Another Left Turn at Albuquerque

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech and Star Wars characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold, Disney and Lucasfilm Ltd 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 Two

The system had no name. Located as it was at the edge of a remote cluster of star systems that had only been partially explored and colonised by any spacefaring civilization before a cosmic natural disaster had isolated the region for a few centuries. All it had was a number and a brief description from the handful of probes that had, centuries earlier, surveyed the system and noted its most important features.

There were two suns in the system both bright white-yellow F-type stars, orbiting the twin stars were several planets, two of which were in the region of the system that most species would consider habitable, three of which were large gas giants with their own vast systems of moons and moonlets. Two wide, dense asteroid fields – all of which were rich in ores that would be useful to any spacefaring civilization – completed the ensemble.

Yet for all the systems rich resources it remained quiet and ignored by galactic civilization. To the point that nobody had been here in centuries, no ship to survey for resources, no colonists to begin either settling or terraforming the planets in the liquid water zone, not even pirates or slavers looking for a place to lay low for a while.

Until now that was.

High above the plane of the ecliptic a section of space suddenly shivered with a heat-haze like distortion. Space the size of a quark suddenly warped alarmingly as the barrier between the normal universe and another continuum came under sudden attack from within. In nanoseconds the space-time warp strengthened and expanded until the folds of space-time, unable to take anymore, parted and spheres of eldritch energy no bigger than a tennis ball were shot into space like bullets fired from some giant celestial cannon.

The spheres slowed and stopped without any sign of any external force acting upon them. Then they expanded growing until each was dozens of kilometres in diameter. Within each sphere shapes appeared, skeletal and indistinct at first but rapidly solidifying as they fully reintegrated with normal space time. In a gyroscopic flash of blue Cherenkov radiation, created by the rapid breakdown of particles that couldn't exist in normal space for more than a few seconds, the spheres evaporated to nothingness and the fabric of the space-time returned to normal.

After a far longer fold than anyone had ever thought possible Admiral Hunter's battlegroup was back in normal space.

Bridge

SDF-3, Unknown System

Corusca Galaxy

Consciousness returned slowly to Admiral Rick Hunter.

The first thing he became aware of was the banshee wailing of the SDF-3's emergency klaxons, though the sound was distant and muted as if was coming from somewhere far away. Smell was next, he could smell the acrid stench of overheated circuits and hyperconductive wiring. Finally, he became aware that he was lying on his side on the hard hypercarbon alloy deck. Ugh what happened, he thought as he opened his eyes to find that the normally bright expansive bridge was in semi-darkness with only the dull blue of emergency lighting, and the spluttering glow of damaged consoles, providing any illumination at all.

For a few moments he just lay there, too dazed and disorientated by whatever had happened to even think let alone do anything. Then as his full faculties returned, he remembered what exactly had happened from the moment the test neutron-s missile had detonated and triggered the reaction that revealed the weapons true devastating power. Remembered them executing an emergency space fold to escape the rapidly expanding gravity well of the quantum singularity created by the blast despite knowing doing so was dangerous given space folding in a gravity well was not a good idea. Unfortunately, there had not been a choice as to stay where they were would have led to destruction, so they'd executed the fold…

…and everything had gone crazy.

He remembered being thrown to the deck as the whole ship rocked and shook like a tormented beast in the mouth of some predator. Over the course of his military career – and even before it when he'd been the star pilot of his father's flying circus – he had been on some pretty rough rides but that had been wilder than any of them. Even the SDF-1's first and only space fold – which had been very bumpy to say the least, both him and Minmei had been lucky not to get concussions during it – had been tame in comparison.

Shaking off the last of the disorientation he looked around. To see that the bridge was in a state of smoky – smoke that was thick with the scent of overheated electronics and scorched plastic – semi-darkness lit only by bluish-white emergency battery lights. There was, however, enough light to see that the bridge crew had all survived the violent fold and were picking themselves up from where they had been hurled like clothes in a washing machine during the violent convulsions of the ship during the jump. He also quickly spotted Lisa who was already back on her feet and back to tended to the wounded marine she'd been helping earlier – the poor fellow looking even more battered than before after the fold though hopefully his armour had protected him from the worst of the disturbance.

Lisa, in that sixth sense that all women seemed to have, sensed him looking at her. She looked back, smiled and nodded to indicate that she was okay prompting him to smile back in relief. Then she turned and went back to tending to the marine with an open first aid kit. Leaving Rick free to focus all his attention on both the rest of the ship and the rest of their battlegroup.

"Status report," he ordered, slipping fully back into what his friends and family referred to as his 'admiral' mode. Even as he spoke there was a faint thrum of power through the ship and the overhead lights flickered once, then came back on building slowly to full brightness, so as not to dazzle anyone, as main power was restored. Simultaneously the environmental controls came back online, powerful fans sucking the tainted, smoky atmosphere from the bridge and replacing it with fresh oxygen.

"Sir engineering reports that they have successfully restarted the reflex furnaces after an emergency scram during the fold," Lieutenant Richardson reported from the combined engineering/damage control station. "However, all reserve power banks were depleted during the fold and will take several hours to fully regenerate. Secondary gravitic fusion reactors are also back online and functioning normally. Sublight and fold engines are however offline engineering estimates it will take at least an hour to restored sublight propulsion and twelve hours to restore fold capability."

Well at least we still have the fold drives this time, Rick thought with a mental sigh of relief. He had been quietly afraid that – as they had on the SDF-1 after that fateful fold that dumped them out by Pluto – that the fold systems would have mysteriously gone bye-bye on them as they had back then. An event that to this day nobody had been able to explain, even those who understood how fold drives worked hadn't been able to explain just what had happened to the SDF-1's drives during and after that fold. The leading theory being that they had somehow stayed in foldspace even as the ship – and Macross Island – were thrown back into normal space. He mentally shook off those thoughts and forced himself to pay attention as Lieutenant Richardson continued.

"All weapons systems are currently offline. Several of our more exposed defensive laser batteries on the port side appear to have been physically sheered, off the ship and will need replacing. There is extensive damage to the hull on that side though the inner pressure hull is intact and outer hull repair is beginning," the younger officer reported. Rick wasn't surprised by the damage to the port side of the ship as that had been the side most exposed to the blast from the neutron-s warhead. He was comforted by the fact that the inner pressure hull hadn't been damaged and that the outer hull, not to mention the dense layers of nanolaminated armour that covered it, were beginning to repair themselves as an army of repair robots and nanites got to work.

"There is significant damage on all port decks though repair has begun. There were electrical fires in sections twelve, thirteen and fourteen on decks twelve to fifteen but have since been extinguished by automated systems," Richardson continued. "All fighters launching, and retrieval systems are currently offline though damage control estimates they will have our starboard launch and retrieval bays back operational in about an hour though the port bays are more extensively damaged and will take three days for full repair. Long range communications are down – both the primary and secondary foldspace comm arrays are just gone and will need replacement – though short range comms is functioning normally."

"Casualties," Rick asked.

"Sir sickbays report there are a current total of three hundred and ten serious injuries and five hundred and sixty eight minor injuries though no fatalities so far," Richardson reported. "Most injuries appear to be the result of blunt force trauma and some from system blow outs either from the missile test firing or the fold."

"Keep me informed lieutenant."

"Aye sir."

"Communications contact all ships and request full damage and casualty assessments as soon as possible."

"Aye sir."

"Admiral our navigational sensors and astropositioning systems are reading something strange," Lieutenant Pren sounding both confused and concerned. "We are currently unable to get a lock on any known astronomical markers and the readings from the fold system record are not making any sense."

"How so lieutenant," Rick asked.

"Sir according to the fold system record we've travelled over a trillion light years from our previous location," Pren reported, "we also entered foldspace at a far higher speed than normal we were travelling at nearly seventy percent of light speed when our fold spheres fully submerged into foldspace."

Rick scowled. "That can't be right," he commented knowing that it was impossible to travel so far in foldspace at least not in one jump. While fold drives allowed you to travel faster-than-light - and were a lot more efficient than the Star Trek warp drive-like hyperlight system that the Tirolians, Karbarrans and Perytonians had used for FTL travel before fold drives were developed - there were quantum mechanical limits on how far you could fold in one go. Limits that nobody known to them had yet been able to overcome, with even the likes of the Robotech Masters having been limited to jumping at most ten kiloparsecs in one go. "Have you run a diagnostic?"

"I have sir," Pren replied sounding grim.

"And?"

"All systems are functioning normally and there are no signs of any malfunctions," Pren reported, "the data is accurate which would explain why our navigational and astropositioning cannot lock onto any familiar interstellar or even intergalactic landmarks."

"Because there aren't any to lock onto," Rick said grimly knowing that there could be only one explanation for that. If they had indeed been hurled so far through foldspace – presumably due to the gravitational effects of the black hole supercharging their speed as they entered the hyperspatial realm known as foldspace – then they had not just been transported to another galaxy, that would have been bad enough but not unsurmountable as the Masters had at the end of the day ruled multiple galaxies – but hurled clear across a sizeable chunk of the universe. "Because were halfway across the universe from where we were."

A shocked silence filled the bridge at that, everyone looking at each other in a mixture of shock and horror. Every one of them knew that even with their state-of-the-art fold drives they were simply too far from home to return in any reasonable timeframe. Even if they folded continuously – something that was not a good idea as the amount of stress that would put on the fold drives would be unimaginable and certainly beyond what the drives could take – it would take centuries to get back to their own galaxy.

"How do we get back," Richardson asked.

"I don't know lieutenant," Rick admitted honestly. "But we will figure some way out if there is a way to be found. In the meantime, Lieutenant Pren send the data to the Deucalion tell Exedore and the others to begin an analysis on it and try to determine if there is a way to get us back home. Tell them I want a preliminary report as soon as possible."

"Aye sir."

"Communications inform all ship captains that I want them here in twelve hours," he ordered knowing that in the very likely scenario that they couldn't get back home then they would have decisions to make about what they were going to do now. There were after all protocols and plans in place for them to start their civilization again – it was one of the reasons why all heavy robotech capital ships contained a full copy, well as full as possible since so much had been lost beneath Dolza's guns in the Rain of Death, of Earth's historical and cultural database, plus they had both the protoculture matrix and a kernel device stored on this ship – if there was no way home. In theory as the senior officer on the scene he could give the order to implement those protocols on his own, but he would prefer to have a consensus before starting them down that unknown path.

"Aye sir."

"In the meantime, Lieutenant Hawkins contact the quartermaster and begin a complete inventory of all our supplies and available equipment. Communications instruct all the other ships to do the same."

"Aye sir," the operations officer acknowledged.

"Aye sir," communications echoed before frowning. "Sir we're receiving a distress signal from the Deucalion. Captain Stevenson reports that their primary life support systems have failed, and backups are also beginning to fail."

Oh fuck, Rich thought silently. Though he knew that he shouldn't be surprised as while it was built on the same pattern as the Garfish and Lionfish-class light cruisers the Deucalion was a Freeman Dyson-class science vessel. Alongside having a minimal armament – just a few defensive lasers that were mostly there for anti-space junk and anti-asteroid purposes – the Deucalion was more lightly armoured than one of its warship cousins. Thus, between the blast wave from the neutron-s missile test and the violence of the fold it wasn't surprising that they were experiencing problems as they would sustain far more damage than the rest of them.

"Damn. Tell Captain Stevenson to begin an immediate evacuation of the ship," he ordered knowing the priority now was getting the crew off the vessel before life support died entirely. They could try repairing the vessel later though, if that wasn't possible, they'd salvage what equipment and resources they could from it then destroy it. "Lieutenant Richardson tell damage control we need the main hangars operational ASAP to recover lifepods and shuttles from the Deucalion."

"Aye sir."

Jedi Temple

Coruscant

A Short Time Later

Sitting in the quiet sanctity of the mediation room that was set aside for the solo use of the most senior members of the High Council – which had led to more than one person in the order be they a master, a knight, padawan or initiate to refer to it as the 'old folks' home' – Grandmaster Yoda frowned slightly as he meditated and listened to the Force. A short time ago there had been a major disturbance in the Force, a disturbance that was unlike anything he had ever felt before in all his centuries of life. He wasn't only one trying to understand and figure out just what had happened to cause the disturbance.

Whatever it was it had been extremely powerful. The shockwave it had created in the Force hadn't come from either the light or the dark sides of the Force but had seemed to come from both and neither at the same time. It had briefly disrupted the veil of the dark side that had been steadily clouding their vision over the last few years, really ever since the Trade Federations temporary invasion of Naboo nearly a decade ago, though not enough for them to determine the identity of the other Sith who was known to be at large in the galaxy. Well beyond showing that whoever he or she was they were here on Coruscant which wasn't exactly helpful as not only was the planet home to billions of individuals but there were tens of millions more transiting through every single minute day or night.

Submerging himself into a much deeper meditation, as deep as he dared to go on his own as to go any deeper without another Jedi present to act as an anchor for his spirit was beyond dangerous, he focused on the disturbance and finding where it came from. For a few moments the Force revealed nothing to him, beyond the fact that the tides of fate and destiny were for the first time in his experience in considerable turmoil, then images burst into his awareness…

A group of strange starships hanging in a system surrounded by stars that were completely alien, alien in a way no stars in this galaxy were. They were blocky ships, most angular though twelve of them had a more rounded shape while still being angular. It was hard to see them in detail as there was some type of distortion around them that made their outlines hard to see, a strange shimmering that he guessed was some type of stealth designed to break up a visual silhouette. Though it was obvious that most if not all of them were warships.

Floating in space some distance from them, just outside the atmosphere of an unknown planet roughly comparable in size and mass to Alderaan, was a pyramidal object. Just looking at it was enough to send shivers of alarm and danger into Yoda's mind as he knew instantly that not only was this thing a weapon but that it was something terrible.

A flash…

…He could see the fleet again but now the weapon and the planet were gone. In their place was the dark orb of a quantum singularity surrounded by a faint ghostly nimbus and with an accretion disc forming around the equator. Yoda's mind recoiled in horror as he realized that this thing, this monster had been created by the detonation of whatever that weapon was.

The alien warships were in turmoil. He could see them more clearly now and it was obvious that some of them had been damaged by the blast and he got the distinct impression that they had been caught by surprise by the effect of the weapon they had just tested.

Abruptly strange bubbles of energy surrounded the ships, making their outlines blur and dissolve, before the spheres compacted down to something smaller than a training remote. Instead of shooting away the spheres suddenly began orbiting the black hole, accelerating faster and faster with each orbit until the acceleration overcame the pull of the singularity's gravity causing the spheres to shoot off on one vector, vanishing from normal space with faint flickers of pseudo motion indicated that they were actually a form of hyperspace travel. One the jogged at his memory from somewhere.

Another flash…

A system that from some of the star patterns he recognised as being somewhere in the Outer Rim. Space seemed to shiver for a moment then the energy spheres appeared again. They expanded and quickly evaporated leaving the fleet floating there in space. His vision panned around, and he saw more stars that jogged at his memory from events that had happened much earlier in his life when he had been a young knight. The purple, green and blue nebula with the strange curling swirls at its edges in the distance was faintly familiar though he couldn't quite place it

A voice spoke.

"Your fate and the fate of your galaxy is now bound to them," a female voice, ancient and resonating with unfathomable power in the Force said. "Help them, they can help you and stop the tide of darkness that is rising to consume you."

"Who are you," Yoda asked.

"Who I am is not important Jedi," the being answered, "the Children of Earth can help you, but you must find them soon. But be aware that eventually the Children of the Shadow will follow and bring with them the evils of a twisted legacy. You and all you know will need them to stop the darkness."

"The Sith?"

"No. They are much greater as the Children of Shadow will destroy any who use the Force or can even touch it, they will not care if you follow the dark, the light or dwell in the grey. All will die if you are not ready when they come."

"Can you tell me more about these Children of the Shadow?"

"Only that they are the creations of the Fallen Celestial. Beware Master Jedi for they are powerful and cunning beyond your experience. Now go the fate of all you know depends on your next actions."

Another flash.

Yoda opened his eyes with a short gasp as the blizzard of visions and the strange Force communication ended. To say he was concerned by what had just been revealed to him would have been a monumental understatement. The Jedi Order knew little about the Celestials beyond the fact that they were an ancient, immensely powerful species who could rearrange and create entire star systems and who had vanished from the galaxy long ago. Few examples of their technology had ever been found, but what had been had been advanced almost beyond comprehension and used the Force – as well as other fundamental forces of the universe - in ways that nobody had ever been able to understand or replicate. The fact that there was someone out there, some dark force that could come to this galaxy, that could have even some of it under their control was very worrying.

As if a Sith hiding and plotting against both us and the Republic as they always do wasn't bad enough, he thought feeling every one of his near nine centuries of life at that moment. Yet at the same time he was intrigued by these Children of Earth and how they could help defeat both them and whatever nefarious plan the Sith were working towards. Reaching out with the Force he telekinetically summoned a data pad to his hand from a small table on the other side of the room.

As soon as it was in his hands, he remotely accessed the Jedi Archives and began a search for the nebula he had seen in his vision. The pad bleeped and informed him that it was beginning the search though there was an advisory that it would take some time to complete the search as – even just limiting the search to the Outer Rim – there were a lot of nebulas in the galaxy. He put the pad down to let it continue with the search before reaching out with the Force again and opening the door before the person he could sense on the other side could press the hailer.

Without comment Mace Windu came into the room a mask of concern on his features and Yoda knew that he had had much the same vision that he had had. Probably not to the same level of intensity as like most Jedi Mace was not prone to having visions.

"Did you see it," Mace asked as he sat on the meditation seat opposite him.

"Did I yes," Yoda answered. "A time of great change, coming upon the galaxy is. The Sith no longer our solo concern is. Find these Children of Earth we must if to prepare for these Children of Shadow we are."

"Do we even know where they are?" Mace asked.

"Know for sure I do not. Somewhere in the Outer Rim they are, a part I once visited when a young knight I was," Yoda answered, "recognize a nebula I did. Running a search in the archives I now am. See what did you?"

"I saw the weapons test," Mace admitted with a shiver. "I hope they haven't brought more of those weapons with them to this galaxy. There have been enough superweapons in history we don't need to add whatever that monstrosity is."

"Think they have more I do not. Testing it they were, caught by surprise by its power they were."

"I don't understand how anyone who could create such a weapon could be of help to us. To even conceive of such a weapon, they would have to be servants of the dark side."

"Think they are I do not. Grey though definitely they are."

Mace scowled slightly at that. In his mind that was almost as bad, but he cautioned himself that they did not know anything about these Children of Earth – whatever that meant – so they really couldn't make any assumptions about them. Plus, he wasn't convinced that the mysterious female – whose power was undeniable – was quite being level with them at least with her warning about who or what these Children of the Shadow were.

Before he could speak again Yoda's data pad bleeped to indicate it had a match for the nebula he had seen. Immediately Yoda summoned the pad to his hand again and checked the result, ears moving up a little bit in surprise as he beheld a region of the galaxy that he had almost forgotten existed. A region that for more than seven hundred years had been isolated from the rest of the Republic by the effects of the sudden supernova that had destroyed the star Tokai-Los. A region that had only really started to become accessible again in the last fifty years.

"Identified the nebula we have, the Yan'ki'shai Nebula it is," Yoda said as he scanned the information that the search engines in the archives had provided. He was relieved that they had been able to identify the nebula so fast and do so remotely as if they hadn't found anything he would have had to have Jocasta look into it herself , "on the far side of the Tzarlas Cluster that is."

"The Tzarlas Cluster! That's extremely remote," Mace commented even as he recalled his history classes from when he had been a young initiate. They had covered the Tokai-Los supernova as it was the most recent of such events in galactic history and a demonstration of one of the endings of the life cycle of the stars, "hard to get to as well as even seven hundred years after Tokai-Los exploded the hyperspace route there is still somewhat unstable."

"Know this I do. But an expedition we must prepare."

"The Senate might object."

"Think so I do not, need not know they not until more we know. Especially as distracted by the Separatist crisis they are."

"Good point," Mace replied knowing that, despite what some of the Senators liked to think, the Jedi Order didn't have to tell them everything that they were doing. Really only if they needed to requisition Republic assets would they have to do that, something that wasn't really necessary right now since the Order did have some resources and ships itself. Doing this would a good reminder to the Senators, and even Supreme Chancellor Palpatine that while the Jedi were aligned to the Republic they were technically allies only and didn't have to obey the Senate or the Republic Executive if they didn't want to or if the Force directed them down another path to what they wanted themselves. He quickly stood up. "I will summon the council so we can plan and decide who to send."

"Join you soon I shall."

Mace nodded and after a polite bow left the room. Yoda watched him go before turning his attention back to his data pad and bringing up some information on the Tzarlas Cluster to refamiliarize himself with it as it had been such a long time since he had last been anywhere near there. As he began to read the information, he felt something he had not felt in centuries stir within him. After a few moments he realized that it was excitement and anticipation, something so different to the apathy that had been increasingly plaguing him since the death of Qui-Gon and his own former padawan Dooku leaving the Order and returning to his homeworld of Serreno. Where in disgust at the endless corruption and exploitation of the Outer and Mid-Rim Worlds by the powerful, wealthy Core Worlds he had gone on to start the ever increasing Separatist crisis as long exploited worlds – something he guiltily had to acknowledge the Jedi had done nothing to stop – flocked to his banner. A slight smile graced his aged face…

… this was going to be interesting.

Authors Notes: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. Now to clarify when they are in the timeline – as I know that some of you are bound to ask – they are approximately six to eight months before the beginning of the events of Attack of the Clones and the outbreak of the Clone Wars. What effect the REF fleet's presence will have on that you will have to wait and see but I will say that they will inadvertently throw a fair few monkey wrenches into the plans of Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious. Finally, I must remind you that the canon being used for this version of the story is mostly Legends with only bits and pieces of Disney canon where it makes sense to use it.