Jacob sat silently, alone in his ready-room, watching the old footage again and again. Over the years since Unity, several unconfirmed reports came in from uncharted regions of Federation, Kzinti and Gorn space, detailing movements of "ghost" ships. Jacob had run the computer to cross check all of the files associated with the "ghosts" for something more terrifying; Andromedans. It was a surprising result, that more than half of the sightings either were, might be, or could have been Andro's, while the rest were marked up as unsupported superstitions.
As the Federation gradually expanded its borders away from the known and deeper into the unknown, more and more reports came in concerning these ghost ships, and as time went on more of these reports became linked to the Andromedans. Jacob readjusted the computer's search criteria and had it search for all Andromedan sightings since Unity based on concentration, and had their locations dotted upon a star chart. It was a simple enough scan, and in a few moments the computer gave forth the requested information.
Jacob had known, deep in his heart, that the last message that his father had left him and Marcus, contained not only the same coordinates as the center of the highest concentration of Andromedan sightings, but that they were right. These had been called by Jacob the Destiny Coordinates, and silently Jacob recited in his head the words on the data chip that his father, Czar Mohab, had given to his mother before the parted for the last time. "Be not afraid, my sons. Your path is protected and watched over by those who have gone before us. No harm shall befall you, lest you walk away from the destiny the stars have given you.
"When the time is right, both of you will travel to the coordinates I have left you. Operation Unity is young yet, but will not be complete until you succeed this one last mission. No one knows of this location but myself, and now you, and must remain as such.
"When Hyperion is attacked by the invaders, not once, nor twice, but thrice, the time will be right."
Jacob replayed the data tape one more time, and watched closely as the first Andromedan attack on Hyperion was destroyed by the station's local defenders, and watched as the second attack just before Unity was declared a success, was likewise thwarted. "Computer, run a comparison between these two recordings, note any similarities between all Andromedan ships present, excluding class type but including if the same vessel appeared more than once," Jacob pursed his lips and steepled his fingers to them. Elbows on the desk, he pondered what could possibly be going on in the computer's massive brain when the results displayed on his screen. Two Andromedan ships appeared, a Dominator and an Eel, one atop the other, splitting the screen. The screen split again, into left and right, and images of the same ships appeared as a clone next to its original.
"These two vessels," the computer spoke up in its eerily cheerful feminine voice, "Are an identical match."
"Cross-reference the data from these two ships to the known power signals of the ships that attacked Hyperion most recently."
The screen blanked for a moment and was replaced by a three-way split screen showing the Dominator from the first two and the Dominator that was almost destroyed at Hyperion. "This vessel shows identical readings and power signatures from its warp drive from all three sensor recordings."
"Very well, computer. Wait... Computer, when the destroyer Hyperion was attacked by Andromedans during the Hyperion Incident, wasn't one of them a Dominator?"
"Affirmative."
"How does this Dominator fit in with our other three battles in that sector?"
"Working... Stand by... Exact match based on historical records. Ninety-nine point one percent accuracy assured."
"Thats good enough for me, thank you, computer."
"Receiving an incoming message," Shane said, rather dismally. "Its your brother, sir, he requests you be informed of a possible Andromedan Dominator heading to our location and that you proceed to what he calls the 'Destiny Coordinates'."
"Rather odd, wouldn't you say?" Mindy asked.
"Not quite," Marcus replied, "How long has that message been in transit?"
The ship rocked gently as the Dominator fired again. "Two weeks and a couple of hours."
"Shield one is at seventy-eight percent," Mindy interrupted.
"Very well. Target engines and the displacer. Signal the Romulan cruisers Fury and Rage, have them finish disabling this wreck, capture it and scour it for usable things. Then signal that Klingon general... whats-his-name.. let him know he's in charge until we return."
Marcus walked from behind the tactical station to the helm. It was a surprisingly long time before Shane replied. "One of these days I'm going to teach you how to work this thing yourself."
"As I recall," Eric said before anyone else could respond, "the commodore taught you how to work it." Marcus leaned in over the helm control panel and began to enter a string of numbers.
"Stuff it, Eric. Sir, messages sent and the Romulans will arrive in two minutes. Klingon General Kath'ort wishes you success, and has already deployed his personal scout to our last position to resume hunting."
General Lee shook again, this time as four photon torpedoes left their tubes and sought out their target. Three hit, forcing the Dominator to slow. "Tubes five and six are overloads, holding in reserve," Mindy started her tactical report. "Tubes one, three and four scored a direct hit and damaged the target's port warp engine and appears to have taken the displacer off-line."
"Helm," Marcus interjected, "engineering and tactical, as soon as the Romulans arrive I want every spare erg put into the warp drive, and I want to be at those coordinates before my brother does. He's got a two week head start, and I know that he'll most likely give us a chance to catch up, so he'll be doing about warp six. We've got at least a month before we even leave the Trail. You three do the math and secure whatever systems you need to to get us there."
"Sir, we cab only do warp seven point three..." Mindy commented.
"I know what we can do, but this beast can do more. Don't settle until you pass warp nine point three. I'll be in my quarters."
Marcus smiled as he headed towards the turbo lift to leave his bridge. Suddenly a thought crossed his mind concerning the warp problem. They had, unsuccessfully, tried to use the saucer section's auxiliary warp engines to propel the General Lee, both with and without the main warp drives online. It was a sad experiment, as everything on paper said that it could be done, although rather slowly. The failure came from the smaller warp system's much smaller warp field. It did not cover the last forty meters or so of the vessel, which essentially left that section in a non-warp state. Marcus and Eric spent days augmenting the warp field to try to get it to extend far enough to cover the ship's rear end, to no avail, there simply wasn't enough power.
Things were looking up however, as Marcus recalled the ship's cargo pod, slung between the main warp engines. Surely, they could drop it anywhere and achieve a higher warp speed, even make warp nine. but it was what was in the pod that had him going. The General Lee's original warp drive system, from the main warp core and its matter/anti-matter system, all the way to the nacelles and support pylons, was designed for one thing: speed. This was supposed to be accomplished by the addition of two more warp nacelles, under and upside down of the current mains. Everything was there, supports, explosive jettison bolts, warp plasma conduits, everything except the extra engines. Even when this warp drive system was apart of the high warp test ship, the Federation never installed the extra warp engines. "Doesn't look good on paper," the had said. A year later they had fielded the Constellation class, with its four warp engines so close together that it only made sense that the warp test ship was just under budgeted.
The Federation, with all of its wisdom and knowledge, never saw fit to outfit its larger battle cruisers and dreadnoughts with the advanced technology that came around almost fifty years ago. At the time, it was much to expensive to convert or even build the ships with it installed. Only a few of the vessels from each race involved in Unity were of the "X-Ship" variety, relative to all the non-"X" ships that were present. After Unity, the Federation had begun fielding advanced battle cruisers and eventually advanced dreadnoughts. The technology behind it was simply to much to leave them as standard issue. Battle cruisers were both retrofitted and started from the keel up, and all fell into the general category of Excelsior class vessels, although many were older Kirov, New Jersey, and Bismark class vessels. There were a few older Federation class dreadnoughts converted, however, most were the new, keel up design, Ulysses class.
All of the major post-Unity governments had sent ships along the Trail, to search for anything of importance, lost ships, more Andromedans and the like; but after only a year or two the governments recalled all of these ships in the interest of the new Great Peace. One of the clauses in that treaty was that none of the races should enter the Unity Trail, since many needless battles had been fought over who had rights to the salvage. One of the ships that had been lost, and latter recovered by Mohab Salvage, was an advanced battle cruiser, whose warp nacelles were repaired and kept in the cargo pod slung upon the General Lee, as spares.
Marcus turned to his bridge crew, and before he could speak, was cut off by his chief engineer. "The spares in the pod!" Eric exclaimed. "If we mounted those to the nacelle support struts..."
Mindy cut him off, "We could probably make warp nine point eight..."
"But we'd have to loose the pod," Shane butted in.
Marcus opened and closed his mouth and raised his right hand a little, temporarily speechless.
"Adjusting course to Mobile Base Epsilon," the helmsman cut in.
"Shane," Marcus finally got to get a word in edgewise, "I'm making you personally responsible for the contents of the cargo pod. I don't want any of the others to have our treasures."
"Sir," Eric interrupted. "I know that our warp drive and related systems can handle our extra warp engines, but our fuel consumption will increase, and despite losing the pod, our weight won't change that much overall, we might be faster in combat due to the added power, but we'll still be turning and acceleration at the same rate."
"Duly noted, Eric," Marcus replied and attempted to turn once more for the turbo lift.
"There's more, sir. High warp speeds with the new engines will require more power to the structural integrity field and inertial dampning. And, our rear phasers may lose their port and starboard arcs."
"Understood," Marcus replied. He was getting impatient, and all he wanted was a few hours to himself before arriving at the base. It was only a two day trek, but the way things were going on the bridge, he feared Eric would have his ear for most of it.
"Also, we'll need to readjust all the warp fields from each engine, and perform trials with one engine at a time for stability. Add in the conversion time, plus a complete matter and anti-matter fill-up, we're talking nine days, minimum..."
"Eric..."
"I know, get it done in four, I'll try, but the power curves will have to be rewritten, and there's no real data yet on how our saucer section will interact with the new warp fields..."
"Eric..."
"...there may be no change, but then again, the S.I.F. might draw so much power that the new warp engines might not even be worth it..."
"Eric..."
"...and we'll even have to re-balance the whole power grid to accept the new engines."
"Eric, are you finally finished?"
"Yes, actually I am."
"Then you have the bridge, I'll be in my quarters," Mohab said, finally relieved to hear the engineer stop talking for a moment. Quickly, before anyone could get another word in, he strode the two steps to the turbo lift in one big step and hustled in. "Deck five," he managed before the doors even started to shut.
Finally alone with his thoughts in silence, he recalled the unofficial name given to General Lee back at Utopia Planitia. If they could only see her now, he thought.
Most of the warships on the Trail were loaners from the major races, each with their own crews. None of the ships were bigger than a light cruiser, except the General Lee, and most were scouts and frigates. The freighters, ore ships, repair ships, refineries and the new recycling ships all belonged to the company, which in turn was run by Marcus, but had a council with members each from one of the empires involved; Marcus preferred it this way, as no one was left out, and ideas and information could be shared freely amongst the salvager crews. It was, indeed, a great and profitable operation. And for the most part, everyone got along.
Czar "The message exceeds the maximum allowed length (20000 characters)." Mohab
Topic: Twisted Destiny: The Mohab Epic 1st half part two (Read 4392 times)