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Bravo played a voice recording of the information Bravo had been talking about and the voice was of what sounded like a big burly man, notably a commander and he had said "You are to not share this with anybody understood?" then came on Bravo's voice from the recording "Understood sir" And the burly man came back on "Good, This wreckage is of a gatekeeper flagship, or so we've estimated with it being the largest we've found in a long time, however it did not seem like it was the only flagship they had as with a normal fleet, there must have been a series of flagships, which meant they once had a powerful empire, however we need more data to make sure this is correct" Bravo came back on the recording "Understood sir, I shall get more data..." and the recording cut off there and Bravo responded "Is there anything else you need captain?"

James pondered over the recording for a few moments, then responded. "Bravo, I need you to put together a team that can go over to one of those ships. I think we can use Excalibur's tractor beam to pull one of them out of the anomaly." He then turned to Lyngia.

"Get a message through to Excalibur and tell them that the meeting has been bumped up to right now. Let them know that if they aren't ready yet, they can join via holo cam."

He turned back to Bravo. "I will be scrambling two squadrons of fighters to escort the away-team shuttles. If anything pops up that looks hostile, we will shoot it down before it gets in range of your team."

He had a final afterthought, related to the recording. "By the way, that voice sounded faintly like was General David Kriemhild talking. Don't be alarmed if I am right, I met the General about four months ago during an assassination attempt by the Imperium on the Confederate President."

Bravo nodded saying nothing else and a little light on his chest blinked then he proceeded down towards the meeting room where the meeting was to take place and he waited there

Nodding to James, Lyngia turned back to her station, queuing up the comm. "Excalibur, this is First Officer Starev of the Enterprise. Due to unusual circumstances, the meeting is taking place now. If you aren't ready, use the Holo cam. This is extremely important. I repeat, this is extremely important."-

James hurried off to the meeting room, signaling Lyngia to follow. They were greeted by several holograms of the other captains, along with Admiral Pierson. "Admiral, I didn't realize you had arrived already," James said as he went over and shook the Pierson's hand.

"I try to keep my people on their toes. It helps them be able to make a decision at a moments notice. Anyway, what is the problem?"

James sat down and turned to Pierson. "That Anomaly Enterprise ran into is a massive Gatekeeper starship graveyard. Thousands of ships are there. What worries me is that the other quantum signature there is unknown. It is unlike the signature of the Argosia Fracture."

Pierson pondered the situation. "Do we have a plan to find out what happened?" he asked.

James nodded. "Yes, I do. I am having Bravo put together an away team that can go over to one of the ships after we tractor it out of the rift. I think if we can get the ship sufficiently far away it will revert back to normal space."

Captain DeSoto was not too pleased. "You mean to tell me you are sending people over to some ship that could have been rigged to self-destruct if it detected intruders?"

James shook his head. "I was planning on sending over a recon drone before the team entered. That way, if there were any traps, the drone would be the one to set them off."

The captain of the Carson spoke up. "So, other than this unexpected rift, what is this meeting about?"

James and Pierson looked at each other, and then Pierson turned to the other captains. "As you all know, we are on a deep-space exploration mission that is intended to locate allies to help us fight the Imperium. But, not only that, we are here to try and find more clues about the Gatekeepers. We have learned massively about them just from the Hypergates and the facilities such as those on Altaris and Denevi. But, we have found intriguing information that has lead us here. We have reason to believe this may be one of the last places the Gatekeepers were before they disappeared from the galactic scene. We are here to find out anything we can, and bring it back home. We have six months to complete our mission."

Bravo spoke up and stepped forward beside Pierson, looking at him "Why such the small time frame Admiral?" Bravo asked not understanding some of the facts "And why assign a War Droid on an exploration mission? isn't my purpose to fight? I don't have any proper defense protocols in my system sir" Bravo asked looking around at all the holo's of the other captains

Pierson turned to Bravo. "We have reason to believe that within six months the Imperium will have broken through our defensive perimeters in the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies. If we don't get allied support within that time, we are going to have to pull the fleets back to our strongholds." He then addressed the whole group. "Our fleet is down to 35 percent of what it started at two years ago. With the loss of the battleships Cutlass, Asi, and Curtana, we are severely outgunned. Our shipyards won't have the replacements ready until next year. We need to find allies if we are going to survive. The entirety of the Confederacy depends on our success." He then turned back to Bravo.

"You are here because General Kriemhild believes that whoever destroyed these ships is still out there. We need your combat expertise if we get into any fights with this unknown enemy. Besides, you aren't the only Sector 20 operative here." Pierson turned to a captain at the far end of the table. "Captain Corday, I am aware that your ship is a prototype developed by Sector 20."

Corday nodded. "You are correct, Admiral. The Night Stalker was developed at Mars Orbital under the watchful eye of the General himself."

James was confused. "So, why bring a prototype warship along with us if we are looking for allies, not enemies?"

"I am not exactly sure. Sector 20 wanted it to join the fleet, so we allowed it." Pierson replied.

Corday then spoke up. "The Night Stalker has a Gatekeeper interface installed in it, allowing it to take control of any Gatekeeper vessel we may encounter. Our preliminary reports of this galaxy show that there are nearly twenty derelicts that can be brought back online. We need the ships."

"understood sir" Bravo saluted the Admiral then stepped back into his original spot he started in the small orange light on his chest flashing again but Bravo shut it off before it could become a distraction to any of the captains or the admiral himself.

Pierson then stood up. "Everyone, you know how dire our situation is. We don't have much time, so we should get underway as soon as possible." He turned to James.

"I will coordinate with Enterprise and the Night Stalker to get that wreckage tractored out of the rift. After that, your team has six hours to survey the vessel."

James nodded. "Understood, Admiral." The holograms began to shimmer out and Pierson tapped his comm badge. As the teleporter began to take hold of him, he left with one last comment.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

James grinned. "As always, Admiral." Within moments Pierson was back on the Excalibur. James signaled for Lyngia and Bravo to return to the bridge with him.

He called up engineering. "Chief, reroute power to the main tractor beam. We are going to try and pull a ship out of the rift."

Commander Ubinov nodded. "Understood, sir. Rerouting power."

Within minutes the three ships had pulled the wreckage from the rift.

"All energies from the ship are stable. I think it is safe to send over the drone now." the science officer reported.

"Very well. Launch the drone," James said. The drone launched from the upper hangar and within moments reached its destination.

"Probe is entering ship… No signs of traps. I think it is clear for us to proceed."

James signed with relief. "Good." He spoke to the bridge crew. "Bravo, have your team ready. Lyngia, you are with me. We are also going down to that wreckage." He turned to the science officer. "Commander, you have the conn." They hurried off to the shuttle hangar.

Bravo took 6 others with him on the shuttle as he waited for James signal to launch "ready whenever captain" Bravo said as he charged up his rifle, the other marines had their standard EVA suits on and their personal defense weapons at the ready, Bravo's lights changed from blue to red signalling he was now in combat surveillance mode which meant he was ready for anything.

James fired up the shuttles main power core and began the warmup sequence for the engines. "Everyone, strap in. I'm going to fly us in with inertial dampeners at only 50 percent so I can get a better feel of what maneuvers we are actually doing. He turned to Bravo. "Make sure that cargo container stays strapped down at all times. If it gets lose we're going to be in for a world of hurt."

As soon as the shuttle was powered up James detached the magnetic locks and floated the shuttle out of the hangar. Once the shuttle had reached a thousand meters distance from the carrier, he fired up the engines and sent the shuttle towards the wreck at almost full speed. He made some minor course adjustments to avoid smaller wreckage that had unfortunately had been caught in the tractor beam.

"Looks like we are coming up on the auxiliary hangar. I think we can fit through that gap in the hangar doors." He gently maneuvered the shuttle between the doors. He brought it down gently on the deck and activated the magnetic locks. "Okay, everyone. We have six hours to do this. Let's get the science equipment unloaded and start to search this ship for any signs of power. If we can get auxiliary power online, we can upload the data from the computer core to the Enterprise." He adjusted his EVA suit slightly and cautiously stepped off of the shuttle. "Looks like the grav plating still works. We should have about one quarter Earth gravity in here. Set your magnetic boots to adjust for the gravity. We don't want anyone bouncing off the walls."

As soon as they land Bravo pulls the crate off of the shuttle and the marines load off with him and begin securing the local area available and Bravo sticks with James "what now captain?"

Lyngia looked around the hangar of the wrecked ship, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. She was highly tempted to ignore James's orders about her magnetic boots; bouncing around in low gravity was one of her favorite things to do. Biting her lip, she looked at James, and decided she'd better listen to him.

Holding her breath in excitement, Lyngia hopped out of the shuttle and moved to stand next to the Captain. She nudged him with her elbow and whispered softly, "Sir, about the meeting. If we need allies, strong allies, that bad, wouldn't it be simpler to contact....well, you know...." She gave him a pointed look.

James signaled for the marines and Bravo to secure the hangar. He then turned to Lyngia and set his comm unit to only relay to her. "You know as well as I that they have their own Empire to fight. I would love to give the Jedi a call, but they are out trying to fight the reborn Emperor. Though, I did get a strange communication from a certain General Antillies about a month back. He said he would be waiting for our return."

He turned his comm back to the team. "We need to move three hundred meters forward and two decks up. That is where the computer core should be." As he stepped forward he could feel the deck plates twisting. "This ship doesn't have long before it falls apart. We need to hurry." He activated the lights on his helmet and proceeded forward, plasma rifle at the ready.

The marines moved to any entry way they could find blocking it off and holding their weapons at the ready. Bravo joined one of them and his head lights flickered and his motors twitched but it only lasted a split second then he walked through the door they were planning to and he advanced slowly under his own desire

"Well, I for one can't wait to go back," Lyngia said, grinning. "Especially if Antillies is asking." Chuckling, she started after James, eyes peering into the darkness. Her smile slowly slipped away, however, as she thought about the implications of that communication. A certain piece of information only she knew, something she should have told her captain long before now.

She bit her lip, contemplating the idea of speaking up, and telling him her secret now; but she shook her head, now wasn't the time. They had a mission to do, and she shoved all other thoughts aside. Focus, Lyngia, focus, she thought, turning her mind to the task at hand.

"All quiet on the sensors captain" Dimitry reported, "it seems your boarding has gone unnoticed so far"

"Very well, Chief. Keep me updated," James Replied to Dimitri. He turned to the others. "I'm picking up a faint energy signal ahead. One of the computers might still be active." He hurried ahead of the group, inspecting the bulkheads for tell-tale signs of what attacked the ship. When he got to the end of the corridor he noticed a sight all too familiar. "This is a Gatekeeper prototype, much like the starship Explorer that we discovered nearly three hundred years ago." He scanned for the active computer. He then plugged his wrist device into the computer. "The computer is working. I'm decoding it right now." After a few minutes it was ready to be uploaded to the Enterprise computer core. "Let's get this device hooked up and get everything uploaded. This ship is going to fall apart any minute."

"Um, Captain? I'm stuck." Lyngia, following James, had stepped on a particularly corroded portion of the corridor, and her foot had plunged through the floor. She crouched, as the floor was up to her mid-calf. "I'm afraid that if I try to pull it out, my suit will rip; and that would be bad. Help, please."

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