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Prologue: Into the Rabbit Hole...
14:28 Zulu, December 19, 2043
Galaxy Patrol 7th Fleet, UNS Essex
Outer Core, System F-273496NHRR "The Dutchman's Treasure Chest"
"Three more defolds! Fifty thousand to port!"
...o...o...o...
The system was not particularly important. The habitable planets had been destroyed during a Zentradi campaign against the Supervision Army remnants four hundred thousand years ago. Two were slowly expanding debris rings and the other had had its atmosphere boiled off.
...o...o...o...
"The Jackson has taken heavy damage! She's pulling back to the Tri Star!" the com officer shouted.
"Get Hailey on the com. We need to bug out now," growled Admiral Jack A. Miller as he turned back to the holographic tactical display that dominated the center of the Command and Direction Center.
...o...o...o...
It was valuable though. There were hundreds of thousands of dead ships littering the system. Not many were repairable, but all the refined material would be an enormous boon to the UN. Those that were salvageable they were not likely to get. Anti-UN terrorists along with several Zentradi units had also found the system and had been readying to conduct their own salvage operations.
...o...o...o...
A small window appeared in the display. It showed the sweaty face of Commander Hailey. The image fizzled as the Essex rocked from a near hit.
"Fz-hat is i-zsh-ir?" Hailey asked as his image cleared.
"We can't hold this position much longer. Do you have the ship secured yet?" Jack flicked his eyes back to the tactical display. They were outnumbered and every one of his ships was under heavy fire from the enemy's lighter elements.
"The last grapples szhiss-eing secured we zsh jump in ten minutes, sir."
...o...o...o...
Both fleets were fighting for the ship that the massive Tri Star factory ship cradled. It was a Protoculture gunship like the Macross. A barrage of shots in that long ago battle had blown out the command block and overloaded the engines. Being on the edge of a flanking maneuver she drifted from the battle, forgotten, and into a long orbit around the system's sole gas giant.
...o...o...o...
"You have five," Jack scowled and killed the com window. He looked around the CDC for the shock of pink hair that was his captain and saw her looking over the sensor officer's shoulder. "Maya," he called above the din, "ready for fold in five minutes."
Maya nodded and grabbed the spare com set above the sensor station, "Aye sir." She flicked a few switches and a klaxon sounded twice. "Secure from combat and rig for fold. Eta five minutes. Suspend any further launches and clear the flight decks for hot landings."
Jack ignored her and turned to the com station. "Mister Paige, fleet wide: All units ready for fold in five minutes. Proceed to next waypoint."
"Aye sir," Lieutenant Mary Paige nodded and began to issue the General's orders.
Jack looked back at the tactical display watched as the enemy fighters began to press in as his disengaged and hightailed it back to their home ships. His brow furrowed as he stared at the enemy's heavy ships. They were hanging back seemingly content to lob long range missile salvos at his fleet when they should be advancing.
"What are you waiting for?"
...o...o...o...
There was a good reason that none of the ships or material had been recovered. This front saw the last large-scale deployment of Fold Weapons in an attempt to slow the advance of Zentradi forces. An entire Zentradi Main Battle Fleet had been destroyed in an adjacent system when the sun was forced to go supernova. Two other systems were moved from this reality and erased by the twisting hyperdimensional energies of the Fold Weapons. This system nearly suffered the same fate. As it stands, it teetered on the edge of unreality before finally beginning to stabilize ten thousand years ago.
...o...o...o...
"Fold engines ready, sir! Fold will commence on schedule. "
"All ships report fighters and surviving escape pods have been recovered!"
"Fold in ten, nine-"
"Multiple defolds forty three thousand ahead! Four, no ten, nineteen- Whoa something's wrong, everything just-"
"-two, one, fold engaged!"
And then everything rotated two hundred and seventy degrees without moving at all.
...o...o...o...
While the space that F-273496NHRR occupied was stable enough to allow some travel in and out of the system, it was not enough for the multiple fold operations that this skirmish brought. The final fold sequence with the UN fleet leaving the system and the terrorist entering it caused the UN fleet to disappear. By all right the UN fleet should have just ceased to exist, but as things are, humanity is a favorite toy of the gods, a neat experiment. And they just got to be a new variable in another reality. The arriving terrorist weren't so lucky. It caused a sort of... twisting to how the exist in reality. Skewed their dimensions. Time as height. Width as time. Nasty stuff like that.