NationStates Jolt Archive

UTF, black nova facility 1200 hours noon, Ship refitting yard..

I hear the sounds, of chirring, whizzing, welding and robotics, people and foremen running around barking out orders and replies, robots and AI’s in the middle, all in a day’s work refitting this machine of war, this glorious hammer of death, our demons our sins poured in to it, to punish others for their grievances against us..


John signed, he was a mid level worker on this classified project, and He barely even knew what he was putting in to the UTS challenger , yet he had a feeling it would change FTL travel, either for the better or for the worse, he didn’t know, his smooth hands fitted in to the large workmen’s gloves, which were interlocked with his engineering suit, pressurized and enclosed, he saw through the mask of glass the massive ship in front of him, over 1.7 km of death and destruction rolled up in to a cruiser , and now it was getting an experimental new drive system that would shape things to come… he started to thump and swoosh upon the metal catwalk connecting the ship to the station, the ship was unpowered, it was a brand new cruiser with some work missing, he was going in to the partial constructed and unpressurized areas of this ship.. He sighed again, his fellow employs who had just finished the last shift waving at him as he traveled in to the metal husk of the ship, this new fitting would have to be done by hand.

He stepped on to the ship it was quiet, yet well lit as work was going on, robots AI,s and quantum weaving was taking place throughout the ship, he thumped down the well lit quiet corridor, his hands resting upon the Terran blue metal walls as he moved down floating weightlessly towards the massive Engine core .. as he wandered in to the room he saw AI’s and droids along with several human elements installing a large cylinder shaped device, with two massive induction coils running on both sides of it, it seemed to be fed directly from the Dark Fusion reactor.. he smiled and waved to Mike who was his best friend he said his voice echoing through the rather loud chamber.

“Yo mike!”
Mike looked back from installing a large control rod and waved.
“Hey john”
John smiled…. And started to work.. This would take place day after day for the next few months..

Finally 1400 hours two months later, the bridge was well lit, the commander stood looking out in to the utter darkness of space, and he waved to the con officer and said with a remarkably commanding voice for such a young man.
“Engage holographic 360 view”

The con officer tapped a floating holo console , and the bridge went dark, suddenly every one could see, everything around the entire ship, the stars glinting , the ship yards Skelton around them, the ships flying by, everything could be seen, the commander and the crew were amazed at the new detail of the holo viewer. That wasn’t all though the commander looked back waved his hand to signify an end to the test, the view phased back in to metal walls with grey and Terran blue lines running across it, the lights with a white utilitarian glare. He started to speak again braking out some orders.

“All mooring lines clear all power to sub light drives, engage phased integrity field..”
With that the AI nodded, in conjunction with officers linked to her the massive cruiser cleared the large ship yard, moving out towards the thousands of glimmering star in front of it, the particle exhaust of the engines moving far behind , as its body ominously rumbled its hull shine unsteadily due to the light.

The commanders order was to test the new drive of the cruiser, while escorting it to new commander, the newly promoted Admiral Alexi Krieger… , the commander motioned his hand over to the AI, who turned over rolling her eyes, as most Federation ship AI’s she was somewhat arrogant. The coils in the engines charged up with a crackling vigorous noise, this noise reverberated around the cruiser as immense energy charged up in to the coils an almost slight grinding metal noise could be heard as well. Suddenly the coils discharged arcing bolts of lightning like energy poured in to the main system, and with that the entire ship began to shimmer and phase gently with a crackling blue like aurora, it engulfed the ship quickly and almost instantly it vanished with nothing left in its wake, it was gone.
Several sectors away, the ship appeared shimmering and phased then disappeared, this repeated through some random spots in space even out in the rim sectors, but it finally in an instant made its way towards the border star base, that Alexi was stationed at, its massive form reappeared just as fast as it disappeared, a crackling blue energy spike around it, it busted in to space the drive’s energy discharged already.

Admiral Alexi looked on, he smiled a bit as he crossed his hands over his uniformed chest, his gloved hands fisted as his green eyes panned the ship before him, he turned away his uniform well pressed, decorated with metal and several stars on his collar. He started to walk down the well lit busy corridor of the star base by passing several people who had gathered to see the cruiser enter normal space, he waved his hand idly as he entered the massive transporter room, his well polished shoes taping upon the glass inter dimensional transporter pad. His body shimmered out with a bolt of light , nothing was left, he appeared directly on the ships bridge looking around he was impressed, it was like no other Warrington class cruiser he had seen, all new consoles, all new AI up graded in every way possible, even some of the weapon systems were state of the art, but experimental.


This new technology was dubbed chaos tech, a branch off of dark energy research, since a lot of dark energy plasma in one place can actually crate chaotic entropy filled disruptions in space time, that can be focused out in to a beam weapon of sort inflicting that sort of damage upon enemy ships , it can also be used as a new form of drive called chrono phase shift drive, a point to point space time fold drive cheaper more effective and faster than void drives..

Alexi stood their looking around, the commander stood up saluted at attention saying.
“Sir I Commander Jordon Thompson, relinquish my command to you admiral"

The admiral smiled a bit saluting back he chuckled as he went back to normal “as you were commander…”

This would be the start of something big… a lot of nations would be sure to send probes and teams to investigate the happening that happened here, even the appearances in random parts of space would be something to raise an eyebrow to, as it caused temporal, dimensional and quantum distortion waves to ripple out…

The probe appeared in a flash of blue radiance. Spotlights on its hull blinked briefly, then dissipated, as the small robot soared in towards the Union ship.

Thousands of sensors were scanning the Chaos-tech ship frantically, trying to discern its tech - so far, no luck. After about ten minutes, the sublieutenant controlling the thing started to feel the first stirrings of frustration.

And so a ship jumped in to follow the probe. It was a standard-issue recon cubeship, devoid of any unnecessary exterior features except the command center sitting on the surface defined as up. Squat spatial disruptors sat ready to disassemble threats into their component atoms, while a thin, needle-like Clayton cannon mounted on the top of the command centre seemed to glow with the deadly radiance that a space-ripping gun required.

Thrusters fired and Commander Gary Lans winced. The small devices were making an extremely unpleasant grinding sound as they pushed the unwilling lump of metal through space. Finally, the spherical port on the 'front' of the cube swallowed and englobed the recalcitrant probe, pulling it deep into the recesses of the hull.

The ship picked up speed, firing its main STL engines and accelerating in towards the probe. The grinding settled down to a soothing hum, and Lans relaxed, but stayed alert.

David-Fredrickson, one of the few people he knew with a hyphenated first name, then again, for most employee's of the Corp. That was their ownly name, and so it is a bit more common, but perhaps it's more the strange circumstances that many TGM employees find themselves in that leads to this sort of thing.

This was one of the many things he was pondering, that was basically all you could do when you the captain of a "Trashship" so dubbed because all it did was deal with the refuse of space all the crap that these nations human or otherwise produced. And as a result David-Fredrickson was suprised when suddenly a massive wave of temporal and dimensional energy fluxed and covered the ship.

"Ok,this is it ... everyone you know the drill we've been waiting for this."

But there was no response it was too late, the ship had vanished from the system.

In a moment they found themselves in an encounter that they already had, well sort of, they found themselves face to face with themselves from the past ... well, it was complicated.

Meanwhile on board the other ship "What the heck was that?!"

"Don't know captain... We seem to be somewhere else and there's someone looking right back at us. It seems to be another TGM..."

The captain paused midsentence... as he realised something.

Captain we're recieving a video link...

"Ugh, um, is it video?"

"Yes, sir."

"Put it on screen."

There the two captains were...looking at each other, looking at themselves one from the past one from the future. The past crew just stared slack-jawed at their older counter-parts.

"Yes, we're you from 15 years in the future, as you can see, we haven't aged that much but still/ We've got big problems by merely engaging in this communication we have triggered a series of events that will unfold. This will happen either way, it's not our fault we didn't bring you here...you perhaps have some questions for our friends..."

Just as he finished a new contact appeared it was the new experimental ship from the Terran Federation...

The holographic representation of the communications/sensor control AI suddenly brightened, then dimmed again. Frowning, it murmured something like ss naret.

Lans leaned forward. "Sorry, Joyeuse?"

The AI looked around at him, surprised. "I said, 'that's not right'. There appear to be two Corporation ships in the system, but... hold on, wait a sec... that's not right. That's not right at all!"

Seeing that the AI was growing increasingly panicky, Lans attempted to reassure her. "Whoa, calm down. Slow down. Calm and slow down."

"The two Corporation ships appear to be... well..."

"Well?"

Joyeuse flashed a communications intercept onto the screen. It showed a captain (identified as 'David-Fredrickson <surname unknown>' from a not-strictly-legally-acquired Corporation database). And another captain... also identified as David-Fredrickson. The two men looked almost exactly the same. Only the bridges behind them looked significantly different.

Lans felt a sinking feeling. Oh God no. Not this early into a mission.

"Captain, I think this may be a Directorate matter."

The sudden appearance of two of the same ship from different time periods had set off a massive chain reaction, the chrono-shift drive’s temporal/ dimensional waves had opened a tare, the bleak darkness of space was torn open by a massive white and blue crackling energy vortex time around this vortex had started to slow in pockets, and accelerate in others, it was a mess, this lit up the sector for thousands of light years like a Christmas tree in the middle of a dark forest, the challenger was positioned in front of the whirling vortex of energy its hull lights blinking over its rough hulled shimmering body.


Alexi looked on his hands grasping the chair as the vortex continued to grow slowly but steadily, he looked over quickly to the tactical officer who peered over the holographic console , sensors were going wild, Alexi said as he stood up his large form towering over some of the chairs.

“Status report”

The tactical officer said in response, “Sir our sensors are detecting several, strange energy readings, it appears that the quantum/ dimensional tag on the energy and whatever’s on the other side of that thing, is not only from a different time period but also another universe, I can’t explain it our sensors are being jammed by the vortexes anomalies.”
Alexi looked around, his eyes narrowed as he peered out of the holographic consoles in to the chaotic black eye of the vortex, the energy and arcing charges of lighting like talons rushing around it like a beast. He folded his hands behind him as he started to pace, the challenger’s MD shielding is keeping it safe from most disruptions and entropy issues, however any other ship In the area would be negatively affected if they did not have this shield. He cracked his knuckles and said with a sigh.

“Ok contact the TIC, tell them we have a level five temporal anomaly on our hands let’s hope nothing comes through.”

The anomaly was far worse than anyone had suspect, but soon enough they would find out why..Now for the matter of the other ships, Alexi had turned over to his con officer waving his hand, with that wave the screen turned on, Alexi looked forward his eyes peering at the screen, his uniform well pressed and ironed. He started to speak his hands behind him, with a rather tough commanding, yet diplomatic voice coming over the comns.
“This is Admiral Alexi Krieger, of the United Terran Ship Challenger, we have detected you coming through the anomaly, Its is imperative both of you do not interact, for it could create a paradox”

The TIC mean while, had gotten a holographic message from the Challenger. Agent Tom slone looked on as he rubbed his chin gently, his brown eyes peering at the report, his hands placed upon the armrest of his chair, he sighed gently again. He tapped a few buttons sending a message to a nearby ship.. the TIS Aeon , it would meet the challenger and other ships within a few hours..

Suddenly, space opened up to one side of the KSS Durandala. Hundreds of ships from all periods glided out, or screamed out, or even floated out. They ranged from shapeless messes of pipes and reaction tanks to graceful ellipsoids and smoothed cones looking as though they were at least three hundred years before their time.

"Holy shit," Lans whispered.

Suddenly, a panicked-looking Joyeuse put her hands to her head, the already major lines in her forehead increasing to geological faults. The speakers popped, then a haze of communication spewed out of them.

"This is Rear Admiral Lars Ross, Kingdom Star Ship Durandala-CZ... any ships, please..."
"Tribune Austenus, Imperial vessel Durandala-Y... any ships are required to render aid to us..."
"Citizen-Captain Matthews, Community exploratory probe ship Durandala-HK..."
"Kostemetsian Space Agency Star Ship Sheldon, ident KSA-33... wait, where the hell did the Andermani go? What the fuck?"
"SD-5113, flotilla lead, Republic planetary defence matrix component Sierra Delta Charlie five one..."

Lans froze. Kostemetsian registrations were ordered as ship suffixes - the further along the alphabet you went, the later the starship. His ride was the Durandala-J, and it was the only Durandala currently in service, meaning the ships with any registrations later than Durandala-J must be...

"Oh no."

Joyeuse, strangely calm, replied, "Yes, Captain. Incidentally, all of those ships, not just the named Durandalas, are incarnations of ourselves. Flotilla lead SD-5113 was a part of the Unified Republic's central planetary defence matrices. KSASS Sheldon was a member of the flotilla lost in action against the Andermani about one hundred years ago. Incidentally, SD-5113, after its decommissioning, was rebuilt as KSASS Sheldon-A, the series of which was renamed to Durandala after the series' proving ground ship was lost."

Both of the ships received the communique from the UTS Challenger, the David-Frederickson from the future had his reply already ready.

"UTS Challanger, We had already initiated contact with each each other through radio communication. However we have detailed logs of communications withourselves, as long as we stick to that we shouldn't make this thing any worse than necessary. Oh, and uh, sorry for what I'm just about to say."

The message was cut short while a second message was being broadcast from the ship in the past...

"You bunch of imbeciles, It was you that caused this wasn't it. Our ... what? future selves?... told us, well they actually didn't tell us but strongly hinted that you were responsible, now what the heck is going on and what you lot going to do about it? eh?"

He was mad, angry and quite rattled at see himself and talking to himself, was he going mad? Well, hopefully the UTS Challenger would properly respond.

“What the hell” screamed out Alexi, his gloved hands resting behind him, he watched as the swirling vortex of pure energy opened, ships from different time periods coming through.

His blue eyes peered out in to space, he had nearly fell to his feet as he saw countless ships appear, he looked around his hands grasping each other, he started to mumble a bit to his XO..

“What a mess, what a bloody mess”

He said this with a low yet stern tone, as the AI automatic readjusted the ships course, to move it back the engines powered up, the ship began to slowly move back towards the other two ships , the temporal disturbance had caused alarms to be raised across the sector. Alexi looked on as klaxons began to ring over and over again glaring red around the rather ordinary looking bridge, mean while the TIC ship Had dropped out of Void space several thousand mega meters away from the disturbance, its engines were white and blue hot, as it moved forward at staggering speed, it was flanked by two smaller attack ships Alexi looked over to his tactical officer who was tapping on a floating holographic panel, the tactical officer looked back he said with a rather professional voice.

“Sir we have incoming TIC Ships, they are requesting to flank us…”

Alexi looked over and nodded with a commanding tone.

“Let them”

The tactical officer sent a response, with that the smaller ships moved around the UTS challenger, the cruiser loomed over the smaller tic ships its hull lights blinking idly the rift was sending out waves like a beacon In the middle of an ocean of silence, it was disrupting sensors with its waves of space time anomalies, space warped and twisted around it as it got bigger. Alexi and his crew looked on stunned by what was happening, Slone was on the TIC ship looking on as well, they both knew if this wasn’t solved things would hit the fan. Slone moved his black gloved hands over the holographic panel in front of him, the rest of his crew attending to readings and sensor modifications. He peered in to the holo screen that popped up showing his crowded Terran blue metal bridge. He started to speak his voice reverberating over the static filled comn waves.

“This is Commander Slone of the TIC, to all ships, we have …… come to help ….. with….. efforts ….. please…. Meet me …… on …. The ….. Challenger……”

The message was broken up Slone knew it but it was the best he could do he pushed his hands on a console and with a sudden burst of light he flashed from the bridge over to the UTS challengers bridge right in front of Alexi.

Alexi was stunned and taken aback he raised an eyebrow, and crossed his arms as he saw the Other commander appear before his eyes, transporter systems were no being disrupted yet how ever thankfully.

Slone looked up to Aexi and started to speak.

“I assume you got my message about holding a meeting of parties here to figure out what the hell is going on?

Alexi responded shaking his head. “No…” he was cut off by his tactical officer saying..

“Sir we have an incoming message from the TIC ship… requesting beaming rights and meetings..”

Alexi and Slone both raised their eyebrow

“Now that was strange time is being affected heavily, the tactical officer added…”
“That message was sent two days ago”…

Slone opened his eyes widely along with Alexi who had sat down nearly face faulting…
“What?!” Slone exclaimed, his hands grasping each other in front of him, he started to talk again with a calmer voice..

“This isn’t good, now we have pockets of time around our ships that are different, it seems our, dabble in dimensional technology has kept us safe in our ships, but outside things are different, messages and transports will take days. I don’t know what to do but we have to find some way of sealing that rift currently we haven’t funded much temporal research ever since it was shunned around the galaxy …”

Alexi nodded, he hoped the other parties would get the message quicker, some were slowed down others were going fast space around the rift was being affected , one thing they did not want was an alternate Federation ship to appear, not at all…. For if that happened that one should could be a threat to every ship in the sector.. With the message sent they waited, and waited… that’s all they could do the cruiser and TIC in the middle of warped space, the light and matter bending around them and their DEF and MD shields the only stable objects in space at that point like in a bubble of distortion…

As Lans watched, most of the Durandalas appeared to curve around and slow to a uniform speed, which (calculated Edward, the ballistics AI) would bring them to about five hundred klicks off the Challenger's bow within an hour.

The other ships, mostly from the future, formed a loose arrowhead - obviously some sort of communication had already taken place between them. The arrowhead turned itself towards the rift and began to pour destructive energy into it - some things Lans recognised (masers, lasers) and some he didn't: bright blue energy balls throwing off sparks as they shot through space.

"Okay, Calm down, you just saw yourself and then ranted at the Terran Federation..." David-Frederickson was hyper-ventalating... "Okay, Okay, are they attacking?"

"No, sir they're just sitting there."

"Okay, well either this is one big hoax and we are the butt of everyone's joke, or something majorly went wrong and made a big mess."

"Whoah, what are those!" he exclaimed as he saw the blue sparking balls eminating from some of the Kostmestrian ships towards one of the swirling portal energy thingies.

"Bah, that won't work that's like adding more water to clean up a spill, It'll just make it worse or at best make the floor wet."

Then he heard the the broken message from the TIC.

"If that is what I think it means then of course we'll attend."

A few seconds later a message was dispatched from the past David-Frederickson
...

A delegation of high ranked officials are preparing to leave to come aboard the UTS Challenger.


Another few econds later the future David-Frederickson also sent a message saying no.... "We shouldn't be there, it'll make things worse."

The first Lars knew of the impending attack was an expression of shock and horror from Erewhon, the fire control AI - then the ship was rocked by several impacts.

"What the fuck..."

Joyeuse turned, flickering slightly. "Sir, five ships just fired on us. Two of them are tagged as Imperial, two are Kingdom ships, and one is the Sheldon."

Lans blanched. The Sheldon, while an antiquated relic of the 2700s, packed some of the meanest firepower known to humanity. Hundreds of cannons were mounted on its trispherical exterior, while the main internal spine had an early, superhigh-power maser cannon attached.

"Joyeuse, request support, now!"

---

All allied ships, this is Durandala-J! Requesting fire support now!