Dimensional Wars Chapter Two

Dimensional Wars (Working Title)

Chapter Two: First Contact

Added cast in this chapter:
Ensign Nala Malloy, works at the galactic mapping section of the research department on board the Tracer.
Ensign Marcus John, friend of Ewan, scout in the same group as Ewan. He joined the fleet at about the same time as Ewan did.
Ensign Grey, nobody knew his first name, but he is a bit of a daredevil, first one to ignore orders, a troublemaker in the eyes of his superiors, but a great pilot.

Ten years ago…
“It’s getting dark Ace”, said Aaron, “Maybe we ought to be getting back to camp”. “Yeah”, said Ace, “where did Devon go?” “Here guys!” said Devon. “Right, we’re all here, let’s go” said Ace. They navigated through the ruins of the village back to the truck where they had set up camp.

As Devon made the fire using his equipment Ace was talking with Aaron. “I don’t know if you guys felt it, but since we’ve been here, something just felt wrong.” “Yeah, I know what you mean, like we don’t belong here?” Said Aaron. “That’s it”, said Ace. “Yeah, I felt it too”, said Devon. “Just like Frank”, said Aaron, “he was the one man recon, he was shipped to a different dimension, but he said that him being there felt wrong, but you get used to it, like this universe was saying to him he should be going back to is own universe.”

“Well we’re staying”, said Ace, “now about our findings”. “This village was obviously abandoned years ago” said Aaron. “Then how do you explain those tracks we found, they couldn’t have been more than a week old” said Ace. “Wait, said Devon, “you found tracks less than a week old?” “Yeah what of it?” said Ace, “What if whatever made those tracks comes back?” said Devon. “Then we make first contact”, said Aaron simply.

“Wait, what was that?” said Ace, standing up quickly, rifle raised in the direction of where he heard the sound. His rifle was shot out of his hands, and Devon pushed Aaron to the ground and fired his pistol several times in the direction of where the shot came from, then his gun was too shot from his hands and several men, pointing various laser weaponry at them stepped out of the shadows. A man stepped forward, from his uniform he seemed to be the leader, “And who the hell might you three be?”

Now…
“Launch beacons” said Ares, “and tell the scouts to search their grids for life signs”. “Yes sir” came the reply from one of the technicians at the communications console, Ares believed his name was Thomas something. Someday he might need to memorize the name, but that was not today. Ares knew the search grids would come up empty, as would the area appointed to the long range sensors. He tried to come over interested and enthused, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Admiral” he said. “Yes sir”, said Hedges. “You have the bridge, I will make my round through the fleet, meet with the commanders of the respective ships and then I will return to my chambers, if you find anything, anything at all, let me know by the comm. I will be eagerly awaiting your findings” said Ares. Ares walked towards the lift, he pressed the button for the hangar bay. When he arrived there, he walked towards one of the other lifts, specially made for him and went up to the admiralty quarters, five admirals were travelling with them, and all had quarters on the main ship instead of at the crew ship specially designed to hold almost the entire crew. The crew ship also held the entertainment module. He made sure no one saw him and used an electronic lock disrupter to enter Hedges’ quarters. His was made custom for him by a friend, it would never show up in any log, to the computer it would be as if the door had never opened. He smiled to himself. Right now a ship would launch carrying 'Ares' to the ‘Shield’ which was in charge of defending the fleet in case of space combat. The small space fighters were located either in the hangar of the Shield, which held mostly anti spacecraft ships, or in the hangar of the Gauntlet, which held mostly combat space ships and bombers. He had already disabled camera’s on this deck so he wouldn’t show up in any records. He hadn’t planned on visiting Hedges’ chamber already, but his hack had speeded things up. Ares needed to know how much Hedges knew.

“Checking grid Seven A to H” said one of the other scouts to Ewan. “Copy”, said Ewan, “Alpha squad, follow me to grid Three B”. Ewan complies, following his squad leader. Ewan felt fantastic, he was flying a spacecraft again, in uncharted territory, going where no man has gone before. He grinned at himself for the last thought, quoting Star Trek? He thought, now I have gone to far. They made their sweep coming up empty, no inhabitable planets for the colonists, no life signs on any of the other planets in their current system according to their long range beacons. It was surprisingly empty.

Ares copied the hard drive of Hedges’ computer, and other media he brought with him. His personal transceiver with a direct line to most likely the President was replaced with an identical one, only with a bug and remote on/off switch. Done, Ares thought, and now to the Shield.

Ares arrived a little more than half an hour than his personal transport at the Shield. His robot had asked to tour the ship by himself a bit first to stall for time. It had gone back to the transport without anyone noticing. Ares just used the comm to call for the admiral he quickly arrived. Ares just nodded throughout most of the rapport, knowing it already, that everything was operational. After seeing the bridge Ares returned to his transport, “four more to go”, he muttered under his breath.

Ares wasn’t the only one who was sneaking around the admiralty quarter sections. A woman was trying to break in Ares’ quarters. She had dark hair, pale complexion and green eyes. She had normal length and a body to die for. Most men would find her beautiful, and she used that to her advantage. Her rank was ensign and currently she should have been at her station in the galactic mapping section of the research slash scouting cruiser the Tracer. She had traded shifts, claiming she felt sick, apparently to check Ares’ quarters while he was conducting his tour of the fleet.

She picked the lock with more difficulty that she had expected, somehow there were extra security precautions not made by the army, she had broken in the army records room the month before, and memorized the security walkthrough of the hut as laid out. Ares had made modifications, she cursed silently as she worked through the locks. Finally the door opened. She checked her watch, she cursed inwardly again, her schedule was screwed, she had a little more than half an hour, and if the locks were any clue, he would have taken the necessary precautions inside his quarters as well. With cleaning up fifteen minutes would have to do.

She had heard of Ares’ strict time schedule, if he was indeed never late as they said, she would have to be very fast. And if he was so strict with his time, he would know if anything had been disturbed. And she’d had to move her schedule up already, she been taken completely by surprise when she saw Ares breaking in Hedges’ quarters. It had been a miracle he didn’t spot her, but then she was a professional. She had been even more surprised with the ease with which he broke through the locks, he behaved like a professional burglar. He never made a sound, and didn’t use his key card which would have given him access, but would have given him away, but instead he used some kind of electronic device which opened the door. He entered and less than twenty minutes he walked out again, she was sure he never left a trail.

She had suspected someone else was planning a break in when she tried to disable the camera’s and found they had already been disabled, anyone else would think a power failure the source, but she found the tiny virtual worm, making sure the entire block would suffer power loss, using programs made by the designers of the fleets to reroute lighting and personal computer’s power. No one would suspect a thing, all she had to do was lengthen the time period, she had almost applauded at the brilliance with which the worm program was written, she couldn’t have done any better.

She slowly entered the room, scanning for booby traps. When she saw none, she continued, she hacked his personal console. She did this with comparative ease, and was immediately suspicious. She used one of her own gadgets to check electronic activity on the scale of a computer, when she saw that there was definite activity, more than could be generated by the console alone, she quickly shut the console off. He would have known she was there.

“Damn” she said with feeling, tracing the activity slowly, and scanned something near the door. She scanned more precisely, and saw the computer was directing a motion sensor, she stopped dead in her tracks, now he would know someone had been in his room for sure. She moved towards his bedroom, when she registered something on her scanner, it was sending information to the door controls. “Shit” she said, finally it coming to her, she jumped and was barely through the door when it closed behind her. “That was a close one”, she muttered under her breath. “Don’t be so sure” said Ares, standing behind her.

“I’ve never seen a patch of space so fucking empty”, said Ewan. “I know what you mean”, said one of the other scouts, his name was Marcus. “Damn it Marcus, this just feels wrong.” “I know”, said Marcus, “like we don’t belong here”. “That too, but something else, see that nebula over there, it’s not right, the composition is all wrong for it’s size and colour. And it’s not just that, everything is wrong.” “Want to go investigate”, asked Marcus. Ewan checked the time, “no, not today, tomorrow yes”. “Why not today”, asked Marcus. “Because I have an appointment in half an hour, and I don’t want to miss it.” “Would that be an appointment with perhaps Nala of the research department.” Ewan smiled, Nala had been alluring. No, with Ares himself. With Ares, asked Marcus unbelieving. Yeah, So I’ll leave you to it. signing off with his squad leader, on order of Ares himself, Ewan flew to his cruiser.

“Sir, I can explain”, said the woman. “I’m sure you can ensign Malloy”, said Ares, “Strangely enough I doubt any explanation would satisfy me to the extent of me letting you of the hook”. He opened the door to his quarters, “please come in, apparently you were quite eager on entry just moments ago”. “Yes sir”, came the reply from the beautiful young woman, a fact that was not lost on Ares. Ares shook his head, he hadn’t thought like that for a long time, he thought, ever since the incident. No time for reminiscing now, he admonished himself, focus on the present.

“We’ll have to make this quick, I’m expecting someone later”, said Ares. “Now, why were you breaking into my quarters, I will know if you are lying.” Nala thought quickly, she had been caught, and he shouldn’t have been back for at least fifteen minutes.

“I was”, Nala began, “searching for certain documents”. “For whom?” Asked Ares. “I cannot reveal that sir”, said Nala. “Ensign Malloy”, Ares said, “you show much promise in your career, don’t throw it all away. Who do you work for, now, and no stalling!”

The force in his voice shook Nala, his face staying perfectly calm, yet he seemed commanding, and filling her entire view. “Admiral Hedges”, she said. “What were you searching for”, asked Ares, seeing she was telling the truth. “You don’t seem surprised sir”, said Nala. “Hedges has tried before, and failed”, said Ares. “Now quit stalling and tell me what you were looking for.” “I was looking for anything incriminating and all personal files.” “Which agency do you work.” The questions Ares fired off came quick and fast, giving Nala no time to recover. “CIA”, she said, “special presidential unit”. “Presidential unit, huh.” Said Ares. “That’s high –up. Now why would the president want an investigation on me”, he asked. “I don’t know sir”, said Nala.

“Think carefully”, said Ares. “The president might be boss on earth, and have a big say in the Alliance Senate, but here is my territory, everyone in these six cruisers is under my direct control. This includes me, we’ll be here six years, too long to be put in the brig already. Now Hedges sent you, he has now gone one step too many, and I fear more drastic measures might be required. This is where you choose between him and me. Trust me when I say his little coup will not succeed. So while I win either way, I would prefer you to win as well. You will be confined to quarters while you think, I’ll think of some excuse, dimensional dizziness or something. I will trust you not to go to Admiral Hedges, but straight to me, do anything other than I have just told you, and I will be most upset, understood?” Asked Ares. “Yes sir”, said Nala. She stepped outside in the hallway, and left for her quarters immediately, not speaking to anyone, and locked the doors behind her.

Ewan barely made it on time, the pilot of the interceptor remarked so. “I was about to leave without you kid.” “I was delayed by my other objectives”, said Ewan. “In my experience in working under him, when Ares wants you, no other objectives exist”, said the pilot. Ewan nodded, wondering what the conversation would be about. The pilot took off, the Interceptor gracefully coming out of the bay doors, and carefully manoeuvring to the capital ship which had been named the Columbus. Ewan admired the inside of the shuttle, it appeared no expense had been spared. The licadrive had been carefully hidden, but Ewan could see that the ship was able to surpass light speed with ease. The licadrive had been invented by the Licans, thus getting the name the licadrive. It wrapped space around the ship, making it possible for ships to achieve destinations without the crew having to go in hibernation to be the same age on arrival. This technology had been introduced a hundred years earlier, and back then the engines had taken on colossal properties, and making it bigger than most space vessels in existence back then. So hibernated crews remained until about fifty years back, when a revolution in the technology had made the licadrives substantially smaller, gaining the proportions of normal drives. But even so, the drive in this ship was microscopic compared to those.

How was it possible for Ares to have one the small on his personal transport vessel. The interior of the transport was very stylish, the passenger part seemed more luxury yacht than government transport. But his amazement of the size of the licadrive had been nothing compared to his amazement at the armament. Definitely not standard on a transport ship, this ship could take out more than half of the fighters before succumbing, and even then put up a fight. He’d seen the shield emitters, this was not a transport ship, this was for fighting, and it wasn’t even that big, normal size for a five man transport shuttle.

While Ewan was admiring the Interceptor, Marcus couldn’t resist, and neither could some of his team. They switched of their comm systems and flew of their search grid towards the nebula. They could only hear each other over their improvised network comm. “Marcus here”, said Marcus, “can you hear me Grey?” “Affirmative”, said Grey. This was too good to be true, thought Grey, not here a day and already a discovery, things were looking up.

Grey had been surprised when a year ago a young man had showed at his doorstep. The alliance need your piloting skills, the man had said. Grey had scoffed, the government wants nothing to do with me. Grey had been a promising pilot until he got addicted to gambling and drinking. What he didn’t gamble away, he drank. Not long after his girlfriend left him, he got fired. The man seemed earnest, the government would get him into a centre to kick his addictions, and then in a training program for the dimensional outreach effort. Grey didn’t believe him but he grasped the chance, seeing it for what it was, his last chance. He had worked hard to stop drinking and gambling, and made it through the rigorous program. He survived the gruelling training, and now he was here, all thanks to a man named Ares, who had visited him in his second week, checking his progress, and Grey had understood that this man gave him that second chance, he didn’t want to disappoint him. So he went along, hoping for a discovery that would justify Ares’ trust.

“Everyone come in”, said Grey, “this is not an official mission, so when they ask, equipment failure everyone, right?” “Right”, came the reply. “Marcus standing by”, came the first, “Robson standing by”, “Lord standing by”. “Good”, said Grey, “now let’s see what’s inside”.

“Ah Ewan, so good of you to have come”, said Ares, welcoming Ewan inside. “You have undoubtedly be wondering what this conversation will be about.” Ares smiled. “But first things first, tea, coffee?” “Coffee would be nice, thank you sir”, said Ewan. “Coffee it is”, said Ares. Ares, Ewan saw, made his own. He didn’t use a replicator like most. “I hope you like the Arabic blend” said Ares. “You’re being unusually cheerful today, if I may say so sir.” Said Ewan. “I suppose I am”, said Ares. “The launch went without any major complications, and no hostiles have been encountered, I’d say that would be reason to be cheerful don’t you say?” “But enough pleasantries”, Ares’ face was suddenly serious. “Where were we? Ah yes, the rescue part.” “You have undoubtedly noticed the customization of my ship, the modifications made?” “Yes sir”, said Ewan, wondering where this was going. “Well, you’ve probably been wondering why it has had those modifications, right?” “Yes, sir”, said Ewan.

“Well”, said Ares, “it is my unshakable belief that somewhere, most of the first expedition teams are either unable to use their equipment to return home, or are being kept prisoner. It is my intention to rescue those men and women. To this end a special vessel has been designed. It is mostly for covert ops, but if necessary it can engage in combat.” “Sir”, said Ewan, “I’d like to ask you if you know why this piece of space is so, well, empty.” “Ah, so you noticed,” said Ares. “The only thing remotely close to something is the nebula. Which, to my knowledge, contains nothing as well.” “Why, if I may ask, sir.” Asked Ewan. “Because we needed a starting point, a piece of space where we could get used to the environment.” Ares’ com ringed. “I’m sorry”, said Ares, “I have to get this one.” “No problem”, said Ewan. “This is Ares”, said Ares. “They did what?”


Grey expertly piloted his craft into the nebula, scanning left and right. “This can’t be right”, said Robson, “my scanner’s picking up an enormous energy source two kilometres ahead.” “That can’t be right”, said Grey, “we’d be on top of that already.” “Holy shit!” Shouted Marcus. In the middle of the nebula a big patch of space was wide open, a huge space station was situated in the middle, all around the clearing energy beacons were situated, as Robson had scanned. A small squadron of fighters took off. Grey tried hailing them, but they were already attacking. “Retreat!” Shouted Grey.