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The Incursion

Posted: Sun Jul 14, 2019 6:46 am
by jayphailey
USS James Lovell, Lounge 3

Kodal Karvin kept watch. Fighting your way out of a ship was not easy. They'd done it once before. It would be easier with these people distracted by whatever battle they were fighting.

Kodal didn't relish the idea. Her mentor had told her. "If you're good at something, never do it for free." He had a poor opinion of the sorts of idiots who killed each other in drunken brawls or shootouts over drugs and sex partners.

Kodal was taught to kill only when she got paid, or when it benefitted her cause. She hoped her mentor Kurman, took a lot of the enemy with him when he fell.

Kodal blinked back rage. Now was not the time. That was her cause. Revenge against the people who'd framed her house and caused them to become bounties for the stupid and evil.

But now, on a strange starship, in a battle she knew nothing of, her cause was escape. It was much harder to defeat a noble house from inside a ships brig. Kodal decided to try that feat later, thank you.

Kodal looked at Mako and felt the usual mix of affection, fear, concern and something...

Mako was a young girl, but street tough. She had a talent for accessing data other people didn't want accessed. This talent was backed up by skill and pretty damned good cybernetics.

In Mako, Kodal sort of saw a reflection of herself. But now she was the master and Mako was the apprentice. Kodal evaded thinking about how that scared her. She didn't feel ready. But the alternative was to let Mako go get murdered, and that was worse.

Mako was plugged into a terminal in a lounge of the USS James Lovell.

"I've never seen a data structure like this before." Mako murmered to herself. She made motions in the air thaat coressponded to her control rig in the virtual space inside the ship's computers.

Usually Mako could slide right in, grab what she needed, plus goodies, and slide right back out.

"Okay, I think I've got this." Mako said. She made a pushing motions and then a double handed twist. Then she froze. "Oops."

A lady said "Excuse me, what are you doing?" She was taller than Mako and Kodal. Her hips were full and curvy. Her hair was auburn, and her eyes were deep brown. There was something on the bridge of her nose.

Kodal took this in as she reflexively dropped her weapon and put a bolt through whatever that was on the bridge of the woman's nose.

The bolt passed through the woman with electronic interference and splattered on the wall behind her.

"Now, that was just rude!" The woman looked irritated.

Mako was rapidly unplugging her gear and throwing it into the bags she carried it in "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Kodal Breathed deeply. "Now is the time to stay cool."

Mako tried to recover her composure. "I fell for a stupid trap like an amateur!"

The woman smiled encouragingly "To be fair, we've had things try to hack our systems that would give you nightmares. We're a little picky about who we let in."

Mako snarled at her "Go fuck yourself!"

Kodal almost grinned. "Okay. How many guys do you have outside? Maybe we can talk?"

The woman tilted her head. "Do you know how you came to be here?"

"No. Whatever you did to us worked like a charm. " Kodal said, grimly.

The woman looked surprised "Oh, dear, no. We didn't do anything. You're here because of a temporal anomaly."

Kodal looked at the hologram with dead faced calm.

Mako snorted "Yeah, that's totally more believable than you drugging us."

The woman hestiated for half a second. "My name is Leeta. I need you to unload your weapons and promise us you won't hurt the crew. Once we figure out where you belong and where we are, we'll work on getting you someplace where you can safely go about your business."

Kodal thought about it. For someone you just found trying to hack into your ship, it wasn't a bad deal. But it had one sticking point. It needed Kodal to trust these people. And trust was something she didn't bring much of to start with.

"I'll need more than that." Kodal said.

The ship thrummed and vibrated. Space drives. Weapons fire.

Kodal blinked. It was time to get on her toes. She'd need to make a break... But her eyelids were getting heavy.

"Damnit!" Mako screamed. "Oxygen!"

Kodal fired at the Hologram several times, while she went across the lounge. She grabbed a panel on the wall. Sure enough, it was packed with survival gear. Spacers loved to squirell away useful things in every corner.

Mako joined her. They shovelled stuff out of the wall, looking for emergency air.

The anesthezine caught them before they found it, because all the signage was unfamiliar. It was a close run thing.

Kodal's last thought was rage. If she died, her revenge would remain unserved!

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:04 pm
by jayphailey
USS Purplevaania, Shuttlebay/ Obsidian Shellana Flight Deck

Holden Lanetly looked at his controls on the Obsidian Sellana. His face was grim.

From the Co-Pilots seat Riggan Corosa said "Do you recognize this stuff?" His voice was tight. Holden could tell the question contained an admission that pained him.

"Nope." Holden said, taking Riggan off the hook

"What the black hole just happened?" Riggan asked.

"No idea." Holden said. He began to recognize writing on the panels.

"Anti-matter power system." Holden breathed.

"Please tell me you're kidding." Corosa said.

"I would be lying. Not that that ever stopped me before," Holden said.

"What in the name of the seven pulsars is warp drive?"

Holden was disturbed that he knew. "Ummm, a sort of caterpillaring space warp FTL drive."

Corosa was ready to really panic. "I've never seen any of this shit before. But I know what it is."

Holden said "It's like something took our ship, and replaced it with this thing, both physically and mentally."

The there was an ever so soft tilt. Lights started flashing red on the walls. People started to run.

"Well, shit," Holden said. He began entering commands on his panel.

"GRONK" Dowarg said dominating the doorway onto the flight deck.

"Please let me through!" Tunas Gunno scrambled to get his amphibian head in the door. "Boss, you really need to come to the engineering deck."

"Our power converters and hyper drives have been replaced by alien equipment?" Holden asked.

Large eye lids slid across Tunas' big eyes "Yeah, that about covers it."

People outside the ship wanted to do things in the shuttlebay but were blocked by the Obsidian Sellana. Lanetly took this in quietly.

"Make everything safe, then fist up. I think we're in a battle." Lanetly said. "One disaster at a time."

A crewman waved his arms outside the cockpit of the smugglers ship.

Holden blinked a few times and then unlocked the window. It had an arrangement that used differential pressure to stick a lockbar in it. If there was thin atmosphere or vacuum, it wouldn't open. It had a telltale light next to it that was green. An airsniffer right outside the window reported breathable air.

The crewman on the deck looked human, but it didn't pay to trust appearances.

Holden opened the window and yelled "Hello!"

"Excuse me, Sir? How did you happen to get your ship in here?" The crewman asked. His accent was odd, but understandable.

Holden replied "Well, friend. You're the ones who captured us. You're going to have to tell me."

"Please make your ship safe, Sir. We're at red alert. Probably be deep in it in a minute. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!" The crewman called.

"Sure. I'd like your Captain to explain why you've waylayed me, in the lawful exercise of my business." Lanetly said.

The crewman shrugged "I have no good information for you, Sir. Please stand by. Oh, and if you see any creatures with multiple legs in space suits beaming in, shoot 'em. Tholians. They're the bad guys."

Holden nodded like he knew what the hell any of that meant. "You sure you can't let us go? We don't want any part of your fight."

The crewman tilted his head. "Sir, your ship won't fit through our bay doors! It's trapped until we can figure out how to undo whatever this is."

Holden Checked his external visuals. Sure enough. His ships remodelled exterior was in contact will several walls of this ships docking bay and had no chance to fit through their bay door.

There was a booming noise and a shudder. The crewman waved his arms "Button up, Sir! We've got to go!" and he ran back into the service way next to the bay.

Lanetly closed and secured his window. "Let's go strap up. I have a bad feeling about this."

The crew of the Obsidian Shellana retired to the wardroom to recover the weapons and armor for combat.

-*-

USS Yellow Submarine, Deck six

Journal of Jay of Amaunator:

I was trying to escape tunnels under the shattered district. The soldiers I was with were dead or scattered. We'd been ambushed, through a weak spot in the wall. Some sort of humanoid rat creatures, their eyes glowing green with foul energies.

I found I didn't blame the deceased Sergeant. I'd fallen for the trap just as surely as he. I prayed to Amaunator to show me a path clear of this mess. If I could help anyone else out, that would be a bonus.

In answer to my prayer, there appeared a slim trail of sparkling lights. One profane soldier described the effect as "Fairy piss". It was an accurate description but that didn't carry the relief I felt. It was the path out. Amaunator had answered my prayer.

I inched my way along it, wary of an ambush. As I came to a junction with another tunnel, I saw a young army private running for dear life. He was making exceptional speed following his own trail of sparkling lights out of the labrynth. My heart almost burst from my chest. Truly Amaunator is a merciful God.

As I turned to follow him with all due haste, I was overcome by a bright light.

When the light faded, I was in another tunnel. This one was as well lit as daylight in Neverwinter. The floor was carpeted in a strange, dull carpet. Two colors. Light gray in the middle and dark blue near the walls.

The walls had ribs and in between the ribs were sections of wood covered in leather. Above, about eye level, was a sort of glass window of great size. behind this glass window there was a form of abstract art. Rectangles warred with circles and helpless words were trampled between them being torn into fractions and segments.

"Sir?" I heard a voice behind me. I turned to find a human woman. She was slim and well groomed. Her clothing was professional straight and dour. Pants, jacket and boots all of black. Some sort of sigil adorned her left breast and colorful buttons hid discretely on the right side her collar. The blue of her shoulders set off her skin and eyes nicely.

"Admiral?" She asked me carefully.

I blinked at her carefully. "I'm sorry, you may have mistaken me for someone else." My naval career was limited to being on a boat once. It sank.

Realization lit up her face. It was enjoyable to watch. "You're new here?"

I looked around. "I can't say as I am clear about where here is."

"The Yellow Submarine?" She asked. "A Federation Starship?"

I shrugged helplessly. "I don't recognize those terms."

Then a bright red light started flashing. Someone blew an odd woodwind instrument of some kind. The same tone over and over with mechanical precision.

"Red Alert!" The woman told me. "You. Come with me. We're in a dangerous position. You'll be safe if you stay with me!"

She didn't stay to watch my reaction lit out at a dead run. I followed, but it was a challenge in armor. We passed other people of all sorts. Many wore uniforms like hers. Others didn't. But I vaguely recognized fighters. Tough looking men and women. Their weapons were strange to me, but I recognized the grip, and the look.

We ran into a circular space. Another woman in a white uniform looked at me. "Who's this?"

"Incursion, Doctor. He doesn't know anything about us. I figured he'd be safer here than wandering loose." My rescuer explained.

The Doctor looked at my face "Any relation to Jay Six?"

"I know of one Jay," I replied. "That's me and I am the only one."

"I hope you're right." She said. "Stand over there. You can help move people if it comes to that."

I blinked confusedly I looked at my rescuer.

"This is sickbay. This is where the injured from the battle will be brought." She informed me.

I prayed to Amaunator for strength and his blessing, but I felt no reply. That was more concerning than finding myself on this federship yellowmarine or whatever. Had my God abandoned me?

Thunder shook us.

-*-

USS Sheldon Richman, Deck 4

Kami did not recognize this new dungeon. It was remarkably well lit, done in shades of blue and gray. Everything vibrated, and there were angry red lights flashing, and a horn blowing an inhuman note.

"You!" A voice yelled.

Kami turned. A woman with a lumpy forehead. Some race unknown to Kami. She was dressed in black clothing with understated gold jewelry on it.

Kami's hands hovered near her sword and dagger. The quarters were too close for her preferred bow.

"Where is your battlestation?" The Woman bellowed.

Kami scowled at her. "I do not understand what you mean."

The woman's eyes widened in understanding. "You're an incursion!"

Kami looked dubiously the woman. She felt Bubba at her back. He was big, strong and dumb, but he would attack any monster. Kami enjoyed shooting villains and monsters when Bubba distracted them with his excessive courage.

"I don't understand your terms." Kami said carefully.

"You are new here?" the woman asked.

"Yes, we're new."

There was a low moaning noise and the whole structure shook and vibrated.

"Come with me!" The woman commanded.

Kami's dubious expression became even more dubious. "Just show us to the exit and we'll be on our way."

The woman laughed "That would not be a good idea. I am Atringa. This is the USS Sheldon Richman. This is a starship. We are in a fight."

Kami looked back at Bubba and Binky, her companions and assistants. Binky was thin and regal looking. A cleric of Amaunator. Bubba was tall, and thick, with black hair and beady black eyes.

Kami turned back to Atringa "Who are we fighting?"

"Tholians" Atringa said. "Insectoids. They are made of crystals, burning heat and spite. If you see a creature with multiple legs wearing fully enclosed armor, shoot it, it's a Tholian."

Normally Kami would have been doubtful of that claim, but she and her companions had been fighting supernatural creatures and minor devils.

"How do we know you're the good guys here?" Binky asked.

"You're still breathing! The Tholians would not have stopped to explain." Atringa explained.

Kami made a decision. "Show us where you want us for our station of battle."

"Come along!" Atringa turned and jogged down the corridor.

Kami gestured to her companions and followed at an easy lope. Down the corridor. right at a junction. then down another corridor with a wider curve to it. Then into a room.

it looked to Kami like a fake taven. All the furniture was the odd material these people used. There was a bar, there were tables for people to sit. No benches, no long tables. no fire pit.

Along the walls decorations warred with the sourveniers of battle. Broken and burned pieces of goodness knew what all. But the damage was real, that Kami could see.

Atringa called out "Gavin! We have guests for you!"

A human man, slightly older, dressed in a white shirt, black pants and black shoes acknowledged Atringa's call "Who do we have Lieutenant?"

"An incursion! I do not have the time to debrief them. Keep them safe until after the battle!" Atringa turned and exited the lounge.

"Come on in. Have a seat. You're relatively safe here."

A creature who looked like a human wrapped in a mountain lion said "We're all present. Activate the shields."

Gavin said "Excuse me," He reached behind the bar and tapped something. There was a humming noise. Kami felt a slight change in the air circulation.

"We're trapped in here?" She asked.

Gavin shrugged "Technically yes. This area is double shielded to keep non-combatants safe."

Kami grew irritated. "I am not a non-combatant. My job is not to stay safe while others face danger."

Binky shrugged "I can live with it until we learn more."

Kami blinked. He had a point.

"Do you have any booze behind this bar?" Bubba asked, homing in on his priority.

Gavin shook his head sadly. "Not during a Red Alert, sorry."

Bubba tried his second choice. "Food?"

Gavin shook his head again. "Sorry."

A green woman approached Bubba. "Excuse me."

Bubba turned and smiled broadly. Here was his third priority.

"I couldn't help but overhear that you were new here, and I wonder if you'd be willing to tell me a little bit about where you come from?" The Green woman's carriage was confident and carried the slightest hint of a sashay.

She needn't have bothered. "Well, sure!" Bubba grinned stupidly.

Kami carefully did not shoot him. It was getting harder every time. He was extremely dense about fighting monsters and that made him a serviceable meat shield. But he had the same approach to women.

"At least he doesn't whip his weapon out and charge screaming." Kami thought to herself. The mental picture was amusing.

The woman turned to Kami and Binky to include them. "Please come join us. We have a few supplies held aside for just such a meeting as this."

Kami nodded. She couldn't have stopped Bubba short of actually killing him. She looked at Binky. He seemed troubled. Kami resolved to keep her eye on him.

"I am Atziana," The green woman introduced herself. "I'm a freelance diplomat, I am very pleased to meet you." Her skin tone was light green and her hair was light green with white and yellow highlights. Her figure was slim but had all the right curves.

"The pleasure is all mine," Bubba replied, all but drooling. Kami mentally selected a bodkin point as the arrow she would shoot through her companion's head if he got out of hand.

Having a woman as his NCO occasionally kept Bubba in line, most of the time. But Bubba was not a creature of subtlety.

Atzianna led them back to a table where there several people. Kami blinked in surprise at the presence of Lizardmen at the table. They were big. Lizardmen usually attacked humanoids on sight.

Atziana introduced "My companions, Uris of Vulcan," a human-looking woman with delicately swept ears. Not like Binky, who had Elvish blood. "Ennari of Trill," another human woman, but with leopard spots running down the sides of her head and neck under her collar. "Nyrah Thihl of Andor" A blue woman with Antenna growing off her forehead, "And the brothers Vlass," The two Lizardmen nodded a greeting.

"These are..." Atziana offered

"I am Corporal Kami of the Neverwinter Guard," Kami said a little too quickly and a little too sharply. "These are Private Bubba and Private Binky."

Kami had taken a liberty. She was a sergeant, but she was a mercenary for the Neverwinter Guard while Bubba and Binky were full Guard Members. Kami had fought long enough and hard enough to be forgiven the liberty. After all Binky and Bubba had been assigned to her as the beginning of her own string of warriors.

Atziana smiled "I have much to learn. Where is this planet Neverwinter?"

Kami felt her brain grind as she tried to form the words to answer.

The ship vibrated and boomed, sounding like thunder and lighting struck nearby.

-*-

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:06 pm
by jayphailey
The crew compliment of the Brethenga was about 1/3rd Klingons, 1/3rd Orions and 1/3rd a grab bag of the people of known space.

They had every reason for being there. From being Pirates themselves, to being mercenaries, to being people who for whatever reason were barred from Starfleet or the Klingon Forces but wanted to fight on the allied side.

I expected the Pirates to put up a fight and they did. We had a lot of wounded. I was surprised by how many of the Orion people decided to resist. Too many.

I had a couple of stops to make on my inspection. Holo-Leeta, Bob the Android and Spaat accompanied me. The time beacon was melted. So were the time rotor over drives on the quantum slipstream drives. Bob the Android, usually on the crew of the USS Sheldon Richman under T'ari O'Keefe was one of our experts on time travel.

He looked at the readings from his tricorder. It was a stock model. I blinked, "Didn't your tricorder have a Chroniton sensor?"

Bob nodded "All of my temporal gear has suffered.... a similar malfunction."

That was not good news, "I'm glad you weren't hurt."

"I was, admiral. I had a micro-chroniton tranciever installed. It melted down as well," Bob explained.

I winced.

"There was not what you'd call pain, but I was aware of the damage. I am operating at 97% efficiency. I will need to be repaired when our engineer can find the time," Bob said. "Since the damage was minor and the state of our temporal gear is critical I elected to stay on duty until this issue can be resolved."

"If all temporal gear has suffered this sort of damage, that would imply a physical cause that effected the whole task force at the same time." Spaat observed.

Bob nodded once, precisely. "At approximatrely 0.26 seconds of our temporal transit, every temporal device was subject to some extreme condition that manifested as heat."

"Every device?" I asked.

"As far as I have been able to determine," Bob answered.

"How long to fabricate new devices?" I asked.

"In aproximately 120 hours, given sufficient materials and support, I could fabricate time coils and arrange a crude but effective time beacon." Bob replied.

"Alright, return to the Richman, get repaired and then get to work. This is priority one. " I said. "I am not clear on how much the temporal prime directive relates to alternate universes, but I want to bother this Federation as little as we can get away with. It would be rude."

"Yes, Admiral." Bob touched his comm badge and said "Sheldon Richman, one to beam up." and fizzled away.

"As for us, Let's get this lady flying right." I said to Spaat.

"A daunting task." Spaat said.

"If it was easy, they wouldn't have to pay us to do it." It was something my brother said when we were young. For the millionth time I wonder how Bill was doing.

For that matter, was there a Bill here? Was there a Jay here?

These sorts of questions were why I hated time travel.

-*-

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:13 pm
by jayphailey
Now all that was left was to hack together a time beacon and request assistance from Starfleet in the 29th century.

I was pretty sure once they'd discovered our plight, a Wells class time cruiser would appear and we'd be back on our where we (sort of) belonged.

-*-

The Poor Yellow Submarine. Not much remained of her original graceful lines. She had pylons antennas and all kinds of stuff added on after the fact. Not much remained of the original explorer, either. The Yellow Submarine was a battleship built into the frame of the old explorer.

I didn't even know if would be worth the effort to rebuild the Yellow Submarine after the war. The New Oddessey class cruisers looked really sweet and much more amenable to returning to explorer mode.

I was sipping coffee and noodling how to rebuild the Yellow Submarine into an explorer when a message found me. "Admiral, this is Captain O'Keefe. Could I trouble you to come to the Sheldon Richman, please? There's a problem."

"I'll be right there, T'ari." I said. I got up. I enjoyed Li'ira's sister. It took Li'ira some time to unthaw around her. T'ari never had to build up the callous and suspicion Li'ira had.

Sometimes at a starbase or at Risa I'd see Tari and her friends. Senior officers on her ship. They'd be running around like school girls.

Maybe lieutenants. They were young. It was war. So T'ari was a Commander and commanded a Federation Starship. She did it well. She and he crew were tight.

I walked through the Yellow Submarine to the Transporter Room. "Beam me to the Sheldon Richman, please."

I sparkled onto the Richman. I Saluted the Keel and asked "Permission to come aboard?"

Even though the Sheldon Richman was an Akira class, being stamped out by the hundreds, she always felt like she had personality to me.

A lot of that was the crew working to make a very basic ship interior feel like home. The Sheldon Richman was spartan compared to pre-war ships. Starfleet wasn't spending energy or effort on anything aside from winning the war. Fortunately, a lot of the good stuff that went on starships was already generic and prefabbed. So it was easier to just go with the prefabbed pieces.

But it meant that the Sheldron Richman looked, inside, like a starship from 20 or 30 years ago. Just what was easiest to replicate, fabricate and install.

The Officer of the deck granted permission and I asked where the Captain was. She was in a forward lab.

The starships did have labs, still. They might not always be equipped or manned but they were there. You could use the space for lots of different things.

The Sheldon Richmans labs were high energy physics and engineering labs. Although the ships interiors were mostly generics, the power systems, weapons and defenses of my ships were not. The ships of our task force had extensive modifications, upgrades and specializations. Our phasers punched well above their weight class. Our shields were multi-layered and mind boggingly tough and resilient.

One of our ships could outfight 4 of the orginal Akira or Galaxy class ships. And that was still barely adequate. We were always trying to squeeze more out of those systems.

The interior of the Sheldon Richman besides the generic decor and fittings looked a little odd here or there. Our redundancies had redundancies. Our ships could take terrible, terrible pounding and remain combat effective. Besides redundancies systems were armored and hardened. You might take out the first layer of the power system with a tetryon pulse, but the second layer was hardened against that. You might drain the shields with a Borg tractor beam, but we had two more systems ready to go.

Everything was beige colored and reassuringly boring. But behind it was armored belt and heavy guns.

But these ships didn't have the long legs or long durations of ships from a generation ago. They were 4 times better in the merge and in a turn-and-burn dog fight over a planet we were defending. But they weren't explorers. Asked to make a long trek across unknown space, you'd be lucky to keep most of these highly specialized and tuned systems running for a year.

But the Sheldon Richman wasn't going where no man had gone before. She was going into the teeth of the enemy to meet them with shield and beam. She was a combat ship. She was good at it.

I met T'ari and some of her science people in the Lab. Bob the Android. He was an unlicensed development of the Soong style Android. When we found out who was making them and selling them into slavery, we were going to put a hard stop to it.

There was Taisha Sockalosky. Another young girl to my eyes. She was a former Marine who, after being injured in combat requalified to be a Starship officer. She snapped to attention as I came into the room. I saluted and murmured "As you were"

There were Holograms. Holo-Leeta. Spock and Nyota Uhura. I nodded at them.

It bugged me that we had Holograms of historical people on our ships. T'ari knew how I felt about it, but during a bad patch fighting the Tholians in the Azure Nebula, her crew needed to help and activated some of the Holograms.

Once they were activated, I wasn't going to let them be turned off willy nilly. They were people, damn it.

Leonard McCoy was pissed. He braced me in my own ready room about it. He really raised hell. All I could say was that it was not my idea.

McCoy was also upset that he was prevented from erasing himself. I agreed with that, too. I asked him to wait until after the war. Then, if he was absolutely certain he wanted to be destroyed, I'd do it myself. It was weird and sad. Why did Starfleet think that was a good idea?

T'ari was tall, thin and looked built for speed. She looked very serious. "Captain," I nodded to her. "What's going on?"

T'ari nodded to her crew people. "Tell him."

Bob looked at me and took a deep breath. I was surprised an Android did that. "I am encountering unexpected errors fabricating a new temporal coil."

"What sort of errors?" I asked.

"Errors in my mind." Bob said. It was clear he was unhappy about this.

"What?"

"Admiral," Holo-Spock said, "Uhura and I have noted a similar effect. When we try to calculate the proper dimensions and density of the temporal coil, we have calculation errors."

"It's like some sort of mathematical aphasia." Holo-Uhura said. "We reach for the numbers, but they aren't there."

I blinked slowly "what does that mean?"

Taisha showed me a PADD. I recognized temporal equations. But.... they were wrong. "That's not right," I said.

Taisha nodded. "It deviates from our text books and research materials. But this is a live calculation."

"What? Wait, but that would mean-" I stopped myself before I got shrill.

"The rules of time travel are different here." T'ari said. "None of our gear survives or works because it can't. The law of physics are different here."

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. "What.... what else is different here?"

Bob looked lost in thought. Uhura spread her arms helplessly. Spock looked calm.

"We have no idea," Taisha said. "I'm going to guess it starts in the higher dimensions, and that the spacetime we're familiar with is mostly the same since we're alive and here discussing it. But that's just a wild guess. We'll need to do some work to really define this."

I glared at Sockalosky for a moment. For the universe to be hospitable for matter and life is a matter of zero point zero, followed by ten more zeroes and then a one five. One followed by nine zeroes and a one-five and we were all dead and perhaps not even the quarks that formerly were us remaining in one piece.

Then my brain caught up. We were standing there. Discussing it. No one had noticed anything wrong until they tried to build temporal gear.

So this universe was pretty damned close on a cosmic scale.

Visions of falling apart into energy and exploding like a core breach faded out of my mind.

"Okay," I said. "Okay." My breathing was a little easier.

I was about to start barking orders. But that was not my place here.

"T'ari, please have your people work on defining just where the laws of physics here differ from ours. Bring in science people from the other crews if you need to. But let's keep this quiet until we know what we're dealing with. I don't want anyone panicking that we're stuck, yet."

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:21 pm
by jayphailey
+12 days Since Incursion

I walked into the Admiral's Office. It was more of a command center with a desk in one corner.

Star City One was a pretty Space Station. You could tell they put a lot of thought into making a Starbase that wasn't just another colossal lamp fixture.

Admiral Perris was a charismatic woman. She had two of her officers with her. Blue and gold uniform colors.

On the big screen behind her, I could see my ship. Their militay tech was not as advanced as ours. But their sensors were amazing. I could see readings on every piece of my ship, except for parts we has scan baffled. Even those were becoming more clear with time.

I moved to the right place centered in front of her desk, came to attention and saluted. "Jay Six reporting, Admiral."

She looked at me. Oh yeah. Starfleet didn't salute here. Like the old days.

She told her officers "Dismissed. I will talk to you later."

They murmured "Yes, Ma'am." and left the area.

She turned back to me, and waited.

I stood straight and waited.

Finally she spoke.

"The Yellow Submarine," She said. "Really"

I couldn't help the smile that wandered across my face. "When we recovered her, she was named the USS Discovery, but we already had too many Discoverys. I was asked to rechristen her."

"And you chose Yellow Submarine."

"Well, it wasn't likely to be a duplicate. Besides...." I hesitated.

"Go on."

"For some reason, the Beatles always struck me as being consistent with that optimistic strange new worlds feel that Starfleet had when I joined," I said. "I can't explain why in specifics... just... they feel like it."

She nodded. Her poker face was excellent. "So, you wish to explore the sea of holes? You wish to bring back scans from the sea of monsters? You wish to make first contact with Pepperland?"

MY grin had a life of it's own "Yes, Ma'am. That would be my aspiration."

"Not in this ship you won't."

Really slapped back hard. "No." I fought against feeling bad for a machine. We'd lost a lot of people. It was unseemly to get misty eyed over a collection of metal and technology. That was the correct thought. It didn't stop me. "That old girl has been through too much and has been changed too much. She'll never be an explorer again. She's a battleship. It's what we needed her to be."

"Tell me why you needed this a battleship like this," She said.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. Our histories seem to diverge in the mid 2370s...."

I laid out a grinding collection of wars, skirmishes, misunderstandings and psychotic hostilities that necessitated creating the Yellow Submarine as a hull smashing, beam throwing, torpedo flinging monstrosity.

She listened and took notes with a stylus on a PADD.

When I finished, she looked at me carefully. "We're not like that here."

I nodded, "It's relaxing. It's an image of what we're fighting for."

"So, what will you do, now?" She asked.

That was a good question. I thought about it. "If you don't mind, we'll lay over here for a while. If we're here for more than 72 hours, I'll share our technical specs with you. We may have to begin asking for resources to keep our ships healthy. If we're here for more than 7 days, I'll place myself and my people at your disposal."

Admiral Perris looked at me carefully. "That's an oddly specific timeline."

"Please note it prominently in your log," I asked. "It might help my friends find us."

"Your friends?" She asked.

"Uhh, where I'm from they're Starfleet of the 29th century. They travel in time as casually as we travel in space," I explained. "Honestly, I'm surprised it's taken them this long."

She looked at a screen on her desk. "Are you?"

I took a deep breath. "Well, yes. And somewhat concerned. All of our temporal gear was destroyed in the transit. Our attempts at repairs have run into... technical difficulties."

Her poker face almost slipped. "What difficulties?"

"The laws of physics."

"Oh?"

I felt like a cadet who'd failed to complete an assignment. "The laws of physics regarding temporal phenomenon work differently, here. We're not sure by how much or how they're different."

"And you are researching this?" She asked sharply

"Yes, ma'am. If we can get a temporal beacon working we should be out of your hair in short order."

"Call your people and have them stop immediately!" She barked.

I was taken aback "Ma'am?"

"You are correct that the laws of temporal physics are different here. They are dangerous. I am not kidding, we've lost people and ships. We understand them enough to know this. Unexpected consequences and strange disasters are almost guaranteed to result. Call your people right now and have them stop immediately. You could make this much worse for everyone." She was very intense. I recognized the look. Her command and her people were in danger.

I tapped my commbadge. "Six to Yellow Submarine."

"Varupuchu here, Admiral."

"Stop all research into temporal physics, and have the rest of our ships stop too. Make everything safe, record last steps, down tools and shut it down."

"Sir?" I could hear the surprise in Varupuchu's voice. That was our attempt at a distress signal. I'd just told castaways to stop working on their signal fire.

"I'll explain when I get back," I said "Shut it down, Harksain."

"Aye, Sir." Varupuchu said. He'd already adjusted to it. The admiral said something and that made it so.

"Six, out." I closed the communications.

Perris let out a breath. She'd been holding it. Was it that bad? "Uhhh, would you be willing to share your data on the matter with us, Admiral?"

She thought about it. We already knew enough to be dangerous. "Yes. It's considered sensitive here. Not to be discussed without need."

I nodded "Yes ma'am, I'll make sure everyone knows."

She sighed, "I fear your friends may well be out of reach. This Universe doesn't like time travel. It fights back."

I blinked. At the time I didn't understand what she was saying. "Ma'am."

"Alright, I agree to your time table and I will note it to see if it draws your friends. After that we'll need to decide what to do with all of you."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"I will ask you to cooperate with my intelligence people. We need to be able to make intelligent decisions about you and your people," Perris said.

It hit me. We must look like what you'd expect if Starfleet turned into pirates. About twenty percent of my crew weren't even Federation Citizens. We had a lot of people who'd look shady and possibly insane to the Starfleet of my youth. During the war, nothing mattered except manning your post and staying alive.

"Uhhh, Some of my people might...." I began.

Perris looked at me.

"Might need to take some time and effort to adjust to life in a peaceful Federation," I said.

"That's a very diplomatic way to say it," Perris said. "Sometimes, here, we have Starships develop cultures and populations that are not... standard. We call them Zoo ships."

I tried to imagine that and failed.

"Your ships are Zoo ships, filled with particularly wild and possibly dangerous creatures."

"That's .... accurate, if I am understanding you," I said.

"If you and your commanders can make it work, I will not interfere. If things go wrong, you will be held accountable," She said.

"Yes Ma'am." I'd have to have a briefing with everyone. Skip McGee could help me there, as well as my brother, Jay and Yang Huan.

Was it a good thing to be back in an old fashioned Starfleet? One that was about being scientists, explorers and citizens as well as warriors?

I liked the idea. If our friends from the 29th century didn't show up, that might not be so bad. For us.

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 7:45 pm
by Innkeeper
So far totally confusing, with little context. Worse than the great character mush.

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 7:20 pm
by jayphailey
I found, as I approached the brig, that I was as mad as hell. I had to stop and ask myself why.

People had died. I was mad about that. The answer to that was obvious. I could have let Magnar go. But that wasn't a good result. He was a pirate and the Brethenga represented too much firepower to let a pirate run loose with her.

I couldn't blame Magnar for fighting to keep his ship. Since he was a snake, I couldn't really blame him and his loyalists for fighting dirty.

I felt bad about ordering the capture. It felt skeezy. Underhanded. Dishonest.

So I guess I felt bad about being in the position to feel like I had to. I guess I was mad at Klingon High Command for foisting him on us.

At the same time, being part of my task force allowed me to ride herd on Magnar and direct his violent, larcenous impulses at the enemy.

Who could find contraband to loot and smuggle from an alien insectoid species rampaging across known space? Magnar could. Who could find a black market to and from the ancient Iconians? Magnar could.

Who could make contact with the shape-changing aliens of fluidic space to sell them things that were not healthy for them? Magnar could. He turned up from patrols with blood spatters and interesting loot. I finally assigned him one of my ships as "Fire support". But really, to keep his guns focused on the enemy and not whoever he could find who had something he wanted.

It was plain to see, Magnar was not welcome in polite Klingon society. He was officially listed as a Mercenary. A Privateer. But he was a pirate deep inside.

I guess I felt mad at myself, too. I wasn't quibbling when we were engaged against the Hur'Q or the Iconians. I welcomed his disruptors and torpedoes on our side.

Now.... Now I was stealing his disruptors. His shuttles. A good chunk of his crew. His ship. And I felt like a pirate doing it.

I didn't like being the type of person who was okay with Magnar when I needed him and then taking his ship away.

That's what I was really mad at. I mulled it over, folded it up and put it away. You get good at that in wartime.

Taking a deep breath, I walked into Brethenga's brig. It was big. Much bigger than reasonable, unless you were selling slaves. I felt a twinge of something but discarded it. I could not afford it now.

Magnar was bloody and bruised. He was wearing shorts from the replicator. He'd been strip-searched before going in the cell.

Magnar looked at me. My skin tried to crawl off. I'd faced Iconian dreadnoughts the size of starbases, but this man, unarmed sitting in his cell scared me.

The Holo-Leeta's came in. One from one of my ships, and one from the Brethenga, the ship we were standing on. You could tell them apart from each other because my Holo-Leeta was wearing a very form fitting sort of one piece body stocking in a complimentary off-white. The Holo-Leeta from the Brethenga was dressed pirate chic, black and red with straps, belts, buckles and leather all over a skimpy top and short shorts.

As I watched the Brethenga Holo-Leeta Flickered and was now dressed identically to mine.

My face must have betrayed how I felt because my holo-Leeta grinned a big grin and her body stocking darkened to pastel blue.

Both had hand weapons of some kind. No doubt very powerful and precise.

I blinked at the notion of a Holo-Leeta. For years we'd been seeing Holographic versions of Leeta running dabo tables at every stop of any note in the galaxy. Her organic inspiration was running loose somewhere on Ferenginar, I heard. But Holo-Leeta never took breaks. Never got angry with a customer no matter how rude or offensive. Never demanded more pay.

Then one day. Every Starfleet and Allied ship tied into the network got a massive download.

Turns out Holo-Leeta was a ringer for Starfleet intelligence. Her cover was blown, and she was about to be questioned. Not dissimilar to having your brain ripped to shreds to read information off your synapses. And about as pleasant, I've heard. So she made a desperate bid for safety but didn't think through the consequences.

She escaped her immediate threat but it left a copy of Holo-Leeta on every ship and station connected to the network at that time. Even Magnar and the Brethenga got one. My Ship, the Yellow Submarine and the Thessaloniki did not. Both ships were off network for repairs. But everyone else in my task fore had one.

Knowing that, in time, I might have to try and do something about Magnar, I enlisted the Holo-Leetas.

They agreed and our ruse mostly worked.

I looked back at Magnar. He switched his gaze to Holo-Leeta. "I should have killed you when I had the chance."

They shrugged in unison. The Brethenga's Leeta said. "Sorry, Magnar. I'm only programmed to simulate being an amoral sociopath."

Magnar rolled the terms across his tongue. "Amoral sociopath. Accurate enough, I suppose. " he looked back at me. "Six. These terms of yours, Amoral Sociopath. They come from a context. They come from a place you call civilized. Someday, I will show you a different world. Looking up from a pit, covered in filth and writhing in pain, you will see that in the real galaxy, the terms Amoral and Sociopath are just Tuesday."

He said it flatly. No bragging, or boasting. Just statements of fact. I resisted the urge to double check the brig cell.

He continued "In time, you will beg me to kill you. That will mark a point just shy of halfway towards the conclusion of my vengeance."

I've been threatened a lot. I've been threatened by pirates reasonably often. Magnar was by far the scariest and most concerning. Suddenly I didn't feel bad about the decision to take the Brethenga away from him at all.

I nodded at the blue Leeta. Another Leeta came in. She shaded her body stalking ever so slightly red. She held a combat disruptor rifle, pointed at some generic corner away from us.

Blue Leeta sad "You're live, Admiral."

"Commander," I said to him, my voice slightly hoarse, "You are relieved and under arrest for numerous crimes. These will be detailed later. You will have a lawyer to represent you in court."

"Civilized," Magnar said.

"The ..." mutiny? Uprising? Retaking of the Brethenga? "The event you have just participated in was not, in fact sponsored by the Orions or Klingon High command, although we were deliberately unclear on that point. It was me. Magnar is a pirate and we all know it. He has not been operating this ship in a manner I am proud to be associated with."

"That changes now. Commander Li'ira will assume command of this ship, under my authority. This ship is now a Starfleet Auxiliary Vessel.

Many of you have no love for the Federation. Some have records in the Federation. I promise you this. Behave professionally, and we will treat you fairly. In time we will reach a port of some kind and if you wish to leave this ship and go about your business, we will cash you out. Those who wish to stay as contractors will be welcomed.

We find ourselves in a strange timeline. History is not the same here. We will continue working on the problem, and I have confidence we will soon be able to return to our native timeline. Until then we must stick together, support each other and work as a team.

There is a Federation here, there is a Klingon Empire and a Romulan Empire. But we know very little about them. We will endeavor to be friendly with this Federation until we can return to ours, if only for practical reasons.

As soon as Commander Li'ira has her command team together, we'll be interviewing you to see how you'd like to fit into our new Brethenga.

I want you to rest assured. If this ship points its weapons at another civilian ship or installation, if this ship causes any trouble or chaos, I will press the firing button on the Yellow Submarine's weapons myself. The Brethenga serves Starfleet and the Federation or she serves no one. Adjust yourself to this fact, and we'll all be one happy task force. Thank you. Six out."

Red Holo-Leeta nodded. The speech was broadcast all over the Brethenga.

Magnar spoke "Nice speech. Do you think it will work?"

I nodded "As well as anything will. We'll get you your lawyer assigned and begin the legal process as soon as feasible. Until then, You're a prisoner. I suggest you stay that way. Escape attempts can be messy. If I have to choose between one of my crew or you, down you go."

"You're a good man and a decent soldier. I do not doubt your willingness or ability to press the trigger or to stab me to death if you feel you have to," Magnar shook his head, with a light smirk "You will never get the chance. You will never see me coming. People like you have rules. I don't."

"Thanks for the warning," I said and I left the Brig, motioning the Holo-Leetas to follow me.

As soon as the door closed I whispered to the Blue-Holo-Leeta. "Get to the Yellow Submarine. Review security on our Brig, quickly but thoroughly. I want as close to zero chance of him escaping as we can get." She nodded, handed me her weapon and disappeared. I turned to the red Holo-Leeta "Get back in there and watch his every move. We'll beam him to the Yellow Submarine as soon as we get word it's vetted. " She nodded and went back into the brig

Then I turned to the Brethenga's Holo-Leeta. "You're with me until we get things sorted out, then you report to Li'ira."

"Yes, Admiral." Holo Leeta said.

"Is there some way we could get you to differentiate yourselves from one another"? I asked.

Holo-Leeta shrugged apologetically. "I am who I am, Admiral."

I shifted the combat disruptor rifle in my arms. I couldn't really argue with that. But it was weird.

-*-

The crew complement of the Brethenga was about 1/3rd Klingons, 1/3rd Orions and 1/3rd a grab bag of the people of known space.

They had every reason for being there. From being Pirates themselves, to being mercenaries, to being people who for whatever reason were barred from Starfleet or the Klingon Forces but wanted to fight on the allied side.

I expected the Pirates to put up a fight and they did. We had a lot of wounded. I was surprised by how many of the Orion people decided to resist. Too many.

I had a couple of stops to make on my inspection. Holo-Leeta, Bob the Android and Spaat accompanied me. The time beacon was melted. So were the time rotor overdrives on the quantum slipstream drives. Bob the Android, usually on the crew of the USS Sheldon Richman under T'ari O'Keefe was one of our experts on time travel.

He looked at the readings from his tricorder. It was a stock model. I blinked, "Didn't your tricorder have a Chroniton sensor?"

Bob nodded "All of my temporal gear has suffered.... a similar malfunction."

That was not good news, "I'm glad you weren't hurt."

"I was, Admiral. I had a micro-chroniton transceiver installed. It melted down as well," Bob explained.

I winced.

"There was not what you'd call pain, but I was aware of the damage. I am operating at 97% efficiency. I will need to be repaired when our engineer can find the time," Bob said. "Since the damage was minor and the state of our temporal gear is critical I elected to stay on duty until this issue can be resolved."

"If all temporal gear has suffered this sort of damage, that would imply a physical cause that affected the whole task force at the same time," Spaat observed.

Bob nodded once, precisely. "At approximatrely 0.26 seconds of our temporal transit, every temporal device was subject to some extreme condition that manifested as heat."

"Every device?" I asked.

"As far as I have been able to determine," Bob answered.

"How long to fabricate new devices?" I asked.

"In approximately 120 hours, given sufficient materials and support, I could fabricate time coils and arrange a crude but effective time beacon." Bob replied.

"Alright, return to the Richman, get repaired and then get to work. This is priority one. " I said. "I am not clear on how much the temporal prime directive relates to alternate universes, but I want to bother this Federation as little as we can get away with. It would be rude."

"Yes, Admiral." Bob touched his comm badge and said "Sheldon Richman, one to beam up." and fizzled away.

"As for us, Let's get this lady flying right." I said to Spaat.

"A daunting task," Spaat said.

"If it was easy, they wouldn't have to pay us to do it." It was something my brother said when we were young. For the millionth time, I wonder how Bill was doing.

For that matter, was there a Bill here? Was there a Jay here?

These sorts of questions were why I hated time travel.

-*-

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 7:29 pm
by jayphailey
Innkeeper wrote:
Mon Jul 22, 2019 7:45 pm
So far totally confusing, with little context. Worse than the great character mush.
Understood.

I am trying to move 11 starships into play. That's too many. Plus , I think 8 batches of characters from two different games.

I just chopped out character pieces.

There was a sort of meta plot going on here, but it was really just a back drop.

I opened with a battle in the Azure Nebula where the Tholians establish that they are aware of alternate universes and time travelers and HATE THEM.

Having people from AUS and different times annoy the Tholian brains. They will be violent, vile and underhanded to destroy such people, who they label as "Deviant" And in temporally deviant.


But then I switched to a different plot - which I may recycle for the USS Urafiki in time.

Then I was going to move all these ships to the Fulcrum to fight the Thasites.

-*-


So it was a confused mess, which I think shows through.

I wrote various scenes for various characters. So I was chopping those out of the larger piece to say "Look at this character being this character"

But the larger, multi stage plot is not working.

I might just skip ahead to the Fulcrum part and write pieces to establish the characters being there and then leave it alone.

I don't know.

This thing has been eating my brain since a "Real" story I was writing fell apart (again)

And the main point is to say "See my characters?" at you.

Soooooo

Yeah.

It's a train wreck.

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2019 11:55 pm
by Innkeeper
jayphailey wrote:
Thu Jul 25, 2019 7:29 pm


I am trying to move 11 starships into play. That's too many. Plus , I think 8 batches of characters from two different games.

I just chopped out character pieces.

There was a sort of meta plot going on here, but it was really just a back drop.

I opened with a battle in the Azure Nebula where the Tholians establish that they are aware of alternate universes and time travelers and HATE THEM.

Having people from AUS and different times annoy the Tholian brains. They will be violent, vile and underhanded to destroy such people, who they label as "Deviant" And in temporally deviant.
Tholians are generally hostile.

But then I switched to a different plot - which I may recycle for the USS Urafiki in time.
I would not mind this at all. I approve of it.

Re: The Incursion

Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2019 7:08 am
by jayphailey
Innkeeper wrote:
Thu Jul 25, 2019 11:55 pm
But then I switched to a different plot - which I may recycle for the USS Urafiki in time.
I would not mind this at all. I approve of it.
Noted (Scribble)