Robotech: The Stargate Saga Version 2.1
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.
Part Two: First Steps
Chapter Seven
Secure Laboratory Section
Fort Minotaur, Crete
Next Morning
Major Claudia Grant would, if asked, admit that she was nervous as she gazed through a permaglass wall at the Stargate sitting at the far end of the long room that, when Fort Minotaur was originally built, had originally been intended to be a wind tunnel. The tunnel had never been completed before the Rain and now never would as the factory that would have made the massive fans to provide the wind no longer existed. Like so many other factories and industrial facilities around the world it had been incinerated during Dolza's devastating attack on the planet nearly two years ago. It had left the base with a large open space that they couldn't do anything with.
Until now that was.
The long, tall room was a perfect place to house the Stargate as they prepared to activate the ancient, alien device for the first time in who knew how long. Especially as they didn't know exactly what would happen when the gate powered up, if it actually even would, as the Zentraedi records were not very helpful there. She had heard that Exedore had done a search of what records he still had access to – as many had been destroyed with Dolza's command base – to see if he could find more information on the Stargates or star portals as the Zentraedi/Tirolian legend called them. Unfortunately, he had not been able to find anything more about them or about what happened when they were used. Meaning that they were venturing into unknown, potentially very dangerous territory with this planned activation.
The possibility of something going wrong was the main reason why they had moved the Stargate from the main lab where it had previously been analysed to the wind tunnel. A process that despite the weight of the device and its control pedestal had been fairly easy as – being originally intended to be a research base – Fort Minotaur had been built with the ability to quickly move large experimental objects around the lab levels of the base. For additional safety only one person – in the form of Doctor Carter – would be in the tunnel, operating the control pedestal, when the activation took place.
The sound of footsteps caught Claudia's attention and she glanced around. To see that numerous staff and observers were filing into the room. Many of the scientists going to various consoles that had been set up to monitor the feed from the batteries of sensors that had been set up to monitor the gate. Others were simply here as observers – much as she herself was -among them Daniel Jackson and to her surprise Rick Hunter. She could see that he was talking to Lisa and curious eased over to hear what they were talking about as she had noted that the two of them had started getting closer recently. Especially as she knew Rick had not seen nor even spoken to Minmei in nearly two years, not really since Kyle had taken over as her manager.
"…he's still sleeping," Rick was saying as Claudia got close enough to hear them. "Doctor Johnson said that's to be expected as his mind is still getting used to itself again. I managed to get Aunt Maria to agree to go to bed and promised I'd do the same but…"
"…you want to see the gate opened," Lisa finished with a smile.
"Given that its important enough for someone to attack us for you bet I do."
Claudia smiled slightly at the interaction between them – it was a good sign that they might be starting to get together, she hoped they were as the sexual tension that had been building between them ever since Mars had been driving her, Admiral Gloval, and the former Bridge Bunnies absolutely crazy – before moving over to speak to Dr Jackson before Rick or Lisa could catch her eavesdropping. Daniel was standing a bit closer to the window looking out on the interior of the wind tunnel and the Stargate standing proud and mysterious at the other end of it.
"Excited Daniel," she asked.
"I haven't been this excited in a long time," Daniel replied with a smile. He had really enjoyed his time here, translating the hieroglyphs on the cover stones – it had reminded him how much he used to like Egyptology, in the days before rigidly orthodox colleagues had laughed him out of the field for theories that they considered so farfetched they bordered on blasphemy – and now he hoped there would be a big final pay off with this Stargate thing. If it worked then finally, after twenty years of ridicule and derision by the archaeological community – well what little of it was left after the Rain as it had never been a massive community and its numbers had been decimated during Dolza's assault – he might at last get vindicated and proven right all along.
Claudia smiled knowingly before her attention was grabbed by General Richards clearing his throat to get everyone's attention.
"Is everything ready," Richards asked.
"Yes, general they are," one of the scientists, a Czech by the name of Radek Zelenka, answered. "All sensors and recording equipment are online and functioning normally. Power flow to the gate is nominal."
"Good," Richards replied before stepping forward and pushing a control opening a radio link with Doctor Carter in the wind tunnel. The former Air Force officer was cocooned within a UEDF hostile environment suit, little different to a modern space suit, for protection in case the gate activation produced something nasty. "Doctor Carter, are you ready?"
"Yes, sir I am," Carter replied immediately, glancing across the length of the wind tunnel at the ring-shaped device. She was really hoping that this would work and that nothing would go wrong as if it did then she didn't doubt that they would be on the verge of discovering something that was truly momentous. Possibly as momentous for humanity as the arrival of the SDF-1 had been nearly fourteen years ago.
"Very well then proceed with entering the first address."
"Yes sir."
With the go ahead given Sam looked down at the computer tablet she was holding in one gloved hand. While they had been able to recover the symbols from the central disc of the cover stones and reconstruct the heavily damaged – either by the ravages of time or the weight of the derelict Zentraedi cruiser that had been literally on top of them – ones using a combination of a laser scan and a computer comparison to the thirty-nine individual symbols on the inner ring of the Stargate. A comparison that had revealed that the third and fifth glyphs could be anyone of three separate glyphs. As a result, the computer had compiled a list of likely candidates starting from the most to the least likely.
She took a deep breath and mentally crossed her fingers before looking at the first probably address. Then she reached out and pressed the corresponding symbol on the pedestal control device which immediately lit up. The response from the Stargate itself was immediate as it began making a rumbling, grinding sound and she glanced over to see that the inner glyph covered ring was rotating. After a second, one that seemed to stretch out into eternity, the ring stopped rotating and one of the nine chevron shaped structures spread equally around the outer ring made a locking motion and the crystal above it lit up orange.
Encouraged she entered the next symbol in the sequence and watched the process repeat. Somewhat to her relief every single symbol caused the inner ring to rotate before the chevrons locked. Once all seven symbols were entered – she had no idea what the eighth and nineth chevrons were for – the crystal dome in the centre of the pedestal lit up. Guessing that it was something like a commit button she reached out and pressed down on it, the whole thing moving down with an unbelievable smoothness. One that seemed impossible for something that had spend a minimum of six thousand years buried beneath the sand and stone of the Giza Plateau.
The response from the Stargate was both immediate and spectacular.
A rumbling vibration, almost like a miniature earthquake filled the whole of the wind tunnel and there was a sudden feeling of some ethereal power being gathered. The innermost surface of the gate glowed for a second then abruptly the gate filled with silver-blue light that exploded towards her in a manner reminiscent of a volcanic pyroclastic flow. It travelled three meters from the gate before stopping and as abruptly as it appeared snapped back into the gate and stabilized leaving the inner part of the gate filled with a rippling wall of silver-blue energy that looked almost like water.
"Unbelievable," Sam breathed awed by the sight, both the person and the astrophysicist in her beyond amazed by the beauty of what she was seeing even though everything she knew, everything she had learned, said it shouldn't be able to exist on a planetary surface. That graviton particle interference from the planet should immediately collapse it. She was gazing upon the event horizon of a wormhole, albeit one that looked very different to the whirlpool like appearance of wormholes in popular pre-Rain science fiction. A faint smile tugged at her lips as she realized something then and there…
… for good or ill their world had just changed again.
Gasps of shock and awe from scientists and observers alike filled the air of the repurposed wind tunnel control room as for the first time in thousands of years Earth's Stargate came to life. For a few moments everyone stood or sat there staring transfixed by the shimmering silver-blue wall of energy, energy that rippled almost like ocean waves, that now filled the interior of the gate. It was certainly beautiful to look at and the way its shimmering light reflected off the hypercrete walls of the stillborn wind tunnel was downright mesmerising.
For a few moments General Richards was as amazed as everyone else, then he shook himself.
"Okay people I know it's beautiful to look at, but we've got a job to do here," he said prompting a few sheepish grins to appear on various faces before the scientists got back to work, scanning their screens and the reams of data that they were getting from their sensors. "Doctor Zelenka what exactly are we looking at here?"
"One moment I am attempting to determine just that," Zelenka answered his hands dancing across the console feeding in commands and reading the base computers analysis of their readings. "Unbelievable."
"Doctor?" Richards asked.
"I don't know how this can be as it shouldn't be able to exist in a planetary gravity well but it's a wormhole," Zelenka answered, "somehow the Stargate is bending space-time and creating a wormhole between itself and the Stargate on the other end."
"So, it works similar to a space fold drive," Claudia asked him curious knowing that fold drives worked by moving two points of space-time closer together in a specific subspace realm – which they referred to as foldspace – and creating a wormhole between the two of them. A wormhole that depending on the make and model of the drive, how much power was available, and the mass of the object being transported took anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes to traverse.
"Maybe on a very basic level yes though the readings we are getting are very different to those produced by a corridor through foldspace. The Stargate must exploit a very different subspace domain."
"Is it safe to traverse," Richards asked.
"I believe so I cannot see any sign of the types of subspace energy particles that are normally encountered during a space fold," Radek answered even as he double checked his readings and confirmed that none of the particles normally encountered during a space fold, some of which could be dangerous to unshielded tissue, were present. There was therefore no reason to assume that this wormhole was not fully traversable on foot – which was something he would never have thought possible until now that was. This ancient alien device, this Stargate, was going to make them revise their knowledge of the laws of physics – again. It was something that they had become quiet used to doing ever since the alien warship that became the SDF=1 fell out of the sky back in ninety-nine.
"Alright then let's see if we can find out what's on the other end of this thing," Richards said looking over at one of the other control room technicians. "Send an Eagle drone through the gate."
"Yes sir," the technician answered giving the command to the console in front of him. In the tunnel beyond the permaglass wall a small drone on a table came to life. It rose on four small tilt-fan engines before moving past Carter and cruising down the length of the tunnel to the shimmering maw of the active Stargate. For a moment it hovered in front of the water-like event horizon before the operator directed it through the small drop making an odd slurping sound as it passed through the energy field and dematerialised and being sent shooting through subspace to the exiting gate where it rematerialised.
A projector field powered up and a holographic screen pixeled into existence showing a feed from the drone for everyone to see. It was immediately obvious that the drone was in a cave, a cave that was illuminated by the shimmering silver-blue light of the event horizon. It was providing enough light to see that the cavern the gate was located in was vast and very flat with only the occasional stalagmite breaking up the surface, a control pedestal that was identical to the one they had was sitting not far away from the drone.
"General the drone is picking up an airflow coming into the cavern," the operator reported. "It's coming from the far side of the cavern, oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere just like our own though a little chilly."
"Direct the drone over there," Richards ordered, "and turn on its lights."
"Yes sir," the technician replied doing as instructed. Immediately the drones small but powerful LED searchlight came on, immediately revealing far more of the cavern. To say it was huge would have been an understatement as -while it was hard to get a sense of scale from the drone images – the cavern certainly looked to be comparable in size to the interior of the largest of cathedrals. The drone moved slowly across the space heading towards where the breeze coming into the cave seemed to be coming from.
Slowly the cavern narrowed and the speed of the airflow hitting the drone began to increase though it was nothing that the Eagle drone – being a military reconnaissance model – couldn't handle. The cavern narrowed still further and to the right there was a very sharp drop off at the bottom of which – a distance that was a good fifty-feet down – the drone, when it moved over it could see a fast flowing river.
"Looks like we know what made the cavern," Daniel commented knowing that rivers can and did create vast cave structures and systems here on Earth, so there was no reason they wouldn't be able to do the same on another planet.
"Indeed," Richards agreed.
"General we're starting to experience some interference with the drone control signal," the Eagle operator reported, "it's the rock. There's something in it, likely metallic ores, which are causing an interference in the signal."
"Is there any way you can compensate?"
"We could send a signal booster drone through the gate," the technician suggested, "it would let us boost the signal substantially."
"How long would it take to prepare one and send it through?"
"Approximately fifteen minutes, twenty at the most."
"Alright have one prepared and sent through. In the meantime, bring the drone back to the cavern with the Stargate. We'll have it explore a bit more around there while we wait."
"Yes sir."
Hidden Base
Dolomite Mountains, Italy
That Same Time
Dressed in comfortable travel clothes Vosegus paced anxiously back and forth in the barren room that had, until an hour or so ago, been his throne room. Over the last few hours his worshippers/slaves as well as the Jaftari had been systematically disassembling everything that could be moved to their fallback base beneath the Ural Mountains. As part of that process all the finery in the throne room had been removed and stowed aboard one of a fleet of lorries that would, using various routes, take it all to his new base. Most of his worshippers would travel in a fleet of busses all of them taking different routes until they all met up again.
Then he could begin putting his plan for revenge into action, it would take a while but one thing he had learned over his long exile here on the first world was the value of patience.
The sound of the door opening made him pause his pacing and he turned. To see Elena, dressed like he was for travel, and the new head of the Jaftari – dressed like a chauffeur – came into the room.
"My lord," Elena said with a bow.
"Yes, Elena?" Vosegus asked.
"My lord all equipment that can be moved has now left the base," Elena reported, "all personnel beyond the three of us are also all gone."
"Very well. Is the self-destruct device ready to be armed?"
"It is my lord," him new Prime answered.
"Excellent. Escort me there so I may arm it, then we will leave."
"Yes, my lord."
His answer of a Jaffa – well as close as he could get to making one without access to juvenile symbiotes to create the prim'tah – turned and began walking out of the room. Vosegus followed behind him with Elena bringing up the rear. For a few minutes they walked through the deserted, eerily quiet, base to a small, secure room. A room that only Vosegus himself could open.
Without hesitation he raised and activated his kara'kesh and held it over a small oval crystal set into the wall next to the thick door. Immediately he felt the elaborate locking mechanism in his mind as the kara'kesh formed a mental link between his mind and the door locks. He thought and pushed the proper code into the lock causing the door to make a clicking sound and slide aside with a whirr of powerful hydraulics.
"Wait here," he ordered.
"Yes, my lord."
Leaving the lotaur and Jaftari behind Vosegus walked into the room. It was fairly barren, just a two by two meter cube in the centre of which on a stone plinth was a small ornate box in a vague coffin shape. He walked over and carefully turned each of the four scarab-shaped locking mechanisms in the corners into the proper position causing the lid of the ark bomb to open with a soft whirr. Smiling he entered the proper sequence to arm the bomb and set the timer. Immediately the central crystal dome of the bombs control station lit up with a green light and red crystals around the perimeter began slowly pulsing as the countdown began.
In less than three hours the five pound block of naquada within the chest would explode and completely destroy the base.
Pleased he closed and locked the lid. Then he turned and walked out of the room, the door sliding closed behind him with a soft hiss. "It is done let us leave," he said.
"Yes, my lord this way."
It took only a few minutes for the three of them to reach the now abandoned, stripped villa on the surface. Vosegus followed them through the complex, idly bidding goodbye to what had been his home for the last couple of years as this place would be destroyed as well as when the bomb blew incendiary devices would also detonate burning this place to ashes, until he reached the drive outside.
Where a limousine was waiting for him.
Without needing to be prompted Vosegus and Elena climbed into the back of the luxury car while the Jaftari Prime went and sat in the driver's seat. A few moments later the advanced hydrogen fuel cell engine started up and the vehicle got underway heading to join one of the country's main highways, specifically one that would take them to the Mont Blanc tunnel to France. Once there they would begin making their own roundabout journey across Europe – stopping at various safe houses at least those that hadn't been destroyed by the Zentraedi during Dolza's bombardment – until his agents could arrange for them to slip across the border without being detected and challenged by either UEG or EBSIS border guards.
As he sat in the comfortable leather seat, and sipped on a martini that Elena had thoughtfully had ready for him as he never got tired of enjoying the numerous different drinks the people of this world came up with, Vosegus estimated that it would take at most a month before he was fully secure and established in his new base.
A month in which he could refine his plans for revenge.
Wind Tunnel
Fort Minotaur
It took nearly thirty minutes for the signal booster drone to be made ready and brought to the wind tunnel holding the still active Stargate. The delay caused by a slight filing error that had the drone stored in the wrong part of the bases main warehouse. But it was finally ready and was about to start trundling down the wind tunnel on two powerful tracked wheels when without warning and with a puff of ethereal vapours the Stargate shut down.
"Doctor Zalenka what happened," General Richards asked looking over at the Czech scientist who had been joined by Doctor Carter. The bulk of the observers had left the room to return to what they had been doing elsewhere on the base leaving just the staff in the wind tunnel control room.
"I am not sure," Zalenka replied checking his readings with a puzzled frown. "There was no interruption in the signal from us to the Eagle drone on the other side and no fluctuation in the amount of power being sent from the base fusion reactors to the Stargate. It just switched off on its own."
"It's possible that there is a quantum mechanical limit on how long one of these wormholes can remain open," Carter said looking thoughtful, "after all we know there are ones of the wormholes through foldspace created by fold drives. Which is why you can only fold ten kiloparsecs in one go."
"I suppose it's possible," Richards agreed with a frown. "How would we test that hypothesis doctor?"
"The only way I can think of right now sir is we run the Stargate again and see if it once again shuts down after thirty-eight minutes of continuous operation."
"Alright we will do that. Would you mind going back into the tunnel and dialling that first address again?"
"Not at all I'll go suit up."
"No need for that this time," Richards answered, "sensors confirmed that there were no harmful emissions from the Stargate."
"Oh, thank heavens those suits are not the most comfortable things in the world," Carter said with a smile before standing up. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go dial the gate again."
"Please."
Carter smiled back and left the room, appearing a few moments later in the wind tunnel once again holding the computer tablet and going up to the dialling device. A few moments after that the Stargate came to life again with the same ka-woosh sound and explosion of energy as the wormhole formed.
"Sir we've regained the control signal to the Eagle drone," the drone operator reported as his holoscreens came back on showing the Eagle drones viewpoint of the now open gate.
"Send the booster drone through and sync up. Once done send the drone to find exactly where the airflow is coming from."
"Yes sir."
It took only a few moments to send the relatively slow moving signal booster drone through the Stargate and sync the Eagles control signal too it. As soon as that was done the operator began directing the drone across the cavernous space around the Stargate which they still hadn't fully mapped as the place was simply enormous easily rivalling the biggest caves ever explored on Earth. As it had the last time the cavern narrowed, and one side dropped away steeply to the river that long ago had to have carved the cave though a path that was easily wide enough to drive a car on continued onwards into the darkness.
Lights from the drone played across the rock walls, revealing many of the characteristic features of a tunnel that had been created by the erosive action of water. A point of light appeared ahead though it was still some way off.
Far enough in fact that they had to move the signal booster a little further into the cave before the Eagle drone could reach it. The entrance to the cave was vast at least as big as the main doors of many aircraft hangers and had a number of vines and creepers growing down over the entrance. Vines that the operators skilfully manoeuvred the Eagle around and directed it out into the daylight.
What it revealed was surprising. Extending out from the entrance to the cave, which itself was at the base of a giant cliff, was a large rocky plane that had to be over a kilometre long. Beyond which they could faintly see a vast heavily wooded valley that was currently covered in a light blanket of snow. The sky above was clear and blue but what was shocking was what was visible in the sky.
A huge saffron-coloured gas giant indicating that the planet was a moon.
"Holy crap it's a real life Yavin Four," one of the marines providing security in the room commented, prompting a slight outbreak of laughter.
"Well as long as the Death Star doesn't show up as I don't see Luke Skywalker with an X-Wing anywhere, I'd say its fine," Richards joked back amused causing everyone to crack up. Once everyone had settled down, he turned to the drone operator. "How far can the Eagle explore from the cave entrance?"
"About another two hundred meters sir there is still some interference from the rock and the booster drone is still in the cavern."
"Do a quicky survey as far as you can around the entrance," Richards ordered, "have we been recording all our drone footage?"
"Of course, sir."
"Then begin assembling it for presentation to the defence council."
"Yes sir."
United Earth Defence Command
New Macross City, North American Quadrant
Sometime Later
"The planet is uninhabited?"
Secretary Anderson's words hung pregnant in the air of the meeting room of the defence council. They had just finished reviewing the footage from the Eagle drone and it was quite interesting. They had really not expected to find a habitable planet on the other side of the Stargate, let alone one that was apparently a temperate real-life version of Yavin Four from Star Wars.
"From what we can tell yes," General Markwell replied. "Before the Stargate shut down for the second time General Richards had the Eagle drone do as comprehensive a survey of the immediate area around the cave where the Stargate is located. There is no sign of any form of habitation no smoke plumes from campfires, no artificial energy signatures no nothing. There is a sign of a natural path that leads down into the forest and there is no sign that anyone has ever been on it."
"Interesting," Gloval commented, "a completely virgin world. What's the environment like?"
"From what the drone could tell while the planet is chilly, though not that much different to what the Pacific Northwest was like during late autumn before the Rain, it has an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere in the correct ratios to support human life."
"What are you thinking admiral," Anderson asked looking at Gloval in interest.
"Mister Secretary you know my views on how our species needs to expand beyond the cradle of this planet," Gloval said, "this planet could be an ideal point to start out. Especially as this system is only six hundred and forty light years away from us."
"Possible," Anderson agreed knowing full well Gloval's views and honestly, he shared them. As did many people in the United Earth Government. They had just dodged the bullet of extinction in the Robotech War and with the Robotech Masters, and who knew what else like these 'false gods', out there they could not guarantee they would do so again. "Still, we know to know a lot more about this planet and the system in which it resides before we can even begin to consider colonising it."
"That is obvious," Gloval agreed knowing that there was going to be a lot more to colonising a planet than just checking if they could breathe the air. They would have to check that they could drink the water, that there was nothing in it that would make them ill, that there was no harmful bacteria or viruses present and a million and one other different things. "The question we need to ask is how we go about doing that?"
"There are two possibilities," Exedore said with a thoughtful frown. "One we could send a larger, manned expedition through the Stargate and begin a survey of the planet. Two I could speak with Lord Breetai and have one or more of our warships that are still capable of space folding sent to the system to commence a survey. They could also act as support for the ground team should they encounter any difficulties."
"Logical," Colonel Matthews admitted looking like he had bitten into a sour lemon at having to agree with a Zentraedi anything. As always everyone on the council ignored his xenophobic attitude, the man was good at his job and only occasionally needed a reminder to keep the anti-Zentraedi bias at bay. "I suggest that in this matter we follow both of Exedore's suggestions and dispatch both a team of experts – and some soldiers to protect them from hostile wildlife if nothing else – through the Stargate to the planet and ask Commander Breetai to send some ships to the system in question to commence survey operations."
"I think we can all agree on that," Anderson said looking around and getting concurring nods from the other members of the council. "Alright I'll speak to the Secretary General so we can begin setting things in motion. Exedore, would you speak with Commander Breetai on this issue."
"Of course," Exedore confirmed with a nod even as the door to the meeting room opened and a young officer came in, a look of urgency and concern on his face. He immediately walked up to Admiral Gloval and whiskered something in his ear. Whatever he said made the Russian man stiffen, go white for a second before turning to look at him.
"Are you sure," Gloval asked.
"Yes, sir we checked the readings three times there is no mistake," the young officer answered grimly.
"Bring the analysis here immediately."
"Aye sir," the officer acknowledged before leaving to do as he was bid.
"What is it admiral," Anderson asked.
"Mister Secretary our satellites just detected a nuclear explosion somewhere beneath the Dolomite Mountains of Northern Italy," Gloval answered, drawing looks and gasps of surprise and concern from everyone in the room. "It wasn't a particular large blast, no more than sixty kilotons though it's quite deep underground and no radiation should reach the surface but…"
"…the point is there shouldn't have been any nuclear weapons anywhere near there," Anderson finished a grim look on his face as knew the diplomatic shitstorm this was going to cause especially with EBSIS and the UIR, "even a tactical one like that. How did it get there? Who the hell used it and why?"
"I have no idea," Gloval admitted looking grim himself as he too knew that there was going to be diplomatic and political hell to pay as a result of this blast. "Though given what Captain Hunter said about where his cousin disappeared for three and a half years before resurfacing as Prime, I can think of one likely culprit for the blast. Especially if that is where his base was."
"Vosegus."
"Yes."
A grim silence fell upon the defence council as they all considered this latest, and honestly most concerning, surprise that Vosegus had thrown their way. No doubt he had detonated the nuclear device to destroy a base he was abandoning for some reason – presumably being afraid of what they would be able to learn about it from Nathan Hunter whenever he woke up and assuming he would be mentally and emotionally well enough to be questioned after the ordeal he had been put through by Vosegus – but that was beside the point. The fact that he somehow had nuclear weapons – even low yield tactical level nukes – was a red blaring alarm that rapidly moved him up the threat totem pole from being a relatively minor annoyance to, alongside the likes of Khyron, being a very serious threat to the safety and security of their entire planet. A threat that they still knew far, far too little about…
…and that was going to have to change and change fast.
Authors Note: Well, this is the first of the chapters to have major changes from the original as Earth begins to explore beyond the Stargate. Before anyone asks the Linkotis arc of the original version has not been abandoned however it has been postponed and will not be happening until a bit later in this part. While they are exploring a completely different star system events won't be quite so uneventful there as they are hoping – a hope you like what I have in store for you in this new version.
While we will not be seeing Vosegus for a little bit after his cameo appearance in this chapter he has not, and will not, be forgotten about. He will be back, and he is going to cause our heroes some considerable trouble once he reaches and settles into his new base of operations in the Ural Mountains. Quite what that trouble will be you'll have to wait and see.