Editors note: Itss time for a new chapter. Chaper 4-2 is finally done in all its glory and out for the public to read. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter. I am extreamly happy with it and its development. It is about 3,200 words long. Not quite as long as the Last chapter. (6,400 words) still a pretty good size. I will be taking a few days off from writing now and I hope to have the next chapter done next week sometime. But as you know RL can change that. Feedback wanted!
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Chapter 4 - 2
Explorations of the Great Unknown � Part 2
The eyes of the crew were still adjusting to the brightness of what they were seeing on the screen. Captain Sh�tor was busy going from station to station getting the latest on sensor readings and anything other information that he could get off of what was out there. Qullum was steadily inputting and running constant scans of the space around them trying to get a better understanding of what was seen. He had ideas of what it all was but he was not about to speak those ideas, as he knew that they would probably not receive the best reception. The Captain of the space ship
Expedition soon began issuing commands to the rest of the crewmen that were not on the bridge but throughout the ship.
�Engineering, I want you to begin repairs of the most important systems that were even slightly damaged in the transit. I expect everything to be in tip top shape by 1400 hours today.� Said the Captain to chief engineer Temear Mushula; a young female officer that was rising very fast to become the best engineer in Hevordian history. She had already solved some of the most difficult questions in the field of engineering. When she was younger no one ever thought she would amount to anything, she was always the geek in school. Even her closest of friends thought she was a geek. But now look at her, she is the engineer in charge on the first ever space borne ship in Hevordian history. She may have been a geek, but she proved to become something extremely special to her people; her one-time �friends� of the past were now living very, shall we say� common� lives? They were remote miners on Kriekaal. Many have said it serves them right for making fun of one of the most brilliant minds in their recent history.
The Captain then made his way to the back of the ship to the science station where Qullum was working. He began to speak, �Mr. Gorgas, what have you got so far? I would like to know where we are as soon as possible.�
Qullum just looked at the Captain for a moment before answering. �I am working the best that I can, sir. If I knew where we were you would be the first to know. Right now we are still encountering interference to the scanners; we are working at getting things cleared up.�
�Very well then,� replied Captain Sh�tor, �Oh and another thing, is it possible to send a communications log back to Kriekaal to update command of our situation?�
Qullum began pondering all the possibilities of whether it was possible or not to send a communiqu� back to command. He then reached a conclusion. �I see no reason why we could not do so Captain. Before we went through the portal we launched a stationary probe at our Last position in order to record our transit from that angle. I imagine that if we program the main deflector array to send strong enough signal back to that probe then we could use that to boost our communications link with command. It will take some time to recalibrate the dish to handle the stress of sending that strong of a signal but it can be done.�
The Captain nodded and then said, �Very well. Get it done as soon as possible. I want to begin relaying information back to command of our current situation and to receive further orders.�
Qullum simply nodded and punched a couple buttons on his consol and he entered the lift to make his way down to engineering to begin preparations for sending the communication signal.
Somewhere else in the universe�
�My lord� I have newss for you�� began a short fellow who apparently had been in many fights before as his face was badly scarred.
�What is it?� came the reply of the tall man that never came out into the light to reveal his face.
The short alien figure began to pace across the room. �I have jusst received a communiqu� from Mr. Rodale on the planet Kriekaal��
�And�?� replied the Overlord.
�He ssaid that the Hevordian people have jusst disscovered their firsst sstar ssysstem, ssir. They are finally exploring the galaxy.� Came the eerie voice of the shorter hunched over figure.
�Very well�I trust you have made the same preparations of the other species in the galaxy. Soon my friend� Soon we will how powerful the Hevordian people are. It was written in the ancient texts that they were the chosen ones that our Supreme Trimver entrusted with the gift. They have shown signs of possessing this gift but many species in the past have shown evidence of the gift as well. We can never be too cautious my dear slaves. We can never be too cautious.� The tall figure stepped back further into the shadows. While you could not see his face you could feel it in the room that he had an evil grin on his face as he walked away.
Back on Kriekaal�
2400.3.21
It was an unusually slow day down on the planet surface as many people went about their normal lives once more. A couple days earlier there was much activity in the prime city on Kriekaal as the news about the mission reached the planet. Not much detail was given besides the fact that the ship
Expedition had went to explore the strange pockets of gases at the far end of the nebula and that they were almost destroyed when an object came through that particular spot; of course we all know that object to be the asteroid. And also that, after examining the situation they were in they had decided to try to go through what Qullum Gorgas had deemed a �Warp-gate�. After which they lost communication with the ship and assumed all hands lost. They were not able to get a communiqu� channel open to the ship and had assumed the worst. They would send out another ship to investigate the situation further, but they would make no further attempt to transit the portal.
Mr. Rodale was in his office preparing for another days work at the office. Nothing new to what he had grown accustomed to, he would simply be meeting with the other seven board members and discussing grants, proposals for development of the planet and so forth. Something he wished he could get away from. After all, his mission on this planet was virtually over with. He was now to simply tie up the loose ends and fake his death so that he could return to his home world, which was not too hard of a task for such a smart man. While he was going over some statements that he had received his hologrid came to life. On the screen came the face of Civ�I, fellow member of the board.
�Good morning,� came the words out of the youngest member of the board. Mr. Rodale did the customary salute for all members of the board and replied, �Good morning to you too Civ�I, how may I help you today?�
Civ�I returned the smile that he received from Mr. Rodale and he stated, �Well, since we had not heard anything from
Expedition we assumed the worse.� Rodale began to wonder what the point of this communiqu� was all about. �Yes, I am aware of the situation. What about it?� replied Rodale in an almost frustrated tone.
�Well Mr. Rodale, it appears that
Expedition is alive and kicking sir.�
�What? How can this be? We have not picked up any signals from the ship and we have not heard anything from them through communications channels for almost a week now.� Came the surprised, albeit, excited reply from Rodale.
The young man basically shrugged his shoulders and said; �We do not know the details right now sir. It was a very basic communication that we received from them. The Chairman is calling for a immediate conference with the rest of the board members and also the top 3 people in charge at GorgaSpace, Inc.�
�Very well,� replied Rodale, �I have to do a couple other things before I can get there. I should be there in about 20 minutes.�
Civ�I simply nodded and terminated the comm. link.
Back on the ship Expedition�
After about 8 hours Qullum finally had the main deflector array ready to send the signal back through the portal, while it was not 100% ready to go Qullum had left the rest of the work to his colleagues due to the amount of work he had yet to finish. Qullum set off from engineering to head to astrophysics to complete his work on figuring out where they were exactly. He had already spent a large amount of time trying to find a way around the interference that was plaguing the ships sensor arrays. After recalibrating the sensor array over 35 times Qullum had finally figured out how to get past the interference. After he had done so and after getting his initial results back from the computer he compiled a detailed list of everything they were picking up in the system. But he did not think that that was everything out there. So he went back to work extending the range of the sensors only to pick up about twice as many objects has his first scans had brought in.
Once Qullum had finished scanning everything in this particular sector of space he called up the Captain and other commanding officers to have a conference about it all. �This is Qullum Gorgas,� began Qullum over the shipboard communications systems, �to all commanding officers on the ship, including Captain Sh�tor. I wish to convene with everyone at the soonest possible time. I have some groundbreaking information that I wish to discuss with you all. Gorgas out.�
Two hours later all the commanding staff had assembled in the main conference room located on the first deck of the ship and just off the right side of the main bridge.
After everyone had taken their seats Qullum stood up and began to speak. �You are no doubt wondering why I brought you all here at this particular time.� Stated Qullum. Every simply nodded and Qullum continued. �And you rightfully are curious. I would be too if I were in your position. But anyways, the whole point of me bring you here is to inform you of our current situation with scans and so forth. After many hours of hard work and recalibrating sensor arrays and extending the frequency of such scans, we have finally broken through the interference.�
Every began hoping that it could only mean good news but they did not want to openly express their happiness until it was indeed a good thing. Qullum continued, �While to the naked eye we could guess what was out there we did not make any assumptions for fear that we could be wrong and we would lose the trust of not only your crew, but also of our society. I have compiled a detailed list of our findings and they are as follows�� Qullum then walked over to a screen located on the wall and pressed a few buttons and a readout of the system came to life in the center of the conference table they were seated at. While everyone silently went over the information found on the holo projection that was displayed Qullum read off the items.
�First of all we have mapped out this whole area of space into 144 sectors. Each sector consists of just less than 1 light-year. In these 144 different sectors we have discovered a total of 44 objects. I will now itemize everything we found.� Began Qullum.
�There are a total of 22 different planets, ranging in size from tiny, to huge. Out of these 22 different planets there are 5 that our people can breathe if we were to land on the surface. In 17 different sectors we have found what we will call asteroid belts. In 2 other sectors we have scanned magnetic space storms. Whether these are a danger to the ship we do not know yet. In yet another 2 sectors we have found warp-gates; similar in shape and size to the one that we traversed just a week and a half ago. Last but not least in the center of the system there is a star that illuminates the whole sector of space.�
Qullum stopped speaking for a brief moment before he continued on. �We have spent many hours studying our discoveries over the past couple days and the more we go over the information the more details we find out about each of these items. I just wanted to debrief you all on our current status in this star system. If the Captain has nothing further then you are dismissed.� The Captain thought for a minute then came to the conclusion that he had nothing further and he stood up to walk out of the conference room. Qullum also began to walk out as he remembered one more detail. �Oh!� he exclaimed. Everyone turned back around to look at him as he said, �I forgot to mention one other detail. We still do not know where we are; we do not know how far we are from Kriekaal. All that is known is it is very far from our home. We will keep you all informed as more information becomes available. That will be all.� Qullum continued to walk out the room and as he walked past the Captain he just simply nodded and smiled and made his way to the lift to go to his quarters and get some much needed rest.
Back on Kriekaal�
Civ�I, Mr. Rodale, Mitolth, Talishka, and the other members of the board convened in their main chamber of conference. Before they had went into the room they were all debriefed as to what the situation of
Expedition was in before they lost contact. They did not know however what their current status was; and that was what this whole meeting was to discuss. Everyone found their regular seats and they all organized their positions in order to get any information on the matter at hand in a quick and efficient manner.
After everyone was ready to proceed the Chairman spoke. �Ladies and gentlemen of the board. As you are all no doubt aware I called this impromptu meeting in order to reevaluate the status of the star ship
Expedition. When the ship first launched it was a great day in our history, for our people to finally be reaching out into the nebula in which we call home was a great accomplishment. But alas, it was not a completely successful mission; at least, so it appeared. We lost contact with
Expedition approximately 2 weeks ago to this day. We received no communiqu�s from the ship and we scanned no debris of the ship in their Last known coordinates; we had assumed the worst and declared to our society and to all families involved that the ship had mysteriously vanished with all hands lost.�
The Chairman continued on in his speech. �Not much was said about the matter over the past few days; that was, until this morning. Over at the new Communications Command Center, or as we have come to know it, the CCC, that was specifically built for the purpose of communicating with ships as they journeyed the nebula, they were monitoring all frequencies to pick up anything they possibly could; hoping to pick up on a communication that maybe got lost in subspace on its way back to the center. Everything was going just as it has been for the Last two weeks, with nothing on the channels but the occasional subspace bleep that amounted to nothing. But then suddenly at 0400 hours we received a communications signal from
Expedition.�
Everyone�s eyes went from their normal white with slight yellow ring in them to a bright yellow that indicated their excitement. The Chairman could tell everyone wanted to hear more information so he continued on. �I will now replay the recording that we received.� The Chairman reached over to the table before him and hit a button. The Chairman grabbed his drink and took a few sips while he waited for the recording to begin. Throughout the room the speakers began to play the recording for all members of the board to hear.
�This is Captain Sh�tor of the space ship Expedition calling Command Center.� You could tell that the computer systems were filtering out all the interference that it possibly could while it played the message.
�The current date is 2400.3.10. This message cannot be long as we are boosting our signal using the tracking probe we left when we began our journey through the portal. We made it through safely; the ship took relatively no damage except to a few key systems. We do not know exactly where we are located but Qullum Gorgas and his teams of experts are working feverishly trying to figure it out. We are going to remain stationed here until we can receive more information from the surrounding area of space. You are probably wondering what we have discovered so far. Well we do not have much information at this point on that matter either. Our sensors are having some trouble breaking through the interference that we are receiving; Qullum and his gang are also working toward fixing that problem.� In the background you can hear someone yell something at the Captain, then the Captain comes back on.
�I was just informed that our boosting time is running out. I will have to cut this shorter then I would like to. To reply to this message just send a recording to the coordinates of the tracking probe we left.
Captain Sh�tor out.�
The Chairman took a final sip of his drink then he set it down on the table. �There you have it. That is all the information we have on the situation on hand. The crew of
Expedition is still alive and made it through the portal with hardly any problems. Our society is advancing at a much faster pace then expected; and while I did not agree with this whole mission in the first place, I find myself hoping that they find other planets out there. We are not going to debate on whether what to do or what we are going to tell the crew when we respond to their message. However, I do wish to raise a matter to you all that I find to be rather important. It has to do with Qullum Gorgas and his position in our society.
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The saga Continues... 
Re: Hevordah Imperium - Story thread - Updated 6-13-03!
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