Starborn Smith [Stargate, Battletech Multicross]

I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea. In Stargate SG-1, one particular episode shows an Al'kesh – a Goa'uld bomber and cargo vessel – pulling several large containers. Well, what if we could have an Al'kesh drag a dropship through Hyperspace?

After further consideration, the idea certainly had merit, it just had one major drawback. The Stargate effectively made the dropship obsolete. Especially with Elder Callums most recent idea for battlemech deployment, he could effectively get all but the most oddly shaped mechs through a Stargate. Even then, you could usually disassemble and reassemble them (though that took a much larger period of time). 

Nonetheless, I brought the idea to Elder James. Just like myself, he seemed contemplative at first, but quickly realized that it wouldn't be all that useful. I took the rest of the day off. Between reviewing the footage recovered from Zeus and trying to work through the issues with the Manassas' KF-Drive, I had not slept well. 

The next day, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that everyone had already chosen who would be participating in the zero-g training exercises. I tried to join them, but the Elder insisted that I continue with my current engineering work, and well… I couldn't exactly disagree with his reasoning. 

200 Jaffa and 200 soldiers from Dendred. They would be trained by about 30 of the villagers who were more experienced in zero-g.

With the people from Dendred, came along the two broken raptors that Elder James had negotiated as a trade. This variant of the Raptor had two massive vertical stabilizers that were just barely too large to fit through the gate, so they had to be removed, but with a little finagling, the rest of it could fit through with little issue. 

I watched as the first hull slowly moved through the Stargate. Other than the pair of removed stabilizers, it appeared to be in perfect shape. There was no external damage that would immediately indicate why it had stopped being used. Elder Callum ordered for the first raptor to be moved out of the way while the second one was slowly lowered through. 

I approached the Raptor and placed my hand on it. 

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Colonial Raptor (Mk. II Raptor)

Miniaturized Field Initiator

I was always fascinated by advanced technology and this was no exception. When comparing fire-arms and battlemechs onboard the Manassas, it was clear that – even between companies and Inner Sphere powers – a lot of technology was simply re-used between rivals. This was different. The Colonial Field Initiator was designed – from the ground up – using an architecture that was completely alien to that of the one aboard the Manassas. This departure in design architecture resulted in radical changes in performance. 

I hadn't gotten the blueprint for the Manassas' Drive Core, but I had read through the things manual and I had some basic understanding of the concepts behind it. Plus, the Manassas' Experimental Field Initiator was so closely related to the Drive Core that I had to get a basic understanding of how the two were interconnected in order to understand how just the Initiator worked. 

The KF-Drive Field Initiator – KFFI – was big, but its size pales in comparison to the size of a drive core. Together this means that miniaturizing a KFFI has significantly diminishing returns. Rather than focusing on size, the designers of the KFFI focused on using the device to provide more and more minute control of the final destination. 

The Designers of the Colonial Field Initiation – CFI – clearly had a different idea in mind. The only thing that the CFI does is take a massive quantity of current – presumably from the Tylium that Colonial vessels use as fuel – and produce a completely un-modified Hyperspace Field. That was to say, while the KFFI was responsible for directing a Hyperspace Field so that a ship would arrive at its final destination, the CFI was not; the Colonials used another method for determining the final destination of their jumps.

I turned away from the first raptor and approached the gate, watching as the second raptor slowly crept its way out before being moved out of the way. Next came the two pairs of vertical stabilizers. They were also moved out of the way. Finally, people started arriving through the gate. 

Standing by the raptor was an older gentleman who seemed to be introducing himself to Elder Callum. "You must be Callum. I've heard a lot about you."

Elder Callum chuckled lightly, "I'm afraid that I can't say the same."

The man nodded, "Of course, Dwight Perry. I am the current chief Flight Engineer for all Colonial Vessels on Dendred."

Elder Callum reached out his hand and the man took it, "well it's a pleasure to meet you. Hopefully we'll be able to get something useful out of dissecting these ships."

The Man nodded, "I'm here to help any way I can." He turned to me next, "You must be Arthur. A pleasure to meet you."

I put on a slightly embarrassed smile and shook his hand. "A pleasure, Mr. Perry. Would you be willing to show us around these ships?"

He nodded as the last of the people made it through the gate. For the next 20 minutes, he showed us around the interior of the raptor, giving a basic explanation of the Raptor's internal systems. 

I nodded, "I think we can work with this. We're in for a few sleepless nights though."

Mr. Perry chuckled and I pulled out my radio to call over the pair of Phoenix Hawks that were on standby. As they approached, the man stared up at them in awe for several long moments before getting a hold of himself. "You have some mighty fine machines here. Would make a Cylon blush in inadequacy."

I chuckled and the two raptors were carefully moved a few hundred meters into the Leopard's port mech bay; Elder James had emptied the thing out so that nothing would be in the way. Next began the hard part. We would be disassembling the thing, bolt by bolt, plate by plate, wire by wire, and documenting the entire process. 

Waiting for us were a pair of the Manassas' Engineers who had been reassigned to work with us. Slowly the second raptor was lowered into the bay, the doors were closed, and the air began circulating. 

While not crucial, a semi-clean room would make our life much easier when the time came to take apart the colonial jump drive. I approached the second raptor and touched it once. 

First Perk Activated. Partial Blueprint Acquired: Colonial Raptor (Mk. II Raptor)

Jump Spinner

The Colonial Drive replaced the solid germanium core of the KF-Drive with several dozen individual contra-rotating disks. These disks produced a powerful magnetic field which directed the Hyperspace Field around a colonial vessel. 

This gave the Colonial Drive insane control over the size and scale of the field, but that wasn't its main advantage. The primary advantage of the Colonial Jump Spinner (as it was called) was that it needed to be long. For comparison, a KF-Drive Core needed to be anywhere between 80% and 90% of the mass of a ship, a Colonial Jump Spinner needed to be 90% of the length of the ship in order for the induced fields to cover the entire ship. While this meant that a Jump Spinner was still quite large, it was – at most – only ten percent the size of a KF-Drive Core.

Just like that, we began to work. For three days, 16 hours a day, we removed, catalogued and stored every single piece from one of the two raptors. It was the end of the third day and we were barely halfway done. At this moment, a piece of news arrived, the mission to the BSG Daedalus was under way. 

- - -

POV: Eamon Thorne

Even when Arktos' people betrayed Ares, I never imagined I'd end up working beside them. I didn't have anything against the Jaffa – though I knew some of the others did – but it still felt weird to be working with them. 

In the end, Arktos had agreed to provide two Al'kesh and four Tel'tak. I stood behind the pilot's chair in one of those Tel'tak; we had just exited Hyperspace in an area outside of the system's Heliopause. In the distance just outside the ship's front window, I could barely make out the twinkling of some sort of metallic object.

Slowly but surely that twinkling grew brighter before it eventually became clear what I was looking at. A pair of ships, barely mushed together. Both of them were relatively intact. Both ships were massive. Even the smaller of the two – though it was only barely smaller – was only slightly shorter than the Manassas. 

That was not a pleasant thought. During the debriefing, Eudora had explained that the Adamant was the third smallest ship in the Colonial Fleet. I didn't even want to think about what their large ships looked like. 

[Author's Note: Standard Aegis is 725 meters. The Manassas had about 120 meters grafted on for the extra Docking Hardpoints and crew deck making a total of 850 Meters. An Adamant is 830 meters 

The other ship – the Phobos Class Tech Cruiser – was even longer, though a good 20% of its length was just what appeared to be antennas. 

We stopped a few hundred meters away from both ships and waited for the order to move in. Sure enough, a few minutes later, it came. Just as planned, two Tel'taks – mine and one other – moved towards the Daedalus' Hangar Bay. 

Both our ships touched down and the Jaffa pilot nodded once. "We're down. You're clear to move." 

I quickly attached my suit helmet and nodded back towards the Jaffa. "Understood. Thank you."

I opened the door to the rear cargo bay, where approximately 20 people were waiting. "4th Squad, let's go. 5th, and 6th, prep to follow us."

My squad – a group of seven – entered the airlock door. It quickly cycled, and just like that, we were in the Daedalus' Hangar. I carefully lowered myself to the floor and activated the magboots that came equipped with the vacuum suit. Once the power was brought back online it wouldn't be necessary – the colonials had artificial gravity tech – but until then the boots were required. This room was almost 70 meters wide and 20 meters tall. If you lost your footing there was a non-zero chance that you'd just float out of the hangar, though the moment I was traversing the ship, I'd be deactivating them; grav boots were cool until you actually had to fight in them, then they just got in the way.

Over the radio, I heard Elder Annelise speaking. "Clear to move out. Clear primary objectives, then radio in."

My squad's primary objective was to secure the secondary port generator room. For security reasons, the raptors didn't have any blueprints for the ship. That meant that we had to follow the signs and hope for the best. 

Once we were out of the hangar, we deactivated our boots and navigated the hallways of the ship, following the signs for the port artillery room, which was very close to our target. 

The radio crackled to life. "Hangar Deck swept and confirmed clear. Moving onto secondary target."

I listened to the radio and kept moving. Soon enough, we came to our first major obstacle. The part of the ship's bulkhead we were trying to travel through had been caved in. I marked it down and continued to find a way around. Luckily that wasn't all that difficult. 

Several more messages played over the radio as we continued to travel through the ship. Slowly but surely, other teams swept through the vessel and confirmed their objectives.

My team found our first group of corpses when we arrived on the deck containing the port artillery mechanisms. The atmosphere in the room had been evacuated as the Adamant had scraped against the side of the Phobos class ship. 

Every chair had a person strapped in to prevent them from being thrown about, and every one of their bodies was almost perfectly preserved. It was incredibly creepy. Hopefully the Sarcophagus would be capable of reviving them. 

"Crew confirmed in port artillery. Good condition. Recommend immediate recovery."

A moment of silence followed. "Recommendation confirmed. It'll have to wait until the ship is dislodged."

"Understood." I continued onwards.

Finally, I saw the tight, heavy duty door we were looking for. I approached it and began turning the wheel that unsealed the door. Finally, the door came open; on the other side, a long, thin structure had actually poked its way into the room. It looked like part of the Phobos class vessel.

I ignored the part and found the terminal for the secondary reactors. I only had the vaguest understanding of what the various Colonial words meant. Luckily, I didn't have to know. I took out a piece of paper and began looking for the series of characters that had been written on it. 

I found them just below a dial with an indicator that was in the red. I tapped it once and nodded. "Alrighty, primary tank is empty." 

Beside the first indicator were several other indicators. About half of them indicated half full while the rest indicated close to or completely empty. Luckily I just needed one of them to be full to get everything started. I spoke into my radio. "Port Secondary Generator secured. Primary tank empty, fuel confirmed in secondary tanks."

There is a moment of silence. "Confirmed. You are clear to begin startup procedures." 

I quickly replied. "Confirmed."

Luckily for me, the startup procedure was relatively straightforward. My squad and I got to work. A lot of button pressing later, I had a small green button light up. Once more, I spoke into my comms. "Prepare for generator activation." 

A quick round of confirmations ran through the radio. The final message from the Elder came quickly. "All prepared. You are clear for startup."

"Confirmed." I replied and pressed the button. 

A deep hum shook the hull and I felt gravity re-assert itself as the colonial grav-plating reactivated. A moment later, Elder Annelise spoke. "Power confirmed." 

I had half expected to explode there when none of the warning lights went off, but it seemed that everything went well. I certainly hope that everything was going as well for the other teams.