Dr. Lang requested the use of a Zentran flagship to gather up the mysterious ship found on the moon. After receiving the ship, he brought the spider-like vessel down to Earth using the tractor beam of the Zaphan Flur. Once on Earth, Dr. Lang started going over the vessel and recording his findings in a log.
"The outer hull seems to be some sort of organic crystalline matrix similar in strength to the bio hulls of Zentran/Meltran warships. Length of the ship is about fifteen hundred meters," Dr. Lang said into his vocoder.
"Dr. Lang, I think you should see this," Tech Van Longbrough called from near the ship.
"What is it?" Dr. Lang asked, as he walked over.
Van pointed to a dead bird that was lying near the ship. "When that bird landed on the ship, it died. I think the ship has some kind of contact poison."
"Which goes to show that I'm not paranoid in having all the techs wear special gloves," Dr. Lang said with a smirk and then opened a comn channel to the rest of his team. "Be advised this ship is poisonous upon contact with exposed skin. Triple check all safety measures."
After making sure his team was taking even stricter safety precautions, Dr. Lang continued the study of the ship.
"The interior of the ship has room for the forty smaller craft that I believe are fighters, but it lacks the room for a large cargo or crew. It is my belief that this ship is some kind of drone ship. There is a vacancy that seems to be tailor made to hold some kind of control computer in the center of the ship"
Dr. Lang moved onto the weapon systems and compared them to what he knew.
"The lower half of the ship is taken up by powerful beam that seems to be on par with the main cannon of Dolza's ship. A further examination is warranted to make Destroyers, Command Carriers, Battleships, and Flagships more effective. The other system that seems to be a weapon is some kind of fields generator. Test of the field generator and comparing it to a Fold Drive shows no interaction between the two. There seems to be a propulsion system that connects to hyperspace on this ship. Halting examination until devices capable of opening a hole into hyperspace have been built.
After resting for a few days and sending off his reports to UN Space, Dr. Lang had small versions of the ship's drive, its field generator, and prototype jump point generators built.
"Testing the field generator with a prototype device capable of opening a hole into hyperspace showed that the field generator violently closes the hyperspace portal. A minor addition to our ships Fold Drives will give all our Space Fold capable ships the ability of this field generator at the cost of one metric ton of weight. It is recommended that the modification be done to all Space Fold capable ships. The ship appears to have sensors that can see into hyperspace and can see from hyperspace into normal space. The drive unit of the ship has a flaw that it emits neutrinos that can be tracked. Theories and controlled tests using replicas of the ship's drive and sensors showed that a ship executing a Space Fold will foul up the sensors and drive of the ship. Speculation is that the act of folding space to make instantaneous transport temporarily disrupts hyperspace. Hyperspace travel, although interesting, should not be pursued. The hyperspace sensors can be added to the ships for a minimal amount of space and effort and thus recommended that they be added. This concludes the preliminary examination of the ship."
Dr. Lang and his tech crew moved the ship to a secure location where they could do more detailed analysis of the what the Shadow Battle-Crab was capable of doing along with the fighter craft that the ship came with. Although the hyperdrives on the fighters were not use in helping with UN Spacy's propulsion, they were of great boon to make the Space Fold drives smaller. Dr. Lang wanted to have a limited use Space Fold drive equipped to some of the Valkyries in case they got left behind in a huge battle and they could make the journey to a UN Spacy world. What Dr. Lang and his crew didn't notice was that the Shadow Battle-Crab sent out a distress signal to a world known as Z'Ha'Dum.
===/\=== As the surveys of the nearest solar systems to Earth showed that they were unoccupied by sentient life, the UN Spacy exploration force moved on to other solar systems. The three SDF ships defolded just outside a red star solar system about twenty-two light years distant from Earth, they picked up their first sign of other intelligent life.
"Commodore, I'm picking up weak signals coming from the fourth planet in the system," Sammy said.
"All ships, be alert. We have found someone out here," Rick said. "Take us to the fourth planet Captain."
"Aye aye sir," Lisa replied with a smile.
The three SDF's carefully made their way to the fourth planet of system, while scanning the system. They soon picked up the debris from a battle floating between the worlds. They soon made it to the world and saw ruined cities near huge craters. Further scanning showed the remains of spaceships on the planet. Commodore Hunter motioned to have his voice broadcast to the other two ships.
"I want an investigation party to go down and find out what happened. I want to know if this war is still going on," Rick firmly stated.
After receiving confirmation, Rick impatiently waited in his office.
===/\==
Far away on a planet called Z'Ha'Dum, there was a meeting between some spider-like creatures.
"A distress beacon from one of the ships buried in the human system has been picked up," one of the Shadows said. "It is the one we buried on Earth's moon."
"How?" another asked. "None of those the Vorlon care for could have found that one."
"The ship broadcast that it is being examined by a human being," the first Shadow said and gave a chuckle. "Somehow, Earth has slipped out of the Vorlon's grasp."
"We should find out what is going on in the Earth system," a third said. "Something that could cause one of our ships to fall into human hands before the Vorlon's planned time for Humans to achieve jump-point capability should be interesting."
A fourth Shadow spoke up. "We'll decide if we should talk to Earth or not, after we examine the situation a bit closer. Since the Oreini/Centauri War is over and the Drakh pushed back, the Vorlons will think we are sulking."
"There is something more," the first Shadow said. "There was a word or name that was picked up by our ship that was being broadcast by something from or near Earth: Alus."
"Alus?" the second Shadow asked. "I wonder what that means. At any rate, let's go see what Humanity is up to."
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Disruptor
(Posted Sun, 11 Jun 2006 06:03)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.