Disclaimer: I own nothing, de nada. I'm just borrowing these ideas for fun and seeing how it turns out.
X-Over: Battlestar Galactic 2003 and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Rating: Teens.
There weren't going to mess it up like they had last time. After a hundred and fifty five years of in fighting between the factions and literally coming to the very edge of the extinction of the human race they had come to a peace. The five factions had come together to decide against making the same mistakes that those of the past had and to move forward. They let the sins of the past die.
Laden sat wringing his hands together looking at the readouts of the planet core below him, his eyes following the real time data as it rolled through the datalinks. Sitting here on Hilliest was a once in a lifetime opportunity for the xeno-geologist, watching a planet literally form from its time as a molten rock cooling to igneous and then breaking up to sediments. The small orb was a baby, only several million years old.
Every reading gave out new and bold information altering ideas that geologists on both Alpha Prime and Earth had hypothesized. Laden had enough information to write a dozen books, enough speculations to bog down every datalink between the Gaian and The University cooperative Natural Sciences Link Set. He pushed his fingers against the techno-glass watching the data roll down. How he wished he could live a million more lifetimes to witness the evolution of life on this planet. Every point indicated that it was a Type One Terrestrial Body.
"Mister Laden, please report." Came a voice over a speaker. The conditions outside had distorted and created a small level of localized interference.
"Laden here. Morning Helen. Everything going well from orbital?" He asks getting up from the desk and walking over to the coffee maker and pressed in his selection.
"Well as to be expected." Her voice sighed. "Some of those problems we were expecting are already starting to rear their heads. The Morganites are already making plans to raid the planet of its precious metals once they start to develop… in another thousand years." She laughs softly. "The Spartans are talking about establishing a 'deep environment combat training center' whatever that means. And the more radical of The Lord's Believers are saying that this is evidence of The One's still going on… well you know how they are."
Laden grunted softly as he took a sip from his coffee.
"So, how's it feel to be the first ever 'rock star' of geology?"
He looked over to the speaker and shook his head, a faint smile forming at his lips. "Good. Nice to know I can go into any Gaian bar and come out with a date." He threw up both his hands into the standard 'U', "For my next set I'm going to write a correlation between deep sedimentary rocks and morphic igneous pockets tha-"
Over the channel and at his desk came a quick beeping. "You getting that Helen?" He whispered as he leaned forward, a priority sign hand flashed over the text. The bright red box with white text that began to scroll.
"Yeah. Reading massive atomic event in Horse Head Nebula. Approximately one hundred and twenty five thousand light years. Source unknown, scale… wow. Subsystem five-twelve just lit up like a small sun. I think we just watched the end of a way of life." Her voice dropped to a soft whisper.
Laden couldn't say anything. He was horrified watching the read out. He was eight generations removed from the suspected death of Earth but every member of The University knew what planet buster events looked like when they were pushed out in clean rows of numbers and letters.
Some hundred and fifty days later the lone Battlestar moved silently through space. Adama stood stooped as he watched the DRADIS with still eyes. The reflection of the screen cast in his glasses. "I don't trust it." He muttered out as he stood straight, his right hand taking his glasses off and the other into the pocket for the polish cloth. Around him the CIC crew moved about, Tigh walked to stand next to him. His good eye now bloodshot.
"Yeah. Toaster bastards and skin-jobs been quiet for a long time." His right hand reached up and itched just under where the leather patch covered his face.
"Make word to the fleet. I want us out of here in fifteen." Adama placed the glasses once more on the bridge of his nose and turned to walk out then paused mid-step. "Saul, I'd like to speak to you at my ready." Once the words left his mouth he began his way out to his office.
The XO turned, "You heard the old man, t-minus fifteen and counting down, I want every vessel in the fleet FTL ready at zero." His fingers reached up and scratched under the edge of the eye patch once more. Gaeta nodded silently, as his custom he stood at the ready in silence in the background till he was needed. He reached over to the head seat and began to speak quickly and rapidly in hushed tones.
As Adama walked the corridor to his office there was a feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had never been one to place much stock in religion or premonitions, he was a man who believed in follow gut hunches. And his was telling him to get the fleet as far away from there as possible. He came to the door to his office and opened it.
Adama's personal space was dimmer then the hallways and he liked it that way. In his opinion there was too much damn light on the ship, you couldn't blot it out. You couldn't escape it like so many things recently that seemed to confront him at every turn. He walked past a pile of books he'd been meaning to read before the holocaust, it was doubtful he'd find the time to read them now. Carefully the admiral removed his glasses and folded the hinges and placed them on his desk on top of a pile of folders. His right hand reached up and rubbed the area between the bridge of his nose and the corners of his eyes as they crushed closed tightly. The low throb of his almost constant headache was something he'd learned to live with.
He moved behind the desk and let his legs give out as he fell back into his chair. He moves forward and looked at his reflection in the glass frame that held his picture of Zak and Lee, a picture that was taken only a few short months before Zak's accident. Zak and Lee's blue eyes stared back at him along with his own. So much had changed since the Cylons had destroyed everything.
The Cylons. His career began a war against them and his life would probably end with a war against them.
There was a knock on the hatch that caused him to look up to the door. "Come in." He muttered out reaching for his glasses once more and slipping them on his face. There was the sound of the valves turning and the door opening as the Aerelon XO stepped in and promptly closed the door behind him.
Adama didn't waste time with pleasantries, "The men are getting restless Saul. Fear's given away to boredom and that leads to sloppy work. We're starting to get complacent again since we haven't heard from the Cylons in a few weeks." He put his hands on the arms of the chair and pushed himself up to stand on his feet. For a second the old wound where Sharon "Boomer" Valerii – The Cylon who had infiltrated Galactic – flared up into a low bolt of pain. Adama ignored it and went on. "We can't afford to have sloppy work. We need to cut that way before it takes root. Alternate down time, cut it by five percent for all non-critical personnel. Have the viper pilots run recon into the neighboring system, not to far in. I don't want to push our good luck. Have Mr. Gaeta revise the aides to the civilian government and inform the madam president of our actions."
Saul Tigh chuckled a bit to himself, "Yes sir, anything else?" Inside he knew that William Adama would ask for a thousand more things but it wouldn't do any good. With the limited resources and supplies they had to work with the XO was surprised that everything had held together this long. It was the old man's 'everything's okay' stance that impressed Tigh the most, it was this stance that made people die for him. It was this stance that did something more important, it made people live for him.