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.
Authors Notes: Welcome everyone to the start of the third part of this story. In this part there will be not just be one or two story arcs beginning but a third far more overarching story arc that will play out over the next few parts much in the same way that the story of Vosegus is going to back on Earth. What's these arcs are you will soon find out. So, without further ado let's get cracking.
Part Three: New Friends, New Foes
Chapter Fourteen
Wind Tunnel Control Room
Fort Minotaur, Crete, European Quadrant
A Few Days Later
General Micah Roberts smiled as he arrived in the repurposed control room for the stillborn wind tunnel to find every station manned. Once again there was a palpable feeling of excitement in the air as in another few moments they would once again activate the Stargate. While it was something that they had done numerous times over the last week or so today was different as all their previous dial outs were to the planet that they were now calling Mara sending through a seamlessly endless torrent of supplies, equipment and personnel to Base Erebor – though why someone had chosen to name it after the dwarf kingdom in The Hobbit he had absolutely no idea, it certainly wasn't a name he would have chosen as he'd never really been a fan of Tolkien's books, far too wordy and hard to read for his taste – to support both the expansion of the facilities there and the construction drones that were building a maglev track through the jungle to the vast lake the satellites had spotted. A lake that would soon be home to their first true extra-solar colony as the first Angel-class colony ship had finally begun construction on the Factory Satellite.
This time though the dial out would not be to Mara in support of that ongoing monumental effort to begin spreading their civilization among the stars. And in doing so ensure that should another robotech war erupt their race would not be threatened with extermination again, a bullet they had so narrowly dodged at the giant hands of Dolza. No instead they would be dialling a completely new world, or at least trying to as nobody knew if any of the other addresses that the computers had come up with were even valid.
"Is everyone ready?" he asked looking around.
"We're ready general," Doctor Zelenka reported from the main bank of consoles. "All sensors and recorders calibrated and trained on the gate."
"Excellent," Richards replied pleased. Every time they dialled the Stargate and made a successful connection, or someone dialled into them from Mara, there sensors revealed a little bit more about how the gate did what it did. Everything they learned was forwarded to the nearest facility run by the Robotech Research Group – which was based in Doctor Lang's old university in Colone which had miraculously survived the Rain with only minimal damage – who were already putting it to good use. He had heard that there was already talk of the information having led to something of a breakthrough in understanding just how the wormhole through the specific subspace domain known foldspace created by a ships FTL drives did what it did.
He put those thoughts out of his mind for now, stepped forward and pressed the intercom button on one of the consoles. "Doctor Carter. Are you ready in there?" he asked, looking through the permaglass window at where for the first time in a few days Samantha Carter had placed herself next to the dialling device having elected to dial out herself this time instead of leaving it to either one of the lab technicians or one of the interns.
"Yes, sir I'm ready," Carter answered looking at the tablet she was holding, making sure the set of symbols she was to dial were fully displayed on the screen. While she had done this before, a few times now in point of fact, it did nothing to diminish the excitement she was feeling at this moment.
"Commence the dialling sequence."
"Yes sir," Carter replied before beginning to enter the symbols. The distant Stargate immediately began rumbling and whirring as the inner ring began to move, a chevron locking and a crystal lighting up a few seconds later. So far, so good, she thought before proceeding to continuing to enter the sequence of symbols until she reached the seventh and final symbol.
Mentally crossing her fingers that this would work Carter entered the final symbol. For the final time the Stargate rumbled and whirled with the inner ring locking the final point of origin symbol into place causing the dome of the dialling device to light up. Without hesitation she reached out and pressed down on the crystalline dome and the Stargate roared to life the unstable initial vortex of the wormhole blasting forth as explosion of silver-blue energy that extended a few meters out from the gate before dropping back into the shimmering silver-blue water like wall of the event horizon.
It never gets old seeing that thing come to life, Richards thought as the Stargate burst into life. No matter how many times he had seen it, and he tried to be here for every dialling, it never ceased to utterly amaze him. The race that had built these things, the Old Ones as the Zentraedi called them echoing their Tirolian/Robotech Master creators, had clearly been an incredibly advanced and powerful race to be able to build something like these Stargates. Devices that practically told many branches of physics – at least as they'd known them – to go to hell.
"Send the probe," he ordered after a moment.
"Yes sir," Zalenka replied as he gave the command to his console bringing one of the recently arrived – as in they'd only had them for two days – Owl advanced reconnaissance drones online. The three and a half meter long, one meter wide drone rose off its docking pedestal and began moving towards the Stargate. Everyone watched it expectantly, waiting to see exactly what it would be able to do for them in comparison to the older, shorter range Eagle drones they'd previously been using. Especially as alongside advanced concealment systems the Owl could default over to a fully automatous mode and continue to run whatever objectives it had been given using an onboard AI matrix if the control signal from them here was cut off for whatever reason.
The drone cruised down the length of the repurposed wind tunnel until it reached the Stargate. It carefully aligned itself for transit then moved forward again and disappeared into the event horizon. For a few moments nothing happened then a light appeared on Zelenka's console.
"Receiving telemetry from the drone," he reported tapping in a few commands. Photonic projector fields powered up and a number of holographic screens pixeled into existence showing both camera and sensor data from the Owl. General Richards raised an eyebrow and looked intently to see what the Owl had found on the other end of the wormhole.
It appeared to be in a large galleried chamber made of heavy stone that the sensors revealed was granite. Illumination appeared to be coming from a few small high windows that sent in shafts of light illuminating an atmosphere that was somewhat dusty. Down a few steps and off to one side was the dialling device beyond that there appeared to be nothing in the room beyond a few unlit braziers of some kind. There was also some closed circular structure on the ceiling near the entrance visible on other end of the columned room.
"Lidar confirms a large room," Zelenka replied, "oxy-nitrogen atmosphere in percentages suitable for humans and Zentraedi though its hot and dry."
"How hot?"
"Thirty-five point six degrees centigrade, virtually no humidity."
Hot, Richards thought with a mental shake of his head though it was nothing that the STORM Commando unit they'd likely send through for a more in-depth investigation wouldn't be able to handle. Especially as their Tristan armour was fully climate controlled. "Are we detecting anything else," he asked.
"Not in this room," Zelenka answered, "however sensors show a short corridor beyond the room leading to another chamber. There also appears to be at least one, possibly two staircases leading down at the sides of the connecting corridor."
"Tell the drone to move forward. Let's see if we can gather more information about the planet before we risk sending some of our people through."
"Will do," Zelenka replied and relayed the command to the Owl drone prompting it to begin moving forwards, constantly scanning around itself with a variety of different sensors and not just its cameras. As the drone moved forward there was no sign of life or movement in the building which meant it was either abandoned or that it was rarely used.
In no time at all the Owl passed into the connecting corridor and Radek paused it for a few moments to run scans of the two carved stone staircases that seemed to lead down beneath the heavy granite flagstone floor. An alert flashed up on his screen.
"Interesting," he commented with a raised eyebrow.
"What is it?" Richards asked.
"Sensors are picking up a faint energy signature coming from somewhere down below. It could be a power generator of some kind that is running in a low power standby mode."
Richards blinked, having not expected that given how this place looked. "Can you tell me anything more about it? Is it protoculture based or something else?" he asked.
Zelenka fed in a few commands, trying to get some more information from the Owl drones' sensors on the nature of the power source. "I'm afraid I cannot tell the energy signature is coming from twenty meters below – likely from a deep basement level of some type – and there is too much mass between it and the Owl to get any more information on it. I can however get direction and depth information. Unless you want me to try and send the drone down there."
Richards considered that for a few moments. While it was tempting to send the Owl down there to try and identify the power source, he ultimately decided against it. After all, if this place was like the temples and so on of the ancient world that it resembled than the underground levels would be quite cramped and narrow and thus would be difficult to manoeuvre a drone the size of the Owl in.
"No mark the location as best as you can, our people will have to go and investigate it. Once that's done move the drone into the next chamber."
Zelenka nodded and did what he was told. After a few moments the drone moved on again proceeding into the next chamber. It was noticeably more brightly lit with shafts of light coming in from windows set in the wall and was visibly a bit more ornate. The stone columns holding up the galleried roof were far more elaborately carved with docking positions for old style torches set in them. A number of statues that had a distinctly Ancient Egyptian look to them were positioned regularly along the room with the two tallest standing just in front of a small flight of four steps that led down into the room itself. Each of these tall jackal-headed statues held a large metal brazier and almost touched directly over the centre of a raised platform. A platform on which sat a golden Egyptian-style throne.
"General sensors show that the throne is made of an alloy of gold and trinium," one of the other control room staff reported.
"Trinium isn't that one of the base metals used in the alloys on Zentraedi warships," Richards questioned.
"It is," Zelenka confirmed. "Along with hypercarbon it is one of the base elements used in more complex robotechnology alloys. Until recently we had no source of it ourselves but now that we do…"
Richards nodded at that knowing what the Czech scientist was saying. Recently the Zentraedi ships patrolling the system had discovered large deposits of trinium ore on Mars. An ore that was apparently extremely brittle, brittle enough that you could snap it in your hands with only a moderate effort, and completely different to how strong the refined metal was. Annoying information recovered from the ruins of Alaska Base had confirmed that some of the original UEG/UEDF leadership known the material was there since two thousand five, but that the corrupt not missed by anyone bastard of a senator Gerald Russo had managed to forbid its mining in favour of using titanium – the mining and processing of which he had strong business interests in - with hypercarbon instead. Thankfully with the repairs to the Factory Satellite completed they had been able to send forth the stations docked automated mining fleet to begin extracting and processing the ore. It was certainly going to come in handy now that the first Angel-class colony ship was under construction.
He put those thoughts out of his mind for now. "Tell the drone to move outside and do a brief survey," he ordered. "Then gather our findings together and prepare them for presentation to the defence council. We'll need final authorisation from them before we sent a full team through to this planet."
"I will get right on it," Zelenka replied even as he gave the Owl its amended orders, immediately sending it gliding across the currently empty throne room for lack of a better term for it towards the open door to the outside world. Once that was done, he began compiling their findings so far into a report that General Richards would present to the defence council and seek authorisation for a manned team from their second STORM Commando unit – Colonel Ferretti's team were still on Mara and would remain there for another week or so assisting with surveying and securing colony sites – to proceed through the Stargate to this new world whatever it was called.
As he worked, he found his thoughts preoccupied by the mysterious power source that the Owl had detected. He had told General Richards the truth when he had said that due to the depth the drones' sensors couldn't identify it. But there was something about it, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on that said that whatever it was, it was going to be very important to their future as a spacefaring species.
Which was quite an interesting prospect.
Two Hours Later
Major Delwin Watkins would, if asked, admit to being nervous as he and the rest of his STORM Commando unit stood watching the Stargate dial the new alien world. A world that, according to the Owl recon drone, so far appeared to be a desert planet. He had to admit, to himself if nobody else, that he was very nervous about stepping through the Stargate as the very idea of being dematerialised, converted into a datastream and shot through subspace before being rematerialised by the receiving Stargate almost made him want to break out in a cold sweat.
The Stargate chose that moment to roar to life, the initial unstable vortex of the wormhole exploding towards them as a silver-blue wall of foaming death before stopping and dropping back into the ring where it stabilized as a shimmering silver-blue wall of water like energy. The display was awe inspiring and in its own way quite frightening. Okay enough Delwin, he thought giving himself the mental equivalent of a kick up the backside and starting to psyche himself up for this mission.
"Exploration team stand by," General Richards abruptly over the PA system. "The Owl drone reports that night has fallen on the other side. We're sending through a few light drones so stand by."
"Standing by sir," Delwin acknowledged.
For a moment more nothing happened then one of the entrances to the repurposed wind tunnel opened and a dozen spherical objects – each the size of a basketball – came floating in and made their way along the length of the tunnel before disappearing through the event horizon each producing a slurping sound as they passed through the energy field. The field even rippled in the same way that water did when a stone was dropped in it as they passed through.
"Exploration team move out," Richards ordered, "Major Watkins control of the light drones is being transferred to your armour's wrist-comp now."
"Understood sir," Delwin acknowledged as he checked the small computer built into his right vambrace and saw the signal connect. "Connection established and secure sir."
"Excellent. Now move out."
"Yes sir," Delwin acknowledged before switching to his squad command frequency. "Alright people you heard him let's do this."
With his piece said he hefted his laser rifle to the ready position and pushed down his doubts and fears and began walking towards the Stargate. Up close it was even more amazing and quietly terrifying as you could see the tiny rippling imperfections and anomalies in the event horizon. He took a breath to steady his nerves, let it out slowly then stepped through…
….and the world went completely and utterly insane.
The moment he passed through the event horizon he felt a sensation like passing through a gently flowing waterfall, just without getting well wet, followed by a strange fuzzy tingling then he was suddenly shooting down a tunnel of ethereal blue light. Beyond which he could see stars, moons and planets shoot by at unfathomable velocities – which he somehow didn't feel – and every so often there would be a pulse of energy in the shape of the Stargate that ran along the tunnel. A tunnel that itself twisted and turned at angles that defied all logic or conscious thought. After what seemed like an eternity, but was really only about a second or two it was hard to tell the passage of time as you went through a wormhole, the wormhole stabilised and a bright white light appeared ahead, It enveloped him in its photonic embrace, and he again felt the tingling/water sensation…
… before stepping out of the gate on the alien desert world.
"Whoa now that was a hell of a rush," he muttered to himself as the whole thing had so reminded him of when he was growing up in Wales and as a kid enjoying the thrill rides at places like Barry Island or Oakwood. He carefully walked forward, eyes, armour sensors and laser rifle sweeping by sectors looking for any potential threat, as other members of his squad came through the gate each passage causing it to emit that odd slurping sound as they emerged from the event horizon. As with him they all swept the room checking for threats.
Naturally there were none.
"Davis, Morgan you two stay here and guard the gate," he ordered, "the rest of you with me."
"Yes sir," the rest of the squad acknowledged.
Delwin quickly tapped two commands into the computer on his one vambrace. The first brought up a map, and with it directions to the power source that had teased the Owl's sensors earlier to his helmet HUD. The second ordered some of the now active light drones to follow them. Then, keeping his laser rifle ready just in case, he began walking.
It took only a few moments to reach where the stairs were, stairs that descended into a deep darkness. Delwin stationed two more of his people at the top of the stairs to watch their backs, then he send some of the light drones down ahead of them, banishing the dark. He then carefully led his people down; the steps were steep polished and worn down by who knew how many generations of use but were still fully navigable with a minor amount of care.
It did not take long to reach the bottom. The stairs giving way to a carved stone corridor that disappeared in two separate directions. The energy signature was coming from somewhere ahead, below and to the right. As before Delwin left a member of his unit behind to watch the stairs before leading the way along the corridor. As they walked something seemed to react as torches along the walls spontaneously lit themselves with real flames.
"Huh weird," one his commandoes, a man named Kenshaw, commented. "They must have some kind of proximity sensors and self-ignition system meaning these aren't just simple flame torches. But it you can do something like that why use flame torches and not normal lights?"
"A good question," Delwin agreed, "maybe whoever built this place just like firelight? It doesn't matter anyway let's keep going."
"Yes sir," Kenshaw acknowledged.
They had only gone a few more steps when the grinding sound of stone on stone caught all their attention. They all whipped their rifles around in the direction the sound was coming from just in time to see a door – that had previously been indistinguishable from the walls around it – appear with the door rising into a hidden recess in the ceiling. In seconds it was open revealing a dark room beyond.
"Is the power source in there?" Kenshaw asked.
"No but we'll look regardless," Delwin answered as he first sent one of the light drones into the room and then ordered his Osprey micro-drone into action. The tiny drone, which was barely half the size of his hand, immediately separated from its docking slot in his armours backpack and glided into the room. Two of the others also deployed their Osprey's into the suddenly revealed room.
It was immediately obvious that the room was some kind of armoury. Around the perimeter of the room were shelves upon which sat a large number of the strange serpent-shaped weapons that Nathan Hunter – while he'd been Prime and led an attack on Fort Minotaur – had been armed with. Along with a number of different sized spherical objects that ranged in size from being the size of your average tennis ball to ones as big as a basketball. Occupying the rest of the room were three triangular stands in which sat a large number of two meter long staff-like weapons that had a bulbous one end and a flared end like a cobra's hood on the other. Four large versions also sat on tables.
"Mark it down," Delwin ordered as he instructed his Osprey to return, "we'll get someone to inventory what's here later."
"Yes sir," another commando acknowledged and a moment later the maps on their HUD's updated to show the presence of the armoury. Then they withdrew the last of their Osprey's and began walking again. Soon enough another hidden chamber revealed itself this one having nothing in it but tables that were covered in various stone tablets.
"I wonder what that's for," Kenshaw replied, "a library or an office of some kind?"
"Possible," Delwin agreed as they resumed walking and came to another set of stairs leading deeper beneath the desert floor. Okay time to see what else this rabbit hole can reveal, he thought as he send another light drone down to illuminate the stairs.
After leaving another member of the squad on guard duty he led the way down. These stairs were obviously not as well travelled as the other set was and curved around two corners before they came to the bottom of the well. A short corridor lay ahead of them leading to what appeared to be a stone wall. A wall which had the energy signature on the other side.
Keeping his guard up Delwin led the way down the short corridor. To everyone's total lack of surprise as they approached the wall it opened revealing another concealed doorway to an absolutely vast room beyond. Sending the remaining light drones in it was immediately obvious that this room had to be the size of your average European football pitch. It was carved out of the desert stone and was filled with tables and shelves…
…all of whom were piled high with gold and precious jewels.
"Bloody hell," Delwin breathed in shock. "This is quite a hoard. According to this the power source is deep within the room, everyone be on your guard as we go forward. And don't touch anything unless I say so understood?"
"Sir yes sir."
Cautiously, knowing that a vault like this was bound to have some kind of security system to guard against thieves, Delwin led the way inside. Strangely nothing seemed to happen, nobody or nothing appearing to challenge them, as they crossed the room. Eventually they came upon what they were looking for and it was like nothing any of them had ever seen before.
Sitting on a shelf, touching some nearby golden goblets, was a large crystalline object. It was roughly two feet tall and composed of translucent orange and yellow crystals with some red here and there as well as black highlights. It was glowing softly from within and emitting a continuous low humming sound.
"What on Earth is that?" Kenshaw asked.
'"No idea but it's definitely what the Owl picked up," Delwin answered as he instructed his armour to scan the device. The results came back almost immediately the energy signature did not match any signature in their database though it was thankfully not radioactive. It was only glowing and emitting a small amount of power due to touching the gold around it.
There was also no pressure sensor, or any other form of alarm attached to it. Nervously Delwin reached out and picked it up. The crystal immediately ceasing to glow and emit a humming sound. For a moment he looked round expecting alarms to go off, but nothing happened.
"Okay let's get this back to the gate room and report back to the top brass t Fort Minotaur. They'll want to see this and we're going to need more people here. Everyone prepare your camera logs ready for transmission back to base."
"Sir yes sir."
"Alright let's go everyone."
Following their commanders lead the remaining STORM Commandoes began to make their way out of the treasure vault and back the way they had come. None of them aware that their presence in the treasure vault had tripped an alert, an alert that was at this moment beaming its way through subspace…
…to Ra, Supreme System Lord of the Goa'uld Empire.
Ascended Planes
That Same Time
From there positions around the viewing font two of the three individuals who had been watching the events on Abydos unfold turned and looked suspiciously at the third member of their party. Unlike the Terran commandoes they were well aware that the alert of their presence in one of his many treasure vaults around the galaxy was at this very moment on its way to Ra. While he was deeply distracted by the ongoing war between himself and his allies in the High Council of the System Lords and Sokar, they knew that Ra would not let a theft go unanswered.
"What?" Janus asked seeing both Oma and Zor looking knowingly at him.
"Janus was that potentia module being there you're doing," Oma demanded sternly. Of course, she was well aware that Ra – and a few others of his parasitic kind – had discovered a number of potentia modules over there millennia long rule over the galaxy of Avalon, or the Milky Way as Terrans called it. None of them had ever gotten them to work as the Tok'ra were always quick to disrupt and derail any research into applying them as a Goa'uld figuring out how even one worked – and from there work out how to use it – would gain a decisive advantage over all their fellows.
"It was," Janus admitted, "and it's not the only thing that I left there for them to find."
"What have you done?" Oma asked.
"Just something that when they find it will start them on a path to where they could find a solution to not just the Robotech Wars but deal with our most sinful legacy."
"Janus have you gone mad? You know how dangerous that will be for them and everyone around them if they do something wrong."
"I know and you can relax Oma. I haven't given the direct coordinates only to another location where they will find the next piece of the puzzle," Janus answered. "Only when they solve that will they get the next clue, which will need to another puzzle and test and so on. Only when they pass all of them and have all the things I have left for them to find if they are worthy as we all hope they are, only then will they be able to find the correct path. And from there find their way to the city."
"Well at least you've had some sense with this," Oma muttered not at all happy with the somewhat maverick former scientists' actions. Unfortunately, there was nothing she, or indeed The Others if she reported it to them, would be able to do about it. Afterall Janus had not been doing anything he would have been unable to do if he was back in Atlantis.
"What city are you two talking about," Zor asked looking at the two older ascended beings in confusion. "Is it one of your cityships?"
"Not just a cityship but the cityship," Janus said with a grin. Zor's eyes widened as he recalled both some of the things that he had learned since he had ascended and some of the legends he had learned as a child growing up in Tiresia. He had had few friends in school, spending a great deal of time in the central library reading anything that took his fancy. Including books on what most modern Tirolians regarded as little more than myths and legends.
"You don't mean…" he started to say.
"Indeed, I do. If they succeed in following the path I have laid out and pass all the tests that I have set, they will learn the path to Atlantis."
Authors Notes: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. Before anyone says anything, I know the interior of the pyramid on Abydos is different to what is shown in the show, but I wanted to make it a bit more like how it was shown in the original movie. In the original Stargate movie there were two known chambers in the temple beneath the pyramid so I went with that and expanded on it with the addition of the outer chamber being the main audience chamber/throne room for either Ra when he visits or the underlord who is nominally in charge of Abydos – not Aset from Stargate Origins as she's dead, killed by Ra for her crime – though said underlord is currently away administering another planet as the underlord who would normally do it was killed in combat with Sokar's forces.
On the issue of Atlantis, I have always felt that the Tau'ri got there a bit too easily in the canon show once they found the coordinates in the computers of the Antarctic Outpost. Hence why here, when they abandoned it after losing the war with the Wraith, the Ancients thoroughly locked it down and put in numerous safeguards to prevent anyone just dialling in and moving in. The trail and tests that Janus has laid down – formfilling a promise he made ten thousand years ago in another version of this timeline – will give them access if they pass them. Will they you'll have to wait and see though as I said at the start the Atlantis over-arc is going to be quite a long one and only crop up now and again. I hope nobody minds. Until next time.