Act One
SETTING THE STAGE
Quote:
"Frak, man, I just work here!"
- LT Brendan "Hotdog" Constanza
::LT. Nikoteros "Meatshield" Adelanii::
Life, such as it was, seems to be returning to normal in the Fleet. Short rations, in both food and water, limited ordnance and fuel, civilians to care for, Cylons to flee...and, oh yes, lest we forget..."Earth" to find. If it exists. Despite the Old Man's promises, I've had my doubts for a while now.
It's only been a month or so since the Escape. New Caprica is far behind us now, though. We've been jumping more or less constantly since the battle, hoping to buy enough time to fully repair and rearm Galactica and Pegasus...as well as smooth out the rough edges of the pilots who spent more than a year mudfarming or whatever the frak they did down there. Those of us who stood by the Admiral when he tried to keep the military running don't have that problem. Didn't have to play house with the skinjobs, either...
Being a Raptor pilot by trade (though not by choice), I'm happiest scouting out the Fleets likely course, always two or three jumps ahead. Frosty thinks I'm too much of a loner (pot...kettle), but I like the quiet and the stars. Not having to deal with your crazy spouse's crazy moods for days at a stretch doesn't exactly argue against a long patrol, either. I keep that angle to myself.
I only got into this line of work becuase I was one of a fairly short list of survivors who had a Federal Aerospace Pilot Certification, once Galactica started surveying the Fleet a couple of weeks after the Fall (and, I note, after that incident on the Hangar Deck that severely contracted the number of names on the CAG's roster). The Mighty Starbuck ("You can call me...", etc) took one look at me and immediately declared my lack of "chops" for flying a Viper, which led me below decks to the loving care of Boomer and Racetrack, and thus into the wonderful world of Raptors. It meant better rations and being able to get off the Cloud Nine (dodged a bullet, there), where I was slaving away refurbishing worn out components for the FTL.
Unlike the Viper "community" (zoo, more like), Raptor jocks don't feel the need to wait and see if you survive your first furball before acknowledging your existence. 'Course, my name tends to smooth over first meetings. Mother being Admiral Nagala's hatchetwoman makes the family name one to conjure with, in the Colonial Fleet, at least. A storied military lineage doesn't hurt, either. Funny how I wanted nothing to do with Mother, the Family or the Colonial Fleet, before the bombs started falling.
This particular patrol has me surveying a fairly small star system. 4 planets orbit the Primary, a Blue Giant. 2 are standard gas giants, about half and a third the size of Ragnar, respectively. The other two are Colony Class, though one has a methane atmo and is outside the Liquid Water Zone. The remaining world is habitable, if only by a wink and a nod. The big 'scopes on Pegasus detected "odd" (thanks for nothing, Hoshi) spectrographic effects inside the orbit of the habitable planet, in close to the star. An "anomolous" object.
Thus, in I go to check it out.
Due to the lack of trained ECOs, and Apollo's reluctance to shift his precious Viper jockeys to sit in back for a few hours, I'm flying this one solo. Means I'll have to establish a stable orbit so I can leave the controls to initiate my survey from the ECO console, but you can't have everything.
1.5 JUMP
::LT. Nikoteros "Meatshield" Adelanii::
With the Fleet CAP providing overwatch, I began a close range flyby of the object. A thin torus, approximately 700 meters in diameter. No evident powerplant or thermal activity. Getting closer, there was a lot of micrometeorite damage visible, pitting the surface of the artifact.
"Meatshield, Starbuck. Keep an eye on your interval. Don't get out of our LOS". Worry, worry. "Yes, Mom". Raging hypocrite that she is.
"Galactica, Meatshield. The object is not of any origin that I recognize. No sign of Colonial or Cylon markings. It's been here a long time, though, judging by the sandblasting the exterior's taken from infalling particles. No moving parts on the exterior, or any power signature. Shows cold on the IR". Running reports are Rule #1 for Raptors. "Roger that, Meatshield. Galactica Actual instructs you to image the entire exterior, get close spectro readings, then burn for the Barn." "Understood, Galactica. Meatshield out."
Moving in toward the centroid of the Torus, I initiated a G-ray spectro scan (to determine what the exterior was made of).
Seconds later, Starbuck broke in. "Meatshield, Starbuck. Be advised, the Torus is in motion." My head snapped up, and I immediately saw that the Torus was beginning to spin about the centroid (me!), and was visibly picking up speed.
"Meatshield, withdraw back behind the CAP. NOW!", ordered Starbuck. I dropped the autopilot and engaged the engines. The Raptor
hummed like a swarm of bees, but didn't shift position. Increasing to full military power, I only succeeded in making the spaceframe groan, as the thrust piled up against whatever was holding me stationery. Within a few seconds, I was forced to cut the engines off, to prevent them from compromising the hull.
"No joy, Starbuck. Something has me fixed in position. Can't power out of it without cracking my bird." Lookin out, I saw the Torus had increased it's rate of spin, to the point that the surface was just a bronze streak encircling me. The situation had developed rapidly, but my level of alarm was beginning to catch up.
"Meatshield, Galactica. The Torus is now emitting big-time, in both IR and charged particles."
"Meatshield, get out of there!" "No can do, Starbuck." A risky idea hit me: "Galactica, I'm going to try to jump out and back towards the Fleet. Wait one."
I unstrapped and hopped back to the ECO Station, as the FTL comp controls back there are single-function, so you don't have to waste time flipping through different screens on a MultiFunction Display. "Beginning jump calculations, FTL Jump in 45 seconds". The digital readout on the FTL console began spinning numbers, as the computer derived the jump solution.
Starbuck broke into my nervous vigil: "Meatshield, that thing's started to light up, and the area around you is beginning to distort". OK, I'm officially unhappy to be here.
"20 seconds to FTL jump."
"Galactica to CAP Vipers, break off and clear away".
"Negative, I'm not leaving him.", Kara shouted.
"Starbuck, get the hell out of here! 10 seconds to FTL Jump.", I chanted into the wireless.
"Meatsh...Niko! Niko!".
"FTL Jump in 5 secon...".
FLASH.
JUMP. JUMP. JUMP. JUMP. JUMP. JUMP...
2. ARRIVAL
::Meatshield::
The flash stole my vision, and when I regained the gift of sight...the cockpit window was filled by a shining blue and green planet, with a massive ocean, speckled with silken white clouds, front and center.
Scrambling into the pilot's seat, feeling like my brain had been dry-cleaned, I started into the diagnostic checklist that would tell me whether my bird was broken or not. Other than an error in the FTL computer, the Raptor was in excellent condition (or as much as possible, given our logistics).
That done, I took a moment to consider my situation. Obviously, the...event had moved me across some interstellar distance, since the planetary system I was in did not include any such planets. To survive, I'd have to put down on the planet, which meant I'd better see what the situation was, planetside.
Deploying the recon camera/telescope mounted under the cockpit, I began to image the coastlines of the continent currently in view. After a moment of tweaking the resolution down to 30m, I observed what appeared to be an artificial structure, enclosing a bay on the eastern coast! It was a pier! Several oceangoing were docked alongside...and an urbanized are extending inland for dozens of kilometers, with what appeared to be major transport arteries weaving throughout.
"Lords of Kobol", I breathed, "They're alive!". A technological civilization. Thriving! The Planet, or at least the region I was eyeballing, looked like Leonis or maybe Caprica. Scanning laterally, across a large ocean, a similar set of coastal-oriented conurbations was visible, dominating the landmass of the next continent.
Fuel and O2 wouldn't last forever, and sitting in low orbit wouldn't help the situation. I would have to put down. That meant dealing with the locals, preferably without being shot down. So no covert landings! I was detecting powerful DRADIS signals from ground stations, which meant sneaking down was likely to cause them to ID me as a hostile, so my approach had to show that I was making every attempt to communicate.
DRADIS was showing a spacecraft beginning a shallow-angle reentry from the west of the first continent I had looked at. Observation with optics showed a white-hulled lifting body, about 10 meters in length, with oversized thrust nozzles on the rear. Taken together with the lack of orbital traffic (aside from a truly awesome number of satellites), it indicated that these people lacked countergravity technology, and relied on thrust/weight propulsion and aerodynamic lift.
If that spacecraft was deorbiting, it had a landing field waiting for it. Following it down, squawking all the way, seemed to be the best way to show anyone at the controls of a missile battery that I was Friendly and the should be Friendly and not hit the LAUNCH button.
Piling on the DeltaV, I shifted my orbit, taking up position a couple thousand meters to the rear of the local spacecraft, which was beginning a braking maneuver to initiate descent. Matching course, angle of descent and speed, I switched on the Wireless. Narrowing the range, I tuned out the massive number of transmitters and locked in on the freq that the spacecraft was using to communicate with it's ground station. I widened my broadcast range to several dozen bands on either side, for good measure and to make damned sure lots of people heard my transmission.
Activating the wideband Wireless transmitter (meant to relay data back to distant Battlestars, through enemy jamming), I took a deep breath, almost a sob, and spoke: "Krypter, Krypter..."
::LTCol John Mahler, USAF::
I walked into the Landing Control Center, sipping my $5 coffee (which, incidentally, was not coffee-flavored), to monitor the Dream Chaser landing operation. In the unlikely event that one of the spacecraft overshoots the field and goes into the water (or undershoots, and goes into the ground like a fucking dart), my Airmen were the rescue force. Firemen, chopper pilots and Pararescue commandos...all currently finishing up our pre-operational bull session.
The PA was pumping out the golf-announcer voice of MAJ Cindy Larrsen ("US Army, thank you!"), the Dream Chaser pilot, as she began
the series of S-turns over California that would drop the spacecraft from orbital speed to under 500 KPH when she overflew North Florida.
"Angels 250, speed 15000, all systems green, hull temperatBBBRRRREEEEEEEEEEE...". Panic and Old Night instantly spread outward from the CAPCOM, as a voice broke in on the channel, rattling away in some foreign language. The voice was male, young...and frightened, if I was any judge.
"Who the fuck is on my fucking channel?", roared the Flight Director, coming out of his seat at the rear of the ops center and sprinting down to CAPCOM station. "Switch to the alternate channel". "No joy, it's on that freq too!", said the CAPCOM. "Russian? It sounds Slavic...".
I jumped in, from my post by the window, "Not Russian. I speak it. This sounds like Hebrew, maybe." "It's Greek!", shouted Technical Sergeant Melanie Costa, my Security Forces NCOIC. I gave her a look and she expanded, "I took Classical Greek in High School. I'm real rusty, but that guy just said "Adelphi", which means "Brothers". He's speaking some weird dialect, but it's definitely some form of Greek".
The Flight Director turned to us, "So the Greeks are jamming my comm network?". "Unlikely, Sir", Costa shook her head, "That's not Demotica, the modern Greek dialect. It's Greek, but not the kind spoken in Greece. It's more like Homeric or Archaic...I don't know who
would speak it, Sir"
At that point, one of the NASA interns ran in and told the FD, "It's coming in over the FM bands, too, Sir. Running over the top of commercial stations". The hotline phone at the rear of the LCC rang and the FD walked over to answer it. Muttering into it for a few seconds, he replaced the handset and turned to us. "Houston says they are getting it. Vandenberg and Rota, too. Everything else is being washed out. AM, FM, CB, even DoD channels and cell phones".
"So everyone in the Western Hemisphere is getting this, like it or not?", I asked. The FD nodded, "It gets worse. Vandenberg started tracking Dream Chaser, on the X-Band radar, when we lost voice comms. They've got company".
Silence in the LCC
"Company?", asked the Range Safety Officer. "A bogey has taken up position a couple of klicks behind the Dream Chaser and is matching course and speed". I let out a whistle, "That's a pretty piece of flying!". "More than you think", the FD said, "The bogey is slowing to match Dream Chaser...without maneuvering". "That's not possible!", the FiDO (Flight Dynamics Officer) interjected, "If it's shadowing Dream Chaser, it has to be making the same S-turns!". "Vandenberg says it's adjusting speed and heading to match Dream Chaser with no aerobraking maneuvers". "Nothing, anywhere, ever, has the capability to break from orbital and reenter under positive thrust!".
The room went into Nerd Rage as the Rationalists and Flat Earth Society warred with the Trekkies and UFO Cultists. The second I heard the words "Close Encounter", I exited the room LCC with my entourage in tow. Contacting Patrick AFB, where my Wing CO made his home, seemed to be a prudent step. I detailed a runner to carry messages to the SF and Fire unit leaders, telling them to take position along and around the airfield, as we still had a spacecraft coming in, tag along or not.
Walking down the corridor to the office we had appropriated for our Command Post, I dialed the Wing HQ. "Mahler here. Put me through to the Colonel, immediately." A minute later, I walked out into the LCC, with instructions to secure KSC, assume operational control of the NASA security personnel, and to "develop the situation" (read: use your common sense, don't fuck up, and keep us posted).
I squeezed my way through the thronging geeks, over to the FD. "Flight, this is now a National Security Incident. I'm locking down this complex. No ingress, no egress. Jacksonville and Tyndall are scrambling fighters, ETA 20 minutes. How far out is our bird and their buddy?". The FD nodded and told me "30 minutes to touchdown. Our bogie is still following Dream Chaser down on a constant bearing, altering their airspeed to match that of DS as they go through their S-turns. Seriously, this thing is ignoring a massive amount of atmospheric friction. Any vehicle in the books or on the drawing board would have disintegrated in minutes...we should be able to get eyes on as they pass over Texas. We've got the camera birds up, as usual."
"Good to go", I said, noting the SF troops taking up position on the doors.
::Meatshield::
"...repeat: This is Colonial Fleet Raptor 420, Callsign Meatshield, to any recieving unit in the sound of my voice! I am declaring an emergency and following your spacecraft to a landing zone. I have no hostile intent and bring greetings from your brothers of the Twelve Colonies." Ouch! That sounded lame even before it left my lips. This wasn't exactly how any of us had envisioned our first meeting with our lost kinfolk. The Old Man should be addressing them from the CIC, not me babbling like some hick from Aerilon, while trying to follow a maneuvering spacecraft through reentry without rear-ending them.
Maintaining my (hopefully friendly-sounding) yammering, I noted that we were passing over the south-central portion of the continent. I also noted the truly alarming number of target aquisition and fire control DRADIS emitters currently locking me up, as well as several groups of fast movers in the lower atmosphere shadowing us along our reentry path. "Looks like someone's listening". Which stands to reason, as the Raptor comm transmitter was designed to cut through enemy jamming and communicate with its Battlestar over several light-minutes.
Observing the ballistic glidepath of my guide, I guessed that the landing zone was somewhere in the south-eastern coastal region. We'd be over it in about 10 minutes. As my little buddy landed, I'd pick an empty part of the field and touch down. After that, well...I'd continue to wing it...
::Mahler::
We'd gotten a decent image of the bogey off of the camera planes...and the tension ratcheted upward. The spacecraft following
the Dream Chaser was unlike any vehicle on any drawing board, anywhere. It made me think of a UH-60, only with no rotors or tail section and two giant Tumansky-type engines. Most importantly, it's shape and wing size were incapable of providing any real aerodynamic lift, which meant it had some form of mechanism to provide lift while the main engines generated thrust.
Now a whole pack of the NASA honchos, and my own chain of command, were starting to talk about "Extraterrestrials" (speaking Greek?), only without saying the actual word. Someone must be taking the scifi talk seriously, because NASA had Ospreys headed for Gainesville to shanghai the UF Classics and Languages departments, and their in-house Exobiology people were inbound from JSC at Mach One.
Unfortunately, one of the NASA geeks had decided that the entire Human Race had a "right to know", or some such damned thing, and had spread the gospel via mass texting. The FBI and NSA would no doubt initiate an Inquisition. In the meantime, news crews were stacking up like zombies outside the main fenceline, with a clear view of the flightline. Between them and the thousands of civilians already present for the landing (plus the hordes on the highway enroute, now that the news had hit the networks), I had nothing like enough SF troops to clear them back the several kilometers that would be required to prevent close observation of the day's festivities.
We'd made what preperations we could, throwing SF teams out into a perimeter around the landing complex, staging the Fire & Rescue teams on the apron, and deploying the MPADS team (in case our Greeky friend was feeling grouchy, or someone suffered Sudden Jihad Syndrome). Cape Canaveral AFB was moving personnel over the fence to reinforce us, and Patrick was sending the bulk of the SF Squadron and the rest of the Pararescue kids.
The LCC relayed an update that DreamChaser and our guest were 5 minutes out, and the F-22s from Tyndall had moved in as chase planes and escort. They now had close eyes on the guest, who was humanoid, in a space suit and was making "Hi There!" guestures.
::Meatshield::
Judging from the local spacecraft's altitude and AOA, the landing field must be close now.
A couple of minutes ago, a half dozen aircraft had pulled into formation with us. They were a blotchy grey, with acutely-angled edges to their airframes, and Viper-like bubble canopies. More attention-getting, they were packing obvious missile loads on underwing pylons. One of them had pulled alongside and the pilot had removed her mask and waved. I waved back, plastering on my best "I'm cute and
harmless, don't shoot me!" smile.
They didn't seem to mind me following their spacecraft, so I guessed they had figured out my intentions. Which was good , as I had no intention of surviving years of running from the Cylons, only to be blown away by my distant relatives...all because I didn't know the secret handshake our ancestors forgot to pass on.
The spacecraft entered it's final glide-approach, deploying braking flaps and increasing it's AOA. The landing field came into view, situated immediately on the shoreline. Surrounding the installation was a mass of humanity, likely several times the population of the entire Fleet. Several rotary-wing aircraft circled the field, staying clear of the landing strip itself. A couple had color schemes of blue and white, with the rest colored a dark green that screamed "military".
While the local spacecraft made it's landing on a runway, my Raptor could land on any level space. Breaking formation with the locals, I transitioned into Hover/Landing mode, and selected a point over beside a huge hangar to touchdown.
Traversing across the installation at 10m/s, I took up position and leveled out over my landing point, gently lowering the Raptor as the rangefinder in the front skid gave a countdown of the distance to the surface.
30 seconds later, the Raptor was down and clear. Turning my attention to the main console, I ran through my postflight checklist and switched off the engines and electronics. Time to face the future.
Notes:
Goes Hard AU during "Exodus, Part II". Pegasus' FTL stays online during the battle over New Caprica, and she manages to jump away with the Galactica.
Niko ("Meatshield") is an OC, another of the nameless pilots. We'll have a "getting to know him" infodump at a later point in the story.
The Torus is a MacGuffin, so don't expect any revelations about it until wayyy on down the line.
::Name:: indicates the POV Character for the following section of text. This is my first shot at First Person narrative, so bear with me.