NationStates Jolt Archive

Space was calm. It was serene. It was space.

Space was wavering. Space was splitting. Space was being replaced by a Sub-Space portal.

Out of nowhere a sub-space portal of massive proportions appeared. It was larger than any previously seen. Either whatever coming through was massive beyond all comprehension, or this portal stretched to the end of time.

Out of the portal launched the GTD Bastion, closely pursued by a pair of Seraphim fighters which were soon snuffed out by the Bastions rear turrets.

The Bastion slowed and its engines powered down as it mourned its allies and awaited its own death.

"That's it then. We've done all we can."

"No! It can't be! There must have been some sort of sensor malfunction, maybe a glitch in the monitors."

"Damnit Jenson, you know it as well as I do. Earth is gone. The GTA is gone. Humanity is gone. We're all that's left."

"But sir, there must be something we can do."

"Do? There's nothing left to do! Don't you get it, we have LOST. The Shivans won. All we can do is sit here and wait for the end."

"Well, I'm not going to just sit here. If we're going down, I'm taking every last one of those bastards with us as I can. Sensors, where's the closest Shivan cruiser?"

"We're not reading any Shivan vessels sir. Nor any Vasudan distress beacons. Odd.....they've been going like mad since Vasuda Prime fell. It's as if the Shivans and Vasudans just disappeared."

"What? How? Wait, show me the recordings of our jump. There was a power surge. Could we have overshot Delta Serpentis, maybe ended up in some distant corner of the universe?"

"No, sir, sub-space doesn't work like that. From what I can tell, we're still in Sol. But....so is Sol. It's still there."

"What the hell? How is that possible?"

"The power surge. It connected us to our own sub-space node. We switched dimensions. We're in a different universe."

"Dear God......we escaped! We can restart the species. We can go back and wipe them out!"

"Sir, I don't think we'll need to. I'm getting millions of broadcasts from all over the galaxy. Human broadcats. They're already set."

"Then let's go! Open a system-wide broadcast, lets rally the troops!"

"This isn't their war. They haven't encountered the Shivans. Let's not drag them into a war they can't win. We need to rest, repair the Bastion, and restart the GTA. We need to move slowly. Right now we're not even ready to take on a Aten class Cruiser, much less the entire Shivan Armada."

"You're right Jenson. Helm, set a course for the Earth. If humanity truly has spread throughout the galaxy there's bound to be a repair station in Sol. Transmit a distress call, tell them we need help. And tell the crew to prepare for shore leave, we have a hell of a mission ahead of us."

OOC: The Bastion is an Orion class Destroyer. It is a ship with a population of only 20,000, the majority are Human but there are several thousand Vasudans as well. All the nation info on the nation screen doesn't apply. (Its population stays the same, we don't have forests, there is no Uranium mining, etc.) What we're trying to do is reform the Galactic Terran Alliance and go back to our universe to take it back from the Shivans.

Space was calm. It was serene. It was space.

Space had monitoring stations. While not usually a frantic hub of activity and commerce, the sprawling outpost of the Hanseatic Traders League known simply as 'Glory Base' was transformed into one from it's usual dormant state about once a year.

This was when the armada of independent mining vessels operating in the outer systems paid it's collective trip in order to trade valubale ore and unrefined gass for supplies, equipment, a few weeks of shore leave and generally have a good time. This day was jockingly referred to by the stations owners and inhabitants as the "Payaway Day".

Corporal Owen drummed his fingers irritably on the monitoring-board in front of him, the pale blue light of the computer screen before him shining like a beacon in the otherwise gloomy communication tower. How could he have let it go this far? He should have known Lowig had better cards on his hand than last time with a face like that! His brow creased with furrows as Owen once again went through the events of last nights Sabbac game...

He had to win it back - that bastard Lowig had left the table, grinning like a corpse, with Owen's entire paycheck in his wallet! Dammit all! He'd figured Lowig had a lucky break comming for him sooner or later, just his luck then that it had to be his monthly paycheck.

Owen turned his swivel-chair away from the dead monitors in disgust. There was no more work to do here now, the Miners Armada had already come to port earlier that day, and was now busy restocking, reselling or bashing one anothers brains out over a pair of second-hand ray-band goggles.

Just then, out in the corner of his eye, something caught his attention. There was a tiny blip on the sensors. 'What is this'?, Owen thought to himself as he swiveld back for a closer look. A mining vessel running late, perhaps?

But it wasn't a mining vessel. And it certainly wasn't anything tiny about the thing which showed up on the monitor screen before him. "It's bloody huge!" Owyn muttered to himself as he rose from his worn chair, eyes still fixed on the flashing dot on the screen, tripped in his own feet and crashed to the floor.

Cursing under his breath and nursing his bruised elbow, Owyn eventually found a hailing frequency: "Ah... attention unidentified ship! This is Communications at Glory Base of the HTL. Please identify yourselves!" Having stuttered those words into the microphone, Owyn rushed over to the inter-base communication panel next to the fire extinguisher and pounded out a message to Captain Brandenhall. he would deffinitely like to know about this.

"Sir, we have an incoming transmission!"

"Identification?"

"It's from something called Glory Base, claiming to belong to the HTL."

"HTL?"

"Context suggests some from of governmental organization."

"Send a transmission identifying ourselves and requesting aide. Don't tell them any more than you need to until we've figured out what's going on."

"Yes, sir.........Attention Glory Base, this is the Galactic Terran Destroyer Bastion. We have been heavily damaged in combat and are running low on supplies for our crew. We are in need of repairs as well as a safe dock while we make a full diagnostic of our vessel and our....uh....surroundings. Please respond."

After a small nod from the Captain, Lieutenant Narol switched off the external communications and activated the ships internal address systems.

"Attention, this is the Captain speaking. To all crew, all sentient beings on the Bastion, I bring important tidings. You will be briefed more in-depth by your Deck Officers, but I feel this warrants a personal explanation. The war is over."

Even on the bridge the Captain could hear murmurs from the thousands of crew members as they pondered at the Captains words.

"The war is over. We've lost. The Lucifer made the jump to Sol. Earth has been destroyed."

Now the murmer was a shriek, a wail coming from several thousand throats as the crew tried to absorb this shocking and horrifying information.

"But all hope is not lost. The Galactic Terran Alliance, humanity itself, still has a chance. Us. We are still here, and it looks like we will remain here. The Shivans no longer pose any threat to us. We are rid of their scourge."

The Captain paused at this, not quite sure how to tell the crew the rest of what they needed to know.

"We have escaped the Shivans all-together, and we have escaped into the busom of humanity. An untouched, unharmed, and thriving humanity. A humanity that has never been struck by the Great Destroyers. For we have reached humanity that has forever been isolated from our own small branch. A humanity that has evolved and survived here.....in Sol. An untouched and living Sol. A Sol identical to our own except for one tiny fragment: It still lives. For this is a solar system from a different Universe, a different reality. When we jumped to Sub-Space, when we fled from the destruction of all that we knew and loved, we connected to our own Sub-Space Node. We Jumped dimensions, and we landed here. Here, among humanity. Here, where we can settle a planet, reform the GTA, and return to our own Universe and take it back from the Shivans. Here, where we have hope."

"Attention Glory Base, this is the Galactic Terran Destroyer Bastion. We have been heavily damaged in combat and are running low on supplies for our crew. We are in need of repairs as well as a safe dock while we make a full diagnostic of our vessel and our....uh....surroundings. Please respond."

* * *

Owyn slumped down into the worn swivel-chair, blinking stupidly to himself as the message from the unidentified ship filtered through.

'Galactic Terran'? Destroyer? This was a military ship? That would certainly explain the size of the thing. No civilian vessel, mining or otherwise, were normaly built this big. But what was a military vessel doing all the way out here? And in space controlled by the HTL no less...

All these questions raced through corporal Owen's mind as he struggled to find his voice to reply "Attention Galactic Terran vessel, but HTL protocols fail to recognize your authority. I'm afraid we cannot allow you to dock before we-"

Behind Owyn, someone cleared their throat rather noisily. As Owyn turned to investigate, he was met by Commander Brandenhall's cool, quartz-grey eyes. "Hand me that microphone, if you please, Corporal" Brandelhall looked to be in his mid forties, standing about 5 and a half feet tall with a short, whiteish beard fringing the lower half of his broad face. He was dressed in the uniform of the HTL defence forces, coloured steel-grey with red lining along the shoulders, sides and wrists.

Wordlessly, Owyn rose from the chair to offer it to Brandenhall, who remained standing as he put on the head-set "Attention Bastion, this Commander Brandenhall speaking. What is the reason for your presence in this system? What faction do you hail from and under whose authority are you operating? It is my duty to inform you that the HTL will not under any circumstances willingly lend aid to members of any known criminal organizations, pirat rings or the like"

With that said, Commander Brandenhall striaghtened back up and hung the head-set around his neck. In the way of defence systems, Glory base hadn't too much to say for itself. It's few turret-towers and the odd long-range gun emplacements might be sufficient to head off most would-be pirate ships, but against a truly determined foe, Glory Base's forest of communication towers and Sensor arrays could do very little except perhaps bombard the attackers with hailing frequencies.

This Commander Brandenhall knew very well. "However" he added, his tone reasoning "It is the HTL's policy to lend aid to any ship in need who comes with peaceful intents. I'm afraid we don't have any docking facilities large enough to accomodate a vessel of your size. Therefore, we request that you please proceed to a distance of 1000 feet from the base perimeter and wait there until our shuttles can transport any passengers back to base." After a slight pause, he also added "How many crew members would we need to made accomodations for? What is the status of your life-support systems?"

The Captain and Commander Jenson exchanged a quick glance, each obviously unsure of how exactly they should respond. What could they tell Glory Base? What would Glory Base believe? How would they react to the bizarre information? Contacting an alternate dimension was not something covered in the standard training programs.

"Commander Brandenhall, this is the Captain of the Bastion. We are in this system fleeing from an alien force that has wiped out our entire civilization, we doubt that there are any other survivors of the Galactic Terran Alliance and that we are the very last of our people. We seek sanctuary so we can rebuild our society until we are ready to reclaim what is ours. This area of space is new to us, as is the HTL of which you claim to belong. All we ask is a safe dock where we can put in for repairs before we leave this system. We would, of course, offer something in exchange for your hospitality."

He looked over towards the Engineering station, got a brief nod from the officer stationed there, and turned his attention back to the transmission.

"Our life support and propulsion systems are in working order, what is primarily damaged are our weapons systems and the outer armor. In addition, there are hull breaches on several decks which prevent us from accessing many vital parts of the ship. If we are to survive in this new area of space we desperately need to restore our damaged systems to working order as soon s possible. If you are unable to furnish adequate repair facilities, would you be willing to direct us to where we could locate what we need?"