SG Nova Roma, Chapter 3.11

11 – Making Plans

(Slave Dump – Doorway Base, Hangar Bay – Day 176 / 2 February 2018, 1314)

It had been three days since the assault on Destiny. And in those three days, Telford and his team had been very busy. To begin with, they had been able to contact Earth. And there had been plenty of revelations when they did. The Lucian Alliance had been wiped off the map. Watson and her people had refused to believe this at first. But it had been confirmed by several off-world sources. The next shock had been the near-total destruction of the command ships and berserker drones. Apparently, only one group of command ships remained and that was holding position outside the Nakai Home Galaxy.

But the final piece of news had been biggest. The existence of an Alpha Site for Destiny, which was called Spera. Telford and Cadman had been visiting the ship, getting up to speed on all the discoveries they had made. At the same time, Vale and Hailey had been busy learning about Slave Dump and Destiny’s current condition.

~Looks like we were not the only ones who were busy.~ Vale thought as he walked onto the balcony overseeing Exodus One. The locals had taken the two Vicerant Puddle Jumpers apart. They had used one of the Jumpers’ Dial-Home-Devices to make their Stargate operational. It turned out that there was only one other Stargate in range. But that was fine with them, because they only had one more DHD. ~Or, as they call it, Operator Device.~ So they would only be able to go back-and-forth to one other planet.

As for the rest of Jumpers, the components were being used to make improvements to Exodus One. If the Vicerant came for Slave Dump, the ship would be ready to defend the planet. And it would not be alone. The scan of the Nakai ship had revealed it to be empty. While that made no sense to anybody, nobody had complained. The locals had was sure the ship had not been booby trapped. Once that was done, they had added the ship to their fleet as Exodus Two. But the real value of the ship was that this was the vessel where the Central Authority Nakai had experimented on Chloe Armstrong. And Doctor Bennett believed that the data on that experiment was their best chance of curing Lieutenant Tamara Johansson.

While Bennett and his staff were working on that, the locals had been working on another project. Between what they had learned from Telford’s group and taking the Vicerant Puddle Jumpers apart, they had decided to reanalyze their old information on Destiny. And they had made some discoveries, which was why Gy’Has had asked Vale to come the Doorway Base. ~And then, of course, there is Spera.~

Vale had not been sure about Cinara, but she had saved the ship. And she had answered all his questions. In the end, he had gotten the impression of a young lady who had been displaced from her life suddenly. ~Takes one to know one.~ So Spera had set course for Mining Planet D-7, a world near the edge of Empire. A planets name began with its purpose, followed by its cluster and then the number of its Stargate. So Mining Planet was a Mining Planet in Cluster D, with it being the seventh Stargate in the local network.

During the trip, they had repaired the damage from the battle with the warships. They had also made on very hopeful discovery. Spera was actually faster than Certain Death-class warships. In fact, her FTL-drive was twenty percent then these vessels. The only reason they had been able to intercept Spera the first time, was because they had the element of surprise. But now that had been lost, Levine and his people had been able to keep them from intercepting the ship again. At this moment, they were three hours away from D-7, with the warship trailing hours behind them.

~And once again, Ajax comes to the rescue.~ Vale thought as he made his way to the computer room. One of the features Ajax had added to the design – and that Destiny lacked – was landing gear. So the plan was to land the ship, something that the warships could not do. And they could not fire on the surface. Because D-7’s mining operations, the upper atmosphere was loaded with all sorts of chemical junk. If the warships fired, they risked igniting the atmosphere. And if that happened, D-7 would become a lifeless chunk of rock. Which was a problem, because it was a key planet to the Empire. There was the risk of getting trapped on the planet. ~But that is a problem from much later. Let’s just get there first.~

He nodded at several maintenance workers, who were working on several upgrades to the Gate Room. Then he reached the Computer Room, where Gy’Has was working the computer. She had a schematic of Destiny on one of the displays. Vale sat in the one the chairs in front of the computer, while Gy’Has hit several keys and the schematic zoomed in on a section. There was the outline of some kind of device in that section.

“So, what am I looking at ?” Vale asked.

“A scanner,” Gy’Has said. “A scanner that according to our scientists, should not be there.”

“So it’s a Vicerant addition,” Vale began. “Have you figured out what it does ?”

“Yes. It is basically a metal detector,” She said. “One that appears to be designed to find starships moving at sub-light speeds. And then we remembered that Miss Watson said that one of these people said they were from Novus.” Telford had briefed the Slave Dump Senate on several subjects, including Novus. “Now, Novus was mostly evacuated by Stargate. But the last group…”

“….Was evacuated by sub-light starships.” ~Yes, that was in Young’s reports.~ “And the people back on Earth confirmed that whoever controlled Destiny is also in control of the command ships outside the Nakai Home Galaxy.”

“So, what is their plan ?”

“Okay, there were two countries on the original Novus. But what if there were four groups. Two countries, each with a pro-war and an anti-war factions. There were tensions between the two countries because the balance was skewered towards the pro-war sides…” But the anti-war factions apparently had just enough influence to keep the war from happening. “…And then, they discover that a rogue black hole is approaching their solar system. Which changes the political landscape towards the anti-war groups. But what happened to the war hogs ?”

“You think the two groups merged to become the Vicerant ?”

“Make sense. And they have found a new enemy, because they don’t want any competition for Destiny. So want to take the Nakai out. But they need the resources of Novus for their war. The problem is that if they simply attack, the people will not support them. If, however, the Nakai destroy the sub-light transports…”

“…then it is suddenly a justified counter-attack. And if they have political representant back on Novus, then they can launch a political take over by demanding early elections. Which, with the numbers of deaths, they will get them. But there is a flaw in their plan…” Gy’Has hit several buttons and the schematic was replaced by a graph. “….because their scanner requires an enormous amount of power to operate. And Destiny is the only ship that can manage to generate that much power. Which is why they needed the ship.”

“And it explains why they needed Exodus Two. If they are going to frame the Central Authority, they need one of their ships to blow up. So that they can bring back some of the debris as evidence for their claims.”

“So, what do we do ?”

“We need to launch an assault on Destiny and deal with that scanner. If we can retake the ship, the plan will collapse.”

“There’s a problem with that,” Gy’Has hit several keys and the graph was replaced by a star chart. It showed the section of the galaxy that the locals could scan, with a green dot representing Slave Dump and an orange dot marked Destiny. There were also three red dots that were moving towards the Ancient vessel. “Before we couldn’t use the Stargate because our didn’t work. And even if it had, Destiny was too close. Now we can use the Gate to get onboard and hit them with everything we have.”

“Sounds like, maybe, we could take the ship.”

“But these three dots…” She tapped the red dots on the monitor. “…are Vicerant warships. Which I’m guessing are filled with Vicerant troops. Take the ship, possibly. Holding the ship, not going to happen. And as long as the AI suppression system is on-line, Destiny’s FTL will not function.”

~The ship would be a sitting duck.~ “And if we disable the system, Destiny will go into obsessed mode.” ~Anybody left aboard would be left to face a very nasty death.~ Either by starvation or dehydration, or by the people turning on one another. “So we’d have to get Colonel Young and his people off before doing that. Because once the ship enters obsessed mode, it will become a death trap. And we will have no way to get onboard and the Colonel and his people would have no way off.”

“Of course, we could leave them in stasis.”

“For how long ?” Vale said. “They’ve already been in stasis for much longer than planned. And how do we know that the Vicerant will not execute them in order to free up the stasis pods ?”

“So why haven’t they executed them yet ?”

“Because if they bring home the Ancestors, it will seal their political victory. But if their plans fall apart and things get desperate, they will not be so considerate.” He tapped the red dots on the screen. “How long until those ships reach Destiny ?”

“Nine hours and seventeen minutes.”

Vale nodded. ~Time to get to work.~ Gy’Has put the scans of the ship back on the monitor so that they could begin planning the assault. As they got busy, Vale realized that there was one potential major hiccup in whatever they came up with. Young and his people might not want to go. ~Rush will throw a fit for sure.~ Fortunately, the crossbows the locals used could also be loaded with tranquilizer darts. So, if they had to, they could knock out the crew and drag them through the Gate. But they had to get there first. So he got back to planning.

(Slave Dump – Doorway Base, Gate Room – Day 176, 1600)

Telford checked his gas mask and found it solid. He put it on and readied his weapon. The locals had provided them with twice the amount of ammunition they had for the first assault. They had also rechambered the captured Vicerant weapons to work with their ammunition, which allowed them to bring another eight troops.

This meant that they could commit all but one soldier to the assault. After some discussion, it had been decided that Cadman would stay behind. The iris would keep any hostiles out until they were ready for the return trip. But when they dialed Slave Dump from Destiny, they would need somebody experienced to keep things under control on the planet side of the equation.

“Here we go, people.” Telford said.

The gas masks had radios built into them so that they could communicate. Watson selected the address and the Stargate began dialing. As it did its thing, Telford pondered the fact that half his force was made out Lucian Alliance soldiers. Some would say that he was foolish to trust them so fast. ~But we did nearly die in the vacuum of space.~ And they had a shared enemy in the form of the Vicerant. ~Even if the Alliance had not been wiped out, working together would have been necessary simply to survive.~ Watson had a good deal of common sense, which was part of why he trusted her. Betraying Telford and his team would not have gotten her anything. His ponderings were ended by the Gate finishing dialing.

He grabbed a nearby box and opened it. ~These people are really creative.~ Slave Dump had been a mine, with the mining process having the nasty side effect of creating toxic pocket of gas. The locals had found a way to gather that gas and turn it into something non-lethal. Inside the box were six gas grenades. Telford and Ingram grabbed three grenades each. They pulled the pins and lobbed them through Stargate. Telford counted to three, then bolted through the Stargate.