Derelict. A Stargate - nBSG crossover

[LadyTevar]

OH god, Valkyrie, that would be just too frakin' funny! Especially since O'Neill loves that little hologram thingie.

[HSRTG]

I thought this was a story post. I hate you all. *rants about getting revenge*

[Jawawithagun]

Dunno, it would probably be even funnier if the SG people keep referring to themselves as Tauri in their talks to the Galactica folks. Everyone else in the galaxy is calling them that anyway.

So our ragtag fleet doesn't discover they're in actual contact with Earth until _much_ later.

[MPC2163]

When Prometheus first jumped in to the battle, they said something about being an Earth ship. Galactica couldn't make out everything because of the jamming going on. If Galactica had heard that, they would have tried to "protect" the poor, defenseless Prometheus. At least until it absorbed enough fire-power to wipe out a couple Mercuries and then did the Picard Menuvor thingy.

[DrMckay]

Great Story, any word on the next chapter?

[Grand Admiral Ancaris]

Great Story, any word on the next chapter?

As a matter of fact, yes. Chris told me he was hoping to have a new chapter out in a few days.

.... of course he told me this over 3 weeks ago!!!

[Valkyrie]

Its his fanfic we are only the readers

[Grand Admiral Ancaris]

Its his fanfic we are only the readers

I am well aware of that, but I like harassing him and he knows it.

[Valkyrie]

LOL!!!

[Perseid]

DAMN YOU ALL!!! I thought Chris had put in an update

*goes back to waiting for the inevitable update*

[ElPintoGrande]

Long time lurker, first time poster...

What a thumping good read! As a fan of both shows, I can't wait to see the looks on the respective groups faces as the relate their stories to one another. Of course since this wasn't an update that I came across (excited as I was hoping it was one), it should be known that sometime in the dead of night you will be castrated and your naughty bits will be posted in the local town sqaure.

[Soontir C'boath]

Welcome aboard, ElPintoGrande. Since you've been lurker, I don't think I need to tell you to bow down to my will for I serve under Ba'al, the greatest god of all!

I have this thread set to watch, so everytime I get an e-mail stating a new post was made and which is not Chris, is every garbage e-mail I'm getting because of you. Therefore, you are a spammer and you must die!

Seriously, for those asking, shut up. He'll post the next chapter when he feels like it because the last time he gave us a 'set date,' he went past it. So really there's no point in asking.

[Valkyrie]

Bow before your one true God George W Bush!

Ps I was a lurker until a few weeks ago its so much better to post rather than to lurk in the shadows like the weak gou'ld Ba'al, I like his stylish clones though

[DrMckay]

ok sorry about "spaming", im kinda new at this

[ElPintoGrande]

Dubya... This is not the correct forum so I'll not start. As for Ba'al, I'm secure enough in my masculinity to say he is an attractive man, but he is no god of mine. And as for waiting for a new posting for the story... If I can wait months upon uncountable months for a Starcrossed update, I can wait for this. I've been lurking for a very, very long time.

[Ethereal41]

Apologies to all who thought this thread had been updated
I don't want your story to die! Please update it again soon!

[ray245]

Damn you for your post...almost have my hope

[ray245]

ok...when's the next update?

[Chris OFarrell]

All things being equal, within the next 36 hours.

It's just....big. So I'm trying to cut it down a little.

[Comosicus]

All things being equal, within the next 36 hours.

It's just....big. So I'm trying to cut it down a little.

Make two chapters of it then

[LadyTevar]

All things being equal, within the next 36 hours.

It's just....big. So I'm trying to cut it down a little.

Make two chapters of it then

I agree!

[Crazedwraith]

Ok, I've only just seen enough nBSG to not be spoiled reading this so I've ready it all today and I'd like to that this is some really good writing and I greatly look forward to reading about SG-1 and the Galactica's crew meeting up.

But I'd also like to say I'd also very much like to see more of that Aschen fic that was left in such a dramatic place...

[ray245]

how many hours left?

[NecronLord]

A negative number...

[Chris OFarrell]

So sue me, I forgot my USB keyring with the files on it :p

I have a lot of comments I want to make about this chapter, but it'll wait until tommorow.

Jesus Christ, 11,000 words....I seriously need to work on shorter chapters.

Stargate Command.
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado
Earth, Milky Way.
January 11, 2005.

Stargate Command had been through countless modifications over the nine years of its operational lifetime as a USAF base, but it had never lost its original character, dating back five almost decades now.

Not that the base officially existed, of course.

The (still technically classified) ‘public’ blueprints of the Cheyenne Mountain facility at the Library of Congress in Washington DC showed a Missile Silo built where the SGC now stood, originally designed as a launching site for NIKE surface to air missiles to defend the complex from the threat of Soviet bombers.

The system had been decommissioned in the late 50’s and the silo left dormant with the cancellation of the NIKE program. Poorly suited for any other NORAD purpose, the silo had been abandoned until one of those wonderful congressional consolidation phases, in which several politicians decided it would be an awfully good idea to turn the disused silo into a facility to test prototype ICBM engines, rather then built a new facility at such terrific cost to the taxpayers of the United States.

Much to the annoyance of the Space Command who liked their peace and quiet under millions of tons of rock, thank you very much.

NORAD’s personnel however were left happy (if completely mystified) when the facility was scraped after a test burn failure of a modified Titan II engine. Rumors of why the facility had been decommissioned so rapidly after going online encompassed everything from Soviet spies infiltrating the base to an alien invasion. Whatever the truth, by the start of the 1970’s, the facility had been left to gather dust.

And gather dust it did, until the middle of the 1990’s when a General West had submitted a priority request for an absolutely secure location to conduct military research on a black project, co-chaired with one Doctor Catherine Langford. In the middle of huge post Cold War budget cuts, the Pentagon had been unwilling to offer funding for a new facility, instead, offering the disused Silo.

Rent free!

So the Stargate came to it’s new home and, (after one false start), the President of the United States had authorized funding for the facility; to both establish peaceful relations with the denizens of the Galaxy and recover technology to aid in the fight against the Goa’uld.

And here the base remained, after a half dozen attempts to shut it down (almost all exclusively by Senator/Vice President Richard Kinsley), several alien attacks (and foothold situations), the complete destruction of a Stargate, theft a Stargate and generally hostile acts by a rather large number of Goa’uld.
Equipped with technology beyond state of the art, the facility was the front line for interaction between this lonely planet out in the Orion arm and the Galaxy at large…

But the damn place still looks like something from Doctor Strangelove Lieutenant General Hank Landry thought to himself as he walked out of the elevator into yet another concrete reinforced hallway with plumbing for a roof and armed security guards standing imposingly in front of a door, behind which was the one of two rooms on the base that didn’t look like it belonged in the 1960’s…

Built by order of General O’Neill and based off the design for a similar room at the Alpha site, the new strategic command centre had been Jack O’Neill’s answer to the problem of trying to keep track of a Galaxy in a state of chaos. It had taken him less then two days after taking command of the SGC from Doctor Elizabeth Weir to decide reading intelligence report after intelligence report was going to drive him (and Sergeant Walter Harriman for that matter) nuts in very little time.

With the Command Centre, one could keep track of just about any situation from across the Galaxy to the most remote backwater on Earth in real time and minimal effort. One corner of the room was dominated by a high resolution screen driven by a custom built Sun Microsystems computer, upgraded with as much stolen Goa'uld technology as could be crammed into it. A series of lesser workstations around the room dealt with everything from incoming communications, current SGC team operations/locations, Starships assets, status reports from Atlantis, the current US threat board…and just about everything else a flag officer might need, or want, to know.

Glancing at the wall mounted clocks as he stormed into the room, Landry managed not to curse out loud in front of the troops. It was already seventeen hundred hours local; meaning the Alpha shift at the SGC was coming off duty. Including his Daughter whom he had wanted to try and test the waters with (on a level other then purely professional) as she settled in. Mentally deciding he could put it off yet another day; he turned his glower on the duty officer, who promptly handed him a printout of the FLASH signal from the Prometheus.

Landry’s frown deepened as he got past the first line.
Then his eyes widened as he read the second.

"Lieutenant, get Sergeant Harriman in here right-"
"Here sir" Walter suddenly spoke up at his elbow, causing Landry to damn near jump out of his skin. How in the hell Walter knew exactly when and where he was needed and got there before Landry finished calling for him was just another of the enduring mysteries of Stargate Command he knew he would never solve. Mentally shrugging, he half turned to face the non-com as he continued to read the communication.
"Get me General O'Neill".
"Sir...it's nineteen hundred hours in Washington and the General usually leaves the Pentagon by-"
"I know Chief" Landry responded, still glowering at the printout. "Get him. Now."
Taking a hint from the tone of the Generals voice, Walter moved off to one of the communications terminals-

-The one with the red phone attached to it-

-and from memory, started to patch a call through to General O'Neills secure cell phone.
Somehow, Walter knew it would be a long night.

Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 203 days.

Raptor #067 jolted to a complete stop inside the hanger deck of the Battlestar Galactica with none of the fanfare one would expect for the arrival of the President and Vice President of the 12 Colonies. Instead as the port hatch of the Raptor disengaged and rose on hydraulic jacks, a roar of celebration filled the cabin, but there was no cheering throng outside the tiny ship. Exchanging a glance with Dr Gauis Baltar, Lara Roslin stepped out onto the wing of the shuttle and looked around for the source of the commotion. She found it quickly, another Raptor, badly damaged by the look of it, was surrounded by deck crew, who were cheering and applauding. Looking closer, she identified the targets of their acclamation as Lieutenant Agathon and another pilot she didn’t recognize, both being carried off like conquering heroes.

Leaving behind Chief Tyrol on the far side of the Raptor, who was looking over the smoking assault ship with an expression that suggested he would prefer to shove the two pilots out of the nearest airlock then shake their hands.

"Madam President? Mister Vice President?"
Turning back, Laura found herself staring at Captain Lee Adama whose Viper had escorted her in from Colonial one. Accepting his hand, she carefully stepped down to the flight deck and smiled.
"It's good to see you again Captain...can you tell me why your father hasn't jumped the fleet out of danger yet?"
Her choice of words had been selected as carefully as only a politician could. Referring to the CAG’s commanding officer by his biological relationship was a move calculated to put Apollo on the back foot and motivate him to speak out in defense of the actions of a family member.

Unfortunately, either the Captain was too well disciplined for such a tactic to work, or, he had been given very specific instructions to say nothing.

"I'm afraid you'll have to talk to the Commander for that answer Madam President" Lee replied, the slight emphasis on his fathers rank showing he had seen through the not too subtle attempt at manipulation, but his tone suggesting he hadn't been offended by it.
"Fair enough” the President nodded, gesturing the then gestured to the stairs that led up from the flight deck. "But if I may ask, did we loose anyone out there?"
Apollo shook his head as he turned and helped the President up the last few steps into the transition bridge to Galacticaproper from the hanger pods.
“Thank the Gods for that at least” Roslyn sighed, taking thanks for small victories. Lee smiled slightly.
“The Gods were on our side today. Well them and..."
"And?”
"And you'll have to talk to the Commander, Madam President" Apollo responded with a tight grin as they entered the ships Starboard access way.

Puddle Jumper Snake Null.
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 11, 2005.

"Snake null, come left ten, maintain speed, try to hold your glide slope"
"Copy that Prometheus" Colonel Mitchell responded, batting a tendril of smoke out of his way as he tried to line up the sluggish Puddle Jumper with the starboard hanger of the Prometheus. The Battle Cruiser was less then three Kilometers away, the bright rectangle making the hanger bay a welcome sight to Mitchell, almost close enough to make him feel safe.

He silently begged the ship to hold together just a little longer.

Predictably, the ships engines whined and another set of diagnostic icons on Carters laptop went red.

"Cam, we lost the starboard drive pod" Carter warned, reaching up to slide her fingers along several gleaming control strips, electing a whine of protest from the ships power plant, but no restart.
"Well we've still got one engine left. Think positive!”
“Thinking positive!” Daniel agreed from his seat. “Really really thinking positive”
Cameron grinned despite himself and triggered his radio.

“Vader, how does it look from back there?"
"Confirming starboard flameout Null" Aston responded, his keeping his F-302 hovering close enough to give the beat up craft a look over. It really was a sight to behold. The once pristine and polished brown hull was covered in scorch marks from the nuclear detonations, not to mention more then a few dents from rail gun slugs Mitchell had not quite avoided.

"The Jumper is correcting, but it's sluggish" muttered commented to Carter as he wrestled with the controls, sloppy adjustments where there had once been a tight response. “Can you do anything about it?”
“Not really. The power grid in the nacelles is hanging on by a thread, if I try to divert power back to the starboard engines-“
“We might loose the port engine all together. Got it” Mitchell winced, double clicking his radio to get attention.
"Prometheus, we might have to skid this one out"
"Copy that Null" Pendergast responded. “Just hold your course. We'll do the rest”.
Prometheus started to reorient, her pilot carefully yawed the much larger ship to line up the hanger bay with the jumper, the protective bulkhead doors over the hanger slowly opening as they approached. With the HUD non functional, Mitchell picked a reference point on the Battle Cruiser and worked the controls, managing to ease out of their slight dive with gentle nudges of power.
Damn. Mitchell thought to himself as he eased up his death grip on the controls. We’re going to make it!

Naturally, the Jumpers second engine chose this point to fail.

"Make that zero engines left Cam" Carter announced as one of the last green icons on her tablet display went red and with a thud, the hum of the Jumpers power plant fell to nothing. Suppressing a curse, Mitchell tried pulling his yoke every which way, attempting to get any kind of response…and got a firm nothing in reply.

The entire flight control system was dead.

“Oh nuts” Mitchell muttered as Carter vaulted out of her seat and into the passenger compartment, ripping out a set of optical fiber and patching it into her graphics tablet, as Prometheus’s hanger steadily grew in the view port.
“Oh great what?” Daniel demanded from one of the back seats in the cockpit.
Mitchell looked up.
“You know if this thing has airbags?”

Prometheus’s starboard hanger was filled with noise as personnel ran to emergency landing stations and anything even remotely flammable was locked down or moved the hell off the flight deck. The ships crew had been drilled mercilessly on this kind of scenario and went about their tasks with a calm professionalism rather removed from the usual Hollywood blockbuster. A series of steel cables were pulled taught by shock absorbers, they in turn suspended an array of nets made out of Kevlar fiber across the hanger. Damage control teams in full firefighting gear made final checks in compartments off the flight deck, a full medical team just behind them. The bridge personnel collectively held their breath as the Jumper passed the warships bow, the black F-302 pacing it veering off for its own hanger bay as the laws of physics drove the jumper forward implacably.

“Sam…” Cameron commented as the interior of the hanger bay start to become disturbingly detailed. At any real distance from Prometheus, all one could make out was a dark internal space.

The fact that he could read the safety warnings on the walls of the hanger bay told him he was getting rather too close, for someone without engine power.

“I’ve almost got it” the Colonel’s muffled voice came from the passenger compartment as she worked to divert energy.
“Now would really be a good time” Daniel agreed, slowly starting to lean away from the view port as if his action could slow the ship down. Carefully, almost fatalistically, he removed his glasses and tucked them into one of his vests numerous pockets as he looked around for any kind of restraint system.
“I can’t rush this” Sam muttered as she tapped away, cycling power from the energy cells in the Jumper through the inertial dampening power grid.
“No, really, feel free to” Daniel corrected as the light filling the cabin from the systems Primary was blocked by the bulk of Prometheus.
Sam tapped a final sequence and the pathway flashed green, causing her to smile slightly before leaping into the couch and pressing up behind the bulkhead and shouting “Go!”
Mitchell grabbed the yoke and pulled, the lights all over the console snapping back to life as energy returned to the control board.

Power surged through the engines just as the Jumper passed through the Asgard atmospheric shields into the hanger bay and the ships artificial gravity field. With less then five meters to go, the nacelles lit up and the Jumper decelerated violently to hover at a thirty degree angle, the nose suspended exactly five centimeters above the hanger. Unfortunately with the inertial dampeners rerouted all over the place, the deceleration hit everyone inside like a kick to the back. Mitchell and Carter’s Air Force training kicked in automatically, with them bracing for the impact effectively enough to remain seated.

Daniel however flew from his chair and slammed into the deck of the jumper just barely avoiding cracking his head on the base of the command console.

A half second later, the engines failed once again and the Jumper crashed down to the deck, sending equipment in the overhead bins flying into the cabin.

At which point the lights inside the cabin completely failed.

“Daniel, you ok?” Mitchell yelled as he ripped a hand light from one of his tactical vest pockets and carefully stepped out to kneel beside the archeologists head. He was clearly breathing and it didn’t look like there was any major trauma. He was about to reach down and check for a response when Daniel spoke.

“Seriously. I missed Atlantis for this?”

Cylon Fleet.
660 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Victory + 203 days.

A region of space twisted, warped and collapsed in on itself, then snapped back into place with a flash of orange/white light, bringing with it a pair of silver/white warships hovering in the darkness between the stars.

Within milliseconds of their arrival, recognition codes were broadcast rapidly to another pair of identical ships hovering less then twenty kilometers away. The codes, theoretically unbreakable one time issues, were checked and rechecked with intense scrutiny; until there was no doubt that the newcomers were friendly. Missile batteries that had been powered up were reset to standby, targeting sensors snapped back off, and almost grudgingly, the two ships spread apart allowing a small transport from one of the newcomers past. It accelerated towards a third ship hovering serenely behind it’s guardians, flanked by a small group of support ships and literally enclosed by massive formations of raiders.

Unlike the quartet of Base Ships hovering around the perimeter designed with long dramatic arms that mounted missile batteries and ejection ports for Raiders, this ship lacked even the most basic weapons system. Tall and long with a rough diamond shape, the ships most striking feature was the hollow interior, covered in perfectly transparent crystalline plating, carefully supported by the massive exoskeleton that made up the ship itself.

From almost anywhere inside, a Cylon could look out onto the majesty of God’s Universe and contemplate their place and his plan for it. This alone was worth the inherent structural deficiencies of the massive walls of transparent material.
And even though it was true that people could see into the ship as easily as out, the Cylons were not expecting that to be a problem.

If so much as a small asteroid drifted within range it would be blown into shards in seconds.
Then the shards themselves blasted into even smaller shards.

Nothing unaccounted was allowed to exist around this ship.

Hundreds of red eyes from the ships fighter screen glared at the heavy raider as it slowly drifted through their formations. Passing into the hollow interior of the ship, it spun around and matched velocities before locking onto a heavy duty airlock and allowing the personnel on board to leave. They were greeted by a surprised Three, Six and an Eight, who started to explain how the attack on Galactica’s civilian leadership had taken an unexpected turn.

Battle Cruiser Prometheus
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 11, 2005.

Samantha Carter, Cameron Mitchell and Daniel Jackson walked down the ramp of the puddle jumper in haste, as if expecting the ship to explode in the next few seconds. When they were at what they felt was a safe distance, they turned and regarded the sorely abused ship, looking rather pathetic next to a second Jumper further down the flight deck.

Regarding the scorched spacecraft, Mitchell turned to look at Daniel who was still rubbing his forehead and wincing in pain.
“Well Jackson….they say any crash you can walk away from-“
“Means the pilot needs pilot lessons” Daniel finished, removing his miraculously undamaged glasses and restoring them to their proper place.
Mitchell frowned, and then shrugged.
“Touché”

Turning away from the crippled ship, Mitchell walked over to a new figure that had just entered the hanger bay in the flight suit of an F-302 pilot.
“Vader, thanks for saving our asses out there” Cameron said, shaking the offered hand of the officer who had been promoted to lead the F-302 fighter squadron on the Prometheus after Cameron had been transferred dirt side with the SGC.
“No problem Shaft” the shorter man said with a half smile. “If I got SG1 killed, I’d never hear the end of it”. Colonel Aston looked around for a second, and then the half smile fell of his face as he lowered his voice. “We lost Dixon and Brown”.
Mitchell’s remaining good cheer from surviving the pseudo crash landing faded in an instant as he came to grips with the fact that two men had had trained and worked with for close to two years were dead.
Not just dead, but dead in a foreign universe, in a battle that officially never happened against a race that officially didn’t exist.
Glancing at Aston, Mitchell recognized the look on the pilots face all too well; he had seen it for months in the mirror after he had crashed his F-302 in Antarctica. The look had only vanished when he had finally been able to write a letter to the wives, parents and children of the dozen people he had lost over the South Pole.
“Did you want me to-“
Aston shook his head. “Thanks Mitchell, but this” he fingered the silver cluster on his lapel “isn’t all pay rise and giving orders”. Aston smiled wryly.” But here’s one for you anyway. Pendergast wants you three on the bridge ASAP”.


“Put it in terms I can understand Lieutenant, what kind of threat are we looking at here?”
Colonel Linol Pendergast worked hard to keep his voice even. The object of his Ire was one of his bridge officers, First Lieutenant Womack, who was trying to explain a status report from the CIC in language somewhat close to English.

And failing.

“Yes sir” the women said with a slightly abashed look. “The hostiles attempted a brute force attack into our communications and data linking systems. The initial attempts were attempts to duplicate the signals we were sending to the F-302’s and fake an entrance, but the data packets were all rejected upon being received, even when they managed to match the current frequency cycle. Even if they had managed to fake an acceptable signal, all of our communications devices accept only very specific data structures, which are then copied into a new format and sent off to the relevant computer systems. So there isn’t any possible way they could get executable code in-“.
“So they can’t get into our systems?” Pendergast asked, translating that block of technobabble as ‘intrusion; failed.
“Not through the data links. They might be able to crack the encryption and frequency cycle to read the packets in transit. But unlike the Daedalus’s, the x303 was built without remote terminal access, all the computers are hard linked through a proprietary hieratical operating system which-“
“Womack?”
“Sir?”

”Yes or no” Pendergast pleaded.

“No sir. Not unless they get on board and get physical access to the network”.
“Thank you” Prendergast sighed, signing off on the report and rubbing his eyes slightly. The Lieutenant passed off the report to an enlisted officer then resumed her station opposite Marks on Pendergast’s left as SG1 entered.

“Colonels, Doctor, good to see you’re all ok” the Colonel said, swinging his chair around to get a look at them and returning the salutes of the two military officers. “Everyone ok?”
“More or less” Daniel nodded, not quite glaring at the pilot in the group. Mitchell sighed tolerantly and stepped forward, glancing out the bridge bulkhead towards the fleet of ships orbiting the planet in front of them.
“The Jumper is probably a write off though” Mitchell sighed as he mentally added a second advanced spacecraft to his list of destroyed vehicles. “But she took a hell of a beating”.

“So we saw” Pendergast replied, leaning back in his chair slightly. “So would one of you like to tell me how in less then fifteen minutes, you three got Earth into the middle of a shooting war?”

Daniel looked at Cameron, who looked at Sam, who looked at Daniel, joined a second later once again by Cameron.

Sighing, Daniel pulled his omnipresent book from Gladsbery out from under his arm and opened it at a bookmark he had placed.

“It all starts back with the Ancients returning from Atlantis…”

Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 203 days.

Colonel Saul Tigh braced himself as the bulkhead door to the CIC swung open to admit Galactica’s Air Group Commander, followed by the President of the Twelve Colonies and her Vice President. Roslin smiled and nodded at the Marine who held the door open for her, then briskly strode down and around the walkway to the plotting table, her eyes focused on the two men standing at the centre of the room.
And her expression wasn’t one that inspired a happy feeling.

“She’s pissed” Tigh summed it up simply.

Adama glanced at him before turning back to the approaching President.
“She has reason to be” Adama agreed, reflecting on the rather curious situation they found themselves in. “But she has a skill lacking in most politicians I’ve met in my life”.
“And that is?” his XO asked out of the corner of his mouth as the party reached the stairs to the floor and started down.
“She is willing to listen” Adama answered, straightening slightly as Roslin stepped up directly opposite the Commander.
Most of the time anyway Adama didn’t add.

The Vice President stopped short of the table and walked around behind Roslin, staying close enough to hear their conversation but far enough away to be excluded from the debate.

“Commander, perhaps you would like to tell me precisely why you haven’t jumped the fleet out of the system, which the last time I checked, had compromised our position to the Cylons?” Roslin asked in a tone that strongly hinted she wasn’t looking for a debate, just obedience.

“She’s afraid” Six’s voice sounded into the CIC, causing the Vice President to turn his head. His self professed angle from God was stalking around the table, taking in each of the trio standing there with interest. “He” she said moving away from the President and nodding at Tigh, “is half scared to death”
“Of who? What?” Balter muttered under his breath, too low for anyone to hear but her. She raised an eyebrow.
“Of the unknown” she shrugged, “like all humans are”.
“So Cylons don’t fear the unknown?” he scoffed, getting a strange look from an officer behind him, who shrugged and kept at his work.
Six merely smiled and shook her head like a teacher whose pride student had disappointed her.

Again.

“There are no unknowns Gaius, God knows all, discovery brings us closer to him. And he”…she put her hands on the Commander and leaned in close to his face as he talked, almost causing Balter to call out in alarm until he forced himself to remember she wasn’t actually there. “This one is…unsure” she declared with a glint in her eyes.
“About what?” Baltar muttered. Six propped herself up onto the table, adjusting her scarlet dress, then grinned at him.
“Everything”.

“Excuse me Doctor?” Commander Adama broke into their conversation, frowning as he looked across at the Vice President. Feeling a flush of heat on the back of his neck, Baltar realized he had been staring at the Commander when Six had repositioned herself

From her expression, Balter decided she found his situation highly amusing.

“I was just thinking out loud Commander” Balter improvised smoothly on the fly, levering himself off the wall and walking into the circle. “The question I think we need to be asking, is what was all this about?”
“What the frak are you talking about?” Tigh asked with an irritated look on his face.
“The Cylons jumped in with five Base Ships at extreme range, as if to contain us, in perfect formation. But we know Base Ships can jump in far closer to a planet then they did. Why didn’t they?”
“Caution” Adama responded, not dismissing the line of inquiry outright, but clearly not buying it. “Jumping in that close would play to our strengths, not theirs. We’d stand a good chance of crippling several ships before they could launch a large enough number of Raiders”.
“Perhaps but I-“
“Another possibility” the Commander cut him off, “is that it wasn’t us they were after”.
The President and Vice President traded a look.
“What do you mean?” Roslin inquired with the kind of natural curiosity only a teacher had. Adama turned to the crew pit.
“Lieutenant Gaeta, bring up the DRAIS logs from a point ten minutes in system.
“Yes Sir” he said. The screen above them flashed on and the battle started to play from the arrival of the Base Stars.
“This is the point when you and the Vice President left. Mister Gaeta, advance two minutes”. The display blurred into motion, then settled down again. “At this point, we detected a new contact, a completely unknown design”.
“Some kind of Cylon ship?” the President guessed.
“Not unless the toasters have started a civil war” Tigh muttered as the unknown contact fired upon and annihilated the primary Base Ship. Disbelief rode on the face of the President as Adama advanced the recording.
“Our Vipers engaged the enemy and at about the same time, a new contact appeared behind the Cylons. These base ships” he tapped the two icons sitting above and below the debris of the first destroyed ship, “started to maneuver to engage. This one was obliterated” Adama paused as the lower Base ship exploded with an energy signature greater then the first ships detonation by orders of magnitude” and then the unknown cruised over towards this Base ship, withstood multiple high yield nuke impacts and would have taken out it’s target, except that the entire Cylon force ran for it.

Adama delivered the news of this single small ship fraking over a full scale Cylon assault force as calmly as if he was discussing the fleet’s water reclamation systems, leaving the President working her jaw for a second before she was able to talk.
“Where is this ship now?”
“Sitting roughly twenty thousand off the fleets’ orbital path, it’s just…waiting. Starbuck is keeping an eye on it”.
“Any idea who they are?”

Tigh and Adama shared a look.
“No” the Commander finally responded. “But we did intercept part of a message directed at the Cylon fleet. Dee, put it up”.
“Sir” the Petty officer acknowledged, and then flicked a few switches. Static hissed from the speakers mounted through the CIC, then a voice partially fought its way through.
“….vessel Promet….have engaged in hostile actions……..peaceful exploration and…….have no quarrel with……no harm……respond with deadly force…..cease your attac…..mmediately”.


Gaius Baltar frowned at the contradictions in the communication. They spoke the language of the 12 colonies, logically it would appear to rule out exotic explanations like aliens...yet they apparently had no quarrel with the Cylons?

Humanity had a rather large quarrel with the Cylon at this point in history.

They said were on a mission of peaceful exploration, yet packed enough firepower to defeat at least two Base Stars and cause the others to run for the hills?

Something here doesn’t add up he decided, slowly examining the facts in his mind as he tried to trace the missing piece of the puzzle.

“You are standing on the threshold of an historic moment, yet all you can do is sit in the background worrying about the content of an irrelevant signal” Six commented suddenly right next to him.
Long practice with the Cylon had taught him to control the urge to jump out of his skin by simply shutting his eyes for a second.

And when he opened them, he was no longer in the Galactica’s CIC.

Instead he was leaning on a railing on the edge of a balcony, which was attached to a house that didn’t exist anymore. The overcast sky dimmed the sunlight enough to make the environment appear almost surreal, a cold breeze moving in from the choppy lake in front of him robbing his skin of warmth.

A pair of arms wrapped around his torso brought heat back into his skin, followed by the warmth of a body pressed against his as Six rested her head on his shoulders.

“You know” Baltar said, not turning around and reflecting on the vista in front of him, “I owned this house for years. But it wasn’t my home. I slept here. I ate here. But I never lived here”. Baltar slowly ran his gaze over the areas down under the balcony which he knew no longer existed but still looked perfectly real. “I had my work. I didn’t look for love, I didn’t care about love” he said, turning to face his omnipresent companion.
“Until I met you of course”.

Six studied him carefully

“So where do you think is your home now Gaius?” she asked, curiosity in the silkily smooth voice. “Galctica? Colonial One? Or perhaps here?” she commented, letting go of him and opening her arms to take in the vista of the environment that existed within his mind.

Baltar slowly stood up, chuckling darkly

“I don’t know anymore. Ever since I left Caprica, since I pushed your body off mine and stumbled outside, I haven’t had a home. Really, no human has since the attacks” he commented softly, as once again the enormity of his crimes slowly crept up on him from where he kept it, until he forced it back down again.

Six laughed softly, clearly amused at his discomfort.
“No Gaius, Humanity has a home and has always had a home long before Kobal was ever settled. God has led you to the road home today…and back to The Path that our child must follow”.
“What do you mean?” he asked carefully, though he suddenly was sure he didn’t want to know.
“Understanding is for the future Gaius. Today, you must act on faith.”
Gaius opened his mouth to ask act on what-
-And with a flash he was back in the CIC.


“Well, what do you think Doctor?” Roslin asked, looking up at her Vice President as the speakers cut off at the end of the static filled communication. Her subordinate was standing against a communications station at the edge of the CIC, very carefully keeping out of the debate, watching and waiting.

But is he waiting because he has nothing to add …or is he waiting because he simply doesn’t care about the situation?

She had chosen the Doctor as her Vice President simply because he had the stature and name recognition to stand up to Tom Zerak. She had worked with him long enough to gain what she thought had been an understanding of him. Brilliant, but not a politician. Eccentric, but harmless.

But in between her exile from public life during the conflict with Adama, he had changed somehow. Though he had always been egocentric, his attitude was now tinged with arrogance. While he had always shunned the political spotlight, content with his work on Galactica, now he was talking to the press almost as much as she was…even if they didn’t particularly want to listen.


Something in him had changed…and Roslin didn’t know what.
Or did I never understand him at all? Is there someone else lurking under his skin, that I haven’t ever seen?
That thought disturbed her. He was next in line to succeed her as the head of the Government for the tiny fraction of humanity that was left. She couldn’t risk him leading humanity right into the hands of the Cylons, for want of easy solutions…

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on such thoughts. She needed his insights more then her paranoia today.

“I think this is a waste of time” Baltar responded, snapping Roslin from her line of thought as he rejoined the conversation, an expression of not quite smug superiority on his face. “Regardless of what happened in the engagement, if we want to know more, we’re going to have to talk with them and the sooner we do so, the better. I somehow can’t imagine it will be more then a few days before the Cylons will be back. They might have gotten a bloody nose, but that will just encourage them to come back three times as strong”.
That thought brought an unpleasant reality to the minds of the senior staff, the last thing they needed was the Cylons returning with even more firepower.

There were just too many unknowns for her liking, and the logical part of her said to jump out immediately. Not to risk the tiny cutting of humanity that could one day be planted on some distant planet, be it Earth or somewhere else.

But a part of her, the part that had driven her to go for the arrow of Apollo, to return to Kobal and risk splitting the fleet, to keep going after everything that had happened…it told her something different.

“I think we’re going to have to attempt communications with the unknown ship gentlemen” she decided, looking at Adama. “Anyone want to volunteer?”
“You’re the head of state of the twelve colonies, you’re the logical choice” Tigh pointed out, his tone suggesting he had barely avoided adding the word ‘fraking’ before ‘head of state’.

Adama shot him a look that backed him off before turning back to the President.

“I would tend to agree, you are the head of the Government-“
“Yes, but the President doesn’t initiate contact” she pointed out as her mind reeled with the events that may well have changed everything. She wasn’t trained for anything like this; she was a teacher, not a first contact specialist! “Until we know what we’re dealing with, I think you should be the one to open communications. If you need to make a split second call to jump out or respond in some way, it would be better if I wasn’t standing in the way, so to speak”.

Commander Adama shared a glance with his son, whose expression showed he had caught her line of thought. Her logic, though perfectly valid, was simply a smokescreen for the fact that she simply didn’t have a clue what to say.

Not that he did, but she was the boss, which now made it his problem.

“Well unless anyone else has any better ideas?” the President asked, glancing at the remaining people. His CAG and XO (damn them) were not leaping to volunteer. Gaius Baltar on the other hand clearly looked as if he wanted to be the first person to make contact, but the Presidents logic had neatly left him out of contention as effectively as she had removed herself.

When no-one volunteered his services, he dropped his gaze back down to the plotting board.

“Give me ship to ship, direct line” Adama ordered Galactica’s communications specialist as he pulled a phone from the side of the plotting table, “match the wireless to the frequency the signal from the unknown came in on. Then push that frequency up on the speakers. And signal the fleet to remain at condition one until instructed”.

If this thing goes south, we need to get out of here in an awful hurry he thought to himself.

Duella acknowledged, and a few seconds later some light static hissed into the CIC speakers as the frequency came up. Feeling the eyes of the thirty people in the room on him, Adama placed the phone to his ear and toggled the transmit switch on the cradle.
“Unknown vessel, this is Commander William Adama of the Battlestar Galactica. We have monitored your engagement with the Cylon fleet and extend our gratitude for your assistance”. Adama hesitated a second as if trying to think of what to say, settling for “Please respond”…

Battle Cruiser Prometheus
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 11, 2005.

Colonel Lionel Pendergast, at this point in time, felt as if he was treading water.

He had dived head first into this engagement, albeit to rescue SG1 (or was it SG-0.7?) and their puddle jumper. But according to Doctor Jackson’s hasty summery, he might just have gotten Earth into the middle of an all our war between two new alien empires.

In another universe no less.

He had a horrible feeling that if he survived this day and got back to Earth, Generals Landry, O’Neill AND Hammond would be using him as the target for their next small arms qualification test

“Ok then. We’ve dug ourselves into this mess, any ideas how to get out of it?” Pendergast asked the three experts on first contact standing on his bridge.

Daniel, predictably, was the first to answer.

“Well as I see it, we have three choices” he started.
“Of course we do” Mitchell nodded in agreement. After a slight pause, he gestured at Daniel. “Well go on.”

Daniel raised an eyebrow, but somehow refrained from rolling his eyes as he turned back to Pendergast.

“Number one, we leave right away, cross back into our universe and shut down the whole Gateway containing any possibility of an incursion”
“Well not necessarily” Carter frowned. “I mean there is nothing saying the Ancients didn’t build another Gateway at some other point in this Galaxy. We don’t have enough data on the local situation to make that kind of a call”.
“Point” Daniel conceded. “Okay, Option two, we fall back to our side of the rift and wait for instructions”.
“Which might not be such a bad idea” Mitchell pointed out, glancing at Pendergast who looked like he wanted to agree.

Emphatically.

“But if I’m right, this fleet isn’t going to stay around forever” Daniel interjected. “And there isn’t any guarantee we’ll be able to find them again after they leave”.

The ships Captain glanced at Carter who shrugged.

“He’s right Sir. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the sensor readings when they arrived with their FTL drive. If they leave here now, we might not be able to track them down again. Especially if they don’t want to be found”.
“Right, which brings us down to option three” Daniel finished with an earnest look. “We talk to them and see what we can find out, while waiting for a reply from Stargate Command”.

“Oh I knew you were going to say that” Pendergast muttered. Thinking it over for a few seconds, he nodded slowly. “Well I don’t see any other alternative. Marks, signal our current status back to the rift on encrypted subspace transmissions and inform Earth that we are opening communications”. Pendergast exhaled slowly as he fitted a small microphone / headset to his ear. “Then open a channel on the same frequency as the Galactica and put it on speakers”. Pendergast waited until Marks gave a nod, before tapping the ship-to-ship toggle on his armrest to ‘active’ and took a deep breath.

“Commander Adama, this is Colonel Linol Pendergast of the United States Air Force vessel Prometheus. We are travelers on a mission of exploration; we have no hostile intentions to you or your people…”


Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 203 days.

The tension steadily built in the CIC as three dozen personnel packed into the command centre waited for a response, in complete silence.

Well not complete. The soft hissing of static from the speakers was audible. As was the coughing of a handful of people who had been unconsciously holding their breath until their lungs forcibly protested. And the omnipresent rumble of the ships life support systems was still there.

But for all intents and purposes, the command centre of the massive warship was no louder then it would be shut down in space dock.

Meaning when the unknown ship eventually replied, a dozen personnel in the room jumped half out of their seats at the noise.

Exchanging a glance with Tigh, Adama turned to Roslin who was regarding him with an expression of detached interest that Adama had learned to associate with deep thought.
“Their language, military ranks and the fact that they helped us against the Cylons suggests to me that the people on this ship are human” Laura pondered out loud, fingering her glasses slightly as she looked up at the wire frame sensor image.

“Perhaps, but that opens up a rather interesting question doesn’t it?” Balter pointed out, leaning forward over the table. “It’s a possibility they are from the twelve colonies and now represent some splinter of humanity that’s left over-”
“That’s not possible, we don’t have anything like that” Tigh snorted, nodding at the image on the screen.
“Well no offence Colonel” – though Adama thought his tone was anything but inoffensive – “But I somehow doubt the Colonial Fleet sought to consult the great Colonel Saul Tigh about every advanced prototype in development before the Cylon attack”

Tigh’s eyes flared, but another warning look from Adama told him to let it go.

“The kind of technology this ship is equipped with almost certainly precludes it being any kind of military prototype” Adama said, the experience speaking in his voice calming everyone down in the tension charged environment. “Prototypes are generally designed to test a single technology, not a half dozen at the same time”. He frowned slightly as he thought over the possibilities. “And they introduced themselves as representatives of an organization that we’ve never heard of.”

“But it looks like we have a common language and culture” Apollo pointed out.

“Which they could have gotten from the Cylons, not us, if we’re speculating…” Roslon wondered, then shook her head. “We’re right back to the question of who they are, or what they are, we can’t even prove they are even human for that matter”.
Personnel around the CIC exchanged uneasy looks at *that* possibility. The Cylons were bad enough, but at least they were a known quantity. A real alien species on the other hand…
“Only one way to find out” the Commander muttered, putting the phone to his head once again.

“Prometheus, we are unfamiliar with your ships configuration…and to be honest, we have never heard of the ‘United States Air Force’. Would you please clarify your allegiance and where you came from?”

Battle Cruiser Prometheus
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 11, 2005

“Well that’s direct” Mitchell commented with a raised eyebrow as the frequency went quiet. It was a voice accustomed to command, Mitchell thought, with tones he had heard only in people like Pendergast and General Hammond, a supreme confidence and bearing that made even the most seasoned officer snap to attention.

And he clearly wanted to know who he was dealing with.

“Well we’re going to have to tell them sooner or later, might as well be now” Daniel commented, crossing his arms and glancing across at Sam, who gave a slight nod in return.
“Yes, but does it have to be sooner” Pendergast asked? He was hardly the kind of officer to hesitate, preferring decisive immediate action, albeit it considered action. But given how far over his pay grade the current situation was, he was understandably reluctant to dive any deeper.

“I get the feeling this Adama isn’t going to let us fly on over without more information” Daniel reflected. Pendergast winced at the idea of allowing people to simply ‘fly over’, but he knew Daniel well enough to know he was always the first in line to open up a dialogue and help cultures understand each other, to stop mistakes from happening and find any kind of common ground that existed.

“Well we have to keep talking to them” Mitchell stated. “I mean…” Mitchell’s voice trailed off with a confused look on his face, turning quickly to Daniel, who took the hint.

“Look, we know that they’re on the run from these Cylons and that they may well be the descendents of Ancients. We also know that the Ancients built a whole civilization out here before they vanished”.

“Doctor Jackson, if we tell them the truth, tell them we’re from Earth-“ Pendergast hesitated before getting cut off.

“I don’t know” Daniel said with a helpless shrug. “All we know is that were looking for it, the chatter we picked up from the ships in the fleet suggests many of them thought the planet they were orbiting might even be Earth, but…that’s neither here nor there. The fact is that there might well be leftover Ancient technology of a recent vintage just sitting out here. Look at the ZPM’s we got from the station. Local help would make finding anything much easier and like it or not, the best way to gain their trust is to tell them we’re we are from”.

“Yeah, that’s why” Mitchell said as he clicked his finger and pointed at Daniel, nodding sagely. A glance at Colonel Carter showed that the possibility of relatively modern Ancient technology had her almost drooling over the deck plates.
With a sigh, Pendergast gave in, tapping the communications link open again.

“Galactica, we represent the United States of America. One nation among many. From the planet, Earth”.

Colonel Pendergasts voice was digitized and encrypted by the tiny boom mic/headset he wore, then transmitted into the bridges communications network. The bridge was well shielded, so the signal failed to breach the hull, but it didn’t need to, a series of tiny antennas inside the command centre plucked the signal out of the air and in accordance with the settings on Pendergasts armchair and Marks console, shuffled the audio stream down the ships fiber optic network to the external communications systems and from there, beamed out into space.

The beam, moving at the speed of light, reached the Galactica in roughly one fifteenth of a second.

One ship, the Cloud Nine, was in the right place to intercept the signal leakage from the Prometheus’s, most of the signal hitting the Galactica’s hull and simply being absorbed by the heavy metals in the ships construction. On Cloud Nine however, a special live edition of the so called “Colonial Gang” of James McManus, Playa Palacios and Sekou Hamilton were offering running commentary of the chatter between Galactica and the unknown ship as well as their own thoughts on the situation, broadcasting live to the rest of the fleet.

Huddling in cramped and overcrowded ships, still trying to calm down from the shock and terror of the Cylon attack, the vast majority of the civilian population was listing in with interest, or at least curiosity to stifle boredom.

Which mean when the fateful words ‘…from the planet Earth’ echoed from the wireless, roughly 41,000 people heard.

The screaming and riot of celebration started seconds after.


“Jesus!” Marks exclaimed, yanking his headset from his ear before the speaker destroyed his eardrum, the sensor board exploding with activity in the EM band. He had had the speaker pulling in the noise from the radio wave area of the spectrum, looking for any kind of communications that might prove relevant.

But he hadn’t been expecting the entire fleet to go off at once!

“Say again Captain?” Pendergast asked mildly.
Marks winced at his outburst. I really have to stop doing that he thought to himself, as he reset the headsets input stream and returned it to his head.
“Sorry Sir, but the entire fleet in front of us just went nuts with communications chatter. I’m picking up ship to ship and what looks like internal communication leakage”.
“Well, what are they saying?”

Marks winced slightly as the computer started to sort through the tangle.

“Uh sir, I’m detecting over three thousand active channels right now and increasing. Is there any particular conversation you want to listen to?”

Thankfully, Carter came to the rescue.

“Captain, patch the audio streams into a communications transcript process” the Colonel broke in, stepping away from the main bridge display around past Daniel.

Marks executed a few key strokes, as she came up next to his console.

“Right, now push the transcripts into a matrix, yes that one” Carter nodded, pointing to something on his display, “and be sure to set it to dynamic”.
Marks nodded and bent to the task as the Colonel turned away towards Pendergast, to explain why she was giving orders she had given on his bridge.

“Sir, the program should be able to listen in on the communications, then start a running count of which words are being used, displaying the most frequently used by the people. It’s not perfect-“
“But it will give us a rough snapshot of the type of words being used” Pendergast finished, nodding in approval. “Nice work. Marks, patch the results to the main screen when you’re finished.

Marks nodded one last time, then the schematic of Prometheus flashed, vanished and was replaced by lines of scrolling text. Daniel turned and studied it.
“Well this is interesting”.
“Interesting they like us or interesting evasive maneuvers?” Cameron inquired.
“Oh no, they like us” Daniel muttered, his eyes widening slightly as a second list, this one of repeated phrases rather then words started to appear. “They uh…like us…a lot”.

Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 203 days.

Earth. A physiological ploy to give forty thousand civilians on a goal to live for, rather then a reason to die.

Earth. A place the arrow of Apollo may have pointed the fleet towards…or pointed the way into a massive Cylon trap.

Earth. The planet that did not exist.
Now the planet that did.

William Adama was not a man who easily lost his composure, but it was taking a rather significant amount of effort for him to keep it while the officers and enlisted personnel around his broke out into celebration.

For exactly four seconds.

“SILENCE ON DECK” Tigh shouted, his voice cracking across the CIC like a blast of frozen wind. “This is NOT a fraken circus, GET BACK TO WORK!”

For the next ten minutes, until the Colonel left the Command deck, not one officer, man or women from Lieutenant Gaeta on down would so much as think of anything but their own immediate tasks.

“This is…this is a miracle” Roslin commented softly to no-one in particular, staring almost at nothing in particular
“It might be at that” Adama allowed, desperately trying to break out of the small circles his mind was working in.
“Sirs, I have the Quarom of twelve on the line, their demanding to speak with the President” Duella commented, looking up from her screen as she tried to cope with the shear amount of communications traffic flowing through the fleet, isolating the (relevant) messages directed at Galactica.
“Not now” the President said with a shake of her head, before turning to Adama. “We’ve got to get control of this situation; we can’t do that talking over the wireless.”
“What do you suggest?” Adama asked with caution, knowing exactly what she was going to suggest.
“Ask them to send a delegation over. If you don’t want them here, I understand, we can get them to meet us on Colonial One”.
Adama was already shaking his head.
“Thank you, but it’s better for all of us if we meet them here” Adama stepped in before Tigh could agree to Roslin’s suggestion. “We can control the situation better here, the last thing we need in this situation is a three way fight between you, the Press and the Quorum of Twelve”.

“Good point” Roslin allowed, then sighed. “Well we might as well invite them on board”.

The Commanded nodded, trying not to stare at Tigh’s face, which was turning a curious shade of red.

“Colonel Pendergast, I appreciate your candor. I would like to extend an invitation…”

Battle Cruiser Prometheus
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 11, 2005

“…for a delegation to come over to our ship for a more personal expression of our gratitude for everything you and your people did for us. We would also like to take the opportunity to discuss…” the voice hesitated for a second, as if trying to think of what to say, then pushed on, “the future of relations between our two peoples and the threat of the Cylons”.

That’s no diplomat was Daniels’s first thought after the communications channel clicked off. He had made first contact with cultures across the known Universe more times then he could conveniently remember and one thing he had learned was to tell a diplomat apart from the typically military people whom SG1 ran into right off the bat.

Elizabeth Weir was the kind of person who could be thrust into almost any situation and simply adapt to it on the spot. He vividly remembered almost choking on a glass of water when she had sweetly blackmailed a room full of System Lords, in exchange for Earths help against Ba’al.

Jack O’Neill on the other hand, for all his amazing skill and insight into military situations, still more often then not would end up in a Mexican standoff in front of the Stargate with a group of locals within ten minutes of arriving on another planet.

Regardless, the opportunity was there. He started to turn towards Pendergast to volunteer, but Marks cut in first.

“Colonel, we are receiving FLASH traffic via subspace communications from the inter-dimensional rift…it’s from the NMCC, relayed via the SGC and Ancient space station.”
Glancing at his watch and doing some quick math, Daniel worked out that it had only taken thirty minutes for the Pentagon to get back to Pendergasts report.

Which was either very good news, or very bad news.

“What does it say Marks?” Pendergast asked, indicating he didn’t mind the dispatch being read publicly. If it was for his eyes only, Marks would have said as such upon receipt. Marks finished the decryption sequence and text scrolled across his screen, the junior officer leaning in to read the communiqué carefully.

“From CO Homeworld Security to CO Prometheus. Prometheus is instructed to remain on station and prevent any hostile passage to the Milky Way. Authorization granted to contact local powers, but hostile intrusion into our own universe to be prevented at all costs, including destruction of Derelict station. Negotiations for reinforcements to your position underway-“ Marks broke off suddenly, staring at the screen in disbelief.

The words stubbornly refused to change.

“Uh, the transmission finishes with a message for Doctor Jackson” Marks finished lamely, staring at the archeologist as if he had turned into a Kul Warrior. Daniel glanced at his teammates, then stepped upto the terminal, read the last paragraph and walked off the bridge without so much as a by your leave, causing Pendergast to raise an eyebrow.

“What was that about?” the ships commander demanded. Marks simply shrugged.
“Message ends, ‘Tell Mitchell he owes me fifty bucks’”.

Mark VII Viper # 214
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 203 days

“Galactica, this is Colonel Pendergast. We have received authorization to open talks between our peoples, we will shortly be launching a transport with two of our officers on board to meet with your representatives at a place of your choosing”.

Starbuck, circling with Kat at a good distance from Galactica, just out of easy visual range of the Prometheus, let herself relax slightly. The odds of her getting blown out of the sky by this mystery ship had just dropped off, hopefully significantly.

Not that she was going to let her guard down of course. Her helmet speakers crackled slightly, then a new voice interjected itself into her thoughts.

“Starbuck, this is Galactica Actual. Hold your position, then when their transport launches, escort it to the Starboard flight pod, and keep your nose cold.”
“Wilco Actual” she responded, pulling her Viper into a slow turn towards the Prometheus, Kat skillfully matching her maneuver. A quick glance down at her weapons board showed her guns were locked down and the targeting systems were powered down, but she pumped her triggers manually…just to make sure.

Gratifyingly, the guns did not fire.

The order to escort it to the Starboard flight pod was interesting. The hanger bays on that side of the ship had been shut down during Galactica’s decommissioning and were being used mostly for supply storage, the Battlestar simply didn’t have enough Vipers and Raptors to justify powering the bay and using it at this time.

Of course if you wanted to put these people somewhere where the meeting could be controlled without a whole bunch of onlookers or valuable equipment in any crossfire…

“New DRADIS contact” Gaeta broke into her thoughts over the channel. “A single small craft is launching from the Prometheus, silhouette looks identical to the first unknown contact”.

The one that blew a Base Ship to hell with a single weapons strike? Starbuck wondered, wondering whose idea it was to let one of THOSE things anywhere near the Galactica.

Gunning her thrusters, she arced on an intercept course, keeping her velocity well under full speed and trying to look as ‘harmless’ as a space superiority fighter could…


F-302 Interceptor Snake Prime.
Alternate P4X-221 Star System.
January 11, 2005.

“Vader, Prometheus. Two of Galactica’s fighters are vectoring towards Jumper two”.
Aston glanced down at the data link from Prometheus. Sure enough, two yellow icons were slowly moving towards the green Jumper, icon which in turn was trailed by both himself and Mushroom at a discrete distance”.
“Lawrence?”
“No active sensor emissions or targeting indicators” his weapons officer quickly responded. “And no indications either those fighters or Galactica have detected us”. Aston frowned slightly.
“Mushroom, lets close it up. Call it two klicks back and half down. I don’t think we’re going to have trouble…but let’s not get complacent”
A double click from his wingman signaled his understand and the two F-302’s accelerated after the Puddle Jumper, arcing up and away from their landing bay they had just re-launched from.

Mark VII Viper # 214
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 203 days

“Approaching ship, this is Viper 214 call sign Starbuck. We’re your escort you to the Battlestar Galactica, please respond on this channel, over”.

There was a slight pause, and then a voice did in fact respond.

“Viper 214 this is Prometheus Jumper two call sign Shaft, reading you loud and clear”

Smiling in spite of herself, Starbuck twisted her craft around and brought her engines into a burn to bleed off speed, neatly sliding into position to the right and just slightly ahead of the Jumper as Kat, in a less flashy turn, moved in a hundred meters in front of the Jumper.

“Okay Shaft, just follow the Viper in front of you shaft and she’ll lead you right to the Galactica”.

“Copy that Starbuck” this ‘Shaft’ confirmed, smoothly banking after Kat as her thrusters puffed, realigning the Viper towards Galactica. Deciding that this shaft fellow sounded friendly, on an impulse she flicked her wireless back to active.

“So…Shaft…that’s an interesting call sign” she commented, going for the first topic that came to mind.

“Well it’s sort of a personal joke” the pilot replied amicably.

“Well it wouldn’t be referring to any physical attributes would it?” Starbuck asked…and a millisecond later shut her eyes as she realized exactly what she had said.

Laughter came back over the communications link and Starbuck exhaled slightly as she realized the person on the other end hadn’t taken offence.

Battlestar Galactica
633 Light years from Caprica.
Cylon Genocide + 203 days.

Colonel Tigh was standing in the middle of the chaos of the starboard hanger’s maintenance bay, still listening to the wireless link on a phone as he tried to choreograph three dozen personnel to clear the deck.

Upon hearing Starbucks attempt at communication, he became perfectly still and slowly closed his eyes.

“I’m going to kill her” he promised to no-one in particular.