Incompatible (Part 1).....

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 5758

A machine disguised as a bit of space debris that had been dumped by either an Alliance or Enemy ship pops open to reveal an array of complex arrays and scanning instruments. The unit cares not about the death of hundreds of it's brothers and sisters at the hands of the opponent. The unit is incapable of this. It is only an expert system, incapable of doing anything outside a certain set task assigned it at creation.

From the vicinity of the Terra's moon, the Enemy intelligence satellite almost blinks in surprise as a series of energy signatures below on the lovely blue planet. This data trips a series of HIGH priority protocols, and the unit begins to send out a warbling, high speed (and very dense) packet of data and pictures of what it is seeing below on Terra.

Alex, Probe's third in command, just happens to be in the immediate neighborhood and his plasma missiles silence the probe's transmissions a split second before high energy ship to ship weapons from the Armada vaporizes what is left.

However, it is enough.....

The signal goes out in hundreds of different directions, all but one on a false course to it's target. Captain Sterndeck nods and grins a feral grin as the communication officer informs him of an incoming signal...directed at a point within the tail of this comet.

"Well, Ajax did say it would be within 48 hours....that the news would be out...." He mutters to himself as he signals for the fleet to commence bombarding. "It's more like within 24 hours...but...."

Tight beam communications are directed at key ships within the Alliance counter ambush fleet, and salvo after salvo of high yield atomic devices are released into the glittering tail of the comet. Using the less sophisticated but more reliable mass detectors over the scanners, the flight computers of the missiles (artificial intelligences of a breed called expert systems....the idiot savants of the artificial intelligence family...not true intelligence...really) take aim at a large contingent of ships within.....

******

Facts and figures flash across the holo-screen set before the Royal Admiral, Number Two. This member of the race was second in rank only to the emperor himself (strange, but entirely independent of his Given number/name). He had been charged by the Emperor himself, the personification of the Empire...the People....to head this desperate mission. Yellow, cat pupiled eyes dilate in anxiety as the meaning of the energy signatures register within his mind.

Somehow....somehow....the Alliance had neutralized the Phage! They must have, for....the extraction facilities would not be down upon Terra in such numbers! The Phage had so scared the Alliance that even the rich deposits of Tiberium, the green/blue crystals that powered their weaponry (and starships) was not enough to bring them down to Terra. The Phage was too deadly and contagious. It defied all scientific logic, for it was a bastardized, unholy combination of a new germ warfare weapon of the Race...and the dabbling of a half mad dragon (may it and the now executed Royal Researcher rot in whatever dark burning pits that there were for traitors and incompetents)! The dragon, Minestus, had turned the tables on the Race when it had discovered that the Race, per typical dealings with lower life forms, had betrayed him and his draconian kin! Terra was now deadly to both the Race and the Alliance!

Or it HAD been, as far as the Alliance was concerned.

"May they burn in the sands of Zanadoon," Two said silently. It was obvious what must be done. This wasn't a feint on the humans' part, for the operation down on Terra was just too MASSIVE!

Two opens his razor lined maw in his equivalent of a laugh, gladdened that at least the Race has a chance....for continued survival!

Even the combined might of this Alliance Armada wouldn't be enough to stop the Race, with the speed that Two's fleet would swoop upon Terra (and them)!

This had been a risky gamble, for the tail of this comet hid the majority of the Race's space fleet. If the Alliance had somehow gotten word of where.....

Two turns to give the word to warm the reactors of his fleet, when he's thrown to the ground by shockwaves from nearby ships....that die in atomic fire!

"RETURN FIRE!!" Two screams in rage, tasting blood dripping from three broken upper fangs in his mouth!

Whoever had done this would at least get a taste of Enemy firepower before they died. And die the Race would, Two knew with sickening certainty......

The reactor drive of a Race's military ship took hours to warm up to usefulness. That was the reason why, usually, they were kept always "burning." However, the atomic fire within would have left tell-tale signatures to even the most casual of Alliance scans. Getting the Fleet of the Race had been a long, tedious process. Long and tedious it had been, but the idea had been that anything less would have ruined the Race's chance of snuffing out Terra....and saving the Empire's....the entire Race's....very existence!

Something had gone wrong. Something terribly wrong.

Two...the entire fleet....and the Race was doomed.

Two just hoped that he'd be able to give a good, last accounting for his People!

Several panicky Enemy reactor operators, showing an unfashionable amount of initiative (as well as stupidity) tried to force their sleeping charges to action. Even the greenest of Enemy grunts KNOWS that forcing a tiberium atomic reactor drive into critical was a sure-fire recipe for disaster! The ships went up in atomic flame, and the malfunctioning drives tore brief holes within space/time...and drag forth a small...desperate band of space travelers.....

The truth of the matter is, that this transition from one universe to another in THIS manner should have torn Voyager into pieces that were no larger than molecules. Only due to a VERY special crewmember does the Voyager survive relatively intact. Ensign Chen faints a half second before the rest of the crew. He had been on his knees, proposing marriage to a certain cat morph when the erratic waves from the exploding Enemy starship drew the Voyager into a new universe. It drains dry every last drop of choas energy that had been slowly (microscopically) rebuilding within the strange man. It also drains, and shatters beyond retrieval, the "probability sink" within him. Chen's strange nature BARELY saves the Voyager from utter, instant destruction. However, without divine intervention, nothing can again rekindle the eldritch flame within the young man of Oriental descent! (I.E. stick a fork in Chen's strange birthright....it's done!)

However, though Chen's unusual nature has been spent in saving the Voyager, the noble ship is still in harms way....and suffering from dozens of hull ruptures. If the incoming salvos of missiles don't kill her, then dozens upon dozens of malfunctioning systems (or the leaks), will.

Perhaps Someone smiles upon Voyager, or one last gasp from Chen's mystical/mysterious nature comes into play. Either way, a furious Lt. Comander Evis 7 spots the Voyager, and makes a split second decision.

Though she and her Family will be denied the fun (and immense satisfaction) of observing the beginning of the end for the dreaded Enemy....the duty owed by all space faring beings is calling!

It is either rescue this mysterious ship that has all the earmarks of the same mysterious ship Probe had warned off so long ago....or live with the knowledge that she and her Family let the Voyager and her crew....die....

  1. A damaged ship adrift in the middle of a pitched space battle is incompatible with a long life.....

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11/17/1999 11:43:08 AM

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