The Rise of Atlantis Pt. 02

"SON OF A BITCH! How many other ships in the fleet had that same shield design?" Lyssa asked the anger in her voice clearly evident.

"Almost all of them had their shields redesigned specifically for this last battle. The only ships that didn't were the Destructor, the Vengeance, the Viper, the Wasp, the Hornet, the Atlantia, and the Stryker. The only reason their shields weren't changed to the new design is because as Sue knows, they were on a search and destroy mission and couldn't get back to spacedock before you located the Groms fleet. Looking at the damage they sustained, I'd say they probably carried the load of the battle. I'd also be willing to bet that somehow the Groms had prior knowledge of the new shield design. There were at least fifty battlecruisers that were all hit the same way, one torpedo to a ship. It looks like the rest were taken out by tachyon bursts fired from the gunboats through those gaps to knock out their shield generators. Then the Groms used conventional missiles to punch holes through the hulls until they were sure everyone was dead.

I went through the Constellation's logs and I couldn't find any information regarding who approved the new shield design or who ordered the upgrades. The only thing I could find was a notation that the changes were mandatory. I did find two official complaints to fleet command. One was filed by Captain Reed and the other by his chief engineer Commander McElroy. Both complaints stated that the shield design was flawed and posed a danger to both the ship and the empire. If fleet command ever sent a response, I couldn't find it."

Sue's eyes narrowed as she said, "That doesn't make any sense at all. The only way something like that could happen is if there was a traitor high enough up in the chain of command at fleet that nobody would question them."

"I think you're right Sue," Lyssa replied. "But the only one with enough juice to pull something this big off would be the Chief of Fleet Operations. It would have to be Admiral Collins herself or someone in her office. Even then, I don't know how they managed to get it past fleet security or the Special Security Services."

"The office of the CFO was a political nightmare Lyssa," Kendra said with a frown. "Fleet security and the Special Security Services were constantly tripping over each other and stepping on each other's toes. Finally, about a year ago, they came to an unofficial agreement. Special Security Services would take primary responsibility for the CFO and her staff. The triple "S" agents would've only been concerned with the safety of Admiral Collins and some but not all of her staff members. They wouldn't have paid any attention to fleet matters at all. Because fleet security wasn't active in the CFO office, they wouldn't have picked up on it either. It was common knowledge that fleet security had an unwritten 'hands off' policy when it came to Admiral Collins and her staff. Now that I think about it, it has all the makings of an attempted coup gone horribly wrong."

"It may seem like it was an attempted coup at first glance," Lyssa replied. "But I seriously doubt that's what it was. Kiera Collins was well liked by the general staff. But there's just no way she would ever be able to garner enough support from the fleet and the general public to be able to pull something like that off. No, my instincts tell me there was something else going on. But I'll be dammed if I know what it was."

"I'd like to know the who's, how's, and why's myself," Sue said. "But all that would do is satisfy my curiosity. Atlantia, Cronus, and Gromus are all destroyed. Whoever is responsible is obviously already dead, so there's no way to hold anyone accountable."

"Holding someone accountable may not be possible, Sue. But I'd feel a lot better if I knew for certain that whoever was responsible didn't hop in a private transport and take off before shit hit the fan. For all we know, that last battle may have been just a diversion to buy the time our traitor and a shipload of Groms needed to make their getaway." She turned to Kendra and said, "I want you to take the rest of the night off. Go to your quarters and do whatever it is you do to relax. Get some sleep and report back here at zero seven thirty for breakfast. I wanna make sure you have a full belly before you start your day tomorrow."

Kendra stood, saluted, giggled, and then said, "Yes mom."

Lyssa shook her head and chuckled softly, "Smartass," she said to Kendra's back as Kendra headed out the door. She turned to Sue and said, "Do me a favor, clean up this mess and put the food cart out in the passageway for me. I've got a couple of things to do. After that, I'm gonna follow my own advice and relax a while before bed."

She took a seat at the communications console and thought for a few minutes as Sue cleaned things up then said, "Lain, go through the Destructor's current crew roster and pick two hundred eighty four names at random. Exclude medical personnel, engineers, and anyone whose rank exceeds ensign. Transfer those crew members to the Constellation effective at eighteen hundred tomorrow. Send the personnel files of those being transferred to Admiral Lewis's private computer aboard the Vengeance using my private recognition code. After that pick another one hundred and eighty six names using the same criteria. Transfer them to the Atlantia's Revenge also effective at eighteen hundred tomorrow. Send those personnel files to Commander Thomasin's private computer again using my private recognition code. When you're finished with all that, transfer Dr. Hicks from our sickbay and Dr. Steed from the Destructor's sickbay to the Atlantia's Revenge, same effective time as before. Then notify Captain McDuff and Commander Evens of the transfers."

"Everything's all set Lyssa. I took the liberty of sending a copy of the transfer orders to each crew member being transferred. That way they'll be able to say good bye to their fellow crewmates that are staying behind and have plenty of time to pack their gear."

"Thanks Lain, sometimes I don't know what I'd do without you. Sending out the individual orders completely slipped my mind." Lyssa stood and went to a cabinet grabbing two glasses then pulled a bottle of Chablis from her wine cooler. She poured two glasses and handed one to Sue then said, "Come on, we can stretch out and relax while we talk." She set her glass on her nightstand, laid on her back with her hands behind her head and continued, "Amy's gonna get all two hundred and twelve personnel that's left over from splitting up the Destructor's crew. I've sent her two doctors as well, just to be on the safe side. We won't have to worry about the other six ships at all." She went on to explain the plan she had worked out with Lain earlier then went on to say, "This way we'll have ten combat ready ships. Six of which will be expendable if it comes to that."

Sue laughed then said, "I like your plan a lot better than mine Lys. I don't think you've got anything to worry about as far as the Beta Quadrant goes. I mean come on now, seven battlecruisers, the Atlantia's Revenge, the Vengeance, AND a cloaked Victorious? It'd take one hell of a fleet to stand up to that kind of firepower! I know you haven't had time to look over the specs for the Atlantia's Revenge, so I'll give you a quick summary. That ship's gonna be one big, bad bitch when she's finished. She'll have twenty three tachyon cannons mounted in turrets on each side, with two more turrets each fore and aft. Ensign Rodgers plans on installing a separate antimatter reactor on her exterior upper deck to power them all. Her defensive shield, and her warp core, along with all her other systems will be powered by the main antimatter reactor. That baby will be able to take a hell of a lickin' and still keep on tickin'! She's gonna be leaner, and meaner than any ship in the fleet!"

"Not quite Sue. I'll grant you the Atlantia's Revenge will be one hell of a ship, but her little sister Victorious could still kick her ass, and not break a sweat doing it," Lyssa said with a smile. "The Victorious has phased frequency and double density shielding. The double shields change frequencies randomly. At no point in time do the frequencies of the shields ever match each other. It's impossible to tune an energy weapon to penetrate her shields, and projectile weapons simply bounce off of the double shielding. Add to that her ten Ion cannons, and her six high yield, guided, photon missile launchers then throw in her cloak, and you've got a ship that's almost impossible to beat."

"All right, you've got me there," Sue laughed. "I should've taken some time to check out the specs on the Victorious before I stuck my foot in my mouth. I didn't think ANY of that was even theoretically possible, let alone a reality. I always wondered why Daddy never moved you up to command a battlecruiser, now I understand. I wouldn't have promoted you either under the circumstances."

"I didn't think any of it was possible myself until after I assumed command of this ship and started going through some of the files on my GO7 computer. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Daddy had begun the research and design phase of the Victorious shortly after I was born." Lyssa took a deep breath, sighed then said, "Look Mom, I already know why, so you can stop screaming in Sue's head for her not to say anything to me about it. Good heavens, you're so loud that I can hear everything you're telling her. Yes, Mom, I know your womb was damaged somehow during my delivery and that you couldn't have any more children. I also know that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get Daddy to take on a concubine. I was his daughter and Atlantia was gonna have to accept the fact that he only had a female heir. Tough shit if they didn't like it. I know all of this already, so just calm down and give Sue a break."

Lyssa shook her head then let out a short, soft chuckle and continued, "This is just TOO fucking weird. My mother and my sister in the same body. I swear you two are gonna drive me nuts before we even get the chance to leave the Alpha Quadrant. Sue, you're my big sister and I love you to death, but have some guts and tell Mom to shut up once in a while. After all, it's YOUR body she's in, you had it first dammit! And Mom, I love you with every fiber of my being, but YOU have got to trust Sue and me to do the right thing here. I've got a lot of things on my mind that are far more important than me worrying about getting my feelings hurt, or me blaming myself for things I had no control over. Please Mom, try to remember that you and Daddy started teaching me the things I needed to know to be a queen about the time I took my first steps. You both trained me well, so please, let me do the job I was trained to do.

Anyway as I was about to say, there was a brilliant young astrophysicist and design engineer named Emmett McDugal who had written a letter to Daddy asking if he would fund some research projects that Emmett had in mind. Emmett had already approached fleet with his ideas and they had turned him down saying that his projects were too far out in left field to be of any practical use to them. Daddy took a liking to Emmett and between them they worked out the basic design for the Victorious. By the time you and I entered the fleet academy, Emmett's research was complete. Daddy and Emmett were secretly testing prototypes. Construction of the Victorious began about halfway through our third year at the academy and she was ready for her shakedown cruise about a month before we graduated a year and a half later. Because the Victorious was built to serve a specific purpose, she wasn't entered into the fleet registry until after I assumed command. Before that, she had no official designation. People just assumed she was Daddy's private pleasure yacht. Which is how Daddy, Mom, and Emmett managed to sneak her out of space dock. They took her on a short trip to the Jonas asteroid belt just to make sure everything worked the way it was intended. It was the only time her weapons have ever been fired. Everything worked perfectly and no questions were asked when Daddy returned her to spacedock. After that Mom christened her the Victorious, she was assigned a crew and I was ordered to assume command.

In order to insure my safety, Daddy and Emmett agreed that nothing onboard the Victorious would ever be duplicated. How her cloak, weapons, and other special systems worked would remain secrets known only to them and the chief engineer assigned to her. Daddy rewarded Emmett by giving him Tyron's moon Apex as his own personal research lab and agreed to support any project that Emmett had in mind. Two years later, Emmett was killed when the Groms destroyed both Tyron and Apex. Your turn now Sue. Tell me about the Guardian program and DON'T leave anything out."

Sue tapped the side of her head and giggled. "You've got HER a little off balance right now. She had no idea that Daddy put so much information on your GO7 computer. Anyway, now that I have access to Mom's memories, there are some things that I understand a whole lot better than I did before. So I think that in order for you to fully understand the program, I'm gonna have to back up a bit and fill in some other blanks for you first. Yes, Mom did use her original serum on herself, and Daddy insisted she use it on him as well. What they didn't tell anyone was just how powerful that serum actually was. Mom tipped the psionic scale at level 60 and Daddy was a P56. They let everyone think they were P13s because 'normal' people have a natural aversion to those with psionic abilities, or at least they did back then. So when Daddy created Psycorps, and the psionic research division, he had Mom water down her version of the serum by leaving out one key ingredient and adjusting the balance of the other components so that it only produced P13s at best. Mom kept her original formula to herself and nobody else, not even Daddy, knew exactly what was in it.

Now on to you. Before you were born, giving birth to a natural psychic was considered impossible. Mom's theory about your birth is that she and Daddy tipped the psionic scales at such a high level that somehow their abilities filtered down to you. The fact that it's never happened again seems to bear that out. After you were born and Mom found out she couldn't have any more children, she tried to push Daddy into finding a woman to produce a male heir for him. He told Mom flat out no. He had two beautiful daughters, and YOU were his heir. If people couldn't accept that then they could go fuck themselves. Well THAT got them to talking about General Order Seven. They both realized that GO7 would only be implemented in extremely dire circumstances, and they were worried that you might not have all the tools you would need to pull it off. So three things happened. Daddy began researching the Victorious, Mom began researching the Guardian program, and big sister here got a slightly milder dose of Mom's serum and became a psychic.

Mom's first idea was to duplicate the conditions of your birth as closely as possible without risking damage to the would be mother. She did all the research herself in a secret lab Daddy created in our private area of the castle. It took her just over ten years to create a serum she was satisfied with. She harvested eggs from three different women and sperm from three men. She fertilized all the eggs then injected her serum in to each one. Two of the eggs rejected the serum and spontaneously aborted but the third one produced an embryo. Mom found a struggling young university student named Carol Thomasin and offered to pay for her entire education up to a PhD if she'd agree to be a surrogate mother. After Amy was born, Mom placed her in the care of a good friend, and Carol went on to become a professor of eugenics at Cronus City University.

I've already told you everything I know about Kendra and how that came about. So there's no sense in going over that part again and Mom's already told you part of the story with her and I so I'll just fill in the gaps for you. After Amy and Kendra entered the fleet academy, Mom started making plans for a third guardian. You were originally supposed to have a total of five protectors. That was all the program ever called for. The basic idea was to provide you with five women that you could absolutely trust and rely on, no matter what the circumstances might be. But a couple of years ago, Mom realized she was running out of time. She and Daddy decided that the best thing to do was for Mom and me to join forces and become your third and final guardian. That's not a very good description of what actually happened though. Mom didn't really join minds with me. Instead it was more like she made a copy of her mind and then I downloaded it into mine. That's not entirely accurate either but it's the closest I can come to describing the actual process. See there are certain things that make a person who they are. It's not just the environment you grow up in, or your life experiences, though both do contribute some to who you are. The biggest factor is how your mind interprets those things that are around you and the things, good or bad, that happen to you. What your mind chooses to accept or reject, what it chooses to remember or discard, is what ultimately decides your personality and who you become. Anyway, all those things that made Mom, Mom are in here," Sue said as she tapped the side of her head. "Mom herself isn't exactly here with us, but her personality, her memories, her life experiences, her knowledge, her wisdom, and all those other things that made her who she was are inside my head. So I guess in that sense you could say that Mom is here with us, because when she's activated it's her personality that takes over my body. Everything I think, say, and do is exactly what she would do given that particular set of circumstances, and I literally become her. I know, I know, I'm your sister AND your mother. It's confusing as hell to me too, which explains why Daddy didn't want her joining with you. The cross-connections are so complete that it's almost impossible to tell where one personality ends and the other one begins. The weirdest part is the sharing of memories. There's no way to avoid it. I have ALL of her memories and she has ALL of mine. It makes for some pretty embarrassing moments for her and me and it causes some pretty funny internal discussions at times," Sue laughed.

"I don't even wanna try to imagine what it must be like sharing memories with Mom that way," Lyssa giggled then continued, "Thank heavens it's your head she's in. I'd be in a world of shit if she was in my head instead of yours," she said then giggled again.

"I seriously doubt that," Sue replied with a grin. "You think WE were kinky way back when? Let me tell you something, little sister, we've got NOTHING on Mom! She's got us both beat by lightyears."

"TMI," Lyssa laughed. "WAY too much information, Sue. The last thing I wanna hear about is Mom's sex life," she laughed again.

Sue made a little fake pout face then said, "Oh but why not, Lys. I mean I don't just get to hear about it. I get to see the whole thing in living color inside my poor little head. I promise it'll be a lot of fun if you let me tell you all Mom's kinky little secrets," Sue fake whined. She grew serious and said, "Don't worry, Lys. I'm not gonna tell you any of Mom's kinks. I love her too much to ever really do that to her. Besides part of our agreement is that we'll keep each other's secrets."

"Good, thank heavens for that," Lyssa laughed. "I was about to transfer you to the Atlantia's Revenge, just so I could keep my sanity. Anyway, it's been a long day. I'm so exhausted I can't think straight. I'm gonna sack out. She leaned over and gave Sue a kiss on the cheek. "Night Sis, I'll see you in the morning."