Title: Legal Machines

Author: Nopporn Wongrassamee aka The Evil Author

Summary: The Battlestar Galactica discovers Earth, sparking a battle unlike any other.

Warning: May contain spoilers up to the end of Battlestar Galactica Season 1.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to whoever owns them. I'm just too lazy to look up who they are.

Part 1 – Contacts Required

Bigger than any terrestrial planet that a human might call home, gas giants might charitably be described as failed stars. Powered by the heat generated in the gas giant's core, huge convection currents raised and lowered columns of hydrogen mixed with other elements. These columns were big enough to swallow terrestrial worlds with barely a ripple.

In a gas giant so obscure that it didn't even have a proper name, one of its convection currents was carrying not a planet, but a ship. The ship was nowhere near the size of any planet. It was in fact a rather small vessel. But this ship was designed to dive into full fledged stars. The crushing depths of the gas giant's interior were tolerable, and its radiation rather paltry.

As the current leveled out, so did the ship. It went along the lower edge, skimming above an ocean of metallic hydrogen. As it did, the ship dropped off a small package, a science probe. There, it would relay data back to its owners lightyears away via quantum linked particle pairs.

While the probe dived into the metallic hydrogen soup below, the ship soared upwards. Riding the convection current's updraft, the ship engaged its grav drive. Soon, the ship's speed surpassed the speed of the updraft. A shockwave formed around and behind the ship. When the ship left the gas giant's atmosphere, a contrail of gas followed the ship out into space for several hundred kilometers before falling back into the planet.

And surprisingly, there were other ships out there.

"Dradis contact!" Petty Officer Dualla announced. "Unidentified bogie coming in fast."

Commander Adama grunted in surprise. They had just jumped into the gas giant's orbit. One of the planet's rings has some rare minerals that could be used to make critical electronic parts. There were no indications of Cylons around, but then there never were. They had just barely deployed the CAP.

Turning to his repeater, Adama got another shock. The intruder was approaching so fast that it would be among the fleet in less than a minute. He spotted the icon representing the CAP move oh so slowly to intercept.

"Apollo to Galactica," came the voice of the lead patrol Viper, "moving to… FRAK! What was that?"

The object was moving so fast, Adama doubted that the pilots had barely even seen the thing before it was past them. Even if they turned around and shot at the thing, it was moving faster than the bullets catch up with. Then his worries multiplied.

"Sir!" Lieutenant Gaeta called out. "Unknown bogie is on a collision course with Galactica!"

"Engaged evasive maneuvers!" ordered Colonel Tigh. "All hands brace for impact!"

Too little too late, Adama thought. There was not enough time for Galactica to move out of the way. And at that speed, even a glancing blow would severely damage if not out right destroy his ship.

Even so, Adama unconsciously tensed up as he watched the icon of the unknown approached his own ship. As they merged, Adama felt… nothing. A full minute of tense waiting went by before someone said something.

"What the hell?"

In Galactica's observation deck, Boxey was in the throes of full teenaged angst. His family back on Caprica was dead, victim of the Cylon's genocidal attack. His rescuer, one Sharon Valerii, had turned out to be a Cylon. Worse, there were currently two of them on Galactica, the second having been brought back from Caprica by Starbuck. On top of that…

Boxey's train of thought was interrupted by people screaming. Looking out the window, he had realized that the stars and planet had vanished, replaced by a distorted reflection of the observation deck. The distortion rippled, and Boxey realized that the reflection was actually the hull of a ship, polished to a perfect mirror shine.

"Cool," was all he said.

"…nose to nose with you, Galactica," Apollo was reporting. "At least, I'm assuming that the pointy end is its nose."

The unidentified ship was a flattened teardrop shape. The hull was perfectly reflective, which gave Apollo some trouble in estimating its approximate shape and size. The hull was completely unblemished, with no indications of anything resembling a sensor, a weapon, or even a drive exhaust. Sihlouetted against the Galactica, Apollo thought it might be a quarter the size of Colonial One.

"I've never seen anything like it," Apollo added. "It's like it just hit you and stopped."

"I'm getting reports that our mystery ship actually began decelerating just five kilometers distant," Commander Adama replied. "If so, this thing has an acceleration curve so steep that there is no way a Viper can catch it."

Apollo stewed over this little detail and its implications. "Should I shoot it?" he asked. "Try to disable it…"

In a flash, the intruder spun around and shot towards him. Again, it stopped just nose to nose. Only this time, it was not Apollo's Viper's nose. There was but a couple meters and the cockpit glass separating its nose from his own biological nose. In reflex, Apollo activated his reverse thrusters, backing away from the other ship.

"Don't you dare!" commanded a feminine voice. "Don't you dare scratch my perfect hull!"

"Who is this?" Commander Adama demanded.

"I am the Contessa Nichelle Linda Erin Amanda Sarah Jennifer Katrina Allyson…" the speaker began.

"…Hillary Annette Virginia Gillian Summers Williams…"

Gaeta checked his watch. A glance over to Dualla showed her getting glassy-eyed.

"…McKay Petrova Santos Winters," the Contessa concluded.

There was a moment's pause, and Adama suddenly realized that she had stopped.

"The Third," she added imperiously.

There are two others like her somewhere? Adama cringed at the thought. Still, Adama recognized most of the names. They were used by the Twelve Colonies of Kobol when naming their children, just not all at once.

"Er, Contessa," Adama began.

"Call me Buffy," came a quick interruption.

"Buffy?" Adama repeated. He didn't recall "Buffy" being in the name she had given them, but it was such a long name that he couldn't be sure.

"I like Buffy," Buffy told him. She sounded like a pouting child. "I have all the episodes and movies and remakes on file."

That made absolutely no sense to Adama. He decided to ignore it and get on with his original line of questioning.

"Buffy, are you human?"

"I'm a Patrician," Buffy sniffed.

Adama glanced at Tigh. In return, Tigh gestured helplessly. He had no idea what that nonanswer meant either. The only time Adama had ever seen the term "Patrician" used was in historical fictions featuring a pre-Exodus Kobol. Maybe that meant Buffy was from Earth. Or it could be a Cylon trick…

No. Experience with the Cylons suggested that they wouldn't have stopped like Buffy had. They would have rammed Galactica. So, since Buffy had some recognizable names and spoke the same language…

"Buffy, are you from Earth?" Adama asked.

"Phtt! Earth?" Buffy said derisively. "Why would I want to be? Last time I was there, they fined be for speeding. Speeding! Can you believe that?"

Yes, he could. "You know where Earth is?" Adama asked. Everyone in CIC was suddenly hanging on their conversation.

"Doesn't everyone?"

Adama was nearly deafened by the cheering.

For Admiral Jack Maybourne, commander of Earthfleet's 21st Carrier Task Force, the day began like any other. Get out of bed. Coffee. Morning exercises. Coffee. Personal Hygiene. Coffee. Breakfast. More Coffee.

With a mug in one hand, Maybourne began sorting through his mail. There was the usual garbage from headquarters, reports that had absolutely nothing relevant to his Task Force. There was the usual spam that had somehow sneaked past the AI filters. A few personal messages were from his family.

One report from HQ was tagged with a moderately high priority. Intelligence passed on from the Sentinels indicated that there was some rogue group out there who was going to try to pull a sneak attack on Earth. This rogue group consisted of religious zealots who would stop at nothing to destroy Earth and its people.

Great, Maybourne thought. That was all they needed, another band of wackos bent on Earth's destruction. While laughable, Earthfleet took Earth security seriously, so seriously in fact that the other members of the Alliance thought it paranoid. But that was the price of being the Alliance's industrial heartland. While a bunch of terrorists couldn't possibly destroy Earth, they might be able to inflict grievous damage.

Since these religious nuts were human, the Sentinels weren't allowed to intervene. That was fine with Maybourne; he didn't really like them anyway. A machine race dedicated entirely to warfare made a lot of people nervous, even other machine races. Idly, Maybourne wondered about the source of the Sentinels' information. He had never heard of these "Cylons" before.