24 - …And Intervention
(Destiny – Bridge – 02.27.2020, 0911)
Doctor Lisa Park’s console was screaming at her. Well, technically it was bleeping and beeping. The Hal’Iry were pumping poison gas through Destiny’s life-support system. Park was trying to stop the gas from spreading, but the horrible toxic kept creeping through the ship. Young was standing next to Scott, who was exchanging shots with one of the Hal’Iry warships.
“Shields are dropping fast, sir !” Destiny had gotten in the first punch before the warship had raised its shields, but it had done little damage. And now the weapons’ fire was being blocked by the shields. “Fifty percent and falling !”
“Evasive maneuvers !” Young said.
“Yes, sir,” T’Zalo said. “But she’s dodging the main weapon’s arch, Colonel.”
The warship fired again and the shields fell another four percent. Meanwhile, Park was attempting to get rid of the gas by opening airlocks in empty areas of the ship. She knew it would limit the movement of the crew, but she was hoping that it would give her a chance to divert the gas. When she closed the airlocks again, Destiny would repressurize those sections.
Which she hoped would act like a leech sucking toxics from blood. ~Come on !~ Park thought as she closed the airlocks. The atmosphere returned and some of the toxic gas was diverted as she had hoped, but it was not enough. She was about to report that when she saw green gas coming from the local life-support grates. The toxic had made it to the bridge.
“Colonel !” Park said.
“What the…”
That was as far as Young made it, before a purple light enveloped all the people in the room.
(Destiny – Computer - 02.27.2020, 0935)
When Eli had called their rescuer a Deus Ex Machina, he had no idea just how close to the mark he was on the mechanical part of that sentence. Inside the computer, Destiny’s Artificial Intelligence had noticed the spheres that Supreme Commander La-27-A had not. The spheres were not Hal’Iry, not were the Xivolo. Instead, one of the Hal’Iry’s demons had come back to haunt them. If he had known Earth’s Calendar, La-27-A would have learned that he had hatched from his egg back 1941. But this demon dated from 1930.
In 1875, the Hive had finished conquering all known alien species and worlds. But some of the aliens had gotten their hands on spaceships and fled beyond the borders of Hal’Iry space. In order to keep the chance of being discovered to a minimum, they had traveled as far as they could and settled at the very edge of the galaxy. There, they had rebuild for more then fifty years. Until they had been found in 1929. It had taken a year to prepare. And then they had launched an assault against what they had believed were the last free alien worlds.
The attack had been a fiasco, with all of the ships and nearly all the soldiers being killed. That handful of soldiers had been debriefed, only to then be executed to keep the whole thing under wraps. The Leadership had come up with a cover story and had swept the whole thing under the rug. Which was why La-27-A did not know that his people had been out this far. The colonists, however, had not forgotten. They simply called themselves The Free Colonies.
And they had spent the past ninety years upgrading their technology, getting ready for round two. The result was what they had called the Mark-XIX Detection Grid. Run by the latest Artificial Intelligence, it consisted of a network of out-of-phase sensor satellites. Destiny had entered sensor range eight hours before the attack. And when the Hal’Iry had shown up, the AI had send a message back home. That message had gotten a reply within minutes. The Free Colonies was following the old saying that the enemy of their enemy, was their friend. So they had given the AI the order to help Destiny and her crew.
Which was exactly the program had tried to do. Using the phase generators, the AI had tried to get the crew out the dodge. Unfortunately, it had not been fast enough. The system had realized that Destiny had more than one species aboard, so it had needed time to make sure that the phasing process was safe for all of them. And because of that lag, thirty-seven of the crew had been killed by the gas. So now the AI, which called itself Jenna, was cursing like a drunken sailor. Then Destiny’s AI connected to it.
“Thank you,” Destiny said.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I’m….” Jenna sighed. “…sorry about the people you lost.”
“You did what you could. And I’ve hidden the Jynacko life-signs and New Asuran signatures as you asked,” Destiny paused. “But they are looking for the bridge. And it’s only a matter of time before they find it, which won’t be pretty.”
“Let them. I need them to lower the shields.”
“And then what ?”
“And then it won’t be pretty,” Jenna paused. “For them.”
Destiny knew better then to ask what that meant exactly. ~And do I really trust her with the entire crew ?~ Destiny thought. But did she have any other choice then to do so ? ~No, I don’t.~ So she simply broke the connection. Then she began making preparations for several moves of her own.
(Destiny – Gate Room – 02.27.2020, 0941)
Claus and his allies had taken the Gate Room and broken the Hal’Iry transmitter. They had removed the gas tanks from the life-support system. Which brought them to the next problem, holding on to the place. They had teams in all the corridor that led to the Gate Room. And by using the Hal’Iry weapons, they had bypassed the ammo problem. But the Hal’Iry had much larger numbers. As the others fought, Claus was working on getting the gas out of the Gate Room. ~If it’s still here when help arrives, they’ll die.~
The task was not made easier by the fact that all the controls in the room were dead. ~Destiny probably realized what was happening and started taking countermeasures.~ He made his way to the Control Interface Room to check the consoles there. Alas, these were also dark and unresponsive. He had just figured this out when the door to the Gate Room closed. ~This can’t be good.~ He made his way to the door and pushed the button. Oddly enough, it opened. ~Wait a minute, if it was Hal’Iry who closed the door, why didn’t they lock it ?~ Then the rest of the doors closed, except for one.
And then it clicked in his head. ~The AI. Destiny is doing this herself.~ He quickly exited the Gate Room and closed the last door. As soon as it closed, he heard a rush of air on the other side. The AI was pumping the atmosphere out of the room. And with the gas tanks no longer connected, it would be able to replace the atmosphere with clean air. Now all they had to do, was keep the Hal’Iry outside of it.
(Earth, Washington DC – White House, Oval Office – 02.27.2020, 0950)
Mackenzie was looking at the readings that Spera had collected on a special laptop. It showed high levels of radiation all over Destiny. But it was not the traditional radiation that came from nuclear weapons. Instead, it was something a bit more alien.
“Lepton radiation ?” Mackenzie said. “Isn’t that connected to phase technology ?” He had read the files on both the Ballard crystal skull and Merlin’s research-slash-note device.
“Yes, Mister President,” Woolsey said.
“Are these readings life ?”
“No, there is a three minute time-lag, Mister President,” Woolsey said.
“Which is impressive, considering that we’re looking at information that is coming from billions of lightyears and dozens of galaxies away,” He scratched his face. “So, what caused….”
That was as far as he got before an alarm sounded. There had just been a massive surge of Lepton radiation. ~Or three minutes ago.~ Unfortunately, there was nothing for them to do, except watch.
(Destiny – Bridge – 02.27.2020, 0947)
The light of the teleporter beam faded first. But instead of La-27-A and his soldiers having been teleported to the warships, the crews of the warships had been teleported to Destiny. As his eyes adjusted, La-27-A noticed the collection of spheres that made up Jenna’s network. And then he learned the hard way that Jenna had not only jammed the communications between the two Hal’Iry forces, she had also hijacked the computers of the warships. And all three exploded. ~What the underworld !~
He was about to start barking orders, but then alarms came from the control consoles. The Supreme Commander rushed to the console in question. Some of the doors were opening, while others were closing. And empty rooms were being turned into vacuum. ~Something is trying to get rid off the gas.~ That was as far as he got, before all the controls went dark. He grabbed his radio and ordered all of his troops that had air tanks to put their masks back on. He also ordered one of his troopers to close the door to the bridge, which the man did. It surprised him that the door responded. ~But I’m not complaining.~
The door had barely closed when they heard the rush of air beyond it. ~What is doing this ?~ But before he could say anything, the room was flooded with purple light and all the lights went out. Then there was another rush of air on the other side of the door. The door opened again and a red gas flooded into the room. As soon as it finished doing so, the air slowly began to clear.
~No, not completely.~ Instead, the red gas was binding with the poison gas and making it heavier then air. The result was that poison gas was reduced to a harmless mist above the floor. ~Guess we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way then.~ He activated his radio and began barking orders. It was time to move on to Plan B.
(Destiny – Gate Room – 02.27.2020, 0947)
Claus was standing in the Gate Room – near the dialing computer – when the room was suddenly flooded by purple light. When the light faded, the room was filled with people. Fortunately, the people in question were the rest of Destiny’s crew. ~Somebody decided to mess up the Hal’Iry’s plans.~ It was a bit cliché, but he was not complaining. Instead, he looked around and found Colonel Young.
“Colonel ?”
“What just happened ?”
“Best guess..,” Claus began. “….somebody who doesn’t like the Hal’Iry either, decided to mess up their plans. We’re holding the Gate Room and the surrounding corridors. But it’s only a matter of time before they hit us with everything they’ve got. And there are a lot more of them then there are of us.”
“We need to send a team to clean out the armory,” Young said, as he looked around and spotted Matthew Scott. “Scott, find Greer and James and take three others.”
“Yes, sir,” Scott said.
Scott spotted Greer and got to work collecting his team. He took Greer, James, Ginn, Varro and Tamara Cho. While Scott and his team headed out, G’Yal and T’Zalo came in. They had ended up in one of the corridors outside the Gate Room. At this point, Young was already giving orders to get the civilians out of harm’s way. They found him at dialing computer.
“Colonel,” T’Zalo said. “Since there’s a lot these guys, we’re running the risk of running out of ammo, even with the bad guys weapons. Colonel Vale was worried about this happening, so we’ve been training with wooden swords. I think it’s time we upgrade to the real thing, sir.”
“Swords ? Really ?”
“Well, it worked for the Romans,” G’Yal began. “For over a thousand Earth years, if I remember correctly.”
“How many swords do we have ?”
“Twenty-five, sir,” T’Zalo said. “Sergeant Henderson and Claus made them together using tools and materials we picked up on Freedom Prime. They are amongst the supplies we brought from the Spera when we came over. So they should be in cargo bay three, sir.”
Claus nodded. He and Xander had used the same steel that had been used to make the outer hull of the Chaser from. ~And then there’s the Colonel’s original.~ Which was in Vale’s quarters.
“Go get them.”
“Yes, sir,” G’Yal said.
G’Yal and T’Zalo headed out, leaving Young to get back to giving orders. As he came up with his plan to retake Destiny, he pondered how far they had come. From that first group that had been stranded after the Lucian Alliance attack on Icarus Base - to a family – into their current, multi-species collection. ~It’s been quite a ride.~ And he had no intention of letting it end her and now. So he got back to work.
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