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.
Chapter Ten
The moment Jack passed through the event horizon a sensation almost like walking through a sheet of water – yet he didn't get wet in anyway – passed through him. There was a brilliant flash of light accompanied by a tingling sensation that was almost like pins and needles though without the associated pain. Then reality went absolutely crazy as he was suddenly travelling down a shimmering, translucent blue tunnel through the walls of which he could make out stars, moons and planets all shooting past at an incomprehensible speed. The conduit through subspace twisted and turned at angles and inclines/declines that would have given even the craziest of pre-Rain rollercoaster designers nightmares trying to replicate. Pulses of energy in the shape of the stargate pulsed along the length of the conduit as it twisted one last time and a wall of light came into view. He passed into the light…
…and was stepped out of the Stargate into a brightly illuminated cave.
"Whoa that was a rush," Jack exclaimed as he metaphorically got his breath back after the transit through the wormhole. While it was an extraordinary experience, it wasn't something he would really want to indulge in on a regular basis, well maybe he would have one and a half decades ago but not now, he had left those kind of adventuring days far behind him. The only reason he had taken this job was to help create a future for his and Sara's kids, and hopefully someday soon their grandkids, beyond trying to survive on the badly wounded Earth. An Earth that would take generations of work to repair and even then, there were some things, some species and places, which were simply gone forever wiped away in the quantum firestorms of the Rain of Death.
"It was," Ferretti agreed with his old friend as they moved further forward. Ferretti scanning with both his eyes and his laser rifle by sectors confirming that there was no threat here. "And nothing at all like going through a space fold."
"You even been through one of them?" Jack asked curious as the next two individuals came through the gate behind them. While he waited for Ferretti to answer he glanced around noting that the construction drones that had been sent through from Fort Minotaur over the last twelve to thirteen hours had been busy little bees. Not only had numerous artificial lighting positions been set up, each being powered by its own built in micro-fusion generator but a number of porta-cabins – made from prefabricated panels sent through from Fort Minotaur in flatpack form – had been set up. They were set up in a circular pattern a dozen meters from the Stargate leaving the area immediately in front of and around the gate and its control device open. Not a bad set up to start with, he thought.
"Oh yeah, I have. My squad was one of the teams that helped secure the factory satellite after Commander Reno was defeated," Ferretti answered before smiling and shaking his head as he remembered seeing the security recordings of how the Zentraedi crew on the satellite had reacted to the sight of little Dana Sterling. It was so amusing how they'd behaved.
"What?" Jack asked seeing him smile.
"I'm just remembering how the Zentraedi on the factory satellite reacted to seeing little Dana for the first time. They were so scared that they ran away from a baby like the hounds of hell were on their tails."
"I heard about that."
As he answered Jack frowned as he remembered reading the after action reports on the capture of the Robotech Factory Satellite now sitting at the L4 Lagranian point over Earth. While the strategies and tactics employed by Commander Breetai – which had been agreed upon with Admiral Gloval and the Defence Council before hand – to take the satellite had been very effective and secured a fairly quick, and for their side, relatively painless victory he wasn't happy that they had used a baby in such a dangerous gambit. Since the near tragedy with Charlie – even now nearly twenty years since it happened the knowledge of how close he had come to nearly losing his son made him feel sick – he had become painfully aware of how precious children were. He would never knowingly or willingly put a child, or allow anyone he knew, to put a child in the vulnerable position that little Dana Sterling had been put it.
Though he did have to admit that it had been amusing seeing the holo recordings of fifty-foot tall alien humanoids running in panic from a small cooing baby in a cute as hell baby-sized spacesuit and afterwards being too terrified to man their battle stations. It had made securing the station after the ships and mecha of Commander Reno's defence fleet had either been destroyed or disabled so much easier. Didn't mean he had to like it though.
He pushed aside those thoughts as he heard more people coming through the Stargate. Which prompted him to turn around and watch as two by two the entire initial expedition team came through the gate. They would be the ones that would get this place at least partially operational, at least until the bulk of the base personnel and heavier equipment arrived. Which wouldn't take long as the Zentraedi cruiser carrying them was due to arrive in orbit very soon.
Speaking of which.
"Ferretti," Jack said turning to look at the other man as the last of their people came through the Stargate. A moment later, with an ethereal flash of vapour, the wormhole vanished as the gate powered down. "You and your squad take a group of combat engineers and the fold transmitter that was sent through and set it up outside."
"On it Jack," Ferretti replied surprised, despite himself, by how easily he was falling back into following Jack's somewhat more informal command style. He also wasn't surprised by the order as they would need to get that beacon set up so the Zentraedi warships would know exactly where they were and where to send down the dropship that would be carrying both more personnel for the base and everything, they needed to get this place fully operational.
It took only a few moments for him to get his squad and a trio of combat engineers – all of them specialists in setting up and operating complex robotech systems and the foldspace comm was, if not the most complicated one of the most, well, fussy when it came to setting up especially compared to most other robotech systems which were extremely user friendly and were practically plug and play in how they would immediately start working – with two of his commandoes using their strength enhancement provided by the nano muscle servos in their armour to pick up the parts for the device. Then they began making their way across the vast cavern towards the tunnel that led to the surface.
Jack watched them go, envying them somewhat as they would be the first people from Earth to actually see this worlds surface with their eyes instead of via hologram, before heading for the porta-cabin that had been designated the command area. There was a lot of work to do to bring this base online and he saw no reason not to get started.
A Few Minutes Later
Space a few hundred thousand kilometres out from the orbit of the semi-frozen – due to it being winter – moon and its gas giant primary suddenly seemed to shiver with a heat-haze like distortion. A point initially the size of a quark suddenly warped and distorted as the barrier between normal space-time and one of the infinite realms of subspace abruptly came under sudden massive attack from within. The folds of space-time parted momentarily, just long enough to let a tiny sphere – no bigger than a tennis ball – appear in the centre of the distortion field.
Almost immediately the sphere began to expand rapidly. Increasing in size until it was over forty kilometres in diameter and if anyone had seen it, they would have most certainly compared its appearance to a whirling ball of oddly frosted glass. Shapes appeared within the fold sphere skeletal and indistinct at first but rapidly solidifying as they fully reintegrated with normal space-time. Then with a gyroscopic whirl of blue Cherenkov radiation – caused by the rapid break down of beta-phase tachyons and other particles that could only exist in the specific subspace domain of foldspace – the sphere evaporated into nothingness and the fabric of space-time returned to normal.
Leaving three Zentraedi warships, a single Thuverl Salen-class cruiser and two Tou Redir-class destroyers, hanging there in space.
Zentraedi Cruiser KL-1076
"Defold operations complete. All ships report a successful transition, and all systems are functioning normally."
Standing in his command blister Captain Serval smiled at the report from the consoles on the main deck of the bridge below. He had to admit, to himself at least, that he had been getting somewhat concerned that the last two years of virtual inactivity in orbit of the Terran homeworld had started to affect the efficiency at which his crew operated the ship. After all until recently – until Lord Breetai had made his alliance with the Terrans and broken the bonds that had held the Zentraedi in servitude to the Robotech Masters for their entire existence as a species, an action that had cost their friends dearly when Dolza and the Main Fleet tried its hardest to burn them from existence – it had been fairly uncommon for Zentraedi warships to just sit around in orbit of any planet let alone one inhabited by micronians.
He had been pleased both to get this mission – even if it was a simple transport and scan mission it was at least something to do – and find out that the forced inactivity hadn't adversely affected the crew performance. If anything, the downtime – and no doubt the courses many of the crew had been on that the Terrans had designed for them, courses to teach them skills that the Masters had long denied them – had improved things significantly. And with the prospect of a major refit at the factory satellite -once it was finished with its own repairs – on the horizon things were only going to get better for him and his crew.
He put aside those thoughts for now. "Very good," he said, "navigation what is our position?"
"We are where we expected to be sir," navigation reported, "the gas giant moon is fifty thousand kilometres away from our current location on our starboard bow. Shall we begin orbital insertion manoeuvres?"
"Yes. As soon as we are in orbit begin deploying the survey and communication satellites that were loaded in the number three cargo hold into orbit and have the dropships carrying personnel and supplies for the base made ready to launch. In the meantime, communications instruct our escort ships to begin scanning the rest of the system."
"Yes sir."
As his crew got to work Serval turned his attention to the numerous holographic screens floating at eye level – well eye level for a full size Zentraedi – and the information being displayed on them. As a soft vibration in the deck let him know that the main sublight engines had started up he especially examined the screens showing information on the planet they were now accelerating towards with the goal of entering orbit.
As the Terran probes sent through the star portal – and he still couldn't quite believe that they weren't just a legend after all – had determined the planet was indeed a moon of a large gas giant. Specifically, it was the fourth moon of the giant – which somewhat reminded him of Jupiter back in the Terran home system though it lacked a great superstorm – planet. The environment was very similar to Earth had been before his kind had glassed most of the planet – something that he hadn't felt anything about at the time, but which now filled him, and indeed every other Zentraedi he knew, with a profound sense of shame – though it didn't seem to have as many different biomes as Earth had had. Instead, it seemed to be mostly forests and grasslands with two large oceans. From its orbital speed and the size of the gas giant he estimated that the planets seasons were shaped by its position around said planet much like the seasons on the Robotech Masters homeworld of Tirol were shaped by Tirol's position around Fantoma. If he was right, then it would be just coming out of winter.
"Captain we are picking up a signal," communications reported, "I believe it to be a beacon of some kind, its broadcasting on an unusual subspace frequency and is very weak."
Serval raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Can you tell where it is coming from?" he asked intrigued wondering just what in this system, which so far had seemed uninhabited certainly there had been no sign of any form of civilization near the star portal, could be generating such a subspace signal. Such things, after all, could only be produced by a technologically very sophisticated civilization. Though the fact that it was weak was also surprising as it meant any number of possible things though it was most likely that it was a distress beacon or a marker beacon for a destroyed ships data recorder. All Zentraedi warships had such things as did the primitive ships the Terrans had used during the war – black boxes he believed their micronian friends called them.
"I cannot be certain as the signal is so weak – certainly it isn't transmitting outside the system – but I believe it's coming from the third planet of this system. There is a large and unusually dense asteroid field between us and there which might also be interfering with the signal."
"Interesting. Can you identify the signal at all?"
"Negative. The signal is so weak we are barely picking it up at all."
"Hmm," Serval said running over in his mind what to do about this most unexpected discovery. For a few moments he considered waiting until the Terrans who'd come through the star portal could set up their foldspace comm system so he could advise General O'Neill and get his thoughts on the issue. But after a moment decided that it would be better to investigate it now. After all, one of the reasons why they had been sent along was to check the system beyond the star portal. "Communications contact one of our escorts, have them execute an in system fold to the general location of the third planet. They're to see if they can determine the source and exact nature of the signal."
"Yes sir," the communications chief acknowledged and relayed the command to one of their escorts. "Captain Elixan, acknowledges and says they will execute the fold as soon as the appropriate computations are complete."
"Understood."
"Captain we are entering orbit of the moon now."
"Commence satellite deployment."
"Yes sir."
Zentraedi Destroyer RB-714
A Few Minutes Later
Standing at his command station – as a Tou Redir-class destroyer, being the smallest of all main line warships in the entire Zentraedi Armada, wasn't large enough to have a separate command blister like on other warships – Captain Eilxan blinked away a sudden feeling of nausea as the in-system fold operation was completed. In-system space folds were always considerably more disorientating than a normal interstellar fold due in no small part to the fact that it was so brief as with normal folds you had anywhere from six to ten minutes to recover from the effect of the fold beginning before it ended. Such things were not possible with in-system folds which was why, despite their potential tactical applications, they were rarely done.
"Status report," he ordered, glancing around the cramped – by Zentraedi standards – bridge and seeing the crew shaking off their own discomfort over the very short space fold.
"Sir all systems read as fully operational and all sections report ready," operations reported making Elixan smile pleased that there was no negative fallout from the fold as another problem with in-system folds was the extra strain they put on ships systems.
"Very good. Sensors begin scanning for the beacon that caught the attention of our counterparts on Serval's ship."
"Yes sir."
As the other Zentraedi got to work Elixan couldn't help but wonder just what this beacon signal was and what it exactly meant. Like Serval he was well aware that subspace beacons of any kind could only be the products of a technologically advanced civilization. Something that they did know existed in this galaxy as they had detected numerous traces of interstellar spacecraft using the type of faster than light travel favoured by the feared and respected in equal measure Asgard did. Though it was also obvious from slight differences in the exact frequencies of the hyperspace transits and the fact that they were much slower than what Asgard ships were capable of meant that they were the products of other species technologies. Once – before the exposure to the singing of the Terran songstress Lynn Minmei had freed his mind from the neuro-somatic conditioning imposed by the Robotech Masters – the clear indications of the presence of spacefaring civilizations in this galaxy would have irritated him as spacefaring civilizations were always harder to conquer and subjugate in the name of the Robotech Masters than others and indeed some like the Asgard were simply too powerful to even try conquering.
Now though the prospect of other spacefaring societies to encounter excited him. Elixan would admit, to himself at least, that he was now intensely curious about the universe now that he could think for himself, no longer held back by the Masters programming. It was one of the reasons why – while he had been as surprised by it as the next Zentraedi – the revelation of the star portals, or should that be Stargates, being real and not just an old Tirolian legend had excited him so much.
"Scan complete sir," sensors reported bringing him out of his thoughts.
"And?"
"It is definitely a signal, and it appears to be a distress call," sensors reported, "it is coming from a crashed spacecraft of unknown design and origin on the planet ahead of us. The vessel is partially submerged in a shallow lagoon on one of the islands that seem to make up the majority of the planets land masses."
Elixan raised an eyebrow. "Interesting," he commented, "scan the crashed vessel see if you can find any sign of survivors and see if we can figure out just how long it has been here."
"Yes sir," sensors acknowledged and gave the command to the computer to run the appropriate scans. After a few moments of waiting the results came back. "Captain, I have been unable to determine just how long the ship has been here though it has obviously been quite some time as there are no residual heat or electromagnetic emissions from it. Beyond the beacon signal it's not generating any power at all, indeed I believe that the beacon is running off a built in backup power source."
"Which would explain why its dying if it's been here a long time," Elixan said thoughtfully knowing that – at least in the Tirolian Empire – a ships distress beacons backup power source would only last a year, two at the most before becoming depleted and forever silencing a downed ships last cry for help. "Any sign of survivors?"
"Yes. We are reading twelve life signs clustered together in crude shelters that appear to be made out of a mixture of wood and metal objects likely taken from the ship after the crash landing. We're reading nine humans and three unknown life forms."
"Sir, should we deploy a dropship to the surface to pick up the survivors," his second in command, Zorlan, asked.
Elixan frowned for a moment as he considered just how to answer and what exactly they should do. While he would like to send down one of the dropships carried aboard this ship and rescue the people stranded down there, he had to bear in mind the fact that they… well… would be micronians. Micronians who had never seen a Zentraedi before and would no doubt fear them due to their much greater height and size alone.
"No, the people down there will be micronians," he replied at last.
"Why would that matter we don't harm micronians anymore," Zorlan replied sounding more than a little confused.
"They are not to know that, and they would fear us due to our greater height and size alone as even the dumbest of micronians would know how easy it would be for one of us to inadvertently crush them," Elixan answered. "No, we will have to speak with our Terran friends first – assuming they have their foldspace comm set up now – and bring some of them here. They would have to be the ones to be transported down to the surface and rescue the survivors of the crashed ship."
"I understand sir."
"Good. Communications contact Captain Serval and, if the comm is up on the other planet, General O'Neill advise them of what we have discovered."
"Yes sir."
"In the meantime, sensors begin running scans of the planet below. Since we're here anyway we might as well make a start on surveying it from orbit."
"Yes sir."
"Is there anything you can tell me about the ship itself?" Elixan asked knowing that the nature of the crashed ship could tell you a lot about the nature of its crew and what they had been doing. The Terrans were a good example of learning from that – albeit using flawed thinking influenced by millennia of planet based doctrine all new spacefaring species went through such a period – as they had prepared for war based on what they had learned from Zor's battlefortress after it crashed on their planet fourteen years ago.
"Sir the vessel is constructed of a trinium-titanium alloy and is very lightly armed we are only reading four individual weapons turrets Scans suggest plasma based weapons though without power I cannot tell how potent they would be," sensors replied. "The vessel has extensive sensor arrays and what appears to be a launch bay loaded with some type of probes. I believe we are looking at some kind of deep space exploration or reconnaissance vessel."
"A trinium-titanium alloy hull would fit with an exploration vessel," Zorlan commented getting a nod of agreement from Elixan as he said that. While much weaker than the alloys used to build and armour warships – though they were themselves often used trinium as a base metal – a trinium-titanium hull was more than durable enough for a civilian space vessel and an exploration ship very much fell into that category. Even the Robotech Masters tended to build civilian ships out of said alloy though due to the nano-molecular fabrication and atomic printing methods used on factory satellites they would be far stronger than you would expect them to be normally.
"Indeed."
"Sir there is something else," sensors added, "the vessel is showing signs of damage that aren't consistent with a crash but fit weapons fire. I am reading a fossil energy signature but beyond being plasma based I cannot identify it."
"Meaning it is something that we've never encountered before," Elixan commented with a frown. While plasma weapons were actually fairly common – plasma was often one of the first energy weapons a species developed – it was a fairly broad category of weapons. A category that covered everything from missiles and torpedo warheads – like the plasma warheads they used themselves – to powerful beam weapons, like those used by the Invid on their hiveships and supercarriers, and everything in between.
"Indeed sir."
As the sensor officer spoke a scenario for how the ship could have come to crash here began to grow in Elixan's mind. Whoever they were the micronians on that ship had been exploring somewhere and been set upon by an unknown hostile, they'd managed to escape but not before their ship had been damaged. Damaged and possibly been forced to drop out of whatever FTL system it used afterwards - certainly by a systems failure – and come back into normal space too close to the planetary gravity well and been pulled in. He was about to mention it to Zorlan to get his opinion on it when the communications console came to life.
"Sir we've received a response from both Captain Serval and General O'Neill to our report," communications reported, "General O'Neill will be sending some people, including field medics, up to Captain Serval's ship once they finish unloading the first of the supply dropships. Serval will then bring them here and send them down to rescue the survivors of the crashed ship. They estimate it will be at least half an hour before they will be able to join us in orbit."
"Understood. Do they have any orders for us while we wait for Serval to join us?"
"Yes sir. They want us to send a pain of fighters down to perform an aerial reconnaissance of the crash site and the survivor encampment so they can better identify a landing position for the dropship."
"Acknowledge the instructions. Flight operations launch two Gnerl with the appropriate orders."
"Yes sir."
Moments later a set of doors on the starboard side of the small – well by Zentraedi standards as to most species a four hundred and eighty-nine meter long ship would have been considered a medium sized vessel – warship. A moment later, propelled by powerful gravimagnetic catapults, two of the vaguely bell-shaped forms of Gnerl aerospace fighters shot out into space. Almost immediately their fusion turbine engines ignited, and both came around…
…and headed for the largely oceanic world below.
Authors Note: Well, another chapter of the new version bites the dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. If anyone is curious the ship that has crashed on the planet that Elixan's ship is orbiting belongs to a race that was featured twice during the entire run of Stargate SG-1. I figure that they're a much better first contact than the Goa'uld, though Earth will encounter the System Lords eventually and probably sooner than any of them would like. Until next time.