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Yet another wormhole-based crossover fanfic...

Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:22 pm
by Jedi Master Spock
Yet another wormhole-based crossover fanfic...
(Not to be confused with Yet Another Fantasy Gaming Comic.)
Since it's been a little while since the author of a VS debate website started a bad crossover fanfic starting with an unimaginative wormhole connecting the two universes, and it was a new year, I decided I'd launch one. Now starring your opinions. Since mine, well, surely they'd make for a boring story.




Episode 01: Gateway
Names are courtesy of random name generators everywhere.

Beta Quadrant, neutral territory. Bridge of the U.S.S. Cheron

"Sensors are reading gravimetric fluctuations at one four seven mark three five two, half a parsec off. I'm... not sure what to make of it, sir. Readings are anomalies. I'm picking up a Hawking signature, but there's no singularity event horizon. Boundaries are defined... it looks like a stable phenomenon, although it has a high proper motion. Highly energetic." An ensign manning the science board looked nervous, like a freshman cadet taking a practical exam during an admiral's tour of the Academy. Difficult to believe she was twenty five standard years old and an old hand with gravimetric anomalies, even if new to Starfleet.

"Ms. Hoop, could it be a wormhole?" The captain's detached expression concealed intent interest - and concern. No stable wormhole had yet been discovered in Federation space; discovering one this deep in the Empire's sphere of influence would pose a dilemma, especially given their mission. However, it wouldn't hurt to detour a light year or two off course and take a closer look.

"Can't tell, sir. We'd need a full scan at a much closer range, and we might not be sure even then. That's the thing about anomalies, sir; no telling what they really are until you study them a bit."

"Mr. Hoq, set a course for the anomaly. Ms. Hoop, would you report to Engineering to help them prepare a probe? You have more experience with gravimetric anomalies than anyone else on board, I'm afraid." Captain Robinson frowned.

"Aye, sir," chorused the petite human and the lanky saurian, as Captain Robinson moved to the science board to have a look at the anomaly himself.





A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

"Captain Zhet? No sign of that freighter, but one of the fighter patrols has found something. It's... well..." The lieutenant shifted from foot to foot nervously, like a child with a full bladder in a house full of strangers. "Strange."

Hours later, Captain Zhet looked out of his window at the swirling ... thing. Nobody could tell him what it was, or what it could do; it looked like a hole to nowhere. It probably was a hole to nowhere. They'd sent an unmanned fighter through the middle of the brilliant swirling disks; it flared brighter, then vanished. He'd sent a message back to Coruscant, but for now, it was a mysterious, floating... thing. Anomaly, if you liked the scientific term.

A thousand light years from Corellia - but not along the good hyperspace lanes, it was going to be days before reinforcements arrived. Until then, one Captain Molan Zhet would be cooling his heels and wondering why the admiral had sent him such a terse, uninformative reply and ordered him to abandon pursuit of the missing freighter. No accounting for the priorities back at headquarters - when was investigating spatial anomalies a priority?

A sudden flare of light from the anomaly left Molan blinking, and the ship shuddered under his feet, a fluctuation in artificial gravity rolling his stomach. What was that?




Back in the Beta Quadrant:

Commander Shovas paced on the bridge. "Launch the probe," he said.

"Launching probe, sir."

"Forty thousand kilometers... thirty thousand... gravimetric flux is increasing. Probe has entered the anomaly... I've lost the data stream. If this is a navigable wormhole -" The dark circles under Ensign Hoop's eyes disappeared as her eyes widened in shock and a flare of light consumed the ship.




A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Molan was out of breath when he reached the main bridge of the Judgment. He thanked the designers who put the captain's quarters near the bridge of the Republic attack cruiser - no, he corrected himself, the Imperial attack cruiser - no, Star Destroyer, that was the term now. His breath completely caught, he straightened his jacket.

"Report! What's going on?"

"Sir! The anomaly's flare temporarily blinded our sensors. It temporarily doubled in size, we think, from the peak readings - when it died back down, well, this ship was there." Zhet couldn't recall the name of the lieutenant addressing him. He tried to keep the names of the bridge crew straight, but the rapid expansion of the Navy meant a lot of turnover between tours.

He couldn't recognize the holographic ship, either. Maybe he was losing it. Time to put in for a medical leave of absence. “Not the freighter we were looking for earlier,” he said leadingly.

"Not anything in the database, sir. Not anything near, by a wide margin."

Good. He wasn't losing his mind.

"It's half a kilometer long, almost a third of a kilometer across the circular part.” The lieutenant was brisk and informative. “The thrusters are amazingly small, if those are even thrusters. It hasn't moved since we spotted it. I'm not sure if it can do any more than just keep station."

"Do we have any flights out on patrol? No?" He motioned to another officer. This one he recognized - Commander Garnik. “Commander, I want a fighter squadron out there behind it five minutes ago. Helm! Take us closer. I don't want that thing to vanish into hyperspace. Warm up the tractor beams. Have we hailed them?"

Commander Garnik turned away from the junior officer he'd just passed the task of coordinating a fighter launch and shook his head. "Not yet, sir."

Captain Zhet frowned. "Start trying."




On board the bridge of the U.S.S. Cheron:

The red-alert sirens were blaring. "Damage report!" Shovas gripped the rail.

"Warp core is off-line. Structural integrity fields are holding just fine. Sensors were down, but they're coming back online."

Shovas rubbed an ear. "Computer, reduce alert status to yellow." The sirens muted. "And what are sensors showing us? Ensign?"

Ensign Hoop shook her head. "We're a long way from home, sir. I'm not sure where we are."

Shovas sighed patiently. "Run an astrometrics check."

"Sir. Nothing's matching yet. Not the planets, not the stars, not even the galaxies. We're -" She cut herself off. "Sir, I'm picking up a ship. It's a big one, over a kilometer long and twenty four million tons. Picking up a heavy ion trail. It's accelerating towards us at thirty gravities and they're charging up something."

"Onscreen." Shovas walked around and seated himself in the command chair. "Mr. Toner, see if you can open a channel with them." That ship is eight times as massive as the Cheron, and I'll eat my antennae if that's not a keel-built warship. "And get me Engineering."





Can our brave heroes make contact with the bizarre aliens from another dimension? Will Ensign Hoop fall asleep at her post? Will Captain Zhet drink a poisoned cup of coffee? Find out in the next installment!

Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:06 am
by Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
Get to updatin' already! YA LAZAY!

Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 9:51 pm
by Jedi Master Spock
Airlocke_Jedi_Knight wrote:Get to updatin' already! YA LAZAY!
I'll have you know, this update is on schedule and as planned.




Episode 02: Contact!

Bridge of the U.S.S. Cheron

Commander Shovas stared at the enormous warship on the viewscreen.

"Sir, we have a channel. Audio only for the moment."

"Put them through, Mr. Toner. I'm interested in hearing what our neighbors have to say."

A tinny voice crackled through, cycling on repeat. "- is the Imperial starship Judgment. Identify yourself. This is the Imperial starship Judgment. Identify -"

Shovas grimaced. "This is Commander Shovas of the U.S.S. Cheron. We represent the United Federation of Planets." He tapped the channel off for a moment. "I'd like to maintain the distance between us. I don't like the way they're closing."

"Matching course with one quarter impulse power, sir." Lieutenant Ciera said, a tight nest of curly black hair practically quivering with adrenaline. Things were getting exciting. She liked that.

Bridge of the Judgment:

"- Cheron. We represent the United Federation of Planets."

Captain Zhet motioned to Commander Garnik. "Who are the United Federation of Planets?"

"Unless they mean the Trade Federation, I don't know, sir." Commander Garnik hustled down into the pit, anticipating his captain's request to see if there was anything that could be dug up about this "United Federation of Planets."

"And if that's a Trade Federation hull, I'll eat my hat. Okay." Zhet flipped a switch. "This is Captain Zhet of the Judgment. You are in Imperial territory. State your purpose for being here."

"Sir! It's started moving!" The lieutenant working scan looked very puzzled. Such tiny engine nozzles - where was the delta-vee coming from? He was picking up an ion trail, yes, but something odd was happening. And then he noticed something else. "There's a probe of some kind, sir, fifty kilometers at bearing zero one nine. It's broadcasting some kind of coded datastream and pinging our hull. I think it belongs to them."

Zhet sipped thoughtfully. "Tractor it. I want a bomb squad and a scan engineer in a shuttle five minutes ago to meet it. If there's a self-destruct on it, I don't want it going off inside the ship. Is that clear?"

"Sir!" The comms officer flipped a switch. The alien commander's voice came through again.

"We come in peace on a mission of exploration and diplomacy. What empire do you represent, Captain Zhet? Your vessel matches nothing in our database, and we are not familiar with this territory."

The pieces were coming together for Zhet. It was quite possible - mathematically speaking - for an entire alien civilization to have sprung up out of one of the less-well explored reaches of the galaxy without being noticed. The galaxy was a big place, after all, and most systems were uninhabited and uninteresting. But then there was the spatial anomaly. The intrinsic energy cost of something like that spatial anomaly had to be enormous, and the flare of the strange ship's entry into the system had blinded sensors from tens of thousands of kilometers away - meaning enormous waste energies. Compared to hyperdrive, travel by spatial anomaly just didn't make sense... unless you were traveling from very far away indeed.

All this was racing through his mind as he responded. "I'm not personally familiar with the lines of your ship either, Commander Shovas. We represent the Empire. The Galactic Empire, until very recently the Galactic Republic."

"I'm afraid we're not from this galaxy, Captain Zhet."

Extragalactics! A momentary hush descended on the bridge of the Judgment as the officers of the Empire digested what some of them had suspected but weren't ready to believe. For ten seconds, the only sound on the bridge was that of an unsurprised Molan Zhet contentedly sipping coffee in his rumpled captain's uniform.

"Jerek," he said, now remembering the helmsman's name, "Cut the main drive. If they're claiming to come in peace, it behooves us to play along for as long as we can."

Bridge of the U.S.S. Cheron:

Ensign Hoop blinked, trying hard to stay awake after a long twelve-hour extended shift. Her board was chirping at her. Why was it chirping at her? Ah! The probe! It had gone through as well and was sending telemetry. And it was under gravimetric stress.

"Captain! They're tractoring our probe! Er, Commander, I mean. Sir. Sorry." Shrinking into herself with embarassment. "It's linked to the power signature we saw. It's charged up but they're only using a small fraction of the power. That's a terawatt-range tractor beam they have there." Her embarassment faded into competence as she coaxed additional data out of the probe.

"Chief Kowalski, I want a transporter lock on that probe. Prepare to beam it out on my command. I have a bad feeling about this, but let's not tip our hand too early." Shovas rubbed his temples. The Andorian commander's antennae twitched.

A chirp heralded a resumed transmission from the wedge-shaped ship. "I don't suppose you're willing to tell us what galaxy you come from and how you created that... ah... hole to travel here, would you?"

"Believe it or not, Captain Zhet, we didn't create it. We believe it is a rare variety of natural phenomenon. We had no intention to trespass upon your space, and most sincerely apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you by passing through." Commander Shovas motioned to Mr. Toner to momentarily stop broadcasting his speech. "I need the captain up here, and we need to know if we can cross back in the other direction, how the anomaly was triggered, and how far away they would need to be to not be pulled across."

Ensign Hoop swallowed. "I'll be right on it, sir."

Bridge of the Judgment:

"A most curious natural phenomenon if so. We have never found the like of it. As a matter of fact, we were in this system in pursuit of a ship full of terrorists, who disappeared in the near vicinity of this anomaly of yours.” A young Molan had once aspired to be an opera star, acting theatrically on the big stage. Captain Zhet sounded as aggrieved as possible. Hopefully, it would translate well to the aliens.

"These terrorists have been linked to numerous acts of rebellion and insurrection, causing quite substantial loss of life and property. If they disappeared through this anomaly of yours, they may well be causing trouble on your side of it.” He turned away from the microphone. "In the event we disappear through that anomaly, I want reports relayed back through the Holonet every five minutes. And what's the word on the bomb squad?”

The bomb squad, aboard a TIE shuttle:

The device was oblong, shaped like a coffin. The sergeant was nervous and not quite sure what was going on. Alarms had gone off, apparently there was a strange ship around, and he and his squad of munitions disposal experts had been rushed to a ready shuttle to examine this... device. Which may or may not be explosive.

He took a deep breath. It definitely had active sensors, but it didn't look like a regular probe droid. Just... a coffin. Not encouraging. He stepped towards it, and then gaped as it disintegrated into blue sparkles. Half the squad reflexively hit the deck while the other half gaped. Newbies need more drilling, the sergeant noted in a detached fashion as he got back up.

"I don't even see any dust left,” he said, shaking his head.

Will the brave troopers figure out what the heck just happened? Will Ensign Hoop ever get to sleep again? We still don't know whether or not Zhet's coffee is real, so maybe we'll find out in the next installment!

Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2009 4:22 pm
by Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
I'll have you know that I was simply curious when you were updating, and made a joke about it taking so long(2 weeks is a decent amount of time for such a short entry, although, if that is when you had planned...) to update. Just so ya know.

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 3:54 am
by Mike DiCenso
The second part of this story is a definite improvement over the first. Still a bit too on the bland side of things for my tastes. Is there a real reason behind this story? Or are you just making up a parody for silly fun that'll jump start more efforts?
-Mike

Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 6:16 pm
by Jedi Master Spock
Airlocke_Jedi_Knight wrote:I'll have you know that I was simply curious when you were updating, and made a joke about it taking so long(2 weeks is a decent amount of time for such a short entry, although, if that is when you had planned...) to update. Just so ya know.
Well, each episode is going to be about the same length. It's quite possible to write them faster, but I have a few reasons for waiting so long between installments. I don't intend to spend a lot of my time on this, and it gives the folks who don't log on very often a fair chance to weigh in on audience-determined variables.
Mike DiCenso wrote:The second part of this story is a definite improvement over the first. Still a bit too on the bland side of things for my tastes. Is there a real reason behind this story? Or are you just making up a parody for silly fun that'll jump start more efforts?
Careful - you're making me sound like I might be clever, devious, or subtle! We can't have that, now, can we?

I suppose you might continue to find future episodes less bland as I write more of it. However, if my wormhole-based fan fiction piece fails to be bad, as advertised in the OP, I'd like to assign a scapegoat in advance. Are you volunteering for that position?

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:09 am
by Jedi Master Spock
As you may have noticed, February's first scheduled installment is late. When Friday rolled around, I let myself get wrapped up in debating the population of the Federation.

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:27 am
by Mike DiCenso
Jedi Master Spock wrote: I suppose you might continue to find future episodes less bland as I write more of it. However, if my wormhole-based fan fiction piece fails to be bad, as advertised in the OP, I'd like to assign a scapegoat in advance. Are you volunteering for that position?
No! You won't turn me, your Highness. I'll never go over to the Darkside! ;-)
-Mike

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:42 am
by Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
I-I v-volunteer.

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 8:39 am
by Jedi Master Spock
Episode 03: All too human...

Bridge of the U.S.S. Cheron:

"I'm setting up the data analysis. This is... strange. Not a wormhole, exactly, and whatever it is, it's not the same on this side. There's an asymmetry to the whole thing. It might just be a one way ticket." Ensign Hoop was in her element.

It was comforting to focus on something familiar, like trying to make sense of baffling one-of-a-kind data that threw all the normal rules of subspatial behavior on its ear, rather than something strange, like a terrifyingly large triangular warship drifting nearby. "I think the original anomaly was triggered by matter in proximity. I'd hate to see what happened if it entered a planetary system, but we've both gotten closer to this one than the probe did."





A battered nameless small freighter:

The hull of the freighter creaked. Lights dimmed barely illuminated the faces of the fugitives. Competing with the creaks, voices crackled on the radio, tinny and filled with static from the swirling upper atmosphere of a gas giant.

"We're doomed." Roaman Lekva was always a pessimist. "We're way down a gravity well, and more Imperials might be showing up any moment now."

Xej Kaalopas was a Zabrak of action. "Exactly why we should make our move now. There's only one of them, and they're surely distracted by this Federated vessel. If we make a run for it, they might not notice."

Aiyira was a Twi'lek. She also had twice the brains of Xej and Roaman put together. This was why she was - nominally, at least - in charge of getting them out of this mess. It had been her idea to head towards the unusual hyperspace readings and then drop ballistically into the gas giant's atmosphere. Which had been nerve-wracking, but should have led the Imperials off track - destroyed the ship or transited it to who knew where.

It was time for another brilliant idea. "There's one of them, and it's distracted by the Federation vessel. The odds are they won't be watching scan too closely in this direction. We power up slowly, and skim through the upper atmosphere. When we're on the other side of this forsaken windball, we make a break for it and hope the planet shields us from their sensors all the way to hyperspace."





Aboard the Judgment:

The momentary pause of the conversation between the commander and the captain was interrupted. "Sir! It self-destructed!" Another young lieutenant. This one looked too young to be in uniform to Captain Zhet. "The device. On the shuttle. Sir."

Captain Zhet winced. "Tell them to sort through the debris. Any casualties?"

Babyface shook his head. "None, sir." A pause as he listened to his headset. "No debris, either. Complete mystery."

Shovas's voice dryly continued. "If a shipload of terrorists just escaped into our space through that anomaly, that could be a problem. The other side of that hole is something of a politically sensitive region. However, our experts aren't sure it's even possible to cross in this direction. It looked very different in our galaxy."

No mention of the probe. Interesting. "Commander, we're transmitting you data on the ship in question. The terrorists aboard are highly dangerous individuals who pose a threat to the security of the entire galaxy. Your entire galaxy, if they're in your galaxy now."

Captain Zhet didn't know the exact details of what the rebels had tried to do. It involved some hush-hush project above his security clearance level. The briefings he did have made it sound like the budding rebel movement was an unholy amalgamation of former separatists, anarchists, and Force-worshipping religious nuts, their only common bond their dislike of the law and order of the Empire.




Bridge of the U.S.S. Cheron:

Ensign Hoop's fingers danced across the board with faint tremors. "Sir! Readings from the probe from before we beamed it out. They're... human? I think. 96% confidence."

The Andorian first officer quirked an antenna. "Very interesting, but I'd like you to focus on the analysis of this... non-wormhole wormhole. We're very far from home, and I want to know if it's safe to go back into that thing and come back out the other side one way or another. Lieutenant Mzz'kiti, I want you to see if you can confirm this through sensor readings. Lieutenant Cierra, I want you to plot and keep updated a least-time course for the center of the anomaly at full impulse. Don't go before my mark." What was taking Captain Robinson so long?

Of course, there was another way to find out. "Mr. Toner, tight focus audio and visual on me." Shovas straightened his uniform reflexively. "Captain Zhet, it is our tradition to communicate via visual, as well as audio, signals. We are now sending you a visual, and would appreciate it if you returned the favor."





Aboard the Judgment:

After a few moments of fiddling, the flat image of a humanoid flickered to life in front of Molan Zhet. It looked almost like a male human. Its hair was paler than its skin, and two modest antennae protruded from its skull. With a little bit of of makeup - or maybe just a hat - the extragalactic could probably pass for human.

"It's a color image, sir."

Molan Zhet peered over Commander Garnik's shoulder at the display screen. Blue skin. Looks almost human. Something about that seems familiar, though I'm not sure quite what. "Well, Commander Shovas, seeing as we're both here until our experts presume this anomaly can be passed through from this side, we may as well talk face to face. Transmitting holo-signal now. Your people, what are they called? I do not recall seeing any of you before."

"I am an Andorian. Our people were founding members of the United Federation of Planets. Of course, my crew is not all Andorian," the alien added quickly, "The Federation is an alliance of many worlds and many peoples."





Bridge of the U.S.S. Cheron:

"Captain on deck!" Captain Robinson paused, watching his first officer and the strange ... human? ... captain of the giant warship converse.

"I'm afraid I have to cut our conversation short, Captain Zhet. Something has come up which requires my attention." Commander Shovas turned to Captain Robinson. "Well, as you see, we're in an interesting situation."

"If it's not a human, it sure looks like it." Lieutenant Mzz'kiti paused. "I've scanned to the best of my ability. There are about nine thousand human life signs on that ship, sir. I also picked up several alien and human life signs on a small vessel in the upper atmosphere of that gas giant, Commander. Captain? What should we do? Why are there humans in this galaxy?"

"Given the sensitive nature of our mission, popped straight back through that rabbit hole back home and flown onward." His dour expression may have been due to the interruption of his sleep cycle. It might also have something to do with a replicator malfunction. The captain's customary cup of coffee was nowhere in sight. "Why haven't we done that?"

"Ensign Hoop wasn't sure it was safe, sir. Or even possible." Commander Shovas turned to Ensign Hoop, so that she could continue her explanation. The steady even breathing of a sleeping human was the only answer she gave as she dozed lightly at her console. "Ensign Hoop!"

She bolted upright. "Sir?" She looked around the bridge, mortified. She'd fallen asleep on duty!

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:23 am
by Airlocke_Jedi_Knight
Yeah, a Zabrak!

Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2009 12:55 am
by Mike DiCenso
Ensign Hoop finally falls asleep, and at her post no less! ;-)
-Mike

Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:36 am
by Jedi Master Spock
Episode 04: Small blue lekku

"Ensign Hoop, if you would kindly explain what you know about the rabbit hole? What could possibly go wrong if we simply flew straight into it?" The captain did not appear amused.

Crap, he knows. Ensign Hoop took a deep breath. Focus. He can't possibly be any more critical than a Vulcan professor with an axe to grind.

"Ah. Well, the phenomenon is completely asymmetric. Subspace signature is completely different from this side of the field; when we went through, we experienced 3.1 trillion newtons of gravimetric shear - that's one of the reasons the ship suffered damage - and if the inversion pattern exhibited in the quantum pulse resonance signal here - in the theta band - is an indication of the return path's spatial distortion, there's a chance we would be crushed like a tin can. Sir."

She checked her board. Yes, the analysis had finished running. "About thirty percent under first-order assumptions. And that's if it's a two-way portal. And sir?" Ensign Hoop put on her sternest look and swept the whole cabin with what she hoped was a dramatic 'take-me-seriously' gaze, took a deep breath, and then spoke again.

"When we set off the rabbit-hole on the other side, it sucked us through subspace from fifty thousand kilometers away, and it released a powerful energy flare on this side of space - somewhere around a billion terajoules of electromagnetic and subspace noise. The phrase minimum safe distance comes to mind."

Captain Robinson absorbed this information with a stone face. "Now what about these ships?"




Bridge of the Judgment:

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut our conversation short, Captain Zhet. Something has come up which requires my attention." The antennaed alien vanished.

"Something's not right." Captain Zhet was frowning. "He's hiding something important." Molan Zhet was no man's fool. Not at the sabacc table in the officer's club, and especially not on the bridge of his own ship. "I want double crews on all scan stations until such time as reinforcements arrive in-system or combat breaks out."




A battered nameless small freighter:

Aiyira replayed the flat image of the Andorian.

"I am an Andorian. Our people were founding members of the United Federation of Planets. Of course, my crew is not all Andorian," the blue-skinned humanoid was saying. For an extragalactic being, it was surprisingly close to human - or Twi'lek - looking. It was hard not to read raw lust in the way his antennae moved. She shut the replay off.

"Xej, how long until we have the horizon is between us and the Impies?"

"Two hours." The waiting was the worst part. Fortunately, no Imperial fighter wings had materialized out of the high-pressure gloom.

"Transmissions resuming!" Roaman Lekva cocked his head, preparing for bad news. He was not disappointed.

"Captain Zhet, my apologies for cutting you off so suddenly earlier, but I have good news for both of us. We can reassure you that your terrorists have not transited the anomaly into our galaxy. Our sensor scans indicate the ship you describe is still here, lurking in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant below."

"Frak! That micro-lekkued smeghead!" Aiyira lost her balance as Xej gunned the engine to full, lifting the ship up. "Get us the feldercarb out of here!" She scrambled back into her seat and belted herself in. Her fingers shook from intense emotion as she started working with the navicomputer.

Roaman Lekva sighed. It was a good thing that Aiyira and the others couldn't detect the wash of wistful regret flowing through his mind. "We'd be better served wiping the navicomputer's data. And everything else. There's no way we'll be able to beat them to the safe hyper limit from the bottom of a gravity well; we may as well keep as much hard information out of their hands as possible."




Bridge of the Judgment:

First the invisibly small thrusters, now they pull the missing rebels out of a hat. Molan Zhet was not looking forward to the next surprise. What was next, a hyperdrive that worked at the bottom of a gas giant's planetary gravity well?

"Our thanks, Commander Shovas. We hadn't thought to look there." He cut off the voice signal momentarily. "The extragalactics don't seem to be going anywhere; the rebels are. I want to take the rebels alive. Re-route one of the fighter squadrons to keep them pinned; set a course to intercept and prepare boarding parties."

Commander Garnik nodded. "The Y-Wing squadron is the closest to the planet, sir. I can have them there in minutes."

"Make it so."




The rebel ship:

"Incoming heavy snubfighters. A dozen of them. We don't have long before they're onto us. This bucket of bolts doesn't have any lasers installed, by the way." Xej didn't think an after market quad cannon would be enough to handle squadron of bleeding-edge heavy Imperial fighters. Those new Y-wings were quite something. Still, it would be comforting to be able to shoot back.

Aiyira shuddered. Roaman was right; they were doomed. But they had to try to get away, just in case. And the aliens from the Andorian Federation - led by a small lekkued smeghead or not - needed to be warned about the Empire.

"Commander Shovas, this is Aiyira. You do not know me, just as you do not know our galaxy. We are not terrorists; we are not even criminals. Our only crime is loyalty to the democratic processes of the Republic. Emperor Palpatine has gutted the power of elected officials and raised in their place cronies of his, to act as directly appointed military dictators of each and every world. He has annihilated the Jedi Order, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy for a thousand generations; he suppresses any and all dissent. The Senate cannot check his power; the military is in his pocket."

The freighter shook. "You have sentenced us to death, Commander Shovas, and for that I hope you can forgive yourself. We can expect no justice from Imperial hands, only torture and death in the service of an ambitious man who wishes to rule an entire galaxy."




Bridge of the Judgment:

"Ion cannons only. The captain wants them alive." Commander Garnik silently thanked the foresight of the developers of the Y-Wing bomber. Versatile, durable, and reliable ships. Rumor had it they might get phased out in another few years; hopefully their replacements would be even better.

Captain Zhet was still talking to the Federation ship, even as Garnik directed the fighters. Something about inviting Commander Shovas over for dinner or something, as if the blue-skinned alien wasn't probably allergic to half the things in this galaxy.

Like music to Garnik's ears came the static-filled report: "Judgment, this is Gold leader. Target is down for the count and ready for an infusion of shiny whites." Oh, good.

"Captain! The rebels are disabled."

Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 7:46 pm
by Mike DiCenso
So... like, uh, when is the next installment of the story coming, JMS?
-Mike

Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 6:19 pm
by Jedi Master Spock
Mike DiCenso wrote:So... like, uh, when is the next installment of the story coming, JMS?
-Mike
Oh dear. I can see I've let this slide. Well, I suppose the next installment will show up in May, then. I'll have to go dig up my notes.