A Space Odyssey Chapter 1

Story Notes and Disclaimers:

First, this will be the typical strong PG-13 for violence, language, and adult related content. This is also a multichapter story.

Also, I hereby blame Chantyrs for inspiring me to write a non canon setting BG FanFic. This fan fic falls into the category of the Scifi adventure genre. So, plot has been modified and the characters involved have been a good deal as well. So if there are inconsistencies... yeah. There will be. So hopefully no one will mind too much.

So, without further ado... enjoy.

 
She leaned back into the battered chair, eyes scanning the console displays. She was bored and tired of being cramped on the small, circular bridge. There was her operations console, the navigation console right next to hers that was manned. The tactical console and comm consoles that ringed the sides of the bridge were empty, as was the worn leather captain’s chair.

Sighing impressively, she finished her check of the scan readouts. Nothing interesting was registering, and that was a good thing. This section of space wasn’t all that well documented anymore. It had once been pretty heavily populated and there were still some population centers, but for the most part it was abandoned.

And this made it hopefully interesting. There could be all sorts of useful and valuable stuff just floating around, ready for the salvaging. And the more rare, the more it credits it was worth. Which meant better equipment and good times back in ‘civilization.’

Checking the console displays again, she thought back to their last lay-up at Athkatla station and smiled. Real fruit for her favorite strawberry daiquiris and that cute redhaired tech with the junk store. She had so much fun torturing the kid, and the fact he seemed to like it made it even better. A slow smile crossed her face as she went over her last visit, when she left the zip to her coverall so intriguingly low and kept on leaning over. The poor boy’s eyes had threatened to pop right out of his skull and he could barely maintain the illusion of looking at her face. Enjoying the memory so much, she didn’t even notice the flashing light on the sensor board.

Her partner at the next station did. He turned his chair halfway to face the daydreamer and said curtly, “Wake up. Sensors have something.”

Coming back down to earth, she shot him a glare, then stuck her tongue out at him. All he did was raise an eyebrow, which annoyed her greatly. The navigator was a dour man and absolutely refused to be riled. Shaking her head, she brought up the sensor report.

Looking it over, she let out a low whistle. The navigator’s eyebrow inched further upwards as she her fingers flew over the console, redirecting the sensors to a high gain scan of that area. Hungrily reading the sensor report, she let out another whistle. Now intrigued, the navigator asked the obvious, “Find something?”

Definitely impressed, she replied, “Yeah. Oh yeah. I definitely found something. Something big.”

“What?”

Punching a few buttons, she transferred the sensor report to the main screen. “Found that, Quiet Man.”

The navigator was quiet for a good moment, his dark face registering complete surprise as he took in the image on the viewscreen. Finally, he managed to say, “Wow.”

“Impressive, isn’t it. I think I better get the Cap up here, huh Valygar?” She was grinning, and it wasn’t just from what was on the screen.

Sighing, Valygar replied, “Well, he did say if it was something important.”

“And this, this I think qualifies.”

Sighing again, he answered, “Yes, I would say so.”

Smiling wickedly, she said, “Oh goodie! This is going to be fun.” Reaching to her belt, she pulled out a small box, flipping it open and revealing a comm unit. Turning it on, she turned it on and said as evenly as she could, “Captain to the bridge. Captain to the bridge.”

No response. Looking down at the communicator, she arched an eyebrow. Beside her, the navigator put his head in his hands. She hit the activate button again and called sweetly, “Captain to the bridge, please.”

More silence. She was being ignored, something she didn’t really appreciate. At all. Punching the activate button for a third time, she called in a syrupy sweet voice, “Oh Captain my Captain! Your glorious presence is requested up on the bridge. Like, now please.”

This time she got an answer. A woman’s voice huskily replied, “Are we under attack?” Then softer, she heard her say, “Stop that, not now… ohhh…”

Valygar began to groan. “No, but you really should come up here.”

“Maybe later…. ohh…. ”

“Look, would you two get up here! Like now, huh?”

“We arrrr… huu.. kinda busy.. at the moment, ohhhhh. Real busy… Oh yes…”

“Let me talk to the Captain.”

“Umm.. heehee..ooooh.. he’s.. he’s occupied… uhh.. right now…ohhhhhhh yesssss.” In the background, the sound of something toppling over echoed through the voxspeaker. Then followed by the sound of the comm hitting the floor.

“Ye gods you two! I find something and you two can’t be bothered because you’re too busy playing Hormone Heroes?” she shouted into the comm unit. Then she cut off the connection, not really wanting to hear what was coming over the channel.

As she slapped the comm back onto her belt, the bridge doors slid open. “Is.. is everything alright? I.. I heard the shouting.”

“Nothing’s wrong Doc. Just trying to get our fearless leader up on the bridge but he’s too busy to come up and see what found.”

“Wh..what did you find?”

Punching the display button on her console, she brought up the sensor reading again. She heard Doc take in a deep breath as she took it all in. Stunned, she said, “And he didn’t want to come up and see that?”

Valygar said, “Well, our little trickster didn’t decide to tell them that part. She was too busy trying to ruin their personal time.”

“Hey! Was not! Okay, I was trying to have a little fun..” She trailed off as the navigator fixed her with one of his dark, even, soul-searching stares. Even the patented ‘sticking out the tongue’ defense didn’t work. Sighing in defeat, she said, “Okay, yeah. I was trying to screw with their personal time, okay? Satisfied?”

Doc fixed her with a blue eyed stare, her pretty face registering disapproval, and just shook her head. “You sh.. should be happy that they are happy.”

“Humph.”

Both other bridge occupants sighed. She looked at both of them and then defensively added, “Well, he should be up here, shouldn’t he? I mean, that’s one helluva find out there.”

Valygar shrugged. “Yes, but I doubt that it won’t be here in fifteen minutes. Leave them be.”

“Oh fine,” she said, hunching over the console and punching in new scan patterns. Valygar and Doc exchanged knowing looks, with Doc saying, “I.. I’ll go tell the others. This is big news.”

The blonde woman strode quickly out of the bridge, leaving the sulking redhead alone with the dark skinned navigator. The bridge was quiet for a good couple minutes, the only sound being the consoles and the hum of the environmental systems. Then, the bridge doors hissed open again.

In walked the Doc followed by two other crew members. One was a slight redhaired woman dressed a coverall like the ops crewer, except hers wasn’t pink and was a fair site cleaner. At her hips hung a prodigious equipment belt, carrying a heavy load of spanners, tools, and other equipment. She flashed a smile at the others. The other stomped into the bridge, his bald tattooed head shining in the bridge lights. Dressed in heavy cargo pants, weapon belt and a white tee shirt that barely covered his huge chest, he boomed, “Little Aerie said that you have found something exciting. So, we are here. What is it?”

Spinning in her chair, the pink clad ops officer, said, “Well, as soon as the Cap and his second decide to actually get up here I’ll show you. Course, they have to stop playing tonsil hockey..”

As if on cue, the doors hissed open again, and two more walked into the crowded bridge. The first was a well tanned woman, her hair pulled back in braids. Dressed in cargo pants similar to the big man, she topped it of with a tee and a heavy mesh cargo vest. As she walked in, she fixed the pink clad woman in a glare that could freeze a sun, obviously not amused. The last figure was a tall man, his dark hair close cropped to the sides, dark eyes and a close cut chin beard. He also wore the cargo pants and tee shirt like the others, but he wore a worn leather jacket atop it. He too looked at the pink clad woman, but he was more amused than annoyed.

With one eyebrow cocked, he asked, “Tonsil hockey? I haven’t heard you use that one in a long time.”

She sunk back into her chair but looked entirely unapologetic. “What, you didn’t like it? I could try to come up with another name for it. How bout horizontal lambada? Or..”

The braided woman cut her off harshly, barking, “Enough child. You wanted us up here, thought enough of it to interrupt us when we left explicit instructions to be left alone. So, what did you find?”

The pink clad woman glared right back, eyes narrowing. “I am not a child. I’m the same age as Bran.”

“Then try acting like it instead of some addled teenage prankster..”

Bran stepped forward and shouted over both of them, “Imoen! Jaheira! Please! I know we’ve been cramped aboard for a while, but lets keep this civil! Please. And if we can’t, then keep it quiet. And that’s an order.” The last part he directed at Imoen, who looked like she was borderline sulky. In order to keep the peace, he flung himself into his captain’s chair and continued, “Now that that’s done with, you said you found something Immy. What interesting bit did you separate from the dross of the universe?”

At the mention of her find, the quicksilver temper of Imoen flipped to excitement. Turning around, she keyed in the sensor reports and as she brought them up, she said with a flourish, “That.”

The silence that fell over the bridge was palpable once again. The other redhead spoke first, “That’s a Daedalous class cruiser. They haven’t been built since before the last Border War. Back when the Alliance was actually interested in protecting people instead of exploiting them. Nearly 500 years ago.”

Without even asking, she walked right over to Imoen’s console and started scrolling through the sensor read outs. Bran leaned forward and asked, “Nalia, what do you make of her?”

“She looks nearly intact, at least as far as I can tell from here. All that equipment, the metals, the computers…”

“The weapons and shields,” boomed the tattooed man excitedly.

“The maps, the records,” echoed Valygar almost as softly as the tattooed man was loud.

“T..the medical records and technology! We could help so many,” gushed the blonde Aerie.

Bran just stared at the viewscreen. “Quite the find there, Imoen.”

Right next to him, Jaheira asked almost rhetorically, “But if it is intact, why is such a ship just adrift? And intact?”

Bran looked over at Jaheira and answered the question anyway, “I don’t rightly know Jaheira. But with that much hardware sitting out there, I intend to find out.” Swiveling back towards the front of the bridge, he order, “Valygar, plot a course, lets go take a closer look at Immy’s little find. And Minsc, get the shields up, just in case.”

Minsc sat down at the weapons station and threw some switches. “Shields up and ready for adventure Captain Bran!” he acknowledged while the dark skinned navigator replied, “Already plotted.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Aye.”

Under Valygar’s expert guidance, the heavily modified deep space cargohauler, the Gorion changed course and sped towards the derelict cruiser and adventure.