Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Legend of the Gatekeepers (Request to Join)

Magni stepped off the ship and smelled the air, it was foreign to his nostrils. He looked around for any familiar faces walking by, he seen none. Magni took a deep breath and proceeded towards the bridge, he found Captain Langley and introduced himself, "Hello sir, I'm Magni, the chief archeologist."

"Welcome aboard, Magni," James replied. He checked the crew roster and confirmed Magni's arrival. "Sorry about the late notice, but I'm also going to need you to be the Science Officer if he or she doesn't arrive." James then returned to his seat. "After all, we only have about half an hour until launch." He keyed in the final codes to begin the launch sequence. The display began a 30 minute count-down.

Bravo returned to the bridge after having been stuck in the marines quarters for as long as he did and stood beside the door at attention as is where he was placed. The droid stared down everyone on the bridge for a brief moment and after he was finished staring at the crew on the bridge he stood there in standby mode his eyes shut off but his vocal sensor was still active listening in for when he would be needed

"Captain, I'm quite sure of the answer, but to make certain, am I, under no circumstances, to push the blinking red button under this blast-proof glass?" Lyngia asked, tapping her finger against the small glass cover in question, inset into the navigations panel so as to be as inconspicuous as a blinking red button could possibly be.

There was no writing to suggest what the button's purpose was, but from previous experience, Lyngia figured that pressing that button was a very bad idea.

That didn't mean she didn't want to know what it did, however.

"No, you should not push it. I don't know why that button is there anyway," James replied. "But, it is the emergency hyperdrive cutoff. It essentially ejects the hyperspace ring if it gets damaged." Lyngia nodded in understanding. "Anyway, the ship is ready to depart. It looks like our science officer won't be arriving after all. Well, no time to waste. Let's get a move on it!" James keyed in the launch sequence and the Enterprise began to slowly move forward, along with the other ships in formation. It wasn't long before Earth was behind them and the fleet was cleared to make a short Faster-Than-Light jump to the Jupiter hypergate.

"I advise the crew take their seats before FTL jump has commenced" The droid said his magnetic clamps activating and sticking him to the floor "Captain I advise we take all cautionary actions in case the FTL jump is to fail" The droid suggested making it's way over to the captains chair and standing beside it motionless as it's magnetic clamps kept it on the floor

"Might as well," James said. "Attention all crew, prepare for FTL jump in twenty seconds." The ship's FTL drive fired up and as the counter hit zero the ship appeared to stretch to infinity, then in a flash it went from Earth orbit to just outside Jupiter's gravity field. The rest of the fleet appeared moments after. "That wasn't so bad. These ships have inertial dampeners, after all." He then turned to Lyngia. "Alert Hypergate Control that we are ready to depart and move us in to synchronous orbit." James turned back to Bravo. "Is this your first trip beyond the Milky Way?" he asked.

Bravo turned towards the captain "This is my first mission away from Earth captain, I was never normally allowed outside of the Earth's area of radar for reasons I must not say captain, Sector 20 forbids me from saying sir" Bravo said holding up his right arm and showing the small radar detection device on it "this is to keep track of me at all times so that if I were to ever be taken out, I can be found again"

"Well, then you are in for a treat. Travel through the Hypergates is an amazing experience. It's like an orchestra of light surrounds the ship, creating intricate color patterns that are there one moment, and gone the next. At the same time it creates a resonance in the hull that is like harmonious music. It only lasts for a minute or two, but it is not easily forgotten." James said. He turned back to the transparent steel viewport in front of him and watched as the massive pylons on the Hypergate begin to spark with massive amounts of energy. The cylindrical structure began to light up as a energy blasted from one pylon to the other, creating the subspace distortion necessary to create the wormhole. Then, with a flash of near-blinding light, the wormhole opened. It was a swirling mass of color from all across the spectrum. James turned to Lyngia. "Take us in."

"Alright, everyone, hold onto your hats; we're going in." Lyngia's face was a mask of concentration; gone was the somewhat crazed humor. Flying through a Hypergate was a somewhat delicate operation, at least for the pilot of a ship this size. She bit her lip as she edged the ship closer, not allowing herself to be distracted by the almost magical qualities of the Hypergate; and then they were in.

Bravo touched the top of his head "I do not believe I am wearing a hat" He said putting his arm back down at his side then watching as they entered the jumpgate

"Two minutes until exit from wormhole," the computer announced as the fleet was completely inside the wormhole. The crew wasn't paying too much attention, though, since their eyes were fixated on the light show outside the viewport. As they glided along the energies of the wormhole began their resonance effect on the hull, creating an almost mystical harmony through slowly changing sounds created by different vibration frequencies. As the computer counted down to zero, the resonance began to cancel out. The end of the wormhole was finally visible.

"Looks like another uneventful trip through the wormhole," James said. With a final brilliant explosion of color, the fleet emerged out the other side into the galaxy known as the Comet Galaxy. "This is the farthest humanity has ever gone. We are over 3.2 billion light-years from home. I sure hope the gate on this side keeps working."

The science officer did a scan of the Hypergate, and confirmed that it was at peak efficiency. "Looks like it hasn't been used in over one hundred thousand years," came the officer's report.

"May the Force be with us," James said only loudly enough for Lyngia and Bravo to hear. He knew Lyngia understood his comment, but wasn't completely sure if Bravo caught on.

Hearing James's comment, Lyngia bit back a giggle; of course he'd say something so out of place in this particular part of the world. She glanced up at him, her eyes twinkling. "We can only hope," she said with the smile of one in on a private joke.

Bravo looks at James Langley "Captain, what is the force?" he asked his data opened and searching through it all for what he did not know about 'the force'

James got an amused grin on his face. "The Force is what binds us together. It is the energy of all living things. It surrounds us all the time. It is created by life, and as we grow, so does it." He could tell that Bravo was still unsure of the Force. "The Force is something of a legend from Earth's past. It started as something from an old movie and soon became part of our mythology."

James was not willing to let Bravo know that the Enterprise the year before had accidentally jumped into another dimension and had an interesting run-in with a Jedi by the name of Luke Skywalker… He didn't trust Sector 20 with that kind of information.

He looked over at Lyngia to see smiling at him. "No, we are not going to try and make another visit just yet."

"Anyway, now that we are here I will be holding the staff meeting in one hour. Admiral Pierson and Captain DeSoto will be arriving shortly to join us in the conference. The other captains will join us through the communication network." He got up and headed to the back of the bridge where the entrance to the Officers Lounge was.

Lyngia smiled as James tried to explain the Force to Bravo, knowing it was something that was difficult to grasp unless you'd had some experience with it yourself. She was also thinking of the run-in of the previous year, and a few secrets she had yet to inform her Captain of.

As James walked away, Lyngia turned her gaze to Bravo. "Don't worry too much about some of the things the Captain says. He has an impressive knowledge of old movies and T.V. shows from Earth, ones that you can only see if your family happened to hold onto them for however many generations." She laughed. "He's gonna say some weird things."

Bravo nodded "The captain seems to have an impressive memory, like a newly built machine just, with flesh and bone instead of metal parts, it is interesting to see a human be able to remember such an old detail, makes me wonder..." Bravo sat in silence for a moment then briskly changed the subject "Error, Intensive Anomaly off the port bow!" Bravo said as he walked up to the view screen and linked a video screen of what seemed to be a gaseous anomaly with electricity shooting all around inside of the cloud

Just as James was about to sit down, the ship shook violently, nearly sending him to the floor. "Bridge, what the hell is going on?" he yelled into his comm badge.

"Sir," the science officer started, "We have struck the outer edge of a large spatial anomaly."

James shook his head. "What type of anomaly is it?" he asked.

"Not sure, captain. But, you'd better get to the bridge."

Within moments he was back on the bridge and looking at the view screen to see the massive electrified gaseous anomaly. "Looks like Argosia," he commented. He turned to Lyngia. "Lyn, back us up to 100,000 kilometers, nose facing the anomaly." He then turned to the science officer.

"Check for multi-phase quantum distortions. I have a theory."

Within moments the science officer replied with an affirmative to the distortions. "Sir, we are also picking up the wreckage of dozens, no, thousands of starship!"

James swallowed down his fears. "This is a starship graveyard." He stumbled back to his chair and sat down. The only other time he had seen something like this was at the Argosia Spatial Fracture, an area of space where a massive battle between the Gatekeepers and some unknown force that ended in the destruction of thousands of warships on each side.

James finally regained his composure. "Do the energy signatures match anything in our databanks?"

"Yes, sir, one of them does. It is definitely Gatekeeper in origin," the science officer replied. "But, the other one is unknown. It does not match that of what we found at Argosia. I would say that the Gatekeepers were trying to stop the attackers from taking the Hypergate."

Bravo turned his head towards James "Sir I have intelligence reporting about these gatekeepers, and the warship you see before you from Sector 20 sir, would you like to listen?" Bravo asked staring at James for as long as he needed to until he replied with an answer

"Wait, how does Sector 20 know about this… Never mind, I'm not going to even ask. Go ahead and play it," James said. Seeing a starship graveyard this massive was something that he didn't want to encounter as soon as he arrived. He needed all the help he could get, and if Sector 20 had a report on what happened here, he was going to use it to the crews' advantage.