21 – Hiatus
(Destiny – Vale’s Quarters – 01.18.2020, 0207)
Vale was asleep when somebody rang the bell. He threw off the blanket and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. ~This can’t be good.~ The door opened and Colonel Young came in. And he did not look happy. ~Well, I guess he read my report.~ The door closed behind Young.
“I guess you read my report,” Vale said.
“Yes,” Young said as he sat down next to Vale. “You don’t pull your punches, do you ?”
“That’s not what they pay me for. My first priority is the safety of the people on this ship,” For some reason, this made Young smirk. “And that means that I call it as I see it.”
“So did Camille,” Young said. “She wrote a report that basically said the same as yours,” He paused. “I just came from a meeting with General O’Neill and General Landry. Based on our encounters with the Hal’Iry, they figure it’s going to take everything we have to get out this galaxy in one piece. So, tell me about your crew. The stuff that you can’t learn by reading the files and reports.”
Vale nodded and began telling Young about his people.
(Destiny – Mess Hall – 01.20.2020, 1205)
Young was eating lunch when Vale came in and collected him own lunch. Then he sat down across Young. Vale was taking the last spot at the table, while Nikita Aranov and the archeological team were discussing how to go about collecting artifacts from H9B-002. 002’s star was nearing the end of its life, which was why the colony had been abandoned. The team was hoping the evacuation had been as sloppy as the one of the quarry of 228 had been. But it would be a couple of hours before they could dial the planet. Leaving them to it, Young turned his attention to Vale.
“Colonel,” He said.
“Colonel,” Vale began. “So, which do you want first, the good or the bad news ?”
“Bad news.”
“I’ve been looking at the logs. It turns out that the Hal’Iry have access to cloaking technology. Their scout ships are fitted with them and if their warships have them as well, they could be following us and we couldn’t see them.” He paused. “And Hailey and Eli took a closer look at the data on the warships that attacked us. They were old, really old. Basically, we were fighting World War Two warships, with Destiny being a state-of-the-art warship. But if they come back with their latest tech, this is going to get real ugly.”
“And the good news ?”
“Our New Asuran crew and maintenance drones have been working on new shuttles, since we left the one we had left behind on Chaser. Claus says we should have three shuttles ready to go in three days, so that should level the playing field a bit. And they have a couple of ideas for upgrades as well, including a way we could install a single Puddle Jumper in the Gate Room.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Young said as Vale handed him a folder with the details. “But we’re not going to win this with technology.”
“Right, we need to know more about these people. I’ve gone over all the reports we’ve got so far,” Vale leaned back. “And from what Ga-25-H told you in Pal, the Hal’Iry are not as united as they appear at first glance. Plus, we have the mission to 002 coming up.” He paused and rubbed his face.
“And then there was our mission to 228, which showed that these people use slave labor and have very little respect for alien life. Plus, the Hal’Iry are clearly not the only species in this section of this galaxy. Because the remains we found did not belong to the species in the area seeded by Xivolo’s Order of the Other.”
“That only helps us if the Hal’Iry didn’t wipe those species out completely.”
“There’s that,” Vale said. “How long until we reach the edge of this galaxy ?”
“I had Wallace and Hailey crunch the numbers. It’s been one-hundred-and-fourteen days since we’ve left Civilized Space,” He handed Vale a map of Galaxy Destiny Three. “So, we’re more than three months underway, with the magic number being forty-two days.”
“I thought that was a Hitchhiker’s thing ? But considering the whole background radiation thing, that seems fitting.” This got him a look from Young. “But seriously, that’s a long time to run the gauntlet. And what about Chaser and Spera ? If these guys go for those two ships, they have very little defenses.”
“Chaser is holding position, while Spera is continuing her trip. Once they are together, they’ll have strength in numbers. And General Landry and Colonel Telford are working on getting them extra people.”
“Good.”
Vale nodded and set to eating his lunch. But as he did so, she wondered if the Hal’Iry were making plans of their own. And what those plans could possibly be. The problem was that only time would tell.
(Drydock Eight-One – Corridor - 01.20.2020, 1205)
Drydock Eight-One was the most advanced facility the Eighth Fleet had, and it was still fifteen years behind the times. As he made his way to the dock’s medical facility, Supreme Commander La-27-A was cursing at…well, everybody. ~Stupid politicians and officials, with their stupid orders !~
And they refused to provide them with new gear, while demanding impossible things from the Fleet and its people. ~And now it costs us the crew of an entire warship ! Plus, dozens of Fc-83-H’s people on the Decimator.~ And it had been a moronic plan to begin with anyway. He reached the facility and found Fc-83-H in one of the beds.
“You look horrible,” He said.
“I feel horrible,” Fc-83-H began. “I lost fifty-one of my crew, and my ship looks like worse than I do.”
“And that’s saying something.” Fc-83-H had lost a piece of his tail, had burns all over and one of his eyes was swollen shut. “Your own mother wouldn’t even recognize you in this state, for the record. Which I heard is actually more common than the Leadership claims.”
The Middle Commander nodded. The female that had hatched him had been Fc. He had been part of her eighty-third batch of eggs, with him being the eight egg. Hence, he had been labelled with the letter H. Of course, these were the translations of the Hal’Iry names. The Supreme Commander grabbed a stool and sat down next to the bed.
“Speaking of the Decimator, I just had a conversation with the dockmaster,” La-27-A began. “He said the repairs are going to take four weeks and that he would be able to sneak in a whole bundle of upgrades. With that having been said, I don’t think we’re going to win this in ship-to-ship battles. Because if we have four weeks to install upgrades…”
“….So will they. We’re going to have to do this the other way.”
“The alien ring. We’re going to have to board the vessel and conquer it.”
“The Leadership won’t like that.”
Now the Supreme Commander nodded. He knew that they had the information they needed to build a device that could operate the ring. It would probably only work once. ~That’s presuming we can get the coordinates or code for the vessel to begin with.~ Which would not be easy. It was a cat-and-mouse game now.
(Decimator – Bridge – 02.19.2020, 0817)
Fc-83-H was glad to be back on the bridge of the Decimator. He looked around the room, where there were plenty of new faces. His new communicator officer had already informed him that they had clearance to depart.
The officer was one of the new guard, so only held the rank of Filler First Grade. Had Fc-83-H known Earth ranks, he would found that Filler Second Grade was equal to Ensign. Which made Filler First Grade the same as Lieutenant Junior Grade and Lower Commander was a full Lieutenant.
There were also five enlisted ranks aboard the ship. Watchman was a crewmember, Senior Watcher was a Petty Officer – which came with three grades – and Member was a Chief Petty Officer. Of course, Fc-83-H didn’t know any of this, so he simply turned to his Helm Officer and gave the order to head out. Soon, the ship was underway and joined by the Crimson Claw and Hal’Iry Glory.
La-27-A had asked for a replacement for the ship they had lost, but the Leadership had refused it. So he could have to execute this second attack with just three warships. He gave a nod and they engaged their hyperdrives. They would make their way to a planet past their target. Then it would simply be a case of waiting for the code-slash-coordinates to come in and the target to arrive.
But something was telling him that getting that codes was not going to be very easy. ~These people are smart, so they’ll be considering this.~ And if they knew about the Hal’Iry cloaking technology, they would really be on the lookout. ~That, however, is the Supreme Commander’s problem.~ He had a planet to reach.
(H9B-093 – Desert Plain – 02.25.2020, 0938)
At first glance, 093 was not a resource rich planet. But with their new Puddle Jumper, one team had been able to find water, lime and several edible plants. While that team headed back to Destiny to deliver their goods, another team was exploring the planet on foot. The Puddle Jumper team – which had been led by Colonel Vale – had provided them with directions to several oasis’s. The ground team consisted of Matthew Scott, Eli Wallace, Laura Cadman, Tamara Cho and Cinara.
“One more oasis, people,” Cadman said. “Then we should have enough.”
“What exactly are we looking for again ?” Cho asked.
“Signs of habitation,” Cinara began. “We need to know about the people living in this part of this galaxy. Both what they are currently doing and their history. H9B-002 didn’t yield as much as we had hoped for.”
Cho nodded. They had found several artifacts on 002, which had told them one or two things about everyday life for the Hal’Iry. But there had not been anything to tell them about the Hal’Iry armed forces. As far as the team could tell, the planet had been a civilian colony with no or very little military presence.
They reached the oasis and got to work searching the place. What they didn’t know, was that they were being watched. Vale had done a circuit of the planet with the Puddle Jumper, but the Peeping Tom – officially known as Surveillance Satellite DX1785 – had hidden behind a cloak. So now it was keeping an eye on the team and waiting for its chance to get its hand on Destiny’s gate address. After a little over an hour, Cadman turned to the others.
“Okay, people, time to go,” She began. “Or else we’ll miss our ride.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Scott said.
The team headed out. Scott and Cho took the lead, with Eli in the middle and Cinara and Cadman covering the rear. As she walked next to Cinara, Cadman wondered what the former Xivolo Royal was doing here. ~Well, no time like the present.~ So she simply looked at her and asked.
“Besides the whole revolution thing ? I can make a difference. And these are good people.” She smiled at Cadman. “Besides, how many jobs do you know where you get one of these ?” She tapped her MP-5. “And I get to see the galaxy. No, galaxies.”
“Yeah, this job has its perks.”
“And I never was able to resist a good puzzle. I mean, we’re figuring out stuff about the origin of the universe,” She paused. “Maybe even the multiverse. You don’t have to be an egghead to think that’s cool.”
“There’s that.”
They reached the Stargate and Eli dialed them home. Above, DX1785 watched and recorded the gate address. It transmitted that piece of data to the right place and people got to work. The Hal’Iry would soon be ready to invade Destiny.
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