FanFic - DP/UF - Crossroads [15]
MegaZone
---------------------------------------------------------------FIFTEEN
"I got a real bad feeling about this."
--General Han Solo
The resumed battle raged, more furiously even than before.
The destruction of GENOM's awesome flagship had inspired the WDF crews
to strive even harder for victory; it had also enraged the GENOM
crews, who fought like vengeful animals now. Ship-to-ship contact
became more and more common as the vessels' helmsmen jockeyed for
position in the tightening battle.
"Time," the bearded man in the Captain's uniform asked.
"One forty-four," replied the younger, thinner man at the helm
of the vessel. Around them was its bridge; sloping, elliptical, the
walls covered by viewers which were, at the moment, dark. The large,
powerful, swarthy and bearded captain stood behind a podium topped by
a small control panel; three people sat at a horseshoe-shaped console
before him. Everything was gold.
"Right on time," the captain said, grinning. "Up 'scope."
A periscope housing dropped out of the ceiling, smoothly oiled
mechanism hissing slightly. The captain snapped down the handles and
put his eyes to it, turning around slowly, then pausing.
Outside, the ship's periscopic sensor array emerged from the
cloaking field that guarded the rest of the vessel. It was also gold.
Inside, the captain's eyes narrowed inside the eyepiece as he
surveyed the battle; momentarily, he placed his crosshairs upon a star
destroyer that was hammering relentlessly at the Pennsylvania's
forward shields; the Pennsylvania's photon torpedo spreads and phaser
broadsides raked across the larger vessel's hull, tearing out chunks
but otherwise not doing much useful harm.
"George. Lay in a firing solution on the destroyer that's
pounding Trussell's ship. Shoot for the engines--I want a clean
kill."
"Solution laid in," the helmsman replied. "Ready on tubes one
and four."
"Fire."
Two photon torpedoes spat out of nowhere and tore into the
destroyer's rear, ripping right through the thruster exhausts to blow
out the engine room. The vessel's windows went dark and she drifted,
dead.
"Good shooting, George," the captain complimented. "Surface
the fleet and get me a channel to the WDF."
On all the WDF vessels' bridges, the main viewer suddenly
pinged to a view of the bearded captain and his golden bridge. He
smiled broadly.
"Wedge Defense Force, this is the WDF Leif Eriksson," he said.
"Captain Hagbard Celine, reporting. The Silent Service has arrived!
Hail Eris!" Behind him, a klaxon wailed twice.
"All hail Discordia!" Zoner shouted in reply. Things were
looking up.
To the starward quarter of the battle zone, the shimmering,
rippling materialization effect of vessels disengaging cloaking
devices appeared. Wobbling into view came an entire fleet of
starships; Predator class scouts and their Klingon contract-built
sisters, called Birds of Prey by their owners, D-7C cruisers, great
grey slab-sided Typhoon class strategic anti-matter missile boats, and
nimble, spindly Alpha class attack cloakers, and at their lead, a
great golden ship the size of the Concordia, proudly displaying the
golden-apple flag of the Discordian Confederation as well as a WDF
seal in black relief on her bows.
Zoner punched the intercom key. "ReRob! You said three
minutes--and that was five minutes ago! What's the holdup?!"
"Some brain-damaged fuck of a technician crossed over boards
eight and nine trying to get the fold interphase patched through
Reflex Control," ReRob's voice replied angrily. "Fried both the
boards. I'm replacing them--it'll take a little longer than I
anticipated."
"How long?!"
"It'll take as long as it takes, Admiral--and it'll take
longer if you keep shouting at me."
"Right, right...I'm sorry. Carry on...best speed." He let
out a great sigh and slumped back in his seat. "Fuck."
The arrival of the Silent Service turned the tide of battle
somewhat. Most of the ships in the fleet couldn't fire while cloaked,
only the Eriksson and a couple of the experimental Klingon ships, but
they could decloak, fire, and vanish again. The WDF and the GENOM
fleets were no longer stalemated. All the WDF personnel knew that, if
the Wandering Child could just get the hell out of the dock, this
battle would be over.
<<< Theme from Battlestar Galactica >>>
"Engineering to bridge," the intercom announced.
"Zoner here," MegaZone said, punching his key. "Rob?"
"Repairs are completed," ReRob replied. "All systems are
optimal. Admiral, the ship is yours."
"Thanks, Rob. q?"
"Already done. Planitia Control has like cleared us. Like
big surprise, eh?"
"Helm, engage impulse drive. Take us out from Gate One. All
ahead standard."
"All ahead standard, aye," Yuri replied with a smile, her
fingers tagging the keys. The deck vibrated under them as the immense
vessel's thrusters got ready to move it; then, slowly at first, but
smoothly, they began to slide forward. The windows of Planitia
Control passed; they could see the ops staff waving. The Wandering
Child passed empty slip after empty slip--and then one that still had
a vessel in it, an Alaska class battlecruiser.
"What's the story with the Arizona?" MegaZone inquired,
reading the ship's markings.
"Engineering problems," Asrial replied. "Captain Crocker and
his staff estimate deployment in less than a minute themselves."
"Time to outside?"
"Fifty seconds, present speed."
"Sir!" Saavik cut into the bridge chatter, almost shouting.
"What is it, Saavik?" Gryphon asked, turning his conn to face
the science station.
"I do not know for certain, sir," she replied. "I am reading
a massive subspace distortion six thousand kilometers off, at bearing
seven mark zero."
"Along the GENOM fleet's arrival course? Identify."
"I am not certain, Captain," Saavik said, tabbing sensor
controls. "It seems to be a subspace rift trace, on a regular
pattern--I would almost say it looks like the arrival trace of a fold
drive, were it not so...huge."
"Inform Planitia Control," Gryphon ordered, turning his chair
back to the front. "Mr. Hunter, patch through to Saavik's console and
put the distortion on screen."
In the viewer appeared a small blue dot, hovering in space,
pulsating slowly and growing minutely with each pulse.
"I'll be damned. It looks like a fold trace, but you're
right, it's enormous! What could--"
Suddenly, the distortion grew, for a moment looking like a
bulge in the space-time continuum; then it burst like a lava dome,
pouring out white light. A shadow blocked that light in the center,
and then it was gone, collapsing back into itself as the fold
terminated.
A new planet had entered the Cygnus Beta system.
"Jesus!" Gryphon shouted, coming involuntarily to his feet.
"What in hell is that?"
"It is metallic, sir, spherical, with dimensions roughly
equivalent to that of an average Class-M planet. Power readings
indicate massive thermofusion for power, and it's obviously fold
capable. A battle station of some sort."
"Ten to one it's not on our side."
"No bet," Saavik muttered.
"Sir, power buildup on the battle station--looks like a
weapon's charging cyc--"
The dish-shaped depression in the metal sphere's skin, just
above the equatorial trench, fired ten coruscating green beams from
equidistant points around its perimeter; a much larger bolt then fired
from the hole in the center, caught the other ten in a pattern almost
helix-cannon-like, and streaked unerringly forth to smash into the
side of the Dyson sphere.
The bolt of energy ripped through almost a kilometer of
carbon-neutronium, unleashing a catastrophic explosion on a portion of
the interior surface. The WDF Arizona, just getting under way, was
blown almost halfway to the star by the impact; her warp engines and
half her saucer were smashed. She drifted, dead.
In the shocked silence that followed that display of power,
every viewer in the immediate area pinged, changing to a view of a
GENOM bridge and a very familiar GENOM commander.
"Is it not amazing," said Largo, "the places in which old
friends meet?"