Office of the Task Force 17 Commanding Officer
January 2, 2385 1240 hours
There was a battle going on, and he was not at the front lines.
Lieutenant General Jordyn Mormar hated that most of all out of all the parts of the desk job in the world. He went over the tactical assessments for what seemed like the hundredth time, trying to keep his mind off of the fact that people were dying, and he was not there to lead the attack at Gateway Station.
Part of him wished he could gallivant off through the Iconian gateway, floating just beyond the gravitational pull of the Theta Antares star, a stationary window into a whole new galaxy of danger. He could easily commandeer a starship from Caesius’ inventory, ride off to the gate, save the day and be a hero… but he could not.
He would not.
He should not.
Instead, Jordyn resigned himself to staring once again at the tactical analysis of the area. He picked up the PADD that contained all the Divine Alliance intel they had – ship types observed, weight classes, ideology… not a lot to go on. There was much guess work in the Federation’s database about this power. It had declared war on the Federation via a chance encounter with the Sizemore, and the Sizemore had barely gotten away with its hull intact.
He read over what he already knew: religious zealots, bent upon converting every sentient they come across to follow the teachings of what they called the “Divine”. What it really is, the Federation had only begun to guess, but it had to do with some form of… psionic energy field they believe permeates the Universe. Belief in their teachings means you get to join it in the end. Non-belief… they kill or enslave. Forcefully enslaved races that did not believe for labor and resource gathering; it is speculated that the Divine Alliance also believes that this servitude is “atonement”. They do take prisoners, but first to indoctrination camps and priests. Ships seem to consist of many species, most of them slaves, some are not.
Divine Alliance faster-than-light drive systems work differently than the Federation’s, and this was the part that Jordyn did not understand. There was something about “subspace folding” and “instantaneous travel”; he didn’t know the details, but essentially the drive could “jump” a ship up to thirty light-years away instantly, as long as there was two massive weights on either end – dwarf stars or above. Must be good to have that technology, Jordyn thought to himself. An entire battle group shows up on your doorstep, and the other fleet is days away at high warp. Clever.
There had been no word back yet from Gateway Station, and each moment he thought about it, the more down to the pit of his stomach he was about them. He was mean to his family, he knew – Captain Krezek was his nephew – but not entirely. Jordyn had hoped that Toran knew how highly he thought of him, but he probably did not.
It had been a few hours, and there was no word from the Iconian control room on the super gateway. Jordyn had several cups of coffee since then, trying to calm his nerves. He had never been this nervous, even as a grunt on the front lines. Then again, as he thought to himself grimly, the threat of galactic invasion would do that to him.
Crewman Princeton came into the room, and Jordyn looked up hopefully. “Any news?” Jordyn asked.
She shook her head. “No, sir,” Keri replied. “The Iconian communication line has been reported as being inactive.”
“Damn,” Jordyn replied, staring off into space and thinking. “We’ll give them another hour. Contact Colonel Worth, and get her ready to send out a runabout to the other side. Have a volunteer flight crew report to my office within fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Keri replied, turning around and heading out of the room.
Jordyn nodded and turned back to his desk, calling up a tactical report of the sector, seeing the readiness of the area…
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Jordyn started to the assembled pilots. “I am not going to mince words: I want to send you into a dangerous situation in which you might not come back. I want to send you into a potential battle situation. You will be highly outnumbered and outgunned, and this will be a almost suicide mission. And to Hell with me sending in a group to their deaths without knowing their names. Name and rank.”
“Mills, William, Captain,” the officer of the group snapped. “I fly for Echo Two in the base’s air defenses.”
“Captain Mills,” Jordyn replied, extending his hand to shake Mills’. “Did you volunteer for this mission?”
“Yes sir.”
Jordyn nodded. “Any family, Mills?”
“My family was killed during the first stages of the Dominion War. I have been an orphan ever since then.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jordyn replied. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Sir,” Mills said, looking Jordyn in the eye. “No I do not. I have a sense of duty.”
Jordyn stared the man right back. “All right, pilot,” he said. “Your mission is straight recon. Fly in and assess the situation at Gateway Station. Nothing fancy, nothing spectacular: just get in, find out, and send a message back as soon as you are through. Understood?”
“Sir, yes sir!” Mills and the flight team responded.
“Gear up in ten minutes. I want you transiting the gateway in half an hour, tops. Dismissed.”
Jordyn watched the four men file out of the room swiftly and with little fanfare, admiring their courage. Courage is what won battles, and he just hoped he was not sending the young men into the middle of one.
Runabout Torvalds
Approaching Iconian Gateway Control
January 2, 2385 1310 hours
Captain William Mills blinked at the immenseness of the structure, and gazed upon it in awe.
He had been briefed on the gateway. He had seen simulations of what it did, how it looked in space as it sat there, a massive engineering feat that was still beyond Starfleet’s best scientific and engineering minds… but nothing could have prepared him for the immenseness of the structure.
The Iconians had crafted a fine facility, indeed.
A beep got Mills to look back at his console and then open a channel. “Gateway Control, this is the runabout Torvalds, requesting priority connection to M90 Gateway. Authentication code One-Niner-Beta-Omicron-Seven-Alpha.”
“Authentication code received, Torvalds. You are cleared for Gateway transit. ETA to activation two minutes.”
“Copy that, Control. Holding station for the activation procedure to complete.” Mills powered down the engines, and watched the station outside his window.
A green beam shot out from the top of the structure, shooting out into space impossibly fast. Slowly, crackles of energy began to show up on the six projectors, and the inner faces began to glow. Soon, a gleam of energy began to coalesce along the glowing emitter segments, and they began to slowly creep towards the center of the ring like quicksilver. It began to pool in the center, and slowly a flat disc formed, an atom thick but widening. Energy began to build again in the emitter segments, glowing and crackling. Eventually, the disc had pooled enough to touch the sides and there was a flash of energy across the surface, which caused Mills to squint slightly. When his vision cleared, he was looking at an image of the other side of the connection to another galaxy. Small specks of charged particles danced around, being pulled into the pool and exiting sixty million light-years away in another galaxy. Mills could see the gas giant in which the gateway on the other side faced, the massive planet almost completely filling the area.
It was a breathtaking sight.
“Connection established, Torvalds. You are cleared for transit.”
“Copy that, Control,” Mills replied, looking down at the console. He pressed a few buttons, and announced again, “Torvalds to 17 Command. We are transiting the gateway now. Wish us luck.”
“We save luck for the Fleeters, Captain, but Godspeed nonetheless,” came the bite of Jordyn Mormar’s voice over the comm link.
“Yes, sir,” Mills replied with a smile as he activated the thrusters and pushed the runabout to the threshold…
