general – regardless of which side of the civil war between the System Lords and Sokar they were on – of the price they could expect to pay if they dared to cross them. Thankfully the fleet that had initially accompanied him to this galaxy and had taken part in the Battle of Elysium in support of the Free Zentraedi, was still waiting just outside this galaxy. Once the High Council gave its blessing, they would be more than enough to deliver the appropriate amount of retribution upon Ba'al.
"Commander," the sensor officer called out drawing Thor's attention away from planning the retribution that they would unleash upon Ba'al for his actions.
"Yes?" he asked.
"The Ancient warship, it's transponder is identifying it as the Aurelius, is ascending into orbit," the sensor officer reported, "curious its hyperdrive appears to be powering up."
Thor did the subtle, at least in their current bodies if all the tests went well, they would soon all move into the new bodies developed by Loki, Asgard equivalent of raising an eyebrow at that. That had not been in the plan that had been quickly thrown together after Colonel Ferretti's STORM commando unit reported the presence of the Ancient warship on Calora. The original plan, assuming indeed that the vessel could fly after all this time which it now clearly could, had been for the vessel to rise into orbit and then be subjected to a comprehensive series of scans before being allowed to return to Sol.
Something had obviously caused that plan to be changed.
"Commander the Aurelius is hailing both us and the Zentraedi command ship," communications reported, "Captain Hunter wishes to speak with both you and Commander Neleya."
"Put him through," Thor ordered hoping that Captain Hunter would explain why the plan to not move the Aurelius for a good few hours had been changed. Though while the ship was still here – as he couldn't really stop it leaving – he would take advantage of it as their records on the Aurelius-class destroyers, which had mostly come from the Vanir, that the Lantean Ancients had introduced towards the end of their war with the Wraith were very limited. "Also begin running comprehensive scans of the Aurelius. The High Council will want as much up to date information on this class as possible."
"Yes commander," both communications and sensors acknowledged. After a moment two new windows opened on the holographic screen floating in front of Thor. One showed the face and upper torso of Captain Hunter, who really looked like he belonged in the command chair on the bridge of that Ancient ship for some reason, the other a similar image of Commander Neleya on the bridge of her current flagship.
"Commander Thor, Commander Neleya it is good to see that you are both here," Rick said, "I am sure that you have noticed that I have the hyperdrive powering up."
"Indeed, I have Captain Hunter," Thor replied, "may I ask why this is? The original plan after all was for the Aurelius to enter orbit and remain here for some time while the vessel was properly assessed."
"That was the plan," Rick admitted. "Sadly, circumstances have changed, and I need to return to Earth immediately, and I need to take this ship with me."
"What has happened?" Thor asked.
"Khyron."
At the sound of that name Commander Neleya audibly groaned. "What has he done this time," she asked, well aware of the fact that Khyron had – like Zeraal – been making something of a pain in the proverbial backside of himself in the last two years since the battle with Dolza. He was certainly opposed to the new, brighter future that Breetai and others were trying to build for the Zentraedi.
Rick grimaced. "He just attacked New Macross City and among other things stole a full protoculture storage matrix from the main industrial area," he explained before going on to explain everything – well everything that wasn't personal in nature like the situation with Roy was – that had happened when Khyron, certainly with support from other Zentraedi malcontents some of whom had to have been micronized to blend into the Terran population, had carried out his brazen attack on New Macross City and where they were tracking his recon ship to.
"So, you plan to use the Aurelius to head him off before he reaches the battlecruiser?" Thor asked.
"No, I want him to reach it as that will keep him busy for a while," Rick answered, "after all it will still take some time before the cruiser will be able to fly."
"That is true," Neleya agreed. "Even after the protoculture storage matrix is plugged in it will still take Khyron several hours to fully restart its reflex furnaces as that is not a process that can be rushed. To say nothing of the amount of time it will take to fully power up all the vessel's systems as the majority will have to go through cold start procedures."
"Exactly and I have a plan to, with the aid of this ship and its cloaking device, use that required downtime against him."
"How so?" Thor asked curious even as he mentally filed away the information that Commander Neleya had just revealed for future reference. After all there was still so much that the Asgard didn't know about robotechnology and how it actually worked as the Robotech Masters jealously guarded its secrets. Thus, any new information on it, wherever it came from, was extremely valuable to them.
"It's quite simple really. I will be giving a few elite units from both the UEDF and the Free Zentraedi a lift and use the cloak to keep us all concealed until the time is right to pounce."
Neleya laughed at that. "An ambush perfect," she said chuckling. Khyron in his battle tactics always liked ambushes, it would thus be some poetic justice for him to be the victim of an ambush himself. "Though it will take some time to set up properly especially as my people are not that familiar or comfortable with cloaking technology."
"Hence why I need to take the Aurelius back to Earth as soon as possible."
"Then I suggest you leave immediately," Thor replied, "though would you please relay a message for me to your leadership."
"Of course."
"Inform your leaders that I will be unfortunately delayed in returning to Earth," Thor replied, "I will soon be meeting with the High Council we have to decide on an appropriate punishment for Ba'al for daring to attack one of our ships. It seems that the Goa'uld need another reminder of the price of crossing us."
Neleya raised an eyebrow even as she inwardly shivered and couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of sympathy for the megalomaniacal parasites as the wrath of the Asgard was never something to be courted light – even the Guardians and the Robotech Masters would think at least twice before provoking the Asgard to that level. Even the thrice damned Invid knew better than to anger the Asgard, as the little grey micronians could in their rage be cold, very, very cold.
"Is there anything we can do to help?" she offered knowing that Breetai was putting great emphasis on building a new relationship with the Asgard, one that involved them working together instead of shooting particle beams at one another.
"I appreciate your offer Commander Neleya," Thor answered, "it will however be up to the High Council if they accept it. Captain Hunter. will you pass my apologies to your government?"
"Of course, Thor," Rick replied, unknowingly like Neleya feeling a twinge of sympathy for the Goa'uld at the prospect of facing the Asgard in battle, especially as the feed from the Aurelius sensors was telling him just how powerful Thor's ship on its own was. "I wish you good fortune in your coming battle with the Goa'uld."
"As do I with you and the Zentraedi warlord Khyron," Thor replied, "we will speak again soon."
Deciding that there was nothing more that needed to be said between them Thor touched a rune on his chairs control interface causing the communications links with the other two ships to close down, making the windows vanish. For a few more moments nothing more happened then the sensors chimed again.
"Commander the Aurelius is opening a hyperspace window," sensors reported. Thor nodded he could see it himself on the main display when the white-green vortex of an Ancient generated hyperspace window burst into existence off the bow of the Ancient destroyer. A moment later the vessel vanished into it beginning its journey to the Terran homeworld. He allowed himself a subtle Asgardian smile, imagining the havoc that that ship was going to be able to unleash upon the Zentraedi warlord Khyron, before turning his attention back to preparing his recommendations to the High Council on what they should do to punish Ba'al for his behaviour.
He was completely unaware that as he got back to work a new player was about to enter the game in this galaxy. A player who could be about to turn everything on its head.
Edge of the Galaxy
That Same Time
The system had no name, just a number and a brief description in the navigational database of every spacefaring species who knew about it. It deserved nothing else. It consisted of several uninhabited rocky worlds, and a very lacklustre as such things went, gas giant orbiting an aging K2 type star, with two sizeable asteroid belts completing the somewhat mediocre ensemble. Located just twelve light years from the point at which interstellar space gave way to eternal void of intergalactic space it was about a mediocre a star system as you could get. It didn't even have a Stargate making it quite a rarity as things in the Milky Way galaxy went.
Which was why nobody would ever associate it with danger.
High above the plane of the ecliptic space the size of a quark suddenly warped alarmingly as the barrier between normal space and the infinite realms of subspace suddenly came under attack from within. The warp expanded until a small sphere of eldritch energy the size of a tennis ball emerged from it. Additional energy balls followed first as individuals then as groups of two or three before a much larger energy ball – this one the size of a basketball – followed with a dozen more of the smaller spheres following. Finally, the flood stopped, and the space-time warp evaporated as if it had never been present at all.
For their part the spheres came to a stop and began to expand. The smaller ones expanding to a diameter of approximately fifty kilometres while the solo large sphere expanded till it was over eighty kilometres across. Once fully expanded within each sphere shapes began to appear, skeletal and indistinct at first but rapidly solidifying. With a gyroscopic flash of blue Cherenkov radiation, the fold sphere's evaporated revealing a newly arrived fleet of Zentraedi warships and a mobile command facility.
But they were different to the Zentraedi warships that the Terran race had become very, and sometimes painfully, familiar with. They were sleeker, smoother and constructed of a sliver-blue alloy instead of the green and purple almost organic looking alloys of other Zentraedi warships. Lines and curves on the ships glowed with eerie lights that pulsed gently between blue, green, yellow and white in strange, complex patterns.
For a few moments they remained stationary in space, all clustered around a command facility that vaguely resembled a classic volcano in shape, then hatches on their sleek hulls opened. More advanced appearing versions of fighter pods emerged from their hangar bays and began to form up into a combat space patrol around the newly arrived fleet.
Unknown to anyone a division of the Zentraedi known as the Guardians, the elite praetorian guards and most trusted enforcers of the Robotech Masters, had arrived.
Mobile Command Base
"Defold operations complete commander. Combat space patrol commencing."
Standing in the command blister overlooking the operations centre of this mobile starbase Commander Xarlez smiled slightly at the report. His brethren were moving with all the speed and efficiency that he, and the Masters, expected of them sending out a patrol while the 2nd Division of the Second Guardian Fleet prepared to begin their operations in this foreign galaxy.
"Excellent," he replied, "once the security perimeter is established begin running comprehensive scans of this system. I want to make sure that there are no unpleasant surprises here before we proceed with the establishment of our operations base here."
"Yes commander."
As his subordinates began to organise the scans Xarlez once again thought about the reasons why the Robotech Masters had dispatched his division here so far from the borders of the Empire he and other Guardians had been created to protect. Just over a year and a half ago listening posts at the outer edges of the Empire had received a badly garbled and fragmented transmission that had taken a considerable period of time – and the direct intervention of one of the Robotech Masters science triumvirates – to unscramble and put back together into the proper sequence. When they had done so what the transmission had revealed was shocking.
The transmission had been the rarest type of distress call. An omega distress call from the Fulbtzs Berrentzs-class command base that had been assigned to Dolza, supreme overlord of the regular caste Zentraedi. The transmission had been automatically generated as the base was being destroyed and while it hadn't contained that much information – there was only so much that could be contained in such a message especially as it would have been generated as the base was beginning to explode – but it had been enough to inform the Masters that Dolza was dead and that his Main Fleet – a force large enough that even the full might of the Guardian Fleets would have been cautious about engaging it despite their greater power – had been destroyed.
They hadn't been able to recover much information from the transmission as to what had caused such a catastrophic defeat. The distance the transmission had had to travel had meant that even for the Robotech Masters that information had been fragmented beyond recovery. What they had been able to recover pointed to rogue Zentraedi – something that had occasionally happened before, the Disciples of Zor during the early years of their rebellion had turned quite a few regular Zentraedi fleets to their side which was why the Masters had created him and his fellow Guardians in the first place – being somehow involved but how many of them there were, who they were involved with – as whoever it was had to have a knowledge of robotechnology that rivalled that of the Masters – beyond the Disciples, and how they had come to blows with Dolza had not been able to be recovered.
To find out more, and to honestly take over the job that the regulars had unsurprisingly spectacularly failed to do, was why his division had been sent to this galaxy. They were still some distance from where coordinates in the message had indicated the battle had taken place – it was much deeper into the galaxy – which was why this was a perfect place to set up a forward command and supply base. It would also let their ships recover from the strain the sequential folds needed to cross the great void of intergalactic space had placed on their systems.
"Commander the security perimeter has been established," one of the operators in the operations centre below reported. "No hostile contacts of any kind detected. Initial scans of the system have also been completed; no threats detected. However, we have located useable deposits of several elements including monopole ore among the asteroid belts."
"Interesting. Dispatch the automated mining ships to acquire the elements. Also send a long-range fold comm transmission to the Robotech Masters informing them that we have arrived in this galaxy and are beginning to set up our staging area prior to commencing the ordered operations."
"Yes commander."
Satisfied that his orders would be carried out Xarlez moved over to the comfortable chair that was in the command blister and sat down. A quick tap of a hidden control caused a projector field to activate and a holographic screen to pixel into existence in front of him. A screen that detailed the full extent of the forces available to his division and the resources available here on this mobile command starbase. Once they were finished setting up operations here, which would take only a few days at most, he would be able to begin sending ships out to scout the last known location of Dolza's base to find out what exactly had happened to bring about its destruction.
And if there were renegades – Zentraedi who had dared to break their sacred oath to serve the Robotech Masters will in all things – involved well he wouldn't hesitate to destroy them. And any who dared to stand with them.
Authors Notes: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust I hope you all enjoyed it. Rick is going to have a bit of fun introducing Khyron to the Aurelius, whether Khyron survives that encounter well you will all have to wait and see. Of course, nobody is yet aware that a new bunch of trouble in the form of a division of Guardian Zentraedi – the enforcers of the Robotech Masters and their most elite praetorian guard other than the bioroid legions – arriving in this galaxy to both find out just what happened to Dolza and, if possible, recover the protoculture matrix for the Masters who they are zealously devoted to. They will learn they're here soon enough and then all hell is going to break loose as the Guardians are a lot more powerful than regular Zentraedi. Until next time.