Space Odyssey: Spectre

Chapter 625: First Emergency Signal

Jace blinked and they went from entering the gateway to leaving another one and into a different red bubble. As they did he scanned the area and found they were in a red hidden area of space like in the other one. Then they were not able to see outside of it. But it did mean they had a moment to prepare before they left."It is not just emergency signals that are breaking through now. We are receiving all sorts. But most of them are encoded or encrypted." West announced almost immediately as Jace toned down the shielding and powered up the nonessential systems.

"Sending out the scan jamming and other stealth systems." Valkyrie declared. "We are invisible to all known forms of scanning and other ways we could be detected with systems."

Jace nodded as he altered the shielding slightly and the outside of the Lance of Thanatos probably shimmered before they disappeared. "We are invisible. Going through the gateway protection layer." Jace announced.

"Then bring us into space." Shilla told him. "How is our navigation?"

"On course." Jace tapped the console and the cruiser flew forward. They went through the barrier and Jace watched through the screen as they appeared just outside of an asteroid field that lay on the edge of a star system. "Any nearby enemy?"

"Negative. The closest enemies are a Mortella fleet that are near the core of this system." K announced from her seat while Victor stayed watching over Catherine Hex.

"Victor, sit the prisoner in that seat. Take up position by the door." Jace ordered as he pointed at an out of the way spot. They would be doing several jumps and chances are that without the extra shielding it would cause some of them to fall from the constant swaying. "We are going to warp now."

There was a slight jostling as they moved into the wave. They could visually see it on the screen but he was focused on the timer on the controls as they entered to see how long before they arrived at the next star system. "Are we receiving scan information?"

"We are. It is going right to mapping information directly. The on-board artificial intelligence is deciphering the information and correcting the galactic map that we have open here." Valkyrie explained quickly before there was a beeping at her console and she looked at it before sighing. "We just passed a system and there was not any human life detected. That was a colony."

"The mortella have firm control of the next few systems." Jace explained as he set the coordinates for the next transfer to another system. Once he finished he felt a spike of pain in his head like a massive headache.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he could see the door where he could communicate with Salem appeared again. But it was blocked by a cloud. Was it being blocked somehow?

He came back into reality as they arrived at the new system. This time he waited a moment before he triggered the functions to bring them away again. He had to process and readjust for the massive structures that were situated throughout the system. If he did not know better-

"Was that the Mortella stronghold in our galaxy?" Shilla was the one to ask.

"Possibly. Look at the star map data." Jace answered as he focused on the next few courses. They had two more jumps before they arrived at the first emergency signal they were receiving. Hopefully there were still people alive when they got to the signal.

"Nope. We just passed through another stronghold. They just have a firm hand on these systems." Valkyrie announced as she looked through the information. "It is stronger in this system but it looks like they are not taking the chances. They might have figured out that some of our ships can bypass normal routes."

"I mean they are not wrong." West chuckled from her position. "What are we going to do when we arrive at the emergency signal?"

"Assess the situation and then react accordingly. If there is no one to save then we will stay in stealth mode and leave." Jace answered as they stopped for a moment again before going to warp again. "Do we have additional info on the emergency signal?"

"Nope, it is just an emergency broadcast." West responded. "It has a location tag, a time tag, and a detail. That is it." West explained.

"Check the signal scanner as well." Jace told her. "We did not have it active before but we can listen to most communications in this galaxy. Regardless if they were sent to us or not." He explained briefly as the door to the bridge opened and he looked over to see Shinobi step in with a swaddled person in his arms.

"Welcome back Gladiator. I assume we are back in our galaxy?" Shinobi asked. "How bad is it?"

"We have an invasion on four fronts." Shilla stood up and took the child from him. Neither Shinobi nor Valkyrie seemed to mind. "Did she cry or wake up?"

"Briefly when the ship started moving but she went back to sleep almost immediately." Shinobi answered as he took back his kid after a moment when Shilla was done looking them over.

By the time they were done the Lance had come out of and gone back into warp-wave riding. Jace was focused now on the system they were coming up onto. He would come out near a different planet than where the emergency signal was being broadcast.

"We have scans and it looks like there are a few ships in this system and the planet we arrived near has the largest presence of Mortella with several ships guarding what looks like the construction of a space fortress." Valkyrie explained as she looked at the details her console had.

Jace looked at the main view screen as he panned the ship around. They had arrived just shy of the structure. They got lucky. Although the mortella might be reading a gravitational anomaly.

Jace moved the cruiser away from their arrival position. "What about where the emergency signal is being broadcast?"

"The planet has three warships over it. None of them are friendly. It looks like there are Mortella bomber craft, if that’s what we want to call them, that are hitting the last stronghold in the system." Valkyrie told him as she quickly analyzed the information.

"I am going to line us up to hit all these ships." Jace informed them as he adjusted the course of the cruiser. "Once we are lined up I am going to jump in the Hound’s tooth and take out those bombers and any fighter craft."

"We will drop mines in the surrounding area while you do that." Shilla declared before continuing. "Then we will start bringing the survivors up to our ship using the wyvern transport."

"We can pack them up and bring all of them up in two goes with the Wyvern." Valkyrie declared. "There are not many living people left down there."

"Sounds like a plan. Are there any signals coming to or going from the stronghold?" Jace asked as he adjusted the course of the craft while he also remotely started up the Hound’s Tooth.

"Aside from the emergency signal? Yes, there is long range holo communication." Valkyrie confirmed. "We can listen in but we can’t see anything and we cannot jump in."

"Bring up the noise to the bridge speakers. Let’s hear what they are talking about." Jace instructed as the ship was coming to a position where they could fire the main laser cannon. He looked over at K who nodded and understood. She came over to his seat and sat down as he stood up.

He started walking to the door but stopped when they heard the voices over the bridge speakers. "-for your service. We are sorry we were not able to help you." One voice announced.

"It was a pleasure working with Cerberus! We will take as many as we can with us!" Another more gravely voice announced. One that Jace immediately recognized, Gorund. "I can say with pride that we have thoroughly slowed their approach."

Jace immediately took off running. Overriding the safety protocol of the elevator so he could jump right into and drop through the elevator shaft. "Jace, they have civilians in the station. Looks like they were evacuating the system when the Mortella struck."

Jace kicked off the back wall and rolled onto the floor where the hangar was. He passed by a surprised Eduta who was walking through the corridor when he ran into the hangar. The hangar door was already opening. "Does it look like they plan to blow themselves up?" He asked as he ran towards his ship.

"We are scanning a power source on the planet that is getting stronger. So possibly." Valkyrie answered with a toe of anger. "We can’t communicate with them. Something is wrong with our broadcasting systems."

"Drop the shield. I am going out. Half power should be enough to destroy all three of the mortella warships." Jace informed them as climbed into the Hound’s tooth and took off. The canopy closed over him before he flew out of the hangar and away from the ship. They would have a battle on their hands. But that was fine.