Hi peeps, thanks to everyone who emailed me about the last chapter, it's always appreciated. Now it's time for things to get a little weird in this chapter:) Thanks to all my friends out there, you've, and my proof readers! Legal, this story implies nothing about any of the characters involved, and is completely fictional. If homosexual content offends you, you might want to turn around now.
"Well gentlemen, now you know everything Mr. Timberlake knows. Now it's your decision on how to proceed with the situation. We'll leave to let you talk it over with yourselves." Adam said, walking out the room, Owen following in his heal.
"I thought something was wrong, but I never even dreamt anything like this." JC said, still in shock.
"Are we going to let them take us into protective custody for a couple of days then?" Justin said. "Owen can't realistically protect us all the time, it's the safest option."
"What about our engagements, we can't just disappear, we'll be missed." Lance chirped into the discussion
"Or we could just stay around and get killed! This whole thing scares me, but I know where I'll feel safer!" Chris said.
"Yeah, I agree, we should let them take wherever they're going to take us." Joey said.
"Ok then, we're settled, we go with Owen and Adam?" Justin said, taking the initiative. He got a few nods from the other members, and on queue Owen and Adam walked back into the room.
"The cars are downstairs. We'll take care of everything. Just go straight down to the cars now. Someone will take care of sorting out anyone who might miss you, rest assured everything will be fine though."
"But we've got engagements, and management is downstairs, what if they don't see us?"
"Let me be concerned with that. We'll make sure you're not missed by anyone anyway."
"How?"
"That's unimportant. Basically we'll get people who match you size wise, and use holographic projection technology to change what they look like, and that they'll take your place over the next couple of days while you're staying with us. Now, if you will all get dressed again as quickly as possible, if you want bring a change of clothes with you. We will be leaving in five minutes, just put some clothes on, don't bother washing or anything, we want to get you out of here as soon as possible." Adam said, walking out the room again, Owen staying behind.
"Well, you heard the boss, five minutes. We'll be taking you to MI5 headquarters, and from there to the ISC command." Owen said, before walking out himself, standing next to his commanding officer and father in the hall.
Five minutes later:
All the guys had finished changing, and were standing waiting for the elevator to arrive. They piled in, and Owen pressed the button for the parking lot. The decent was made in an uncomfortable silence, and they just walked out into the car park, still in silence.
"Four of you with Mr. Coombs, one of you with me." Adam said sharply, as he walked over to the Jag XJ220 parked next to Owen's XJR. Owen laughed a little when he saw the other car. "I don't go out much, I like a nice car when I do." Adam said in response to the laugh, climbing into the drivers seat. Owen just shook his head, getting into his own car. Justin joined him in the front, Joey, Lance and JC all climbing into the back, leaving Chris to travel with Adam. Both men started the car and drove off.
They both turned out onto the street, Owen behind his Dad, before instantly flooring the accelerator, already predicting what his Dad was going to do. The XJR, despite being fast, still wasn't a match for the XJ220. The both flicked on police sirens as they sped through London towards the new MI5 headquarters on the bank of the Thames. Both cars ignored the lights, blazing through the streets at over 80mph.
"Aren't you going a little fast Owen?"
"Not really. The director brought that car new, this is only the second time he's been out. The first was when he had some fun. It must have been the first time he let loose for years. He took the car down to a speedway and raced it. That was fast, I was in the passenger seat."
"Oh." Justin replied, before averting his attention to the array of buttons on the centre console, the whole unit was now a touch screen device, with two holes for CD and cassette. Owen slowed down gradually, unlike his Dad who seemed to be taking pleasure in terrifying Chris by hitting the breaks hard at the last minute and skidding round the corner into the MI5 headquarters. Owen took the corner at a more managed pace however.
"Took you long enough. This way gentlemen." He said, locking up the car before walking through the small side door which he had already opened. They all followed in, not commenting.
"Where is the ISC command?" JC asked.
"2 miles under the middle of the Atlantic ocean."
"Oh. How do you intend on getting us there?"
"Quantum teleportation."
"Oh. I'm not going to ask what on Earth that's supposed to be!" JC replied, all coming to a stop as they reached a security desk. They walked on after a few seconds, to a locked door. Adam swiped a card through the reader, before placing his eye up against a scanner.
"Identity confirmed. Please enter." A voice came from a speaker. Adam continued walking through the door, holding it open for the others. The room they were in was a small waiting area apparently, with one door, and another door on the far side of the room. The door opened after a few seconds, and everyone piled in, as the heavy metal doors slid shut. As before, a sudden bright light flashed in the chamber, and the doors then opened again, onto a different room.
"What the hell?" Lance said.
"You just moved about 3000 miles, to underneath the Atlantic Ocean. Welcome to the ISC Primary Tactical and Administrative Headquarters. I'm afraid I have other work to attend to now gentlemen, but Owen would be happy to give you a tour, or you could be shown to your quarters and get some sleep. The facility runs on GMT, no daylight savings time, so you can keep your watches the same. I will see you tomorrow." The director said, walking off .
"Well, I guess you're left with me now. Welcome to my home."
"You live here?"
"Yep, four flours below. I suppose you all want to get some sleep now though?"
"Yeah. It's 1:30 in the morning. Do we get a full tour tomorrow?"
"You most certainly do. Stay in the lift."
"Computer, we need five rooms for these guys, what's available?"
"The executive quarters B15-19 have been reserved."
"Ok guys, this way. You're on the same floor as me, I'm in B12."
"How many people live in the complex?"
"There's 40 permanent residents, and 380 cycle staff. 30 command staff, 10 medical staff, 40 engineering staff and 40 security staff on duty at any one time. Along side that there's 60 admin staff. There's three cycles in the day, shared evenly between them. Other people can be brought in on demand."
"Who are the permanent people?"
"Heads of departments and the command staff. The medical and engineering staff cycle round the centres, changing ever sixth months usually." "How many places are there?" Chris said.
"This, the main command centre. The R&D centre under White Sands, two backup command centres in New York and London, and another admin centre in Moscow."
"Why is it here?" Justin asked
"Hard to detect, out the way, and the large amount of water helps to stop most weapons."
"And how much did it cost?"
"You'll have to ask the director that. A lot comes to mind though. The complex was opened in 1989, and refitted very regularly." Owen said, stepping into the elevator.
"Accommodation quarters B level, room 15." Owen said, and it began it's decent. "The complex has 12 main floors, and then there's a 80 decks of power, sensors, weapons etc." The lift came to a stop and the doors slid upon, Owen leading the way out.
"Ok, next five rooms. 15, 17 and 19 are on the left, 16 and 18 on the right. If you need any help, just ask the computer. I know it sounds weird, but it works." Owen said laughing a little before walking down the corridor towards his room.
"Hey, Owen." Justin said catching up.
"Yeah Just?"
"We never had that talk over, can I come in?"
"Yeah sure." Owen said, the doors to his room sliding open automatically as he walked in. "Take a seat." The room was quite large, split into three sections, sleeping, living and bathroom. "You lot are handling this extremely well, far better than I would have expected really. You've not freaked out or anything."
"I assure you, I'm terrified! It's just not sunk in yet."
"Yeah. I have a feeling you'll like this place." Owen said, turning his head slightly.
"What? Did you just do what I think?"
"I suppose that depends what you think."
"I thought I saw you wipe a tear from your eye."
"I guess I was caught in the act. No matter anyway. I've got to get some sleep now, I'm tired. I'll show you back to your room." Owen said standing up, the doors to the room opening as he walked out into the corridor. Justin followed him out, slightly confused by his sudden change in attitude, but remained silent as he was taken back to his room.
All the guys were restless in their sleep, but slept nonetheless. Their dream filled of images of what they had been told, aliens, abduction, dying.
Even Owen had trouble sleeping, his mind running overtime on the situation he was in.
"Hello Mr Paton. You're relieved for the shift." The director said walking into the command centre.
"Yes sir. Station log, command transferred to Mr Edwards at current time." Paton said, walking out the command centre. The command position was the only post that didn't fall under the three shift rotation. There was a chain of command, the director, then himself, followed by three others. These three first officers came with the shift, and took care of normal duties. The director or Paton usually tended to be on the command deck at most times, or both in an emergency situation. Paton had been on deck since 8am today though, only disappearing for a coffee break once or twice. Needless to say he was quite tired. He had just reached the elevator before a quick chirp of the klaxon sounded before all the lights went out. He stopped in his tracks and turned around, running back towards the command centre. The door was sealed however, and he couldn't open it.
Owen jumped out of bed as soon as he heard the slight burst of the klaxon. He went to slip some clothes on before all the lights went out. Walking round in the dark, he managed to work his way around the room and find his clothes, slipping them on. He groped around, trying to find the torch he knew that was on the table. He found it and flicked the switch, and the bulb flicked on for just a few seconds before it went out. He knew he had to get out and into the quarters of the NSync guys, they would probably be terrified. The walked over to the door, despite bumping into one or two things on the way. He found the control panel and pulled the front off. He was looking for the emergency release handle to unlock the door. Pushing it down, the door opened just a crack, as he forced it open the rest of the way with his hands.
"Hostile detected, locking on weapons." Was the only thing heard on the command centre before the whole room was submerged in equal darkness, all the displays disappearing, consoles going blank.
"Status."
"Complete systems failure, all power to the command centre down."
"Backups?"
"Nothing sir."
"The batteries should have cut in by now, or the generator. Get out the flash lights." Adam said, remaining calm. A small reflective strip on the wall was emitting a slight glow where the storage cupboard was. Someone ran over to it and pulled out the torches, but having the same problem as Owen, they flickered on for a few seconds before going dead. "Something is draining the power out the systems with the looks, or the batteries could just be dead. Someone get down to engineering and tell me why we've lost all power."
Owen walked down the corridor, feeling his way for the door. He felt down to the third door, before puling off the panel and pulling the release handle and forcing the door open. "Hey, it's Owen. Walk towards my voice."
Owen stretched his hand out and he felt someone grab onto it.
"It's Lance."
"Come on, walk down the hall, grope around for a door. To the right of each door there's a pull off panel, yank it off. Inside there's a level, flick it down. It'll release the door and let you pull them open ok?"
"Got it." Lance said, as he felt his way down the corridor. Owen crossed the hall and did the same on the other side, until all five guys were standing in the corridor.
"Ok, we've got a complete systems failure with the looks, all power, including emergency and backups must have gone down. Even the flash lights aren't working. Follow me, everyone hold each others hands in a chain. The stairs are about 100 metres down the corridor." Owen said, Justin grabbing onto his hand, as they walked down the corridor in a human chain. He kept feeling the side, until he came across the locked door. It was like an earth fire door, with a small perspex tube which had to be broke before the door would open. Owen smashed it with the hammer next to it, and pushed the door open.
"Ok, be careful. We're going up four floors to the command deck, watch your footing, we don't want anyone falling down the stairs." Owen said, as they progressed slowly up the stairs, still holding the hands of the two adjacent people. They slowly felt their way up the four floors to the command deck.
"Ok, there should be some gas lamps in the storage cupboard, and some glow tubes." The director said, getting up himself this time and going over to the cupboard. He felt around and picked up one of the glow sticks, breaking the end, starting the chemical reaction. The small amount of light allowed Adam to find the four gas lamps. He lit them and distributed them around the room, giving out some light. "Ok, someone release the emergency lock on the door, we need to get people in an out of here." Adam ordered, as two people ran over to the door, pulling off the side panel. This door didn't have an emergency released handle, it was vertical so it could just drop down in the event of a power failure and lock on two catches at the bottom. There was a release pin to unlock the catches, and then quite simply, a crank handle.
"Come on guys, we're almost there." Owen said, well he hoped. He saw the small flicker of light seeping into the corridor from the slight crack on the command centre door, as did the others. Paton was already standing outside the door.
The door was about one foot up when the lights and power came back on. The voice of the computer came over the intercom system. "Complex is now running on emergency power. Status - zero point energy generators one and two down. Primary fusion reactor down. Primary quantum computer down. Primary binary computer down. External power connections have been established." The door slid up by itself now, and Owen quickly walked into the room behind Paton.
"Mr Coombs, gentlemen. Welcome to the ISC Command Centre."
"What happened?" Paton asked, as he surveyed the screens.
"We have no idea. Sensors detected the ship in orbit and before we could even lock on weapons, this happened. All complex power went down."
"How long can the place run like this?"
"We've got external power feeds online now, and the batteries are functional."
"How did the zero point generators go off line?"
"Good question. They're going to restart the fusion reactors now anyway, we've only got a 20,000V feed from outside running us now though."
"I heard. Any incursions to the base?"
"Nothing's on internal sensors. With the main computer down everything's a bit limited."
"Ok." Owen said, finishing the conversation. "Do you guys want to stay round here or go back to your rooms?"
"I'm still tired, I vote for going back to bed!" JC said.
"Yeah, let's get back." Justin said.
"Ok. I'll see you tomorrow sir. I'll start the tour up here at 9:30."
"Very good. See you in the morning." The director said, as Owen lead the guys back to their rooms.
"Are there any drinks in the room?" Joey asked as they boarded the elevator.
"Yeah, there's a drinks cabinet at the back. Soft drinks, beer, spirits."
"Anyway, I'll see you all in the morning. We'll wake you up at 8 tomorrow.
Breakfast is available in your rooms, but I'll take you down to the breakfast bar if you like. We'll discuss it tomorrow anyway. Night guys." Owen said walking into his room as the others went to theirs. Owen just sunk into his chair, his eyes moist again. He stood up and stripped down, placing his clothes in the cupboard, before stepping into the shower again to freshen himself up a little. Stepping out of the shower he slipped on a fresh pair of boxers and climbed into bed, pulling the sheets over him, before drifting of to sleep.
"Sir, we've restarted the fusion reactor, the quantum computer is back on line. We're bringing on line the main zero point energy generator now."
"Ok, any idea how they went off line?"
"We lost plasma containment in the fusion reactor, and the zpe, well, every circuit in the design went off simultaneously, and we just lost it."
"And the batteries?"
"Same thing, the switching circuits all went down, and in the dark it took a while to rewire them without any light. It's like an EMP hit the place. Every electrical circuit in the complex went down at once. We've got everything back on now, there was no permanent damage, just a disruption."
"We've not had any reports of anything like this before. End comm." The director said, the screen flicking off from the senior engineer.
"Mr Paton, any luck with sensor readings?"
"Sensors detected the ship, went to lock weapons, before they were blinded by an energy burst with the looks. There's no reading on the energy burst itself though. The whole sensor net went down somehow, we're not certain how, no data was recorded. Weapons control was transferred to New York, but sensors were out for a full three seconds, they couldn't get a thing. This was the only place hit by the burst."
"I want to know what took the sensor net out first, and then I want to know exactly how they caused the electrical disruption. The zpe generators should never have gone down to start with even, but they were reliant on standard electronics to get the power out. We've got some lessons to learn from this."
"Computer, connect me to quarters 15-18 on this deck." Owen said, pausing a second. All systems were now fully restored Owen had learnt in the past hour. "Good morning gents. Time for you all to get up and ready. We'll go down and get you some breakfast at half past."
"What time is it?" The groggy voice of Justin came back.
"Late, it's 8am, now get up!" Owen replied back. "End comm." Owen had already got ready. Owen, like most of the non-command staff was dressed relatively casually, with a pair of black trousers, and a blue shirt with open collar. The command staff usually wore suits with rank insignia, security wore a sort of advanced riot gear style outfit. The engineers tended to dress casually as well, since their jobs didn't usually involve getting messy, but more messing with electronics. The medical staff tended to go for collar and tie with a white coat.
Owen's computer console was currently running through the final seconds of sensor readings, but nothing whatsoever could be turned up about the nature of the pulse, the information was quite simply not recorded. As for what happened to the complex, readings when everything came back on line showed all systems were running again, apart from the fact the fusion reactor was offline along with the zpes, which automatically shut down, thinking they had been deactivated when the circuitry went off line. The zpe generators were what normally powered the quantum computer, while the fusion reactor powered the rest of the complex. Right now an extremely powerful electromagnetic pulse was the most obvious explanation. It could have disrupted the magnetic containment field on the fusion reactors, and shut down the electronic switching systems, and every other electronic circuit for that. The only thing is, it should have been more permanent, and not something that reversed after a few seconds. The whole facility was shielded against any EMPs though, by 2 miles of water, lead plating and more advanced shielding around the whole complex. This topic would definitely by playing on his mind for a while, this was a big puzzle, and one that needed solving. If the enemy could have such power over us as that, what chance could we stand in a direct confrontation?
"Hey Owen, it's Just."
"Come in." Owen said, the door sliding open, and Justin walking in. "Wow, you're a whole 6 minutes early." He said laughing, turning away from the computer screen.
"What ya reading?"
"Just every bit of info we have about what happened last night. They just wanted to show off a little on what they could do. Today we're going to run extensive sensor sweeps. If there is a cloaked ship in orbit, it'll be far easier to detect in orbit, if it's not left yet. You'll be going home tomorrow anyway now I expect."
"One thing, is there any chance I can call my mom? I promised her I'd call when we get back to the states."
"Well, your counterparts are filling in for you now, but they won't have called your mum. I suppose it won't be a problem, but I'll have to clear it with the director first."
"Ok, no problem." Justin said before the door beeped as someone pressed the chime on the outside.
"I'm coming!" Owen said, the door opening as Owen and Justin walked out to find the rest of the guys waiting. "Ok, I'm going to take you all down to get some breakfast now, we've got a large catering facility downstairs."
"You never mentioned any catering staff last night?"
"There's another five or six chefs to add onto that figure then!" Owen said smiling as he walked into the elevator, the others following.
"Breakfast bar." Owen said, the elevating heading downwards before progressing sideways after two floors down. He got a questioning look from the guys when they noticed the change in direction.
"The lifts can go side to side. The catering place is about 400 metres further down, so the lift automatically goes down to the next lift stop. There's 4 running down a corridor, every 200 metres apart. I'll show you a map of the complex at the start of the tour."
"How big is it in dimension?" Justin asked.
"There's 10 main floors really, each floor is about 1km wide. The top two floors and command centres, conference rooms, administrative offices, research and science stations. The third level is medical and more admin. Fourth and fifth levels are accommodation. All the floors below that are the clever tech stuff, engineering mainly. The main fusion reactor is on the bottom three floors, well shielded from the surrounding area. No radiation is given off, it's all shielded. That takes up a 200 metre by 500 metre area by itself. That's half of the engineering levels gone just about. There's a large substation area, where all the power systems are routed through, that take four levels over a similarly large area. Throw in the quantum computer, the super computers and cooling systems, and suddenly a large amount of space has disappeared. That's the end of the main complex. There is a single shaft, which goes through about another 150 metres of rock, which leads to a backup command centre. It's self sufficient, it's designed if the main compound is boarded somehow. I'll tell you more on the tour anyway." Owen said, walking out the lift and turning down the corridor. On both sides of him were the various eating areas, and Owen headed straight for the main counter.
"Morning Bob."
"Hey Owen, what can we do for ya?"
"I'll have whatever I had last time! Orange juice and some toast please, and whatever this lot want now I suppose."
"Ok then, what will it be guys?" Bob asked, and the guys all went and ordered stuff. "Wow, have you guys ever had food before!" He said at the end, before he took his pad back into the kitchen with him. Surrounded by all the high tech stuff, he always used a pen and paper to take orders. They all took a seat at the table, awaiting their food.
"Are there any ways out of this place if power goes down or something like that?"
"Yeah. There's two escape tunnels, they go through the sea bed up to the surface. We've got enough escape pods for the whole staff."
"You've said this place is 1 square kilometre, but what you've described to use for the top levels doesn't take up that much space."
"You'll see on the tour. Let's just say admin covers a lot of categories. We do a lot of surveillance on people, a lot of people. A facility like this has a lot of work to cover, and most of it is done here. None of the other complexes even approach this size. Most of our facilities comprise a power system, London and New York have command centres, a medical centre. Matthew's has the R&D facility, that's pretty big, approaching this size. This facility though manages a war effort, processes terrabytes of information gathered from sensors around the whole war front every second. When the power went out last night everything was transferred to New York for strategic command, and computer processing was run through their super computers, but mainly stored. The quantum computer is the only thing that can process the data real time, and store it. We store absolutely everything, the memory cores have been expanded a lot of times so far, they're pretty big now in fact. I've mentioned all those staff earlier who are always here, there's also possibly several hundred other people here at any one time, who come and go, military experts, liason officers, operatives."
"How much data?"
"Ok, one terabyte a second, 86400 seconds in a day, 365.25 days in a year, over 10 years. That's about, er... 300 million terabytes since we started the complex, that's 3 times ten to the twenty bytes of information."
"That's a lot."
"One way to put it. It stored on the same memory system as used in the quantum computer, storing data on atoms basically. That's the same way the data is stored in your brains."
"Then how come you can't read what's on our brains?"
"The quantum computer doesn't use a living brain to store it's data, it uses simple atoms. If we tried to attempt to reconfigure anything to read the data stored, it would probably obliterate your brains, maybe rip apart the atoms. We don't have that kind of technology."
"Oh, ok then." Justin said, as he had been the one asking all the questions. Their food arrived at that moment, and they all tucked in.
"Good morning gentlemen. Welcome again to the command centre, albeit slightly less hectic this time." The director said as Owen lead them all into the command centre. "Are you about to give them the tour?"
"I most certainly am."
"Installation 010A is open to visitors if they want, along with the relay station. The fleet is coming back at 11am for a refit as well."
"Thanks for that, I might give them a run by there."
"That's what I though. Anyway gents, Owen's giving you the tour this morning, so carry on."
"Thank you sir." Owen said, turning back to the guys. "Well, this is the ISC's main command facility. All the displays are holographic projections. The centre screen as you can see is a display of the solar system. The left screen shows the display of the front line. The right screen is complex status. They change a lot though under different circumstances. This is the standard running display though."
"So what do they change to?"
"Whatever might be required in a situation. Tactical displays for instance rather than the solar system scans on the centre screen."
"Oh. How'd they work?"
"Don't ask! Let's just take it for granted that they do. It's not a holographic projection quite in the normal sense of a 3d hologram as what you'd normally see. If you deactivate the centre screen, the whole thing disappears, the small corner bit is the only real thing. The image is full 3d as you can see. It's clever though. Any more questions?"
"Yeah, what's the dot around, er... Jupiter?"
"Almost, it's in orbit of Io. It's our main orbital facility, and jump facility. We can't construct anything around Earth obviously, it would be visible. Even at Io we keep everything behind the moon in respect to Earth most of the time. We've gone as far as Io, since even at Mars something could be visible, it's a very observed planet. I'll tell you more about that later anyway." Owen said smiling, walking out the command centre, the guys following.
"I'm going to take you down to main engineering now. There's not much interesting on the admin decks. We spy on a lot of people, lots of screens with people watching them. The admin staff do a lot of spying, and an organisation like this has massive records. We keep everything on paper and computer as well , in case of computer failure. That takes up masses of space."
"I can imagine." Joey said as the elevator doors slid upon on the main engineering deck. Owen lead them out and down the corridor.
"First, I'll show you the fusion reactor. You don't go into the room itself, we're behind a shielded panel. It's not dangerous really, but it's protocol for non-service staff." Owen said, as he swiped an access card through a reader next to a large heavy door. It opened, sliding into the wall, and the guys stepped through onto the suspended platform, surrounded by glass. Below and to the side was the large taurus, surrounded by the magnets to keep the plasma in a stable ring away from the sides. Like most power generators, and the theoretical design for fusion reactors, the emitted neutrons were used to heat up a surrounding lithium layer, in which water pipes were imbedded, which went through three heat exchanges before finally turning a two standard AC generators.
"Plasma?" JC said inquisitively, moving his head in a questioning gesture.
"Deuterium, hydrogen with one neutron, and tritium, hydrogen with two neutrons make up this plasma. Plasma is a gas stripped of its electrons. The nuclei and electrons are moving around independent of each other basically."
"How hot?"
"About 100 million degrees Celsius is maintained for optimum reactions. The deuterium and tritium hit each other, form helium and emit a neutron."
"A little warm then..."
"One way to put it. I'll show you the zero point energy generators next, not quite as impressive to look at though. All you can see is a big black box. How they work though is ingenious. It's not quite how zpe has been explained in standard physics, in fact we're not entirely certain how it works in some respects. Our theories on how it works don't hold up completely."
"Why don't you have things like matter, antimatter reactors like on Star Trek?"
"We tried one on one of our first ships. The problem was stability and control. We had a lot of trouble harnessing and using effectively the energy given off, and keeping the reaction controlled and contained. We lost containment on our first try, it wiped out the ship it was on and caused severe damage to everything within a thousand kilometres. Our next attempt was more successful, but we just couldn't get enough power out of it while still keeping it under control. All our ships basically have a similar power system as we have. Two fusion reactors powering generators, and two zero point reactors."
"How do they travel?"
"The facility around Io is a jump station . On the route to the front line we have several relay stations. The jump station sends the ship into slipstream to the first relay station. It charges up there and goes onto the next one. There's three relays till the front lines right now. The ships have their own quantum slipstream devices, but they have to charge them up for over a day first before they can jump. The jump station uses 25 fusion reactors, and still needs to charge for half an hour, and they have a slightly longer range. It doesn't matter though, they can only goto relay stations."
"Why?" Lance asked, the first question for the day from him.
"If there isn't a receiving station which helps to dematerialise the ship, then the atomic structure suffers slight degradation. Materials can change what they are even, and people die. The relay stations help to reconstruct the object. If we need to go anywhere new, we keep sending a small relay station out, until one comes through which still works ok. Then we send a larger unit through, and then we can send a ship."
"I see."
"Anyway, I'm going to run you down to 010A now. I think you'll like this one." Owen said smiling. "We're going to go back to the transporter now, and that'll take us almost directly the other facility."
"What is it?"
"You'll see." Owen said as they walked into the elevator.
"Computer, dock the lift with the nearest jump terminal and take us to the EOR." Before he'd even finished the computer had started moving towards a jump position. The lift moved into the quantum slipstream device, and it transported its contents to the required destination. As soon as the lift came to a stop, a small flash occurred, and the lift doors opened. Outside was a small room basically, with two large windows, both of which had shutters across.
"Any idea where you are?"
"No." Was the universal answer from all of them. Owen smiled, as he walked over to one of the closed windows, and pressed the button next to it. The thick metal panel slid away into the wall, leaving a large opening, apparently no glass, looking straight down.
"You're in orbit gentlemen, we're in a high polar orbit, right now, you can see Australia down there." Owen said, as he looked straight down to the large planet below, its clouds, oceans and land masses all visible. He looked round to the others, all in stunned silence. He was himself the first time he came up here two years ago.
"Why aren't we floating? Surely there's no gravity here?"
"We've got an artificial gravity net. Bad way to describe it, but it's what we call it. There's plenty of gravity, not much weaker than what's on earth. It's the fact we're moving in a circular orbit which explains why you feel weightless normally. You're accelerating downwards continually, but the objective feeling is as if you were weightless, since you're falling at the same rate as your surroundings. We're not moving downwards though, just accelerating downwards, but always staying at the same height."
"Centripetal acceleration?"
"Yep. Computer, deactivate the gravity net please."
"Please wait. Authorisation confirmed." The computer replied, before the gravity net turned off. It took them a few seconds to realise, and Lance was the first one to push away from the floor. Owen glanced at his watch, they had a few minutes to play before they needed to head off. All of them were messing around like kids, floating around the small room, bumping into each other and walls.
"Ok guys, get back on the floor." Owen said, and repeated himself twice, but they weren't taking much notice. "Computer, reactivate gravity net." Owen said suddenly, and they all fell to the floor with a bump as the gravity came back on.
"Hey, that hurt!" JC complained as he got to his feet.
"I told you three times! Now, time to go, into the transporter." Owen said, as he stepped in first, followed by the other five.
"Computer, take us to facility 010A." Owen said.
"Isn't that where we..." Justin began to speak before they dematerialised. This journey was slightly different, taking them almost 5 seconds before they reappeared, "were." Justin said finishing his sentence, before stumbling a little. Until you got used to them, longer transports often resulted in dizziness.
"Where are we?"
"You asked a few questions about this place. We're at the jump station in orbit of Io."
"You mean we just trav..."
"Yes, that's why it took a bit longer. Now come on, we'll miss it if we're not quick." Owen said, walking out the transporter into the corridor. A waiting officer in military style uniform was waiting outside.
"Commander Russell, pleasure to see you again." Owen said, returning the officers salute. Russell was the installation commander.
"Come this way please. The ship's due in about one and a half minutes. They entered slipstream 14 minutes ago." He said, walking quickly over to a flight of stairs to a higher level. They came out onto a large command deck, buzzing with activity as engineers and officers were preparing for the arrival. At the front of the deck, instead of the holoscreens, was a massive open hole, with no visible glass. It looked out directly into space, except for a large curved structure almost a kilometre away, spanning the whole size of the main facility.
"In a couple of minutes you're going to see something quite spectacular." Owen said. He'd only ever seen one ship arrive before himself, and two depart, and spectacular was not doing it justice. The window they were looking out of was at the centre of two large hyperbolic arcs, a kilometre apart, and a kilometre in arc length each. They represented probably the most advanced piece of machinery in existence. Drawing power in the terawatts, the ship would rematerialise out of quantum slipstream in the centre on the two arcs, surrounded by what could only be described as a massive light show. In fact, the process had already started.
Blue streaks of energy were flying between the two plates, rapidly intensifying. Suddenly a massive solid bolt of energy scored across the far end of the plates, the window spanning the whole kilometre in length of the arcs. It formed almost a solid disk between the two plates, before rapidly moving down to the far end in a couple of seconds. Everything just stopped then , until in a sudden eruption of white light in a concentrated beam at the exact focal point of the hyperbola appeared. It stayed like that for a couple of seconds, before being thrown outwards to the side. The light was bright, but the glass became suddenly heavily tinted to prevent any damage to the eyes. The tinting quickly lifted as the light energy hit the side walls. In front of them was a large ship, spanning virtually the whole length of the arcs, but only taking up a few hundred metres of the width and height.
"Wow." Was the sole word spoken by the six men, the other staff continuing, unaffected by the display, rapidly preparing to dock the ship and start the refit. Tethers rapidly came out from the complex, attaching to the ship, before pulling it in closer to the side of the compound. Tunnels extended out to the hatches, forming seals on the main hatches.
"All hands, as soon as the ship has fully docked, start the weapons and engine refit immediately." The voice of the commander came over the intercom system. He walked over to where the six men were standing at the window, looking out, still in complete and utter awe at what they had seen, and continued to see. "Impressive display?"
"You sure know how to put on a show commander." Owen said.
"There are three places like this did you say?"
"Yes, but not quite as snazzy as this one. You get the same light effect, but there's no staff, just the two arcs and a power supply basically. Well, there's three to the front line, and then loads spread out across space, about 25 or 30 are around, so we can get to a lot of places quickly. All traffic is to the front lines mainly. We send probes out and around to scout for more life and stuff, but we don't have that many resources, and most of what we have are spent on the war effort."
"What did we just see happening?"
"All the blue energy streaking around was just the devices charging up to full power. A lot of energy is discharged across the plates. The large streak of energy down the whole length was the start of the process. That was the fore runner to the ship actually arriving. The white energy running down the centre was the slipstream. The ship rematerialised as that expanded to the edges. Without the arcs to control the rematerialisation, things go wrong. The slipstream never materialises properly, and the atomic structure can be seriously degraded." The commander answered. "If you'll excuse me however, I have some business to deal with." Owen nodded and turned to the guys.
"How come on the little things which we came here on all that doesn't happen?"
" It does, you just never see it. It's not quite to that extent, no blue flashing stuff. There's still the ribbon of white light that expands outwards, but it lasts a few thousands of a second, you never see it. This ship just travelled about 15 light years though to get here. It produces a slightly more impressive show." Owen said, letting them admire the site. It pained him to think all of this would be forgotten in 24 hours, including him.
"Oh yeah. I suppose." Justin said. "So where are we going now?"
"Well, we could go back to Earth and the compound?"
"Could we go round the ship?"
"I don't know, I'll have to clear that with Commander Russell and the captain of the ship. It's surprisingly uninteresting though. It looks almost identical to the command centre on Earth, a medical bay, and a lot of quarters."
"How many people are on the ship?"
"That one is our flagship, the largest in the fleet. There's 180 crew on board, in a three shift rotation again. 60 on duty at any time. 10 command staff, 5 medical staff, 15 security staff, 20 engineering staff, and 10 science officers. It's pretty much the same on every ship though. The ship is being refitted with new weapons systems now, which transport an anti-matter charge directly inside the ship. It's going to have 12 of those cannons placed on it. Along side that, there's 12 heavy energy cannons and four nuclear based missile launchers. We use them because they inflict a far wider damage yield than the energy weapons, and are far more failsafe. They're not like earth based nukes, they are on a drive unit that propels them up to about 50% the speed of flight within 100 metres of leaving the ship. They can't scratch the defensive shields, but if shields are down, they can inflict massive hull damage."
"Do they have slightly more imagination in their ship design?"
"What, more than a shoe box? It's not too hard is it. This ship is a war horse, it's a big powerhouse surrounded by weapons. It doesn't manoeuvre, it can go quite fast though, its normal engines can do almost .25ls. One problem is time dilation, anythign above .3light speed and there start to become noticeable problems. The latest ships have slightly more imagination in them, this one's about 5 years old now, and practicality was key. It's a no frills design. Something like the Enterprise off Star Trek looks lovely I'm sure, and they manage to even explain it having a practical purpose due to the warp necelles. Other than that though, it's a highly impractical design. Most of the Kulmari ships tend to be based off disk shapes. Most of ours tend to be big boxes like this one.
"I can't see any windows?"
"The windows are all one way, you can see out but not in."
"Oh ok."
"Let me go talk to the commander, you just stay around here ok?" Owen said, walking off from the viewing window to the elevator at the back of the room.
He headed down the several levels to the docking ports, where he saw Commander Russell talking to the captain of the ship.
"Hello Mr Coombs. Have you ever met Captain Zach Fellers?"
"No, I don't think I've had the pleasure. Good day Captain." Owen said, shaking his hand.
"Hello Mr Coombs.".
"I was wondering whether you two gentlemen would be willing to grant our guests a favour. They wondered if they could have a tour round the ship?"
"Oh yes, I've been informed in the last update about the situation, as well as the director's plans to give them full access. I see no problem with it personally, you know the ship well enough, so feel free to give them a tour round." The captain responded cheerfully.
"So, glad to be away from the front lines for a couple of days?"
"Definitely. The past few weeks have been nerve racking due to the complete lack of activity. There was the one sneak attack, and that's all we've seen of the buggers."
"I can't figure out how they managed to remain completely undetected. The slipstream should have been noticed by sensors before they dropped out on top of you. There should have been a detectable signature at least a few seconds before they even started to materialise."
"Well, that's what people like you are for Mr Coombs, problem solvers."
"Is that what I'm supposed to do? I thought I just did tours." He said laughing slightly. "I'll go get our tour group anyway and show them around." Owen said, going back in the lift and heading up to the main observation deck. He waved the guys over as he got out the lift, and they wondered over.
"Well, now you can quite honestly claim you've been in outer space, looked down on Jupiter from orbit, looked down on the Earth from orbit, been on a space ship, and the best honour of all, met me." Owen said smiling, but inside he was being torn apart. He knew what faced them when they got back to Earth, as soon as the immediate alien threat had been negated. "Come on, it's about time I got you guys back." Owen said. They were standing back in the main station, after having a quick 30 minute tour round the ship. Owen guided them into the elevator, before going to the observation deck on the far side of the complex. He wanted them to look out into space before he took them home, a view unobscured by the quantum teleporter's giant arcs. They headed to the very top of the complex, where a large glass dome was constructed, looking out onto the vastness of space.
"Take one last look, you won't be seeing anything like this for a very long time." Owen said. Looking out to the stars like this always made Owen think how puny and small earth really was. They just stood their in silence for a few minutes, before Owen signalled for them to leave.
A small flash of light, and it began. Energy, matter, whatever you want to call it exploded outwards at barely conceivable velocities. For several billion years, this would be all that this universe consisted off, until things started to cool, and galaxies, stars, planets, and eventually life started to form. Seven billion years ago one such evolutionary trend began on a planet, a planet now cool enough, with a suitable atmosphere. Life first sprang into existence, the first true consciousness in the galaxy. As billions of years roled by, evolution took it's toll, and with no mass extinctions, eight billion years later, what in essence were the direct evolutionary descendants of the first spark of life in the universe were still there, on their planet. The oldest, most evolved species known to exist, had become intertwined with the universe around them. Normal bounds of physics were non-existent, they were limited to whatever their mind could imagine. They had the power to distort the universe to suit their needs with a single thought. And what did these people call themselves? As best as can be translated, quite simply, ^ÑThe First'. An object of legend among the more advanced space faring races, few believed that they even existed, as no one had ever encountered one for millennia. Stories were no longer believed, but thought of as myths.
Adam Edwards first became acquainted with the legend in 1968, when he became the first person to meet species 002, Earth's first ever alien contact. He was captaining the first ever attempt at long range space travel, having recently raised up through the ranks, and at this time was the assistant director. In an attempt to learn more about them, he agreed to a telepathic ^Ñbonding', a sharing of information. In a matter of minutes each knew as much about the other, and the other's species as could ever be wanted, right down to the obscure details of the legend. Adam, over the next year continued to meet with species 002, the ^ÑJusata', and he negotiated the peace and trade agreement, which was largely responsible for Earth's current technological status. The first mission wasn't an attempt at quantum slipstream entry, but rather an attempt at near light speed travel. The Jusata were encountered since they wanted to investigate the new race that had joined the space faring ranks. All contact had been lost almost a year ago however, and any efforts to contact them repeatedly failed. At last contact, they were in their own war, and loosing.
A flash of light, this time however it was the arrival of six guys back to the ISC command. Owen lead them out to the command centre, where the director was sitting in his chair, his mind still in thought.
"Welcome back gentlemen, enjoy your little tour?"
"Yes thanks." Lance said politely, answering on behalf of everyone.
"Good good. We've been doing some very intensive scanning, we've found the Kulmari ship in orbit a few minutes ago. It was destroyed a few minutes ago. You'll stay with us tonight, before we send you back home."
"Oh." Justin said, a slight edge of disappointment in his voice.
"Anyway, you go back with Owen now, get a little rest. I'm sure you'll feel better for it." Adam said smiling, before turning back in his chair to face front. Owen led the guys out the command centre and down to their quarters. After their little escapade and tour, it was a little after 4pm. They would be transferred to the medical facility at about 9pm, and would walk up fresh in their own beds the next morning. As the guys were going back to their rooms as instructed, Owen motioned for Justin to follow him back to his room.
"I don't know what to say about earlier, I don't think I could have even imagined anything like that would have ever happened to me!" Justin said when they went inside.
"Enjoy it while you can." Owen said quietly, his hand quickly going to wipe a small tear from his eye. Justin caught this however.
"Owen, what's wrong?" He asked, a clear concern on his voice, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"I... I can't talk about it." Owen said, stuttering a little while he tried to regain his composure.
"Please tell me what's wrong, I want to help." Justin said, looking Owen directly in the eyes.
"The past few days, something happened I never even anticipated, I started to have feelings for you. I know you probably don't return them but..." Owen was cut off then. Justin had leaned forwards as soon as Owen had finished his sentence, and kissed Owen on the lips. He broke away after a few seconds, before he moved back in. Owen pushed him away however, he couldn't put himself through this, knowing Justin would forget he even existed.
"What's wrong, did I do something wrong?" Justin asked, his face full of more concern and confusion.
"No Justin, you didn't. I can't put myself through any of this though."
"Put yourself through what?"
"In a few hours you'll forget I even existed ok!" Owen said, almost a little bit angrily.
"Wha.. what do you mean?"
"My Dad told me shortly after you arrived here his plan was to erase your memories when you left. He had no intention of every letting you know about any of this." Owen said, before he really started to loose his composure, his eyes freely streaming by now. Justin pulled him into a hug, before his own eyes started to run slightly at the new information he had just learnt. He couldn't believe he would just forget everything. He didn't mind if he forgot all the stuff he'd learnt about the ISC, but he didn't want to forget Owen.
"Can't I write myself a message so I'll remember?" Justin said suddenly.
"They'd take any notes like that away from you."
"You can keep it, I could even record something?"
"Why not!" Owen said, perking up a little. He quickly went over to his desk and pulled out a stack of paper and a pen, giving it to Justin.
Justin, I know this may sound weird, but you've gotta hear this through ok, don't put this note down, read it through. You had your memories of the past week erased, and replaced with false ones. During this time, you met someone, Owen Coombs, and you started to fall in love with him. I know you won't remember any of this, but this is you! This is your handwriting, this is you! I'm writing this in the hope you might remember something, that you'll be able to get together with Owen again. I know you don't consider yourself gay or anything, but I also know you've had times when you've brought your sexuality into question. Like that time back on tour in 1998 in Europe, when you met that guy in Germany in the club and kept thinking how cute he was. When you see Owen, when he gives you this note, trust him, for yourself. I've not felt anything like I feel for him now, and I don't want to forget this, but there's nothing I can do about that. Owen just told me we're going to make a video recording, so if you don't believe this, watch the recording.
Yours, Justin
He picked the short note up, he couldn't think what to write in such a strange situation, but he knew himself, and he knew that he would follow up on this note in a similar situation, or at least he hoped he would.
"Do you want to record a video?"
"Yeah." Justin said, sitting in the chair behind Owen's desk as indicated. Owen pressed a button on the display, and the recording started. Justin basically said what he said in the note, but with more emotion showing. He even had to wipe a tear from his eye again. As soon as he'd finished, Owen emailed the file to Justin's email account, and then onto CD.
"I'll give these to you in person a few days after you leave here. I want to spend every bit of time I can with you, but I'm going to talk to the director, try and make him change his mind."
"Can I come with you? I don't want to forget this, I don't care about all the ISC stuff, but I don't want to forget you."
"Ok, he'll be mad but who cares. This past week has been the best of my life. I've never felt anything like this before, I don't want to loose this!" Owen said, as he and Justin walked out.
"Computer, tell the director that I want to talk to him in private. I'll be in his office." Owen said as they stepped into the lift. The director was already at his office when they arrived, the door open. They both entered and the door shut behind them.
"What can I do for you gentlemen?"
End chapter 7
This one went on slightly longer than I intended, I got tied up in the sci-fi bit evidently! Sorry if it's turned a bit too sci-fi this chapter, but it won't be so much in the future. One of the ideas which you might have picked up on may seem similar to what's in JDA if u read that. The similarity is unintentional, and I'd already planned what's going to happen in the next couple of chapters before the applicable storyline in JDA had been published. If you're not certain what I'm going on about because you don't read JDA, or you haven't picked up on what I'm referring to in my story, wait till next chapter I would have thought and you'll find out. Also, the idea for the quantum slipstream station was mine, I just saw something very similar on startrek as i went through the proof sent back to me by Tom, thanks Tom! As always, email me with your thoughts at trekster2@hotmail.com or trekkiead@yahoo.com
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