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The History of:
The Invisible Planet Of Joreal
Manchari System, 300 years ago
Standing on the bridge of his Andromeda Research Institute frigate, the Imaginitive, Captain Neil Ganthor was proud. Very, very proud. His ship, specially modified and completely refitted, was one of three ARI vessels participating in the first field test of the new cloaking devices. It was an enormous responsibility, as the cloaks had shown distressing tendancies to fail, often explosively, in lab tests - and while those errors seemed to be corrected, a lot still rode on the results of this test.
Witness the three Border Patrol warbirds currently standing watch.
"Border Patrol, this is Imaginitive. We are ready to initiate the test on your mark."
"Confirm that, Imaginitive. We are still awaiting confirmation from the Theorem and the Equation. Stand by."
Captain Gantor smiled to himself. He'd made very sure his ship was running in perfect condition earlier; it was a pity that the Theorem and the Equation's captains had lacked similar foresight.
Sipping a cup of coffee, he scanned the bridge. His frigate's entire crew, barring the engineer, were in the bridge; the looks on their faces ranged from nervous to supremely confident.
"Imaginitive, this is Border Patrol Scout Four-Two-Alpha. We have confirmations from the Equation and the Theorem. You may start the initialization of the device."
Gantor pressed the intercom button.
"Engg, start the initialization."
Back in the bowels of the ship, or at least such bowels as you can find on a frigate, Engineer Travis Moore began the power up sequence and initialization routines required to bring the cloak online. Across the ship, lights dimmed and flickered as the fusion reactors powering the ship diverted more and more energy to the device.
"Engg, we're reading power fluctuations. Is there anything you can do?"
"Negative, Captain. This is just the preliminaries, but it is already consuming almost all of our reactor output; those fluctuations are feedback overshoots to prevent the device from going up on us. If I reduce those tolerances, we're in trouble."
"Understood. Keep a close eye on it, though."
"Yes, sir."
Gantor examined his display. Despite the somewhat more dramatic than anticipated power fluxes, the initialization appeared to be proceeding according to plan.
"Scout Four-Two-Alpha, this is Imaginitive, initialization is in progress. It should be complete within another... two minutes and thirty seconds. We are recording power fluctuations, but my engineer believes them to be within tolerances."
"We copy that, Imaginitive. Theorem and Equation are also reporting power fluctuations. Nothing serious so far."
"Copy, Scout Four-Two-Alpha."
Gantor checked his crew again; the tension might be building, but the outright anxiety was fading as the cloaking device steadily powered up and nothing happened. Still, if something did happen... they'd react all the worse for being lulled.
"Captain, this is Engineer Moore. Initialization will be complete in thirty seconds."
"Understood."
"Twenty seconds. Stand by."
"Ten."
"Five."
"Initialization complete. All boards green; power drain has stabilized. Captain, we are ready to activate."
"Stand by, Engg."
"Scout Four-Two-Alpha, this is Imaginitive. Cloak has been initalized and we have a green board. Ready to activate on your mark."
"Confirmed, Imaginitive. We read you as being green. Stand by."
This was it... now, all they could do was trust that the designers were as confident in the cloak's reliability as they said they were.
"Imaginitive, this is Scout Four-Two-Alpha. Activate."
Gantor hit the intercom:
"You heard the man, Engg. Activate that thing."
"Yes, SIR!"
Gantor thought that the first use of a cloak on a ship should've been accompanied by some theatrics, but apparently those had already been used up in the initialization, as, smoothly, and with no fuss, three ships disappeared from the universe.
"Andromeda Research Institute vessels, do you copy? This is Border Patrol. Repeat, Andro-"
"We copy, Border Patrol. This is the Imaginitive. Our systems so far show all systems nominal and cloak functioning. Power reserves are down significantly. Our telemetry should confirm. Do you read?"
"We read, Imaginitive. Copying your telemetry fine, and we confirm your power loss. We are starting our detection tests; please remain immobile."
"Copy that, Border Patrol."
It was a long two and a half hours sitting there while the BP ran every test and scan they could think of. In the end, it was determined that they could, if they were looking for it, pick up some sensor ghosts even with the cloak operating at full effectiveness, and that if those ghosts were examined closely, the cloak would fail.
"Imaginitive, this is Scout Four-Two-Alpha. Prepare to decloak."
"Copy that, Scout Four-Two-Alpha. Decloaking will begin in five minutes."
As Gantor began to flip channels to contact his Engineer, he felt a cold metal touch on the back of his head, and heard a quiet voice behind him.
"I'm afraid it won't, Captain. This vessel is now under the command of the Revolutionary Liberation Front."
"What the-?"
"Step away from the panel, please."
Gantor, shocked and bewildered, did as he was told; as he looked around, he noticed that none of his crew were reacting to this piracy. They were focusing quite solidly on their instrumentation, and not paying one whit of attention to the fact that their captain was being ordered around by a guntoting lunatic.
The unseen voice continued, but this time Gantor recognized it. It was his Engineer.
"Good. Helmsman!"
"Sir?"
"Set a course. The rendevous point."
"Yes, sir!"
Gantor realized that, as impossible, as utterly, completely impossible as it seemed, his crew had mutinied; on the behalf of some revolutionary faction, no less. He had to, absolutely had to get a message out to the Patrol; if the cloak got into the hands of the misguided, there was no telling what might happen.
Moore noticed Gantor's muscles tighening.
"I would advise against anything rash, Captain. I have the gun, the crew is loyal to me... and so are my comrades on the other ships. We're taking that oh-so-useful device and we're going to put it to good use; somebody finally comes up with something the Taenarians don't have, and the first thing people want to do is give it to them? Bah!"
Gantor didn't say anything; long speeches made people less cautious, and he was waiting for an opening. He got it, as Moore paused to take a deep breath, and took his attention off Gantor for a half second.
It was enough.
Gantor leaped for the communications board, knocking it's officer out of his seat and headfirst into a steel stanchion; ignoring the sudden curses breaking out behind him, he opened a broadcast channel faster than he ever thought possible.
"Mutiny! Mut----"...
Safely hidden, for now, in one of Manchari's few lower-visibility sectors, Commander Travis Moore of the RLF bit back his curses.
They'd managed to sieze the three ASI frigates with relative ease, getting access to the galaxies first three working cloaks, but it had all gone downhill from there.
The ex-captain of the newly renamed Spektyr, formerly the Imaginitive, had managed to get off a message before being cut down. and the commander of the Border Patrol group assigned to the cloaking test had gotten things together far quicker than he had any right to. By the time the RFL's newest ships had arrived at the Manchari-Sewell node, a massive BP blockade was in place.
The fleet, which had a plan for this, had immediately turned around and jumped to their current location; they'd managed to do so, as far as Commander Moore could tell, undetected, but any attempt to go through the node would end in failure.
Moore chewed his lip. They'd had a plan, yes, but it had been an escape plan, with no provisions after the escape went wrong. They were sealed off inside Manchari. According to the message traffic they'd picked up along the way, nobody was being allowed in or out, all ports were locked down, and the Border Patrol was mobilizing on a scale unheard of in years.
They could dodge around Manchari for a while, but sooner or later they'd need to dock to restock, repair and recharge; and that wasn't being allowed.
The BP would also think to sweep the system, probably starting with the lower visibility sect-
And they were.
"Sir! Our sensors are reading a large carrier entering the cloud.
Command-class."
The multifaceted blue of subspace flowed past the RLF fleet; after a Border Patrol carrier had spotted them hiding in the nebula, they had initiated a blind jump to an isolated, desolate Manchari sector. Far from any trade routes, with no distinguishing features, it had nothing to make anyone go there.
Anyone, except a group of fugitives.
Captain Moore waited uneasily. Until they re-emerged into normal space, they could do nothing; not steer, not fight, not even see what they were getting into ? only sit, and stare, sailing blindly into safety or sudden death. Logic told him they should be temporarily safe ? the sector was untravelled, and nobody had ever found a way to track a subspace jump.
Paranoia and cynicism, the two traits that had kept him alive and functioning, spoke differently. Nobody but a bloody Taenarian had any idea what a Taenarian ship could do; here, in the military stronghold of their so-called 'Federation', anything could be possible. He?d thought of this, and accepted it when he accepted the mission, but still ? the thought niggled at him, eating at his poise.
The suspiciously quick response of the Border Patrol had also thrown up a warning flag. It was almost ? almost ? as if they?d been forwarned, and that meant a security leak, and that meant there was the possiblity of a homing beacon or any number of other nasty surprises waiting to jump up and bite him in the rear.
On top of everything else, though, was the blind chance that someone WOULD be in the same spot when they arrived? the impossible always happens when your plans are based around it not happening. Probably some sadistic god somewhere got a kick out of it.
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