Commander Adama couldn't believe it and was suddenly getting sick of it entirely. He couldn't help but worry just how long they could keep on jumping every 33 minutes without sleep or relief from imminent cylon threat. He drowned his cup of coffee and ordered the viper's launch. How many other launches before his son wouldn't come back? Or any of the others for that matter. So far they had been lucky but luck wasn't something they could always count on.
"Sir, we have a contact," someone called, was it Dualla? Too tired to recognize voices at this point.
"Any more?" Colonel Tigh asked instantly after, his eyes glancing at the clock, it has only been five minutes. Could it really be a Cylon already?
"No." A hesitant answer. "Requesting confirmation codes." Dualla frowned at the information and looked up at Tigh and Adama. "I've never seen…" Tigh jumped beside her and looked at it for himself. The old Colonel couldn't believe his eyes and doubting one's vision at this stage wasn't a good sign so he chalked it up to faulty equipment.
Adama wasn't so ready to believe it. "Send a friend or foe signal." A moment passed. The tension in the CIC could have been sliced by a knife. "Well?"
"I'm getting a modified return signal." Dualla frowned again. "It's almost the same, but it's exactly the content. Sir?" Her eyes lifted from her control station up to the Commander. "Friend or Foe?"
"Put it on speaker." Adama wasn't ready to make himself another enemy. He already had the Cylons to take care of and his hands were more than full with that. "This is Commander Adama from the Battlestar Galactica. State your business."
"Loka, OuterRim scout of the Siyiana Nation. You are in Siyiana territory. State your business." There was an odd accent to the distinct female voice but the message was clear.
They were in their marked space and as far as she was concerned, they were invading. However, the news that they weren't the only ones in the universe was suddenly a great relief but also a great danger. Many looks were exchanged on the bridge during their conversation this would not stay quiet as well. "Loka, we are retreating from an invader, the Cylons. We are the last of our people. We'll be out of your hair in…" Adama spared a look at the clock and almost couldn't believe how long it had taken them to establish contact. "In twelve minutes." It was only after he had said those words that he realized that first this alien may not have hair or know what it was and may not have the same concept of time as well. Tigh looked at Adama with a look that said it all but the Commander shrugged it off. "If there is any assistance that you can lend us…"
"The Cyclons are our enemy as well. Is enemy of our enemy our friend?" said Loka, interrupting the Commander but surprising everyone on the bridge as well. Wasn't that an ancient human expression?
"Yes, friends. Allies," Adama said, hope burning bright in his eyes.
"I will do what I can then," said Loka and communication was broken off between them.
"This could be a cylon trap," Tigh whispered coming to stand next to Adama.
"We don't have much of a choice at this point." The two spent the next few minutes in silence preparing themselves and the fleet to make another jump to avoid the cylons once again.
This time, when the cylons came, there was a shift. Loka's fighter, a sleek fighter resembling the cylon's from the top however smaller and from profile, looking as lean as possible with a cabin, made the difference. It whizzed through the cylon fighters faster than any the Vipers could and destroyed more than the whole fleet had in all of their encounters. The fighter weaved patterns in and out of the battlefield, destroying cylons but also their missiles aimed at the human fleet. By the time the whole fleet had made their jump, the cylon fighters ignored the Vipers and the Galactica for that matter and concentrated their full attention onto the lone fighter.
"Loka get out of there, we're clear," the Commander broadcasted just before the FTL drives engaged. The fleet appeared in a clear piece of space and all let go of the breath they had held once again. "I wonder if she made it."
"Sir, I have her fighter on starboard," Dualla interjected, a note of surprise in her voice. "She is requesting docking clearance."
"Grant it." Adama ordered before leaving the CIC to Tigh and making his way as quickly as possible to the hanger.
What the Commander found there was beyond anything he could have imagined. There sat a sleek black fighter, resembling the cylons but not quite and the cockpit glass sliding back to reveal a full head of green hair. At least the words said earlier weren't wasted on her. The woman stepped out of the cockpit and stepped onto the floor of the hanger. Even the bravest of pilots weren't willing to approach just yet. Most actually had their hands not straying too far from their pistols. Starbuck had hers actually drawn and Apollo wasn't far behind. Both glanced at the Commander as he walked towards their guest.
The woman, definitely female and almost human, with green hair and equally green eyes, stood with no visible weapons. She wore a black skin-tight flight suit with two arm guards upon her forearms. Dark tattoo-like lines contoured her face and ended at the corner of her eyes. It was only reaching at this point that the two black dots at her temples registered, along with the narrow canines shown when she smiled and the furry monkey-like tail swinging in back of her. Her green eyes settled on the Commander. "Human. Pure?" asked Loka.
"What do you mean by pure? Who the hell are you?" It was Starbuck. Her gun had raised a fraction of an inch.
Loka raised one green eyebrow and turned just slightly towards the other woman. A very human action that very few missed. "Do you want a history lesson or the short and sweet version?" Green eyes once again shifted to the Commander.
"Short and sweet," said Starbuck. The tone of her voice did leave Loka much choice.
Loka sighed and closed the distance slowly towards the blond woman. Starbuck's gun went up, along with every other one all aimed on the alien. The alien stopped just short of a foot away and wrapped her tail tightly around her slim waist. "The Siyiana were once human just like you. We are the descendants of a research ship that went missing before you idiots created the cylons. To survive in the harsh climate of semi-inhabitable planet we played around with our DNA. It gave way to a few, genetic modifications. We also improved on a few things Mother Nature forgot." Starbuck's gun never moved but her eyes searched the oddly familiar face which turned away a few instants later.
"Commander, if you are to survive the next hour, we need to talk now and make plans now." Loka's words brought hope to the eyes of the pilots but Apollo and Starbuck shared a look that said everything.
Adama nodded and asked her to precede him. The Siyia left the hanger deck and walked forward with little apprehension. Her tail swayed behind her as she walked, almost as if keeping her balance. Her hips swayed seductively with her lean and trim outline of her body in her flight suit. The men had to swallow the accumulating saliva.
"How were you able to follow us?" Adama asked as they walked down the corridor, shoulder to shoulder. It was the first question to be answered. It may just give them an idea of how the Cylons were tracking them.
"Apollo's Viper has one of my tracking darts stuck to its hull." She grinned at him sheepishly. "I wasn't going to let humanity slip between my fingers now after so many years. You have to understand that we made our lives without the rest of humanity as support. It was a very small crew that was the seed for an entire nation. And now, humanity is running from one of their mistakes. It is all quite amusing to me and will be to my people as well when I tell them." She stepped into the Commander's quarters and was met by Tigh. Adama made the introductions quick and simple and then invited their guest to take a seat.
"There's only one person…" started Tigh but soon Madame President walked in. Her eyes settled on the green haired alien and Adama thought she might faint on the spot but the woman managed to introduce herself and welcome Loka. There was an uncomfortable silence which Tigh took to clear his throat and ask their guest a question. "Your ship. It resembles the cylons'. Your people designed it?"
Loka shook her head and leaned her elbows onto her knees. "Let me start at the beginning: that will explain a lot more than just answering various questions. About four hundred years ago, when space exploration was the thing to do, a ship named the Siyan was sent out as a research lab for deep space. The crew had a set itinerary and followed it exactly, till the Captain of the ship decided that there was a planet that presented an interesting discovery. It turned out that there was no discovery to be made at all, but during that time, the ship was damaged by a meteor storm and was caught in the electromagnetic field of a nearby planet which was mainly comprised of basic metals." The President nodded enthusiastically, remembering the ships disappearance, having studied it and even taught it in class. Loka continued. "There was little the crew could do to get out and the ship was slowly disappearing around them by the storm's ravages. They found a small planet that had an oxygen-based atmosphere but had many problems as well. To survive the climate of the planet, the geneticists tweak their own DNA to be able to survive, or at least let their descendants have a chance. Heightened awareness. Sharp eyes, nose and ears. Stronger bone structure to resist to the planet's heavier gravity. New antibodies to survive the poisonous atmosphere." Loka suddenly saw the greed in the Presidents eye for a second. The alien's tail swung out gently to wiggle in front of their faces. "It had some side-effects as well. We are much more aggressive. We fight for fun to satiate the primal urges we awoke when we gained our new self-awareness. We thought we had defied Mother Nature but she came to nip us back in the butt by re-establishing a balance.
"They knew they couldn't go back to humanity with the alterations they had made. So they decided to continue on their own, claiming our own little corner of the universe. Then, forty years ago we had our first encounter with the cylons. Originally, they wanted to enslave us but we proved to be stronger than them. The ship design is based on theirs. We captured one and remade it for our own use. It became a tool to expand our territory. But there was a drawback; cylons would occasionally come and bug us and so we decided to not only perfect our hand-to-hand fighting but our aerial attacks as well. We've been fighting them since."
The three humans sat there soaking it up. The President of the colonies was the first to recover. "Could we possibly come to your planet? Maybe make a stand against the cylons there?"
Loka burst out laughing at the suggestion and leaned back onto the couch. Her tail curled gently on the cushion next to her as she lay her arms along the back of the couch. "The cylons are your problem not ours and we aren't any more human than birds are now. You are in no way welcome. We've made our own way in this universe. It's time you made yours."
"Why the frat did you help us then?" Tigh ground out in irritation at being laughed at. He may not want to admit it, but he had been thinking the same thing.
Loka smiled a devilish smile, showing her developed canines. "I may not be that human anymore, but that doesn't mean that you don't deserve a little help. That's my personal thought, not shared by many so count yourselves lucky you met me and not some other Siyia. They would have blown you out of the sky." Her eyes settled on Adama. The man's silence spoke much of what was going through his head.
The Commander noticed her green eyes fixed on him. He took in her exotic features for a few moments later before speaking. "What help can you bring to us? You must have something in mind or else you wouldn't have bothered."
This brought a smirk to the woman's lips and she leaned forward one more time. "That, Commander Adama, is for your ears only." This provoked the President to protest but the hard gaze from the alien actually shut her up. "My people believe that only the person with the right questions has the right to hear the answer. Those who don't ask the right questions are doomed to hear the lies of those with the wrong answers. If you want my help at all, you will leave now." Her piercing green eyes shifted to Tigh, her thoughts clearly marked within them.