Alvarez's image appeared on every monitor aboard the Resurgency. A sharp Bosun's whistle was heard, piping through the ship.
"Attention Resurgency, this is High Command." He looked particularly severe. "Effective immediately you are no longer members of the SCRA, you are no longer members of the Sirius Coalition, nor are you, in fact, citizens of Sirius. For all intents and purposes you no longer exist, and very soon, nothing you know of will exist."
"You are charged with a mission of such dire importance to the Revolution it has required that drastic and dangerous measures be taken. You will serve Admiral Broch and Colonel Rhade, Hermanos, they speak for High Command from here on out. You will take to heart, knowing that what you are about to do will solidify the Coalition's Revolutionary Agenda, and ensure that we will prevail!"
"Commissar Millar is charged with ensuring that nothing you do will change the unwavering will of the people! Mi Comradas, for the Revolution, for Katz, and FOR THE COALITION!"
Ling rose from the bed upon hearing the tapping of a cane along the corridor. He knew that sound. He smiled when he saw Miller.
"Hero! I see you have joined us on this most interesting craft. Tell me, do you have an apple with you?"
Ling and Miller laughed at their inside joke before Ling turned to the recruits.
"You will salute this Hero of the Revolution! This man is far more brave than any of you put together. That or he is more lucky! Victory is assured! Hero's are with us!"
Alvarez's message was then broadcast and the symbol was shown. Ling let out a battle cry and raised his sword high, and the recruits chimed in. Excellent Ling thought, the recruits are psyched up. They probably have no idea of the importance of what their mission was. Well, he laughed - they were about to find out.
She looked to the young man and frowned at his attire. "I suggest you remove that civilian article of clothing. Have you ever seen a Coalition crew member wearing something like that? As soon as you get it off, take your position and commence preflight checks."
Alvarez immediately gave his speech over the PA system after she had given the young man his orders. Waiting patiently, her eyes roamed about the ship, taking in the scenery as she listened to Alvarez with one ear. She had already been briefed, so need to listen a second time.
She stood up as the ancient symbol appeared on the screen, keying the PA system. "Comrades of the glorious Coalition. We are now an autonomous force. Alvin Katz does not exist. Omega-52 does not exist. You do not exist. Treat this ship as though it were sovereign space. And know that there is only one leader here: The will of the Coalition."
Her eyes scanned about the bridge, the horrified looks of the crew staring back at her. She addressed their concerns, "The Commissariat does not exist here. His Watchful Eye is not gazing upon us. Only ourselves. SO do not disappoint yourselves." With that she sat down and deactivated the PA system.
A few gulps were the only response as the crew returned to their tasks.
"Commence the operation!"
"THE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THESCIENCEIS LEAKING OUT!"
The main cargo bay had been converted, the cryotubes standing in rows ready to receive their intended passengers, and the good Doctor walked through them doing a last minute calibration check, as members of the crew readied the ships systems.
It was going to be a prolonged suspended animation, his calculations for the jump would put them in the rough vicinity of their predetermined destination, but there was a rather substantial margin of error. He blew out a sigh and shook his head.
"This is not the smartest thing I have ever, bloody, done," he said banging out a cigarette and fishing through his papers for his cup of tea. "How're the Vortex drives?"
"Charging doctor," someone called from the level above him.
Outside of the ship, a specially created booster scaffold was affixed to the ship, ready to propel them... he shook his head. Insanity... the insanity of cobbled together phantom, and Nomad technology. All for what? a potential doomsday machine? No, the Coalition had devised something far more malevolent.
"Tell the Admiral we're good to go on her mark... I can start flash freezing crew members once we're away from Mykolaiv."
Alvarez had ditched the ball cap, much to his dismay, taking a seat at the conn, and dancing his hands over the controls. Fortunately little had changed in the way of starship operations. Pitch, yaw... thrust... yep everything was where it was supposed to be.
"Commence the operation..."
Enrico nodded, watching as Colonel Rhade came onto the bridge. Activating the switches that would disconnect the docking clamps and release the ship to its own power.
Screens around the bridge came to life with data, as the ship began to gracefully slide forward. Moving out of the dry dock, its sail like wings unfurling as the main engines came online.
"Applying full power," Enrico reported, as the ship swept around the station with amazing agility. It was the first time he had taken the controls of a Sol Coalition vessel, and realized at once how much had been lost during the great exodus. The ships were just not as agile, nor as smooth running anymore.
"Hyperdrive is cycling up," he reported. "Doctor XiaoBei reports that he is ready to start Freezing operations... and that the Vortex drive array is ready at your command!"
Crewmen busied themselves among control panels and sensors as the ancient shivered under their feet. The ship pulled away from the research station in an awkward listing backpedal.
"Contact the mad scientist. Tell him that we are underway and he can begin playing with his gizmos," She idly said to one of the deckhands. He nodded and immediately repeated her message, word for word. That made her smirk. Xiabei was a running joke to her. Despite his accomplishments and his successes, she considered him to be an egghead with luck on his side.
"THE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THESCIENCEIS LEAKING OUT!"
As Han listened to the PA announcement from Vice Admiral Broch he mentally scoffed, His Watchful Eye WAS watching, through him, Broch wasn't informed as to his real identity, only His Watchful Eye and the Premier knew.
As he headed towards the Cryo-Stasis Chamber for his assigned pod he couldn't help but feel...Nervous, the thought that such a tube could be his grave if something went wrong was foremost in his mind.
Shaking off these minors fears he continued walking through the corridors, as he entered the transformed Cargo Bay he stood stiffly at attention beside the door, throwing a sharp salute as his eyes now without any sign of fear or nervousness stared ahead.
"Doctor." He greeted before standing at ease by the door, seemingly standing guard as his eyes gazed at each of the members of the crewmen aiding the Doctor in the final preparations.
He noticed the Doctor looked...Unease, with a small smile he tried to cheer him up.
"Doctor, I may not be as smart as yourself but know we all have faith in you, for better or for worse." he commented, attempting to cheer the overworked Doctor up.
XiaoBei spluttered in indignation, as crew members were ushered into the stasis pods. Row by row the pods closed, cryostatsis devices that were duplicates of the same used aboard the sleerpships, painstakingly engineered to perfection. Nothing could be taken to chance... not that it mattered if the Vortex drive blew them all to hell...
"All non-essential crew are accounted for and in stasis," Lt. Han reported, as Pasha pushed the Lt. into the last Statis pod, nodding to the doctor as he slammed the door shut, the devices cycling up and releasing the complex cocktail of chemical agents into the tubes, flooding them with a liquid. It was terrifying to watch, crewmembers frantically scrabbling, unprepared for the simulated drowning they were undergoing, not realizing that the liquid would sustain them indefinitely beyond the needs of conventional life support.
And with a sharp crack, the rows of pods went cold, freezing the liquid and the occupants solid in a matter of moments.
"All systems report cryo sleep achieved," Xiaobei stated as he smoked, walking along the line of coffins. Tapping the glass to get a better look at Commissar Miller. "Ugly mug that you are," he murmured carrying on, to where the last row of pods were waiting, standing open.
"Last minute checks are in place Admiral... I recommend setting our course and getting into the pods the moment we come out of the vortex. I am giving us a little... time, so that we don't miss our mark."
He lifted a remote control, "Vortex in T-minus ten seconds and counting..."
He found a seat, as Pasha strapped himself in opposite. The normally stoic man finding a moment to cross himself, and offer a prayer.
The external boosters fluttered and flared as the ship accelerated towards the light threshold.
On the scaffold, the alien device constructed by fusing two very different technologies together reacted with one another. Power from the Dangerous Alien artifacts, fusing with the power of the enriched powercell... flooding into the device that was designed to catapult them across the threshold into... beyond.
He hoped to god his calculations were correct, as the alien device fluctuated and flared, creating the temporal vortex ahead of them...the scaffolding ejecting, as the ship accelerated through the boundary, flashing though time and space in an instant drawing upon the impossible combination of technologies, wielded by the hand of a totally insane genius.
And like that, they had arrived...
The thrill of the moment was gone in the blink of an eye, as XiaoBei clambered up and out of his seat, reaching for the computer console, that was already calculating their position and extrapolating the relative time from the surrounding space.
"We're about one hundred years too early," he called. "But we're near to the relative position. A sustained burst of cruise should get us up to speed, and momentum will carry us on an intercept course with the targets... Time for a nice long nap, I think?"
"Idiot," She hissed through her teeth after the Doctor had briefed her. The trip was sudden, almost as though it didn't happen. But everything had changed outside the windows and scanners. So it had worked. To a degree. They were in the wrong place and the wrong time. At least they didn't overshoot. What would happen then?
She stood up and smoothed her hands across the uniform, clearing out the creases from when she had been sitting. "All crew, report to the cryogenic bays. It seems our good Doctor had miscalculated. Make sure to set the computers to the specifications that have been given to us. We awaken in a century." It sounded so grim. Effectively, this trip would prolong their age. That was amusing.
"THE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THESCIENCEIS LEAKING OUT!"
Setting the controls exactly as directed by the computers, the Resurgency blasted into cruise, his hands triggering the Engine-Kill at exactly the right moment. Stepping back and locking the console. If anything disturbed the ship, it was set to rouse the command crew immediately... not that anything could.
He looked up and out of the windows at the vastness of nothing.
They were in the middle of nowhere... and the nearest CD wasn't due to be constructed for another millennia.
He saluted the Admiral, as he made his way below decks, sliding down the companionway, tucking the baseball cap into his pocket, as he lined up with the last of the engineers and crew that were getting into the stasis pods.
"This thing is going to defrost me, on the other side, Doctore?" He asked, patting the pod skeptically.
"Get in," XiaoBei commented, still smoking, as he pushed the young pilot into the chamber, sliding the hatch closed and sealing him inside. Other officers and crew were doing the same. The Admiral taking her pod as well.
In a moment they were all inside, as the ship switched into power save mode, and the tanks began to fill...
"uh... Doctore?" Alvarez said as he began to panic, the liquid rizing up at a rapid rate... "Doctore?" he screamed just before it filled his mouth and nose... frantically he tried to hold his breath, as the liquid suffocated him... and just when he couldn't hold it any longer, he gasped for air and took in a lung full of the liquid...