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Brendan subconsciously tugged at the waistband of his uniform. It felt a little strange to wear one after all of this time, something he never thought he would do again. But then, he would have never imagined standing on the deck of a starship in his lifetime, either. This was nothing short of miraculous in his mind.
Not that he hadn’t dreamed of it, wished for it, for sure. From childhood he had imagined himself in space; fed on a diet of Star Trek reruns and binge-watching Star Wars at every opportunity. He had watched broadcasts of every shuttle launch and footage from the space station with intense fascination. Now, here he stood, surveying the activities of the bridge crew as they prepared for launch through the dimensional gateway situated light years away from Dimensional Alliance Headquarters.
From what he understood from his briefings, natural dimensional portals didn’t just appear on planets. It was impossible to say whether they were numerous or not, wormhole theory notwithstanding. These were not wormholes as Earth scientists understood them.
Interdimensional gates occurred as naturally in space as those on planets did and were seldom discovered due to the fact that space travel was not as common in the multiverse as space operas and science fiction would have you believe.
For one thing, it wasn’t generally a necessity. Earthlings had an innate natural and driving curiosity that had led them to the verge of space exploration, but even then, it had a hard time finding its way into the budgets of the various countries that pursued it. But, according to the Alliance scientists, there were some cultures in the multiverse that had thriving space fleets and where inter-galactic travel was as common as air traffic was on Earth.
The Dimensional Alliance Headquarters was situated on just such a planet. Not far from the city was a shuttle service that would take passengers to and from a massive space station that was as busy as any of the airports on Earth. It was easy to ignore that fact on the basis of the massive Gateway Network that was the center of attention there. Compared to interdimensional gateways, space travel was somewhat cumbersome, but the network only extended between dimensions, not between planets within a galaxy or universe.
Brendan admitted he had gotten spoiled by interdimensional travel, casually stepping from one universe to the next like going from one room to another in his house. Space travel, like air travel on Earth was time consuming and required many more resources to do it well.
He had undergone his rather rapid training from the space station, a massive complex capable of hosting the entire fleet docked around the various airlocks. It was one of two space stations, one for commercial and civilian use, and one for the military fleet. This fleet was largely for defense, as the beings on the Alliance planet were not a warlike culture, at least not in living memory. However, there were some space-going races that had challenged them in the past. There were no conflicts in their galaxy at this time, but they maintained a space fleet on the off chance it would be necessary in the future.
At some point in the distant past, dimensional scientists had discovered a gate in space. Brendan would have loved to have known the story behind it, but his training had been rather cursory, and his instructors had admitted that much of the history and science of it all had been lost. A study for another time, he mused.
For now, the gate presented an opportunity since they had been able to establish a similar gate in orbit around the planet where Emperor Peril’s “wizards” had resided. So, at this point they waited for “the word” to be passed that it was time to launch.
Thanks to the combined efforts of the Mookookie and their Daringi counterparts, they now had space/time coordinates for many of the Inseni worlds within that dimension. They were still researching which of the planets contained the standing Norgoth government and the elite forces of the Great Insenium, a necessary part of their stratagem, but before they could put it all into place, they needed more intel about how far the Norgoth threat extended and how many of their troops might have been inserted into other dimensions.
Currently their strategy would be to destabilize the Norgoth government and military, with the hopes that this would at least curtail further incursions into new dimensions. However, this did not address the issues of any dimensions where they already had a foothold. The multiverse was massive, beyond imagining. It was unlikely they could rescue them all, no matter how extended the conflict or vast the resources of the Alliance. So, for now, they needed to concentrate on what was within their reach.
Brendan had a strong feeling that even if they were able to eliminate the immediate threat, the conflict resulting from Gall’s plan for domination of the multiverse would extend beyond many of their lifetimes. This didn’t make him any less determined to continue the fight, but he realized that many things would be different.
He had been and was still a Gate Guardian, but, if this conflict continued for years, would he need to find a replacement Guardian for his gate? Probably. If he were honest with himself, if he got to choose, he would choose the starship. Either way, this was an opportunity beyond anything he had ever thought possible in his lifetime. It only made him sad to think of the devastation ahead of them if they were going to protect the innocent from ultimate evil.
