Chapter 2

(The Oval Office USA Earth)

Pres. Wilkinson walked to the center of the room; I would like to welcome our guests from the Argon Federation, Adm. Jackson would you care to start.

What I would like to do is to establish the guidelines for trading between our two societies. We would be willing to aid you in building defensive satellites for your planet. For this, we would like to purchase on the open market drugs and manufactured items. We would also be willing to bring back to earth the remains of the Colonial ships at Gliese 667. Although the ships would not be FTL capable at this time, it would give you the basis of a space fleet.

Pres. Wilkinson interjected Admiral you referred to them as Colonial what happened to" Kobolian" to which the admiral replied. Their ancestors came from the planet Kobol, but they refer to themselves as "Colonial".

Adm. Jackson continued, another need of ours is manpower to this end I would like for your militaries to allow medical officers and engineering officers to serve on our ships for a limited period. I don't know the numbers at this time, but I don't envision it being more than a few hundred. When these people return to their respected services, the knowledge they gained would be invaluable. Also under our direction, we would like you to provide the manpower to rebuild the Colonial ships and construct a space station.

We don't know when or if the Colonials, will return but we should be ready for any eventuality.

The President interjected, I think you are very generous and most of what you ask is doable. But as you know we are a planet of many different nations how will you decide which ones you will include and which ones will be left out.

To which Adm. Jackson replied anything we give you whether it's physical or scientific knowledge would be available to all the nations with the one caveat being that they have a government that is democratically elected. I believe our best course of action would be to work through your United Nations, but personally, we do not like the way it is set up. But, we do not believe it is our place to dictate anything to you maybe this could be discussed at a future time in a more informal setting.

We are going to explore the possibility of settling on one of the planets at Gliese 667, and even if we don't, we will still be here for several years.

(Gliese 667 one year later)

The Ark was in orbit around the planet Argon2; they found the planet to be an ideal place for them to settle it had large oceans that covered about 65% of the planet. It had both mountains and vast plains, with a temperate climate. The other habitable planet has a polar climate that limited life to the areas around the equator. But it was much richer in natural resources which were recoverable.

Adm. Jackson and the liaison from Earth were in the Arks port landing bay waiting for the arrival of the general secretary of the United Nations. Both the American president and the president of the Russian Republic would join him. Adm. Jackson said, tell me, ambassador, before this meeting gets underway what is your assessment of your planet's progress.

The ambassador replied well things have gone in some ways much quicker than I ever imagined and in other ways much slower. You have greatly advanced our medical knowledge, but we are no closer to some of your space technologies then we were when you first arrived. A viable FTL drive comes to mind.

You forget ambassador we never intended just to gift you our technologies. You would not have been able to maintain them without our involvement.

You have people in our universities, and no subjects are off-limits to them plus your engineering officers are serving in all departments on our ships. Soon enough you will be on par with us. To which the ambassador replied, yes but for both our sakes I just hope it is before the Colonials return.

The ship landed, with the envoys from Earth, "Adm. Jackson greeted them," and exchanged the standard diplomatic niceties. Everyone was directed to a conference room that was set up for this meeting.

The general secretary stood up and said before our arriving here we held a meeting with all the major powers on earth and discussed where we are at and what we would like to accomplish in the future. We have successfully rebuilt three of the battle stars that you towed Earth. The hulls of the other six just were just too far gone. Their fuel tanks had exploded tearing the hulls apart, or the Colonials scuttled them by exploding nukes in them. We even feel we made two improvements to them we were able to install 406mm rail guns in place of their 230mm KEW weapons. And to polarize their outside hull plating which although not quite as strong as your shields it doubled their resistance to the Colonial KEW weapons.

We use fusion reactors of our design and an ion/plasma drive that we had been developing. Although we can't be sure from the info, you provided we believe these ships to be slightly quicker than the Colonial battle stars.

We would like you to scale back your recruitment of workers for spaceborne projects. We are competing for the same people.

But our military would like to expand the officer reassignment program.

Adm. Jackson took the floor and replied, I don't see any problems here since we are getting more and more people every day settled on Argon2 that is freeing up people for spaceborne projects. And expanding the officer reassignment program fits nicely with our expanding our fleet to 30 cruisers and anti-fighter destroyers.

Several of our ships captains wanted to go the fighter route for anti-fighter defense. But a small destroyer with beams set to a wide dispersion angle is just too affected. There is still a use for fighters but not in the numbers the Colonial use.

High counselor Robert Clyde asked if he could have the floor. Adm. Jackson nodded to him, and he stood up. As you may or may not know we have a very sophisticated AI program, whenever we have an important decision to make, we use this program to give us a second opinion. One of the things that keep popping up is if we are to continue this successful collaboration we need to explore and understand the cultural differences in both our societies. We need to have a program where you send people to work and study in our industries and universities. And we do the same to yours.

One of the Aragonese spoke up, would our people get anything out of there science and math courses. To which Clyde responded I had the same concerns, but I don't believe we would have a lot of people taking science courses. There are a great many other disciplines that our people would benefit from.

With this, the meeting broke up, and the Earth's envoys were invited to enjoy the hospitality of the Ark. They could experience the nightlife or if they choose they could engage in the many outdoor activities that are available.

(8 Months after the battle of Gliese 667)

President Adar office, 12 colonies of Kobol

Adm. Cain, it seems to us that you got your butt handed to you, care to explain.

I don't believe that the humans that attacked us at our resupply station were from Earth. Their technology was just too advanced. Their ships were both well armed and very fast. We had problems targeting them. We only scored hits on them when they made a mistake, which I do not believe they will repeat. The battle star Triton encountered one of their ships in a neighboring star system. The Triton reported that they appeared to be conducting a mining operation. After a brief battle, the Triton was barely able to return to the fleet.

Their primary weapon is a plasma beam, which they used against both our ships and Vipers and Raptors. The beams used against our capital ships would bore into the hull, and the beam used against the Vipers was less intense and had a shorter range, but it could sweep through our Viper formations.

Their ship to ship tactics is more like those of a fighter than ours or the

Cylons capital ship engagements.

One other thing when they scanned the Triton they said something very interesting. It appeared to them that the crew of the Triton was all human except for two.

The senior Quorum member from Gemenese stood up and started yelling we must immediately return and wipe this stain clean.

President Adar said, "We just lost 23 battle stars," do you wish to lose another 23. We first have to understand what we are dealing with and have a viable military plan.

Adar if you don't order an immediate response then I will declare a holy war. And the full might of the colonial Navy will be forced to respond.

Adm. Nagala you and your senior staff remain. I hear by adjourned this meeting. Adar asked Adm. Nagala to formulate a plan of action. "Yes sir," replied Nagala, but I believe we should immediately dispatch a drone.

(Gliese 667)

Mining tug D.O. 21 was collecting small asteroids for processing when it came across a small asteroid that gave off a slight power signature. The mining tugs were fully automated and controlled by the processor. On the processor the mining operator, Jeff Small called his supervisor.

What do you have Jeff, looks like we have something that was made to look like an asteroid it's emitting a power signature. Its makeup suggests it's not a mine. Except for that fuel that the colonies use, there is no explosives present that we can detect. Just some processed metals, plastics, and electronics. My best guess is it is a drone.

I will call control and have them send out a survey team. If possible just go by it and try to act nonchalantly

(The Ark's wardroom)

Science Officer Major Wilson was updating Adm. Jackson and his command staff. The probe was definitely from the "12 Colonies". We fed everything that was in the probe into the AI system, "the AI system was, in reality, large quantum computer. It had all the knowledge of the Argon people from when the first one was created ten years before the Exodus. It got its name from the original project, the Artificial Intelligence Project."

In reality, this was the third AI system the first 2 actually retired. This system volunteered that it would continue in its present capacity until our quest was complete. The other 2 AI's after aiding in updating all AI's in the fleet of Arks chose to remain on Argon. Stating that a piece of them would be inside any quantum computer that the Aragonese would ever build and this would be the ultimate experience.

Maj. Wilson "continue Adm. Jackson interjected," it was your basic spy drone it was set up to monitor and record all our radio signals and radar telemetry. It also had a very sophisticated TV system. But the weird thing is it was starting to overwrite its data. This tells me it was well past it's time to return to the colonies or be picked up. Adm. Jackson asked if it could've malfunctioned.

Maj. Wilson replied possibly, but I think it's more likely that whoever or whatever was supposed to retrieve the data malfunctioned.

Adm. Jackson stood up, well I guess the Colonials are still interested in us Capt. Barnes, I want regular patrols to all the nearby systems I want our drones deployed and monitored. I also want you to get our scientists working on the way to detect their ships and have people stationed in outposts on all the nearby systems. Due to their numeric superiority if they do come back I don't want to be surprised. I will also update Earth to these new developments.

(Major Wilson's lab)

Senior Science Officer Major Wilson called his staff together; well people the Adm. Would like us to find the home of the 12 colonies of Kobol. Senior Science Tech-Robertson said we can't monitor for radio telemetry because after about 500 light years it is lost into the background noise of the universe. Maj. Wilson stated so what can we monitor.

Robertson was a certified genius he would've been an officer long ago, but he had a problem with authority figures. But, he respected Maj. Wilson and Wilson gave him plenty of leeway.

Robertson continued well we are looking for 12 habitable planets circling a single sun, which is unlikely or 12 habitable planets in systems that are relatively close together. We should not tell the AI system what to monitor for but let it decide. One of the other Techs injected that will give us 1000 of hits if not 10,000 hits. Not really replied Robinson how many systems did we find on our journey here that had even more than one habitable planet. I say we feed it all into the AI, making sure it's tied into Cmdr. Wells telemetry array and let it run.

Three weeks later the AI system finished and Maj. Wilson had a list of 76 systems. Robertson looked at the details scans from the AI system and was pleasantly surprised with the apparent lack of habitable systems in the direction that they believe the Colonials came from; this made him feel better about the 76. A plan was drawn up for the best way to investigate the systems.

(The Arks wardroom)

Rear Adm. Berkley, formally the Cirrus CO, was assembled in the wardroom with four other newly minted admirals, in walked Adm. Jackson, gentlemen you each have a list of 15 systems that you will investigate. You are instructed to come out of hyperspace 15 to 20 light-years from each system and monitor them for signs of the Colonials. You will each have a team of science officers on board your ships they will be aiding you in monitoring for the Colonials and developing new techniques to detect ships in hyperspace. Thank you and good hunting.

Adm. Berkley's squadron had covered the first eight systems with no incidents. Science Tech-Robertson asked for a meeting with the Adm.

Okay, Robertson what do you have, well I think I found a way to find out where our other squadrons are. All five squadrons are coordinating their searches by broadcasting their locations via subspace. And I seem to be picking up gravity waves from wherever a squadron exits hyperspace. With refinement, we could use this to monitor the location of our ships. Adm. Berkley responded, I agree this will be very useful to us but how does that help us in our search for the Colonials.

That is the interesting part answered Robertson; I am also picking up disturbances in hyperspace much further out that occurs in 30 light year increments. If we go to these coordinates in three days, we should intersect with whatever it is. Adm. Berkley contacted the bridge and ordered the helm to proceed to the new coordinates. He also asked the communication officer to send a subspace to Adm. Jackson and inform him of our detour.

Adm. Berkley's squadron arrived at the new location. Robertson reported that if the anomaly stays to the 30 light year increments, they should be at this location inside of 24 hours.

Approximately 15 hours later 50 ships appeared on the Cirrus radar. Adm. Berkley barked out science officer I want scans.

CIC, what do you have, "Bridge CIC" I have 50 ships several are large ships whose profiles match Colonial battlestars.

"Bridge CIC," We can track them, Admiral.

Adm. Berkley said, XO do you have any movement, yes Adm. they seem to be moving to a spherical formation not powering up weapons or launching fighters.

But attacking them will be like grabbing a porcupine.

The communications officer informed Adm. Berkley that he was getting a message from the colonials.

Berkley replied, put it on the speaker/viewscreen.

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