'Jump complete.'

The Navigations lieutenant waited for DRADIS to update and then turned around to face the Commander, 'zero DRADIS contacts.'

Commander Perseus and her XO Colonel Xavier stood at the center of the CIC, leaning on a flat topped table covered in maps and star charts. The Centaur was one of the newest Battlestars built in the war and one of few in the ghost fleet. The Centaur had been assigned to the ghost fleet for one mission, time manipulation research. A young genius was responsible for the conception of the time warp synthesizer.

'Where are we Lieutenant?' asked Perseus.

Lieutenant Argyris calculated the star fixes and the computer returned a result, making him lean back in his seat with shock.

'Star fixes put us way, way past the red line.'

Suddenly the sound of the DRADIS echo was interrupted by a short blip and three red dots entered onto the DRADIS screens.

'Three DRADIS contacts, wait … no four contacts!'

Another red dot appeared off the ships port, sitting still while the other three came closer to their starboard side. The Commander pulled the phone from its cradle and a low tone rang through the ship.

'Action stations, all hands prepare for combat!'

She put the phone back on its cradle and red lights began to flash in sync with an alert alarm. She ordered for the starboard gun captains to focus on the three incoming targets and the port gun captains to the single unmoving contact. Large dual barrelled gun batteries raised from the ships dorsal section and began to target their assigned locations.

'Gun captains report the three ships off our starboard are nothing they've ever seen before,' reported the Colonel, holding the phone to his head.

'Port gun captains report a large pronged device with a glowing blue core,' shrugged the Lieutenant.

'What the hell is this?'

The three ships off the starboard side slowed gradually to a halt and the ships broadside flak cannons primed ready to destroy incoming fighters. Viper pilots climbed into their Mk II vipers and the deck crews pushed them into launch tubes ready for deployment. Suddenly the comm console on the bridge sounded.

'Commander I'm getting a data packet.'

A sizable data packet was being transmitted to them, supposedly from the incoming ships. The data packet finished transmitting and the Lieutenant at the communications station took a piece of paper from a printer and handed it to the Commander.

The message included within the data packet said the ships belonged to the humans … from Earth. Earth was a legend, supposedly the location of the 13th tribe who left Kobol before the other 12.

'Earth? That's not possible.'

'Earth is just a legend, I didn't think it could be real.'

DRADIS blipped again and another three unknown signatures appeared on the screens over the mapping table and the one in front of Lieutenant Argyris.

'Another three DRADIS contacts, these ones are further out.'

'Unidentified vessel, this is the human vessel SSV Waterloo, please respond.'

The Commander looked across the table at the Colonel and turned around to the comms lieutenant, 'Patch me in.' She picked up the phone and held it to her head.

'You're live Commander.'

'This is Commander Perseus aboard the Battlsestar Centaur, I don't know who you are but my guns are trained on you, don't pull anything funny.'

'Commander … You sound human.'

'I am human. Are you?'

Suddenly the new DRADIS contacts began firing on the three human ships. The Commander tensed at the situation, the discovery of the 13th tribe wasn't an opportunity she was going to let slip.

'Commander, I don't know who you are but we need your help!'

'Helm, get us right in the center of this!'

'Yes, sir.'

Helm and navigation plotted a course to put them between the three human vessels and the other unknown vessels. The vipers in the launch tubes were pulled and reloaded with heavy ordnance before being launched. The main guns at the center of the ships dorsal section opened fire with salvo rounds, slamming against the enemy ships like boulders into a concrete wall. The ships seemed poorly armored but their weapons hit harder than any they had encountered. The ship was rocked by every impact, tossing the crew around like rag dolls and shaking things loose.

'Vipers, this is Centaur actual. Target weapon batteries and FTL drives.'

'Copy Centaur actual, consider these frakers toast.'

Two of the enemy ships were severely crippled and the other was pieces of hull plating and frozen bodies. The Viper pilots couldn't find any FTL drive exhausts so they began strafing runs up and down the dorsal sections of the ship. Once the ships couldn't jump out or return fire a surrender was broadcast on all channels.

'Prep 6 boarding parties, 3 for each ship. Recall the vipers.'

'Vipers come on home, repeat come on home,' said the Colonel before switching to the ships intercom, 'Boarding parties report to the starboard flight deck for boarding prep.'

'What's the damage?'

'Minimal Commander, hull is intact, I'm getting reports of minor injuries and head traumas but other than that were all here.'

30 minutes later

Captain Marcus Pierce walked onto the CIC of the Centaur and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. He was still shocked to find another human like race in the depths of space, so far beyond the Arcturus prime relay. Commander Perseus and Colonel Xavier stood at the central table, mapping out star fixes known to the 13th tribe.

'Commander Perseus I presume,' said Pierce holding his hand out for Perseus to shake.

'Captain Pierce, welcome aboard the Centaur; this is my XO Colonel Xavier.'

Xavier shook Pierces hand and returned to plotting fixes with a lieutenant as Perseus took him aside to a smaller table with maps and pieces of paper spread across it.

'My boarding parties have secured the remaining enemy ships but before we could contain them they managed to get some sort of transmission off,' explained Perseus.

'So there will be more,' said Pierce.

'I believe so. How soon can your ships get here?'

'The relay is only a system away, a matter of hours. They shouldn't be very far away.'

Perseus and Pierce continued to converse a moment before a young guard walked in and escorted them to the brig where a Turian Commander was locked up. Pierce had never laid eyes on an alien race before, however Perseus had seen plenty of cylons but no other species'.

'Sergeant of the Guard, open the cell.'

The sergeant opened the cell door and they walked as he shut it behind them. The Turian was in deep silver armor and had grey and red carapaces upon its head and a pair of glaring eyes. Its mandibles twitched as they approached. The Turian activated its omni – tool, Perseus flicked the hold on her sidearm back, in case it was going to try something. It put its arm back down and the glowing orange tool disappeared.

'I'm Commander Perseus, CO of this ship; who are you?'

'I am Captain Epimia Gaisis, who is this man with you?'

'Captain Pierce, Alliance navy.'

'We know you sent off a transmission before we boarded, how many are coming?'

'Enough to wipe you from existence.'

The Colonel stood on the CIC looking over the star fixes that Lieutenant Argyris mapped out. The fixes were different from this perspective, they had never been this far beyond the redline before. The fixes were crucial to plotting jump coordinates, a few auxiliary jump locations had been plotted already in case a hot exit was required.

'Have those coordinates put on the jump computers back log,' ordered Xavier.

'Yes, sir.'

'Lieutenant Argyris, how are we going with those hull repairs?'

'We've still got 3 raptors out there finishing up sir.'

'Make sure their back in before company arrives.'

'Yes, sir.'

The repairs to the hull weren't taking too long but if the abrasions were left and they went into combat again they would become either larger abrasions or cracks. Xavier was used to commanding the Sage, an Orion class pocket battlestar in the Caprica defense fleet. Being the XO of a Galactica class battlestar was far different, and far more stressing. However now he didn't have to worry about running into a cylon baseship, the Centaur would send just one through the mincer.

Xavier looked over the codex Captain Pierce had given them on their people, they were not all that different. Their biology was identical and their way of life was not much different, however unlike the 12 colonies they hadn't developed FTL drives before finding the schematics for them on Mars; the Prothean archive.

'Colonel the abrasions on the starboard bow have been repaired but the final two raptors are reporting far more serious abrasions on the starboard side and starboard stern.'

'How long?'

'Another hour sir.'

'They have 45 minutes.'

The Lieutenant notified the Raptor crews and the Colonel went back to his reading. He loved to read, mostly text books about ships from the past and the present. He had shelves of model ships in his quarters and a whole floor to roof shelf spanning a wall full of books. He was one of few officers who completely finished his through the military academy and became a ship technician aboard the Evander, a pocket battlestar he went on to command before being transferred here.

'Colonel I'm getting some strange readings.'

'Such as?'

'I'm not sure, large objects incoming at high velocity.'

'DRADIS?'

'Their moving too fast.'

DRADIS blipped as dots appeared on the screens above where Xavier was standing. Lieutenant Argyris sprinted to the nav console and cross checked the signatures.

'Sir, they're not Alliance. Four ships just jumped in.'

'Patch me ship wide.'

The Communications officer patched the Colonels phone to the ships intercom.

'All hands this is the XO, set condition 1 throughout the ship; action stations. Commander Perseus to the CIC,' he put the phone back on its cradle and turned to the coms lieutenant, 'Recall the repair raptors, tell gun captains to train their guns on the impound ships and wait for the order, and launch the alert vipers.'

The deck crews loaded up the Vipers and readied them in the launch tubes. Turian Mass Effect cores were far more efficient than human ones, making their arrival far sooner. The Alliance ships maneuvered to make a line at either end of the Centaur. The repair Raptors quickly retreated into the starboard flight pod and made a swift combat landing.

Commander Perseus and Captain Pierce arrived on the CIC, Perseus tied her hair back and a low tail and positioned herself across the table from Xavier. Pierce stood at the end of the table with white knuckles as the ship was hit.

'Main guns, Charlie through Victor to switch to salvo fire,' ordered Perseus assuming command seamlessly.

Xavier picked up his phone and connected to the gun captains. The Alert Vipers launched and began giving support fire to the Centaur, strafing runs across the dorsal sections of the enemy ships. The ships that had jumped in were larger than the ones that they had encountered earlier and they were doing a lot more damage. The damage control console began to report a series of hull abnormalities within a mere 3 minutes of the engagement.

'Commander we can't hold them off forever,' warned Xavier.

The Alliance ships were suffering serious damage, they were faring worse than they were. If they to avoid destruction they would have to leave.

'Captain contact your ship, tell them to return to your outpost. Lieutenant Argyris; spool up the FTL drive, we're leaving.'

The Captain walked up to the coms lieutenant and contacted his ships. The Lieutenant pushed up a console near his and dialed in the correct calculations to jump to the Alliance outpost. The FTL drives would need 20 minutes to spool up before being able to make a jump. The chatter of the viper pilots trafficked over the speakers and Perseus watched their DRADIS representations swooping around the enemy ships. As the Alliance ships turned tail and jumped away the Turian ships focused all their fire on the Centaur.

'You're taking a huge risk here Commander,' said the Captain.

'We can hold them off,' she replied bluntly.

As the countdown clock ticked over the damage control teams began to gear up as cracks in the hull began to emerge on the starboard side. The Commander ordered the helm to take them in closer and spin them around so their port side was facing the fire, relieving the stress on the starboard side. The DC teams made for the affected areas of the ship and assessed the damage. As the clock ticked under 10 minutes the end of the battle was near but they'd learned not to get their hopes up.

'Sir, ship to ship missiles incoming!'

'Jackknife moving to intercept.'

Jackknife was the Centaur's CAG, a skilled pilot who had made same for himself killing flying toasters. Jackknife pulled away from his arrow head formation and pursued the missiles. He managed to destroy one and then a second but the third made fall on Centaur's forward hull plating, exploding silently and quickly. They were shook around and the hull had been breached but no supports had buckled which was a good thing.

'Sorry, sir,' apologized Jackknife.'

'You're lucky that wasn't a nuke or I'd have your ass.'

Jackknife chuckled at the Commander's dry humor and began to head back to the ships when suddenly his Viper was split by a projectile from one of the ships. His viper exploded in a flurry of dying fire and blood that hung in the vacuum of space. The Commander and the bridge crew watched on in horror as his vipers DRADIS contact disappeared off the screen. No signals, no emergency distress beacon; only silence and the banging of projectiles slamming against the Centaurs hull.

'Recall the Vipers and retract the flight pods.'

Xavier nodded slightly and ordered the Vipers to make a combat landing. The vipers returned and the flight pods locked into place, ready to jump.

'Ready to jump Commander,' advised the Lieutenant.

'Begin the countdown.'

The Lieutenant picked up the blue pronged jump key and held it a moment. He held it at the lip of the socket before picking up a nearby phone and beginning the countdown.

'All hands, jumping i … jump.'

The ship disappeared in a gold implosion as he turned the key, expelling a vacuum and reappearing in open space near a strange structure. Multiple DRADIS contacts appeared as the flight pods extended, all Alliance. The large structure appeared as Alliance, roughly 5 kilometers in length.

'Jump complete; six confirmed Alliance tags; we made it.'

The bridge slowly began to celebrate their accomplishment. Even though they had lost a skilled and respected officer, they had to continue.

'Now to figure out where the frak we are,' said the Commander.

'So say we all,' agreed the Colonel.