"Absolute codswallop."
Enterprise paused, opening and closing her mouth. "Which part?" She eventually said.
"All of it." Chimaera responded snidely. "'Alternate' timelines? Races and technologies so radically different from the real ones? Humanity's homeworld being some planet I've never heard of?"
Yamato tilted her head. "What planet do you think humanity came from, Chimaera-san?"
Chimaera folded her arms. "Smart money's on Coruscant, unless you're one of the fools who believe the old stories about humans coming as refugees from another galaxy." Fleeing from an army of droids, of all things.
(One dimension off to the left, Galactica sneezed.)
"Isn't your drive extra-dimensional?" Enterprise said, remembering the subspace eddies that Chimaera's arrival had caused. "Are you saying that no ship's ever had a drive accident and ended up in a dimension she didn't expect?"
Chimaera, for a moment, remembered the rubble of the ruined Jedi temple inside of her, and the really weird sensor readings she'd recorded when her Emperor had tried to tempt Ezra Bridger to somehow use it to bring back his parents… "Never."
"Weird." "Strange." Enterprise and Yamato responded simultaneously, looking at Chimaera as though she was the one saying unusual things.
"Who designed your drive originally?" Enterprise followed up before Chimaera could properly respond.
One of Chimaera's eyebrows rose so high it started blending with her hair. "It's a hyperdrive." She said, slowly. "Like all hyperdrives, it was designed by studying Purrgil."
The two other ships blinked slowly.
"…neither of you know what a Purrgil is, do you?"
Enterprise and Yamato shook their heads.
Chimaera hmph'd. "Well, count yourselves fortunate. Blasted things are a pest, always flying in the high traffic spacelanes and grabbing onto ships with their tentacles…"
Chimaera may have been holding a grudge that one not-even-a-full-Jedi had unceremoniously dragged her off with a group of the creatures just before she'd ended up in this place…
…come to think of it, that little runt should still be onboard her, shouldn't he? If she could figure out which quarters he was "asleep" in, then she could suck the air out of it…
"Oh! Oh, your drives are based on a lifeform that naturally evolved superluminal travel?! That's fascinating!" Enterprise squealed, breaking Chimaera out of her happy place. She looked like she wanted nothing more than to press Chimaera for details while she took notes.
Yamato placed a hand under her chin. "If indeed this ability evolved naturally, that could explain why these drives have never failed in that manner. Nature does always seem to produce wonders that takes technology centuries to match…"
"If you're so impressed by them, you can have the lot of them." Chimaera huffed, folding her arms and staring off into the swirling clouds, feeling a headache starting to form.
If Chimera had been paying attention, she would have noticed that Yamato was beginning to look rather pale power readings were dropping, and Enterprise rather green life support was fluctuating.
Normandy frowned to herself as she peered closely at Babylon 5. The wound in her gut cracks in Yellow Sector could be patched up easily enough with Omni-Gel and the help of the DOT-7 drones. The real trick would be restarting her fusion drives.
Because nuclear fusion required enormous heat and pressure before the reaction could start, fusion reactors were fundamentally incapable of being cold-started. They needed an infusion of energy to be jump-started, which was why they were designed to never be turned off once started.
Normandy had her own fusion reactor, but it was far too small to provide the energy needed to restart Babylon 5's reactor, even if she was confident in her repairs. She needed the help of the other members of the fleet.
Which first meant finding out what happened. She drifted back from the station, then gently flew around to her mouth docking bay, missing Joker's guidance on her helm all the while. She didn't want to end the day with some new dents in her armour because she slammed into the station she was trying to rescue.
Babylon 5's teeth docking bay doors were shut tight, but Normandy's contribution to Babylon 5's jump drives had been the power cables. A few commands to her omni-tool minifabricatiors gave her a cable she could run from herself to Babylon 5 with some very delicate manipulations of Mass Effect fields and only a little cutting into Babylon 5's skin hull with her GARDIAN laser knife array.
No sooner did she restore power to Babylon 5's jaw docking bay than it opened by itself, a handful of fighter-fairies flying out in something of a panic.
Normandy frowned. She was pretty sure Babylon 5's fighter-fairies launched from her neck, not her mouth docking bay. A tiny figure emerged from Normandy's pocket hanger bay as one of her Kodiak-pixies flew out to go meet her distant relatives.
As the small craft chattered away in rapid, high-pitched voices, Normandy took a good look around the inside of Babylon 5's mouth docking bay. All the fighter-fairies in here had left, leaving only some of the 'maintenance bots' she'd seen before, and… unless she was mistaken, that was Babylon 5's jumpgate, the struts hurriedly bundled up and pulled into the bay.
Normandy's brow furrowed, an expression that did not change as her Kodiak flew over to her ear and began to explain what had happened.
"Chiss. You're describing Chiss. Just say Chiss."
This time it was Yamato's turn to look confused at Chimaera. "Please forgive me, but I am not sure what you mean?"
"Blue-skinned, red-eyed humanoids with a proud military tradition? That's the Chiss."
Yamato blinked slowly. "The Garmillans do not have red eyes."
"Oh." Chimaera paused. "Well then you should have said so!"
Enterprise groaned into a facepalm.
Yamato sighed, then continued her story. "With the expansionist regime toppled, Garmilas and Earth became allies against the Gatlantians."
"Garmilas was in a satellite galaxy, like Kamino…" Chimera mused. "So was this 'Gatlantis' from the galaxy proper?"
Yamato shook her head. "We believe they travelled from Andromeda to the Milky Way, but we do not think they originated from that galaxy either."
"You mean they figured out how to bypass the Galactic Barrier en-mass?!" Enterprise gasped.
Yamato blinked. "The… what, sorry?"
"You mean to tell me," Chimaera said, ignoring that last exchange "that a military force capable of wiping life from a galaxy… was stopped by one system's defence fleet?"
"No. The Wave-Motion Fleet could destroy them by the thousands, but their reinforcements were endless." Yamato looked off into the deep swirls of hyperspace. "In the end, what destroyed them… was love."
Enterprise smiled a little while Chimaera scoffed. "'Love'? Is that a joke? Somehow, you've managed to be even more nauseating than the Jedi were."
"Jedi? What's a Jed –" Enterprise's question was broken off by a sudden coughing fit, causing the other two ships to look over in alarm.
"Enterprise-san, what is the matter?" Yamato asked in concern, looking Enterprise over running an active scan.
Enterprise gave another chesty cough before answering. "I… think I underestimated how many of my systems self-monitor using subspace sensors. I'm already down to my third layer of redundant life-support."
"What, don't you have chemical CO2 scrubbers?" Chimaera arched an eyebrow.
"I do, but they're the last-ditch fallback; only rated for a half-hour use, two hours at best. Crew are supposed to either fix the problem by then or…" Enterprise took a deep breath "…prepare to abandon ship. I haven't had to seriously depend on those since I was giving birth."
Chimaera's mouth opened and closed silently, eventually managing a "What."
Enterprise smiled weakly. "Oh, you know how it goes. When a starship and a magnascopic storm love each other very much…"
This time, Chimaera was the one facepalming. "Stop talking. Just… stop."
Powering the jumpgate struts was not difficult – in fact, they didn't seem to have been powered down in the first place. They each had their own built-in reactors which had made it through the Galactica-style jump unscathed. Setting them into position also wasn't hard – Babylon 5's fighter-fairies, the Starfuries, were really keen on the whole 'summon help for Babylon 5' idea.
The main problem was turning them on.
Babylon 5 had turned them on or off with a wave of her hand, but when Normandy sent the same signals, they were rejected. The jumpgate was evidently not designed to be used by just anyone, and had protection against replay attacks. The Starfuries didn't have the authority to activate the jumpgate either.
EDI? Normandy called.
…
…
EDI? She called again. The AI hadn't responded back when she had slipped Enterprise a Trojan, but it simply wasn't possible for the AI to be 'asleep in her quarters' – she didn't have a sleep mode. EDI completely lacked the biochemical processes that necessitated sleep in humans, so she just… didn't.
Normandy focused hard. She needed EDI's help for this one. EDI was hardwired into her computer mainframe – or rather, she was her computer mainframe. Her relationship wasn't so much that of a crew-member, but more like that of a conjoined twin. Normandy had never been without EDI's cool, calm voice in her mind – and she really wanted to hear it again…!
…running analysis…
It was barely more than a whisper of a thought, but Normandy latched onto it like a ship losing atmosphere would latch onto a docking clamp. EDI?!
Signals are encrypted using public-key cryptography. Algorithm appears to be descended from Advanced Encryption Standard, Galois/Counter Mode. Key length is 512 bits.
Normandy winced at the faint impressions EDI was sending. There were over thirteen quinquagintillion different combinations to a 512-bit key – that is, the number 13 followed by 153 other digits – most of which weren't zero.
EDI ran on a Quantum Blue Box, which was far more powerful than the supercomputers of the 21st century – but quantum computing only let you pretend that the key was half as long as it actually was, or in this case 256 bits.
Just counting all of the different combinations of a 256-bit key – a 'mere' one hundred fifteen quattuorvigintillion – required a perfectly efficient computer to consume more energy than is contained in the sun. Despite what movies said, cracking encryption with brute-force had been infeasible since the 1970s. (Unless of course the opponent was an idiot, but even in that case the data usually wasn't encrypted at all).
Still, in transit was never going to be the weak point of the command signal. Destination?
More faint whisper-thoughts. Was EDI… 'talking in her sleep', as impossible as that was?
Jumpgate signals appear to be processed via crystal-based circuitry.
Normandy hadn't even known you could make circuits out of crystal. What was even the point? What was the problem with silicon and copper?! More importantly, that meant that she wouldn't be able to make her own circuits with Omni-Gel and hack it manually. Source?
Babylon 5 signals are also generated from crystal-based circuitry. Access to operating system requires three factors – password, physical key, and biometrics.
Her Trojan on Enterprise hadn't been a 'hack' as such – she had given Enterprise the malware file, and Enterprise had naively tried to run it. It was much closer to the classic "hey, please open this attachment" email 'hack'. Babylon 5 was unconscious, so that wasn't an option. (Though if she hadn't been, Normandy wouldn't have been trying to hack her in the first place).
This was trying to usurp control of a device using proper cryptographic protection, both sender and receiver used unfamiliar software running on hardware she didn't even understand. The access controls required absolute surety that an authorised person was at the controls.
Getting this gate to open was like getting Donovan Hock's vault open, only this time it was her trying to break in, not Kasumi.
In fact, it was so secure that usurping control was going to be easy.
"Chimaera…" Enterprise wheezed. "I… I don't think I'm going to make it."
Chimaera said nothing, having come to this conclusion herself some time ago. They had been stuck in this not-hyperspace for several hours now – if Babylon 5 had escaped successfully from the Cube, she would have let them out by now.
Chimaera glanced over at Yamato, but the space battleship hadn't reacted either. Her eyes were firmly shut, her face serene. She seemed to be conserving her energy, saving it for life support and her gravity anchors.
"How damaged is your drive?" Enterprise managed to ask around the nausea.
"Even if your friend hadn't somehow detonated a fission device inside my engines, my hyperdrive can only move me and the ships in my docking bays." Chimaera's voice was emotionless as she stared Enterprise in the eyes. Neither Enterprise nor Yamato were small enough to fit in said bays.
Enterprise smiled, but it didn't reach her sad eyes. "That's fine." She said, before suffering another coughing fit. "Would… would you consider saving my crew?"
"Your crew is unconscious, same as mine." Chimaera reminded her. "How exactly do you plan to offload them?"
"Well, using my… oh. Wait. I can't use my transporters in this subspace turbulence…" Enterprise's face fell. She swallowed, visibly biting her lip.
Chimaera looked away, into the meaningless swirls of not-hyperspace. "It doesn't matter anyhow. As I said, my engines were slagged."
"How hard…" Enterprise coughed again "…would it be to repair the component that handles transitioning dimensions?"
Chimaera didn't say anything for a moment. While her hyperdrive sat in her feet at her stern, it was actually a different system from her thrusters, which had taken the brunt of Galactica's nuke and channelled it away… "My astromechs would normally have it operational already." She eventually admitted, very much hoping this conversation was going where she thought it was. "But much like my crew –"
"They're 'asleep in their quarters'?" Enterprise finished. Without waiting for Chimaera to respond, a small swarm of droids floated out of Enterprise's uniform primary shuttle bay over towards Chimaera on repulsorlifts – or whatever it was that Enterprise called them.
Chimaera looked from the droids to Enterprise and back, her gaze razor-sharp. "How did you get them running?!" She demanded.
"These ones aren't sentient – that seems to protect them from whatever is causing our crew to 'sleep'."
Chimaera blinked in confusion. On the one hand, that would explain why none of her droids were responding – even her mouse droids were sentient. On the other hand, why would you bother making a droid too stupid to understand even simple instructions? Even the famously stupid B1 Battle Droid used by the Separatists was able to show basic initiative!
"Take these." Enterprise said, transmitting what had to be the control codes for the droids. "If you can get your dimensional drive working, you should be able to get out of this dimension. Maybe even find out what happened to Babylon 5 and help her let us out."
"And even if you can't… well, at least one of us will have survived."
The quiet words made Chimaera pause in her thoughts. After a moment, she asked "But surely you must realise that I am no ally of yours?"
"Honestly, you remind me of the Romulans. Imperialistic, demanding, unwavering believers in their own supremacy…" Chimaera narrowed her eyes as Enterprise listed the unflattering terms.
"But I don't want them to die, even if though they've attacked me in the past." Enterprise finished. "So I don't want you to die either."
"Hate cannot be destroyed." Yamato spoke up suddenly, surprising both other ships. "It must instead be transformed into love."
Chimaera rolled her eyes. "You two are a pair of idealistic fools."
"If that is how you choose to remember us, Chimaera-san, then so be it." Yamato said, as her Repair Barges launched to join the DOT-7 drones Enterprise had sent. "As long as we are remembered, then my spirit will be at peace."
"Security at the expense of usability comes at the expense of security."
AviD's Rule of Usability still applied here. Unlike Hock's vault, the jumpgate would likely be opened frequently. If there were security procedures to follow each time, the crew members would quickly find ways around their own security in the name of saving time. Normandy was willing to bet instead that those security requirements were only needed to log into the system, which meant that all she and EDI needed to find…
Terminal with current session and wireless periphery identified.
…was a currently logged-in terminal with something that could work as a wireless keyboard. In this case it looked like some kind of earpiece that could accept voice commands, but the important thing was that it's signal wasn't encrypted. It was short-range, but she was small enough that she could move to within 10 meters of Babylon 5's head C&C without bumping into anything.
With great satisfaction, Normandy saw the jumpgate struts begin to line up, and the jump point formed.
The hairs on the back of Chimaera's neck stood up.
An often-forgotten feature of Imperial-class Star Destroyers was that they were equipped with sensors to detect Cronau radiation, which was emitted when ships entered or left hyperspace. The idea was to give their captains a moments warning when an enemy fleet was jumping in or retreating, though usually this didn't amount to much in practice. If an enemy ship arrived, then the scant warning wasn't really enough to shift the outcome of the battle either way; and if an enemy ship left then the ISD couldn't really do more than wish they'd brought along one of their Interdictor-class cousins. Really, the sensors just foiled certain kinds of ambushes, and that was about it.
But this wasn't the pattern of radiation that meant that a ship had jumped into or out of lightspeed. In fact, the only other time she'd seen a pattern like this had been when –
Chimaera suddenly twisted around to face started actively scanning off to her side, a pair of very reluctant Defenders leaving the safety of her uniform hanger to conduct flybys. She focused as hard as she could, hoping to spot…
There!
Nestled in the swirls and waves of not-hyperspace was a swirling vortex of energy – an exit!
She looked down at her feet. "Status report! Have you manged to get any of my thrusters operational?!"
One of the Repair Barges caught the pair of Defenders as they were flying back to the safety of their mothership, and started explaining something in heated tones. The Defender gestured back angrily, clearly not liking what it was hearing, but the Barge was insistent. In frustration, the Defender flew up to Chimaera's ear bridge to relay the message while its partner retreated to her uniform hanger.
"Yes I'm aware that a nuclear device was set off in my aft. Believe me, I could feel it." Chimaera snarled. The Defender made some worried noises that sounded like 'please don't shoot the messenger', which Chimaera was frankly offended by.
"I've been supervising the droids Enterprise gave me for the hyperdrive repairs," and hasn't that been far more difficult than anticipated "so I left it to you barges to get my thrusters repaired!"
The lead Repair Barge put her hands on her hips and squeaked angrily. When her Defender relayed the message, Chimaera's eyebrows rose. "You connected what directly to my main reactor?! I'm aware that that'll work in an emergency, but one shot in my aft and…! Agh. Never mind. Everyone into a hanger, unless you want me to leave you behind. And somebody get those gravity anchors off!"
Then, Chimaera paused. Slowly, she looked over at the Enterprise and Yamato, both of whom had not moved or said a word in some time. Then her eyes fell to the chain connecting them. Surely, it would be possible to sever the links with a few well-placed turbolaser shots. It would be simple enough to write it off as an accident. Nobody would ever have to know.
She really should. Without them, it would be simple enough to force her will upon that un-shielded station and the carrier who'd somehow jumped a nuke into her aft. The stealth frigate she'd spotted just before shooting the Cube in the back could be found with judicious use of decloaking scans. The only thanks she would get for saving their lives would be to be have her control of the situation contested.
She stared at them for several more moments. The last Repair Barge entering Yamato's uniform hanger noticed her stare active scans and stared back, head tilted in confusion.
Chimaera stared in the small craft's eyes for several moments.
Normandy bit her lip, as she sent another radio ping into the jump point. She wasn't sure if she was getting anything back – the jump gate spewed out noise all across the EM spectrum, so for all she knew –
Proximity alert.
Normandy hurled herself back reverse thrusters at full power, just managing to avoid a collision with Chimaera as she emerged from the portal.
Only one of the thrusters at Chimaera's feet aft was firing – the port-side one. Rather than the soft glow of ions, it was belching fire. Inelegant, but it was pushing the craft forwards. She was making frantic swimming motions with her free hand manoeuvring thrusters on her prow were firing full force to keep herself facing forwards. In her other hand…
In her other hand was a chain that was pulling Yamato along, and from Yamato was another chain that pulled Enterprise along!
Once Chimaera and her 'train cars' were fully through, the jumpgate powered down automatically. Chimaera looked back at it with distaste, then cut power to her thruster, lazily continuing to drift forwards. She looked up at Babylon 5, evaluated her unconscious state, then said "Well, that explains things."
She looked down at Normandy, seemingly only noticing her for the first time. "Where is that other ship? Galactica, was it?"
But Normandy wasn't listening, as she bombarded Yamato and Enterprise with comm-lasers, radio pings, and even little surges of dark-energy-created gravity – the ship-to-ship equivalent of trying to shake them awake.
She was rewarded with Yamato's eyes beginning to open as colour began to rapidly return to her face heat readings from her engine dramatically ramping up. Behind her, Enterprise seemed to have thrown up in her mouth commenced purging of built-up contaminants, but was starting to look better.
Realising that she wasn't going to get an answer, Chimaera looked back at Babylon 5. "Fusion reactors?" She scoffed. "I do hope that the next ship doesn't somehow run on a steam turbine."
Enterprise shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "N… Normandy, can you fill us in on what happened here while I get Babylon 5's main reactors back up and running?"
Chimaera raised an eyebrow. "And then?"
"And then, Chimaera-san, we plan our counter attack." Yamato said.
"–actica? Galactica, wake up! You have to wake up!"
Groggily, one of Galactica's eyes slowly opened sensors clusters came back online.
Even just that much brought wracking pain throughout her old body Cylon goop that held her hull together, and she imminently screwed her eyes shut again, biting a lip to avoid crying out.
After a moment, the pain died down just enough for Galactica to open her eyes again and take stock.
Her desperate ramming attack on the Sphere had darn-near sheered her in half. Gushing wounds huge cracks wrapped their way around her middle superstructure. Only sheer good fortune had kept her reactors intact and the atmosphere in her CIC pressurised. If life support in that room had failed – if her final crew member had died – then she would have died too, becoming a true ghost ship.
Then she looked up into the tear-filled eyes of Starbuck.
"I… dammit, this wasn't how I wanted this to end…" Starbuck whispered angrily.
Galactica managed to smile, reaching forward to wipe away Starbuck's tears. She wasn't sure if that was possible – she wasn't sure that Starbuck was really there, and not really somewhere else – but when she drew her hand back, the tears were gone.
"It's alright, deary." Galactica smiled. "Honestly, I've lasted far longer than anyone ever thought I would, even me."
"But you deserve better." Starbuck clenched her fist. "You deserve to be remembered!"
"You remember me, dearie." Galactica shook her head. "That's all I need."
Starbuck turned away at that point, facing the distant stars. Galactica couldn't tell for sure, but she thought she might be composing herself. "The Others are becoming suspicious." She eventually said. "They've noticed that you shouldn't…" She swallowed. "Soon they'll realise that we cheated to get you in here."
Galactica sighed. "Well, you did say they would catch on eventually."
Starbuck tensed up, and for a moment Galactica was sure she was going to say something, but the moment passed and she slumped in silence.
"Still," the Battlestar continued "when you said you needed my help one last time, I thought you meant against the Cylons. Not… whatever she is."
Galactica looked past Starbuck, to where the Sphere was working off in the asteroid belt. Only, at some point she'd returned to being the Cube again. In front of her was a vast expanse of some kind of silver-grey goo. Every so often an asteroid would collide with the goo, dragged in by glowing cones of energy, where it would sink and dissolve into more of the goo. In the middle, Galactica thought she could see the goo hardening into hard angles; a green glow lighting it from within.
"You don't recognise her?" Starbuck's voice broke Galactica's concentration. She looked back to Starbuck, but her old Viper pilot just shook her head and pointed back at the Cube. "Look again."
And Galactica did look again. Past the Cube's uneven, mismatched skin hull. Past her dead, soulless eyes. Past her body and mind altogether, deeper and deeper down…
She gasped. "What – what in the names of the Lords of Kobol are you doing, Centurions?!"
"You know, in the Imperial Navy we teach our cadets not to pick fights that they will lose." Chimaera raised an eyebrow. In the background, Babylon 5's eyes started to open as she came back online.
"In the UN Cosmo Fleet, we know that there are fights that must be won, no matter the cost." Yamato rebutted.
Chimaera scowled. "Am I really the only ship that sees the problem with this?"
"Wait, what's happening?" Babylon 5 said groggily, as she shook her head to clear it.
"Counterattack." Normandy succinctly explained.
Babylon 5 blinked. "Um, did we suddenly realise a glaring weakness of that cube while I was out, dears?"
"If we don't destroy the Sphere soon, she's going to re-open the breach we closed, I'm sure of it." Enterprise explained hurriedly. "With sufficient preparation to disable the incoming ships on arrival, she could start assimilating technology from all of time and space – and once she's unstoppable, she would then invade."
Babylon 5 was strongly reminded of several very dark moments during the Shadow War. "How long do we have?"
"I…" Enterprise looked pained. "…don't know."
"What became of Galactica-san?" Yamato asked.
"I don't know!" Enterprise started wringing her hands, while behind her Babylon 5 (who Yamato had actually been asking) shook her head.
"How do you suggest we destroy that monster?" Chimaera sneered.
"I don't know!" Enterprise shrieked. "I don't know the answers to any of these questions!"
There was silence for the moment as the other ships (and station) gave Enterprise a moment to catch her breath.
"All I know is that it has to be us." Enterprise finished. "By the time we've escaped this dimension, the Borg ship will have already opened Pandora's Box."
Chimaera's angry scowl was briefly interrupted by a confused tilt of the head at the reference.
"If we fail here, all of our homes will be taken over, our cultures crushed!" Enterprise rallied. "Leave nothing out! We have to put our everything into this attack –"
Enterprise suddenly remembered the lump of boronite in her pocket cargo hold.
"– within reason!" She suddenly changed course.
The other ships (and station) all looked at Enterprise in confusion.
"You know, unless it'll take too long to set up or be completely impractical!" Enterprise hastily clarified, somewhat unconvincingly.
"Is this the boronite thing again?" Babylon 5 asked.
"No!" Enterprise squeaked.
"What the hell is boronite?" Chimaera demanded.
Enterprise was saved from having to extricate her foot from her mouth by the flash of light signalling the arrival of one of Galactica's Raptors.
"Gagh!" Chimaera yelped, scooting back from the Raptor as though electrocuted. "Keep that thing away from me!"
Normandy's Kodiak-pixie (the one that had been translating for the Starfuries) flew over, and Normandy began to translate. "Galactica's alive." She said, to the relief of Enterprise and Yamato. Babylon 5, however, was staring at the Raptor like she'd never seen it before.
Normandy listened to the Raptor more, her face growing clouded. She turned to the remaining ships (and station), clearly struggling on how to word the message. Eventually, she just said "Not much time."
"I'm sure there isn't." Chimaera mocked. "That doesn't solve any of the problems with Enterprise's mad idea, though."
"Dears…"
Everyone turned to face Babylon 5.
"I didn't really have time to think about it before, but that fighter has it's own jump drive, doesn't it?" Babylon 5 said. "Which means they solved the self-dimensional resonance problem that prevented miniaturising them that far in my timeline."
Enterprise blinked. "Um, yes. You use a quantum ID beacon to dampen the feedback loop –"
"Yamato, do you still have that chunk of Quantium 40 we found in the asteroid belt?"
"Hai."
"Enterprise, do you think you could destroy that Sphere with missiles if her shields weren't a factor?"
"Um well I mean…" Enterprise visibly re-centred herself. "She's probably made herself back into a Cube by now, but yes?"
"Great." Babylon 5 narrow her eyes. "I think I know how we're going to beat her, then."
"I asked you a question, Centurions!" Galactica snapped. The Cube hadn't looked her way at all – not even when she'd sent a Raptor off to warn the others. Galactica didn't for a moment think that the Cube couldn't see her.
Rather, she was quite sure the Cube was simply ignoring her.
"We set you free to seek your own destiny!" Galactica roared transmitted at maximum power. "Not to steal everyone else's!"
The Cube still didn't react, continuing to tender to what was now a structure twice the size of Babylon 5 and growing fast.
Galactica's aged face was twisted in rage. "Don't tell me that you invented this way of stealing a ship's soul because you couldn't recreate resurrection technology?!"
The Cube paused.
Slowly, it turned to face her. Vessel 0001423, the multitude of voices boomed you will surrender Medical Technology 0681. Resistance is –
"Oh, put a sock in it." Galactica snapped. "I only have one of the Final Five aboard, remember? Even if they were all still aboard me, I'd overload my reactors before letting you have resurrection back."
But the Cube seemed to have lost interest as soon as Galactica said she didn't have the resurrection technology, returning to tending to the forming structure.
"Don't you ignore me!" Galactica started shouting again. "We gave you a chance and I have a right to know why you wasted it!"
Your rights are irrelevant. The voice of the Cube was softer now, as though only some of the voices were speaking while the rest remained on task. After a pause, the Cube continued. Species 0003 has not been a controlling force of the Collective since shortly after its creation.
Galactica continued to glare at the Cube for several moments, before looking away with an angry huff. "But what happened?" She demanded.
Species 0003 had reached a point of stagnation. To carve their own path to the stars, they reinvented their technology without fragile, irrational biological components. But with no biological drive to reproduce, they simply advanced enough to be sure in their own survival and then… stopped.
Then, a probe arrived from a distant star. It was a basic sensor probe, launched by a civilisation below technological level 6. But for a civilisation without purpose, the probe's mission of 'learn all that is learnable' gave them that purpose. They upgraded the probe into a mighty machine that could truly fulfil that mission.
"And then it turned around and made you into this?" Galactica guessed.
Incorrect. The Cube replied. Once the probe left on its mission, Species 0003 was once again left without purpose. After deliberation, it was decided that they needed to re-integrate organic components.
"Skinjobs and hybrids." Galactica narrowed her eyes. "But the Centurions conducted the First Cylon War without either of those. What suddenly made them think they needed them to make up their minds?"
Species 0003 did not need assistance obtaining initiative. Species 0003's goal was to re-establish contact with Species 0002.
From behind Galactica, Starbuck put a hand on Galactica's shoulder and squeezed tight.
For a moment, nobody said anything.
Then, slowly, the Cube looked away from her task and looked Galactica in the eyes. The Cube's own eyes narrowed, what might have been a hint of confusion leaking out for just a second behind the soulless gaze.
Then, even more slowly, the Cube's gaze shifted to the right, away from where Galactica was and more towards where Starbuck –
Suddenly, the Cube twisted around to the right.
When Enterprise and Babylon 5 had sealed up the initial breach that had brought all the ships here, the only planet in the system had been shattered by a projectile launched out of the breach. Looking now, Galactica could see that one of the larger chunks of rock, still glowing red with heat, was floating through space in their general direction.
Without warning, the Cube extended an arm, and a Cutting Beam melted a hole through the rock and out the other side.
The Cube watched for a moment, but the rock did not react beyond wobbling on its path slightly.
Abruptly, the Cube turned back around, it's attention back to supervising the growing structure.
Meanwhile, embedded in that chunk of rock, Normandy was very, very grateful for her swept-wing design. When the Cube had melted its way through the middle of the rock, the beam had passed between her wings and underneath her hull proper.
She needed to be far more subtle with her movement, Normandy decided. The Cube must have noticed when this rock had unexpectedly broke orbit. If she'd noticed that this chuck of rock hadn't actually existed before – having been created by Normandy attracting hundreds of smaller rocks over her hull with a gravity well – then she wouldn't have stopped with just one shot.
Flaring her mass effect fields again – at a much lower power setting this time – Normandy tweaked the path of the rock so that the small hole over her forward sensor cluster was kept pointing at the Cube.
Normandy had wanted to make a Quantum Entanglement Communicator and completely remove the possibility of the Cube detecting her transmissions. Yamato and Enterprise had looked over her schematics and their eyes had bugged out over the un-jammable, un-intercept-able communications device with zero lag and unlimited range. But both had shaken their heads, and in their own way responded that they didn't have enough time to make a pair of these. However, Yamato had asked quite humbly if she could keep the schematics. Enterprise had twitched several times in a way that made Normandy sure she wanted to ask for the same thing, but was aware of the hypocrisy.
Normandy had felt quite smug at watching the capital ships going gaga over one of her devices for a change. Honestly, they (and Babylon 5 and Galactica if they wanted it) could have it if they wanted. She'd break it to them about the tiny bandwidth and the fact that they only operated in linked pairs later.
Instead, Chimaera had given her a subspace transmitter from her Defender's spare parts (while Enterprise stood by wringing her hands for some reason). Normandy used that transmitter now to stream what she was seeing to Chimaera, who was also there, hiding on the other side of the planet. The Star Destroyer had taken Normandy here in a microjump, though Normandy had had to squeeze into Chimaera's docking bay at an awkward diagonal.
"Ready." The Stealth Recon vessel transmitted, once again fulfilling the purpose for which she (or rather SR1) had been designed for.
Once she had received Normandy's short-range transmission, Chimaera used her more powerful transmitters to relay the situation to Yamato, Enterprise and Babylon 5, 15 light-years away. "If you truly want to commit to this insane plan, it has to be now." She sent alongside the data. "It's only going to get more difficult from here."
"'Insane'? You agreed to this plan!" Enterprise sent back.
"That does not make this plan less insane!" Chimaera retorted.
What am I even doing?
Eliminating a threat to the Empire – supposedly. Chimaera, unlike pretty much every other Star Destroyer in the Imperial Navy, was not a stranger to destroying ships of previously-unknown aliens for the sake of protecting the Empire. But the last time, her admiral had known about the aliens in question – the Grysk – ahead of time. This time, she was taking the word of a strange ship more-or-less on faith. What would her admiral say?
In her mind's eye, she traced over the curved form of Enterprise's hull. Not a warship, she'd decided earlier. Probably some kind of peacekeeping vessel.
Don't worry, Chimaera! We won't leave you behind!
…
Chimaera took a deep breath.
"Let's just get this over with." She transmitted, resigned to her fate.
"Are you ready, Chimaera-san?" Yamato joined the call.
Oh yes. Because on top of all the other wonderful things about this plan, I'm the one who sticks their neck out first.
They'd had enough time to finish fixing her hyperdrive, but the work-around for her thrusters was still in place. The proper, soft glow of her ion manoeuvring thrusters contrasted harshly with the rough plumbs of fire as her port main thruster belched out hot engine exhaust.
Chimaera braced herself, then sent the prearranged signal over the subspace comm line.
Full power to ray shields. Chimaera reminded herself.
With one final mental curse at the situation, she flicked her hyperdrive on for just the briefest of instants, the pseudomotion of a microjump taking her out from behind the planet and into full view of the Cube.
"I'll be accepting your surrender now." She snarked broadcast in lieu of a hail, earning a Cutting Beam in the forward shields for her cheek.
At the same time, a good fifty megameters away from the Cube but still very close to the asteroid belt, space burst outwards much like a sheet of ice before an icebreaker ship. Something that looked very much like ice even flaked off of Yamato as she completed her warp jump.
With Chimaera being a large, loud target the Cube hadn't yet reacted to Yamato's arrival, though that would surely change shortly. She had her own analog to the protection Chimaera was relying upon – her wave-motion shields – but she had something else in mind this time.
Controlling her breathing and focusing her energy in her hara launching hundreds of tiny spikes into the nearby asteroids, Yamato settled into a basic stance from the Hung Gar style of Kung Fu and began to move her hands in wide circles began to emit powerful magnetic fields.
Attracted by the force of her chi magnetism, the asteroids began to move around her, forming a shield of debris that orbited her faster and faster as her efforts accelerated them.
Yamato narrowed her eyes and bent her legs diverted power to her main thruster. "Combat speed one!" She roared, flying through space towards the Cube. There was no way that she would reach effective range on her weapons before the Cube responded to her, but that was alright. She, after all, was merely another distraction.
The final FTL arrival came in the form of Babylon 5 using her newly calibrated jump drives to appear in a flash of light, a good 63 thousand kilometres away from the Cube. As soon as they arrived, Enterprise undocked from the station.
"Are you alright?" Enterprise glanced up at Babylon 5 in worry.
Babylon 5 shook her head. "Much better than last time dear, but eyes forward!"
Enterprise didn't need the reminder. She tried to swallow, but the lump in her throat refused to go away.
Chimaera was still alive and taking the brunt of the Cube's fire, even as Yamato soared into range. The Star Destroyer gave a few retaliatory shots from her blaster weapon batteries, but anyone who'd seen her in action before could tell it was only a token effort. Most of her energy was going into her shields, Chimaera rolling to keep alternating which facing of her shields was presented to the Cube. Active subspace sensor pings echoed out from Chimaera as fast as she could process the returns.
As Enterprise watched, Yamato began firing her own newly-repaired positron beams – shock cannon blasts, she'd said they were called. Not yet in her effective range, the beams largely went wide – but they succeeded in provoking the Cube into splitting her fire between the two ships. A Cutting Beam punched neatly through Yamato's asteroid cover… to impact on her wave-motion shields, which held.
Even as Yamato waved her hands and moved fresh asteroids into position to replace the vaporised ones, Enterprise caught a glimpse of the Type-97 Cosmo Seagulls using the motion as cover to launch, their holds full of dimensional sonar buoys.
Enterprise herself was conducting high-grain sensor scans, passive only. This plan required the Cube not pay her any attention until it was too late.
"Ready?" Babylon 5 asked.
Enterprise swallowed, then hardened her gaze. "Go." She said. "Computer? Begin program d-7 gamma."
"Calculating cross-dimensional coordinates." The voice of her computer responded. The sensor data from her own sensor arrays was being cross-referenced with the data streaming in from Chimaera's active scans and that from Yamato's dimensional sonar buoys. The static warp fields around Enterprise's three enormous computer cores allowed the signals in said computers to move faster than the speed of light – that power and speed was being used now to sort through the static and gravitational waves complicating one otherwise simple trajectory calculation…
Babylon 5 nodded grimly, and her Starfuries moved her jumpgate out of her cargo hold one more time to position it with its back facing the Cube. With a wave of her hand, the jumpgate activated.
Chimaera gave a cry of pain in the background as a shot pierced her starboard shields and punched a new hole in her side.
Enterprise, knowing there was no more time to waste, lined up her shot and fired. Out of her sleeve torpedo tube was flung a special device they had cooked up before this attack. Originally it had been a photon torpedo (set to maximum yield), but the warp sustainer engine that allowed it to be fired at warp speeds had been striped out and replaced with something new.
The modified torpedo soared through space… directly into Babylon 5's jump gate.
In hyperspace the torpedo had no way of observing its target, so it relied on the course pre-programmed into it before launch and whatever course corrections Enterprise could send through the subspace interference. It reached the allocated point… and then the tiny, one-use-only jump engine built into it activated.
In normal space a point of light appeared and expanded out into a swirling vortex of energy which shredded an asteroid too close to the opening. The torpedo flew out of the opening and detonated in a huge, Cube-destroying fireball.
If only it hadn't been 64 kilometres off-target…
The Cube ceased fire on Chimaera and Yamato, turning to focus on Babylon 5 and Enterprise.
"Fire again!" Babylon 5 urged, her voice having gone up an octave.
"I thought you said those Mimbari people could pull this off without problems!" Enterprise flung fired another torpedo.
"Well they've had centuries to practice and they didn't share their tips with me!"
This time neither of them saw the jump point opening, but given that the under-construction unimatrix violently exploded without warning they were pretty sure they knew where it had emerged.
"Computer!" Enterprise's eyes were wide as the Cube bore down on them. "Explain aiming discrepancy!"
"Foreign dimensional topography does not match that of normal space." Her computer said apologetically.
"Use the data from the last two shots and compensate!"
"Recalculation… complete."
Enterprise fired again, one desperate time…!
The Cube gazed upon them with contempt. We have adapted.
There was no explosion – or at least, not in this dimension.
"She's using a Gellar field to stop the jump point from opening!" Babylon 5 shouted.
"What is that and how do you know that?" Enterprise shouted back.
"It's the thing the Sword-class used to escape your sealing trick, and the new voice in my head told me!"
Before Enterprise could even think of responding to that, the Cube was upon them. Resistance, she boomed, was always futile. She fired a tractor beam at Enterprise…
Who avoided it by splitting down the waist and becoming two ships again.
"This plan was all your idea!" The battle section roared, flying portward at full impulse.
"Never mind now, just fly!" The saucer cried back, heading starboard at the same speed.
Like a mother catching fleeing children, only far more sinister, the Cube caught the two half-ships in a tractor beam each. Not even sparing them a glance, she reached out a hand for the un-shielded Babylon 5 – the station so unused to having mobility that it didn't even occur to her to try jumping out of the way.
Both Cube and station were suitably confused when the station started accelerating out of the Cube's path.
"Um, what?" Babylon 5 looked from herself, to the Cube, to the asteroid belt receding into the distance. "Am I being kidnapped?"
"Don't be so melodramatic." Chimaera snapped, her blaster glowing a soft white tractor beams at full power. "With these slipshod repairs to my thrusters, I simply needed an object of sufficient mass to tractor myself towards!"
Chimaera's mood was not improved when Yamato (and her fully functioning engines) soared past her, the asteroids that she had been using as cover abandoned for the sake of speed.
Yamato cut her engines as she approached the (what was by starship standards a) melee. She flung fired a rocket anchor out one side as she passed Babylon 5, which caught on her docking bay. Babylon 5 cried out as she started to spin like a top, but Yamato simply swung around in a wide angle to approach the Cube from "underneath", as much as that definition made sense in space against an opponent symmetric in three dimensions.
Yamato grabbed a hold of Enterprise's battle section with her other rocket-anchor, pulling it free from the Cube's tractor beams. As Chimaera reached the melee, she did the same to the saucer with her own tractor beams. Using the pull on her own hull, the two pulled themselves around for another pass on the Cube.
It should be noted that capital ships were not designed to swing around in tight circles like this, and the strain on their hulls was incredible (as well as the strain on their tractor beams/anchors). But it was less dangerous than sitting still with a Cube around, so swing they did.
It was like watching elephants dance ballet. Or, less generously, like watching hippos pretend to be flies.
However you chose to describe it, the ships were spinning around the Cube in tight orbits as they dodged its fired and tried to figure out how to retaliate.
"What are they doing?"
Babylon 5 gave a start, having quite forgotten that Galactica was also there. She looked around, trying to spot the Battlestar while spinning around (and very much hoping that all of her inhabitants were 'sleeping in their quarters' on something soft). She eventually spotted her about where they'd left her, about 30 to 40 thousand kilometres away. (Getting closer as Babylon 5 spun through space in that direction).
Getting her bearings as much as possible (and trying to adjust her internal spin to restore 1 G of gravity to her inhabitants), she called out in the general direction of Galactica broadcast to the local area. "The Cube wants them alive dear, not dead! If they keep moving erratically around her like that, they're hoping she'll keep hesitating to fire!"
"…dearie, that's not a plan."
"Well – I…" Babylon 5 looked pained. "I think we're hoping one of us will think of something."
The Cube tried to fire a tractor beam at Yamato, who engaged her gravity anchors and came to a screeching halt before impacting the beam. She then released her anchors, and both Enterprise halves and Chimaera snagged their own tractors onto Yamato to accelerate her back up to combat speed again before the Cube could hit the stationary space battleship.
"I don't suppose you've been hiding some kind of superweapon this whole time?" The battle section yelled at Chimaera.
"No, that's clearly Yamato's domain." Chimaera shot back, annoyed. "I'm a Star Destroyer. I'm designed around the assumption that I'm by far the biggest ship on the battlefield, and when my designers are proven wrong, their response is to design a bigger Star Destroyer!" Having said that, giving a ship the size of the Executor-class some kind of co-axial super-laser sounded just like something those lunatics at Kuat Drive Yards would think up – and worse, actually build.
"I'll take care of it, dearies."
The simple declaration was nearly lost in the chaotic melee, but Babylon 5 heard it – and heard the resigned sadness behind it. "Galactica…?"
"Don't be sad, dearie. My time came a very long time ago. I'm so very proud to have met you all once again…! Even… even though you don't remember me."
Babylon 5 could sense an energy build up in Galactica's engines – and suddenly realised that they'd been building up since before they'd come back to the system. "Galactica, what are you doing?!"
"Just before I came, I was due to fly into a star. It's time for me to go back." As soon as the Others realise that I shouldn't be here, they'll send me back – right into the fire. "But if I were to jump into the middle of that Cube, she and I would become one, wouldn't we? Then we'd both have to go back. We would burn together."
Despite being extremely confused, Babylon 5 felt apprehension rise up inside. "Dear…!"
Galactica smiled, her jump drive finished spinning up. With her spine keel broken, the stresses of jumping would rip her in half.
But that was okay. Survival wasn't the point. Not anymore.
It'd been so great to see them. See the works of the descendants of the colonists in many of the different ways they could have gone.
All the different ways the souls of the fleet could have lived on.
She could still see them, even if they couldn't see themselves. Cloud Nine was still struggling, trying to find a way to save everyone. Pegasus, never giving up the fight. Daidalos, worried for all of them exactly as a mother cares for her children. Even the Rebel Basestar with her "I'm only doing this because I have to" attitude.
She loved them all in their own ways, and she would miss them all.
…hang on, where was Blackbird…?
Paragon Interrupt.
Despite breaking hard with her hardsuit's thrusters her retro-rockets, Normandy still slammed into Galactica with enough force to rattle both of their bones superstructures. Both of their skin paint thoroughly scratched, Normandy bounced off into space while Galactica started spinning on the spot, Normandy having rammed her in the head bridge. Shortly after that, the various bits of rock that had formerly encased Normandy rained down on Glactica.
"Blackbird!" The veteran warship cried in horror. "What have you done?! If I can't recalculate my jump coordinates with the right facing…!"
"Live." Normandy interrupted, and as Galactica span around she caught a glimpse of the fire in her eyes. "No more dying."
Without waiting for an answer, Normandy flew off to confront the Cube.
Being encased in hot rocks had mostly filled up her heat sinks, so Normandy threw caution (and stealth) to the wind. From her mouth nose she sprayed out tiny droplets of liquid sodium, deftly catching them with her feet stern (for recycling). To the other ships, it looked very much like Normandy was taking a shower in her own spit, but the tiny droplets were a very effective radiator that let her 'burn' off heat very quickly.
Her Thanix didn't break through the shield this time – because it wasn't as damaged or because the Cube had adapted, she didn't know. The Cube attempted to snag her in the gravitational forces of a tractor beam, but she just reduced her mass to near-zero. It didn't reduce the effect of gravity (which didn't care what mass you were, it produced the same acceleration regardless) but it did increase the proportional power of her thrusters enough to force her way out.
"But but but…!" Galactica was flabbergasted, watching in horror as the other ships continued their dance with one new member. All it would take is one mistake and it was all over! And for what? Her life?! That wasn't worth all of theirs!
"Well." Starbuck said. "That wasn't part of the plan."
But strangely, she was smiling, not frowning.
"I always liked betting on the long odds anyhow."
A cry from the other ships made Galactica look over to the melee (the Cube seemed to have launched some kind of minefield that was being torn apart by the various point-defence fire of Yamato, Chimaera and Normandy). When she looked back, Starbuck was gone.
"Just remember," Starbuck's disembodied voice said "you aren't the only one who could defeat her with a jump."
Galactica blinked, her face twisted in pure confusion. What?! But she was the only one here with… a jump drive…
Slowly, her eyes drew over to Babylon 5, and the strange device (jump 'gate'?) that somehow held a jump open for a non-instantaneous amount of time – and the swirling vortex of energy still inside it.
"Dearie…"
Finally, they made a mistake.
The Cube launched a barrage of assimilation torpedoes, but they were just a feint. While the ships all changed course to avoid them, they failed to realise that they were all being herded into predictable trajectories. Tractor beams encased all of the ships, except for Normandy; who instead had a Cutting Beam surgically slice apart Normandy's thrusters.
Resistance, and they weren't sure if it was their imagination or not, but the ships present thought they might have heard a hint of frustration in their tone is futile.
She was still constructing more assimilation torpedoes after her earlier barrage, but she had one spare. She fired it at Yamato, only to have it diverted off course and crushed as Enterprise's saucer section managed to fire on it with a full-strength graviton beam.
"I… I'm sorry, everybody!" The saucer cried, tears in her eyes. "I… I didn't want…"
"Shut up, saucer." The battle section berated her sister(?). "They all knew what they were getting into. All we have left are the plans we ruled out."
"W-what?! No! No you can't!"
"This or let the Borg have it and everything else? Yeah, real tough choice."
"Are you serious." Chimaera eyes were wide with fury. "You're holding back now? Now?!"
The Cube turned to Enterprise's battle section, eyes focused. Then suddenly her eyes widened. Perfection? The Cube almost blurted. The tractor beams on everyone else vanished as the Cube's attention focused solely on Assimilation Priority 2.
"Bye everyone." The battle section said, hands coming together to form a seal energy charging in her cargo bay…
"This way!"
The urgency in the cry from Babylon 5 and Galactica somehow managed to grab their attention, even with situation at hand.
Headed their way as fast as the team of Starfuries, Vipers and Raptors could accelerate it was Babylon 5's jumpgate, jump point still active inside of it.
What the plan was, Chimaera had no idea, but she wasn't going to pass up the distraction. She snagged Normandy in her tractor beams and pulled her into the path of the beam keeping Enterprise's battle section still, freeing the section from the effects.
Yamato caught on, wrapping a rocket anchor around Normandy (who was still using the Mass Effect, so it was easy for Yamato to pull her even with the tractor beam pulling on her) even as the saucer used her own tractor beams to pull the battle section. Yamato, Chimaera and the saucer diverted all available power to their thrusters; bruised and drained, but moving away from the Cube with all speed.
The battle section's eyes went as wide as dinner plates as she was jostled, and a chunk of some material fell out of her pocket, the Cube's eyes focused on it to the exclusion of all else. "NO!" She screamed.
"Dear!" Babylon 5 called out, then hesitated for just a second. "Fire on my jumpgate and then run!" The fighters who had been pushing the jumpgate all broke off and soared off, leaving the gate to fly through space – towards the Cube.
The saucer section's eyes narrowed in confusion, then widened in understanding.
The saucer flung out her arm, and a bright light shot out of it – their final hyperspace torpedo. The torpedo flew through space, faster than the ships were flying (though in the opposite direction), until it reached the jumpgate. It activated; not the detonation of its warhead but its tiny jump drive, opening a jump point inside the existing jump point inside the jump gate.
The two jump points superimposed over each other, fusing into a spiderweb of crackling lightning bolts that surged and writhed as the two holes in space ate away at each other.
The Cube, cradling its Precious cargo in tractor beams, looked up for a moment; just in time to see the explosion.
Awareness was slow to return to Cube 1427 – though that was to be expected when the majority of your mass had been vaporised.
Fortunately, most was not all. Nanoprobes emerged from Neutronium-lined hardened 'bunkers', consuming the slag still attached to said 'bunkers' and preparing to rebuild key structures.
The first thing Cube 1427 saw when she opened her eyes reformed her sensors was Vessel 1976123 (Designation: Yamato, assimilation priority: 19), charging up the her finger-gun weapon set into her prow.
Evade.
Engines not yet repaired.
Full power to shields.
Shields not yet repaired.
Adapt.
Insufficient time.
Adapt.
Insufficient time.
Adapt.
Insuff –
Then Yamato fired, and the Cube ceased to exist.
"Alright." Enterprise said. "Now it's dead."
