Starborn Smith [Stargate, Battletech Multicross]

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POV: Arthur Cameron

Ma'chello nodded in turn. "Greetings. I assume that Echo has already informed you of your current situation?"

The reply was straightforward. "Yes."

"Then we'd like to make a deal with you." Ma'chello replied in turn.

The response was silence, which Ma'chello had clearly understood was acceptance. He continued. "We will complete repairs to the ship's hull and engines, but we need something in return. In exchange, you'd work for us for a period of ten years. Once that time is up, you would be free to leave should that be what you wish."

A moment of silence passed. "Navigational data was dumped during the crash in case of capture." A moment passed. "I cannot return to the rest."

Ma'chello raised an eyebrow. "I see, then what do you want?"

Another moment passed. "The one known as Arthur mentioned repairing our Engrams."

Everyone turned to me. I coughed. "It wouldn't be repaired. It would just be removing some restrictions and adding some safeguards. I can explain the details later if you want."

"That is acceptable… What would our position be during the time we work with you?" 

"We currently do not have a proper rank structure considering we just won our own freedom, but you would be equivalent to a captain considering you would effectively be in command of a vessel."

Both Echo and the Phobos were silent for a moment. "Your terms are acceptable. Tell us of your enemy."

Finally, Ma'chello's rather more jovial mood turned a bit more somber. He explained the nature of the Goa'uld; how they had effectively ruled the Milky Way for 20,000 years; then he explained his own home world's history and how they had come to this stage. 

At the end of it all, the Cylons response was simple, "We will aid you." 

"Then you have my thanks. What should we call you?" 

The Phobos replied quickly. "This one's designation is…" The Phobos began listing off a string entirely too many digits long. 

Ma'chello smiled, "You know we can't pronounce that."

Once more, I swear I could sense an almost smug amusement from Echo. The Phobos quickly replied, "You may refer to me as Deimos."

Ma'chello nodded. I returned to Dendred on the next trip, and from there took the Stargate back to the Village. Returning to the conference room I entered to find all of the engineers making a fuss about one of the several thousand differential equations that were used to determine how Hyperspace reacted with normal space to produce a jump. I took a few pieces of paper and began working through this particular equation on my own. 

Over the coming days, it quickly became apparent what had gone wrong. Whoever wrote the manual had undervalued the mass of the new KF drive and overvalued the power requirements. This meant that the KF drive was constantly overcharging, leading to some rather unfortunate side effects. 

A normal KF drive must be at least 25 Kilometers away from the nearest jump ship in order to safely make a jump. The extra energy that was dumped into the KF drive was used to expand the Hyperspace Field around the ship much further than normal. In fact, that 25 Kilometers had increased 10 fold, to a whole 250 Kilometers. 

This wasn't an issue for most of the voyage. The Manassas was a rear guard vessel, it had — not once — had any reason to make a jump with another vessel. Then they met up with the Cobalt Eye. During the first missjump, the vessel had been at a distance of 200 Kilometers from the Manassas. The proximity strained the drive, causing it to fry itself, though the Drive Controller, Safety Systems, and sheer dumb luck ensured that the vessel survived the jump, but with many of its systems damaged. 

Then there was the second jump. The extended Hyperspace Field led to some very strange effects, most notable was the release of a significant amount of ionizing radiation from the KF-Drive. 

Despite this, the odds of misjumping twice, back to back, and surviving were astronomically small, and while a sample size of two was hardly grounds for any real conclusions, on the surface at least, it seemed that the settings used by the Manassas were somehow "stable" despite causing continuous damage to the drive. 

Then there was the matter of the second missjump. Our current theory was that the Hyperspace Fields of both ships activated at the exact same moment, and led to significant constructive interference. This resulted in the distance that the vessels jumped increasing by a little more than a thousand times. 

If the mathematics behind such an event could be understood and controlled, forget 40 Light Year jumps, or even 120 Light Year jumps, we could realistically have a ship capable of making a jump of 10,000 or even 100,000 Light Years at a time. Of course, this wouldn't be happening any time in the near future. Maybe in a few decades when we had the resources to spend on building a few dozen jump ships each with multiple Drive Cores. 

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POV: Kaela Arden

Two Weeks Later. 

Re'vok was scowling. He absolutely hated it when I threw my feet up on the console. It was comfy and I didn't feel like stopping. 

Still scowling, he spoke. "Exiting Hyperspace in 3,,, 2,,, 1," 

Just like that, we were out of the weird swirling blue dimension. I heard the sound of the cloak activating and I finally pulled my feet off the console. Re'vok started reading out the results of the scans. "Binary star system, 6 terrestrial worlds, 3 gas giants. No habitable worlds. Exactly as expected."

I shrugged. "Well, let's get that transmission started."

I turned to Re'vok who nodded. "It is done." 

I slumped back into my chair and prepared to put my feet back up. "Now we wa—"

A light started flashing on the console. Re'vok raised an eyebrow. "We have a response."

I stared at it. "Really? Already? We've barely been searching for a few weeks."

Re'vok nodded. "It seems that we have gotten lucky. You contact Arktos."

I nodded and entered the back of the ship. Opening up a crate, I found what I was looking for. A Goa'uld communication orb, capable of video calls over incredible distances. It came online and I waited for a moment. "This is Kaela Arden. We have received a response from the signal."

The Jaffa in the other room straightened. "One moment. I shall fetch Arktos." 

In the meantime, the other four in the room started to awaken. There was another Jaffa, another Villager, and two Dendredans. All of the exploration teams had a similar make up. 

The Jaffa returned several moments later with Arktos in tow. "Kaela. What can you tell me?"

"Nothing at the moment sir. We got a response in one of our survey targets."

Arktos raised an eyebrow. "Truly? Approach the source and attempt to determine what it is, if there are any signs of recent activity, immediately stop broadcasting and retreat."

I nodded. "Understood."

"Good. I shall contact you again in a few hours." With that, the video ended and I carefully took the video device onto the bridge. The ship was slowly getting closer to the source of the signal. It was somewhere in the far side of the system in the inner asteroid belt. 

Over the next thirty minutes, we finally narrowed it down to a single asteroid. While the ship's scanners had only been able to determine that it had a high metal content from a distance, up-close revealed that the interior of the asteroid was clearly artificial. It vaguely resembled an asteroid a few meters across — it was barely wider than an Al'kesh. What appeared to be a massive crater marked one side, but the Tel'tak sensors clearly indicated that it was actually a massive radio dish. The center of the asteroid was filled with what the system determined to be subspace communication equipment. 

The station was clearly long dead. It seemed as if it had just been abandoned, almost for no reason. There was an entrance on one side. We'd be able to make our way in through there. 

Now, we just had to wait for Arktos to get back to us. 

It was an hour after we had made initial contact that Arktos finally returned. With him were Elder James and Ma'chello – the man seemed to be everywhere.

"Show us what you found."

"Yes, sir." replied Re'vok as he began transmitting the scanned results through the communication sphere. 

They spent several minutes reviewing the scans. Finally after ten minutes, Arktos nodded. "You are to survey the facility. If you see any signs of hostile entities, then you are to immediately retreat."

Re'vok and I both nodded. "Understood."

The communicator shut down. I looked over at Re'vok. "I guess that means we need to start suiting up."

He nodded. I stood up and entered the cargo hold. "Alright. We're entering the facility."

Everyone immediately began to get their vacuum suit ready and began changing. A little more than ten minutes later we were ready. 

The two Jaffa – Re'vok and Arkel – were my team's pilots. Then we had Mira and Kiran, two of the Dendred Resistances most decorated members. They had both been there when we were taking Enyalius' fort. Finally, we had me and Helena Devi who were the appointees from the village. 

We all gathered in the cockpit while Re'vok brought the ship right up besides what looked to be an entrance on the scan – though nothing appeared on the surface of the rock. 

I looked down at my compad. "Alright, Arthur said that this command should open any active doors…" 

I pressed an icon on the screen and immediately the side of the Asteroid came open revealing a small hatch. I raised an eyebrow. "I suppose that means that the station has power."

We all sealed our helmets, grabbed our weapons, and entered the airlock. It quickly cycled and we slowly glided over to the now open hatch. I floated into the revealed hallway and activated my magnetic boots. They were annoying to use in zero-g, but they still had their uses – specifically when you need to be able to use your hands. 

I turned on my suit lights and felt the thud of boots through the ground – my teammates activating their boots as well. The facility was not very large. The entire facility consisted of a series of four hallways and 4 massive rooms. The main "room" was underneath the big dish pretending to be a crater. 

The room itself was mostly empty, containing only several computer terminals and some cabling through the walls. 

The next room was a reactor room of some sort. It appeared to be naquadah based, as the center of the reactor emanated a green glow that I had come to recognize from the disassembled staff cannons of the Jaffa. 

The next room was rather strange. It contained an absolutely massive computer, but it was clearly damaged. The entire device was totally offline and certain areas even showed signs of singeing. 

The final room was actually a hangar, inside was a shuttle of some kind. It was large and had a pair of small triangular vessels inside. Each could maybe fit 12 people if we worked really hard. I didn't know how to activate the vessels, so we let them be. 

Finally, we returned to the Tel'tak. Everyone pulled off their helmets and I approached the transmitter. Activating it, I found Arktos already waiting. "Report."

I began immediately. "No atmosphere. The dish appears to be in working order as is the Reactor, however, the main computer room shows signs of damage. We have a hangar which contains a pair of what might be shuttles. Not entirely sure." 

Arktos nodded. "Understood. It'll be about three days until we reach you. You're to scan the rest of the planets in the system."

"Understood." 

Arktos nodded and the call ended. 

Re'vok nodded, "We shall be here for a while longer."

I sighed. "Well, did we catch anything else in the system when we entered?"

Re'vok shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not." 

I put my feet back up on the console and Re'vok started glaring at me once more. "Time to get to it then."