2
None of the bridge crew or even the science officers had a clue as to what had happened or how or even why, but the colonial battlestar Pegasus was no longer trailing the fleet of colonial survivors under escort by the battlestar Galactica.
Instead, it found itself in an unremarkable solar system, somewhere as yet to be determined. Not even the navigators on the battlestar yet had a clue as to what the ships position was.
Only one person knew already, and he wasn't even on the ship.
Far beyond any human comprehension of time and space, one man and someone else found themselves talking.
" How very nice of you to join us, commander Cain."
The human known as commander Cain was a little less pleased however. " What is this place? Where am I? return me the Pegasus at once."
He got no reply. Instead, out of nowhere a table and two chairs appeared. " Please, commander, sit down, we have a lot to talk about and it concerns the fleet you have been protecting all these many years."
Harrumping and muttering, Cain sat down.
" Allright, now what is this all about?"
" Your job, commander. It's too protect the fleet to the best of your abillity, is it not?"
" It is, and why are you keeping me from doing it?"
" All in good time, you must know at first that we have some pretty good reasons to bring you here, commander."
At this Cain shut up. " Mind explaining yourself then,..."
" You may call me John, commander. Now allow me to explain why you're here."
With the mere thought a monitor appeared and on it, appeared something that looked like the bridge of a battlestar. Much to Cain's own surprise, it wasn't the bridge of the Pegasus. And the thing that astounded him even more was the fact that there civilians walking around said bridge.
" Civilians on the bridge of a battlestar, who in their right minds allows that." Cain blurted out in semi anger.
John only smiled. " Those civilians and the bridge of that battlestar is why you are here."
Cain said nothing and continued to study the image while John continued also " That battlestar, lies dormant on the planet Earth. Your ship is quite nearby, fortunately for us." John paused for a bit, as the images moved along at normal speed.
" So what do you want from me then?"
" Train them. Teach them why you're a living legend." Now cain started to smile. " I'll mold them in my very image."
" That's the spirit, commander. But we do think you need some help on this matter." As if on cue, something appeared on Cain's peripheral vision. As he turn, his vision grew into that of another human, even wearing a colonial uniform. He saw who it was nearly immediatly.
" Starbuck!"
Although his uniform looked a lot worse for the wear, and the lieutenant even more so, Cain somehow felt overjoyed to see the young lieutenant.
" Cain, you're dead too?" was the first thing out of the lieutenants mouth. Then he saw John.
" Oh no, not you guys again."
" Last I looked I was still aboard the Pegasus, Starbuck."
" Now, you'll have plenty of time to get reaquainted, but you must act soon, I fear time is short and Earth will need the Atlantis more then she can yet imagine."
" Wait!" Cain had barked it out like an order. " How will we know when to..."
He was too late. The very next moment, both Cain and Starbuck found themselves back onboard the Pegasus, in Cain's quarters.
Cain began by reaching for his comlink.
" Bridge, I want a full sweep of the system we're in. If there's anything remarkable out there, I want to know about it. Also bring up my dinner and a spare uniform."
A " Yes sir." Came back just before Cain switched off the speaker system.
" Now lieutenant, what is the state of the fleet, before whatever it was that happened happened to you?" Cain then asked the young lieutenant still with him.
Starbuck told him what he knew.
Cain came to a quick conclusion " Pretty much nothing has changed then. Allright, once we get back I'm going to but some heads myself."
Then his door chime rang. A yeoman came in carrying a uniform. Close behind followed another one, who was pushing a cart with two platters on it.
" It isn't much, but it 'll have to do for now. I find myself in need of a Strike captain, and you're it." An astonished Starbuck nearly choked on his first food.
Cain continued " Right now, we're gathering any and all info on this system. I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of places from which we can observe Earth. Lords, Adama was right."
The two men ate while discussing past adventures.
Somewhat later the door chime rang again. In came the Pegasus XO, colonel Tolen, carrying a rather large data card.
Cain didn't get all that formal with Tolon " Colonel, I take it you remember Starbuck over here."
Tolon nodded. " I do remember the lieutenant, sir."
" Good " Cain answered. " He'll be our new Strike captain oh and colonel, any rumor from the crew as to how he got here is to be reported to me at once."
Tolen nodded and put the datacard down on the desk. "
I have the data you wanted, sir."
Then he left again.
" Explaining how I got here is going to be quite a problem." Starbuck remarked as he started to shuffle his personal deck of playing cards.
" That I can take care of. It's what we'll find on Earth that has me worried."
" Earth will need Atlantis more then she can imagine." Starbuck quoted John.
" So we wait, and watch." Both men looked at the data feed the colonel had brought down. " The moon seems as good a place as any to start from..." Starbuck remarked.
On that same planet Earth, I was going over some paperwork. Most if had come from a NASA engineer group who had figured out that flying this ship, I still only knew her name to be Atlantis, in any kind of conventional way would be, dangerous to say the least.
But that wasn't the only problem. Yet another visitor had arrived to the site a few hours ago. I was glad that this time it was someone I really knew from my past days in the service.
" long time no see, Bill."
" Steve!" I leaped out of my seat and began to pump his hand vigourously.
After that phase was over, the official part kicked in. " Captain Steve Dunlop reporting for duty." I returned his salute and looked aghast. " You never been this official before Steve, why is that?"
Somehow, without anybody and his dog finding out about, Jerry Schulz had managed to get nearly the entire crew of the Nimitz over to the site. In one of the first trips, one of those groups had found something that for all practical purposes looked like a launchbay, a launchbay that also contained ships.
I did the safe thing and asked for pilots after we translated nearly all of the instruments and other stuff we found to English.
And now Steve Dunlap was here. Admiral Schultz had some serious cloud now I realised.
" come on, let me show you what we found."
I Led the newly promoted captain, as I found out on the way, towards the flightbays.
We got to the organized chaos that was still the port flightbay.
Equipment was everywhere. All over the place there were men and women alike, looking at strange craft they had never seen before, and studying what to do with them.
Dunlap for all practical purposes ignored the boxy looking things I and the others had already figured out to be shuttles.
His attention was on something nestling rather snugly on something that could for all lack of a better name be called a conveyor belt.
On top of it, lay another craft. Looking as pristine as ever. It held him captive, I could clearly see it as his gaze followed the long sleek nose to the stubby wings with the two gunbarrels and the tri engine arrangement.
" Beautiful! Whoever build these sure knew what they were doing."
" There is a slight problem though." I paused for a bit, reflecting on how to tell a naval officer that the thing he was drooling over was actually named after an Airforce jet!
" What problem is that? Admiral Schulz briefed me so, I've got a pretty good clue about the operation you're in charge of."
" The problem isn't the operation. It's the name of what you're looking at." I paused " From what we found, these things are called Vipers."
It was as if a pin had dropped. The captain's eyes began bulging in their sockets. " There's no way in hell, that Airforce name is sticking to this thing!" I noticed several heads turning in the distance. Steve's voice had been that loud.
Maybe it was inspiration or divine intervention, but, the captain looked at and said " This 'll be a Tomcat, the mark two to be exact."
A smile formed
on my lips. One problem out of the way, several hundredthousand still
to go. I left the captain studying the various aspects of the Viper
ships in the launch bay and headed back up to the command area. It
was just about the only part of the ship that had been thoroughly
inspected and searched. Hell, it was the only part of the ship with
people already living on it!
Even if it was only me.
I walked back to the quarters I had given myself and started to work through the enormous stack of paper again.
Some of them were analysis on the metals found. Others were just plain engineering reports. Two of them actually contained something interesting. A crew of naval engineering personnel had been to what they determined was the engine room, and lo and behold, with the help of a translator, they actually found out a number of things about the fuel.
The first thing was that all the tanks they could find, the were full up to the rim. The second one however was a bit more disturbing. One of the compounds in the fuel was rather volatile, and a guess from the report was that special measures might be needed to prevent anything catastrophic from happening.
I wrote down that I wanted to see the team commander as soon as possible.
Their extension however made me smile. " All of the fuel tanks we found were full. Whoever left this vessel made sure he or she had something to come back to."
" Now I know how a test pilot feels." I remarked to noone in particular.
There was a crackle of static electricity and the door chime suddenly rang. " Looks like we got power Bill!" Avoice filled them room I was in. But it was a little loud making me rush towards anything that remotely looked like a com panel.
I turned one knob, flipped one switch and pushed yet another button. Now the squelching and other noises subsided. " Serena, how am I coming through?" It had been her voice that had informed me the electricity or whatever it was that controlled this ship had been turned on.
" Loud and clear." Was her answer. " See what you and your translater can find out about the rest of the ships systems. I'm on my way."
Instead of somewhat groping my way through the dark with only a flashlight, I got to where I needed to go in record time.
At the CIC everything was brightly lit. Even more systems were now working. Playing a hunch I called for Serena again. I found her near yet another computer screen.
"Anyway you can dig up somesort of schematic, or blue print of what we're on?" She nodded and started to work.
In one of the areas of space near the moon, someone else was groping around as well. This person was a bit more in the dark however then Bill Adams.
Although Starbuck was familiar with flying through space, he kept worrying as the moon was getting closer.
" I hope you guys aren't counting off for neatness." He said more to himself then anyone else as he began to slow down. Cain's monitoring plan sounded a little ludicrous to him at first but Starbuck soon understood the need for secrecy.
No need to alert the entire Cylon war machine to the existence of planet Earth!
At the lowest altitude possible the viper skimmed the surface of the mare tranquillatis. As the noticed the blue planet coming up over the horizon, Starbuck knew it was time to land.
Then he sat down and activated the relay which would allow the Pegasus to see what he was receiving.
Down on the planet earth that Starbuck was now watching from his canopy, the pace began to pick up.
For some reason I felt as if I was being watched. While standing on top of the command pedestal, I had the unbelievable sensation that someone was indeed looking over my shoulder but as I turned around there was no one watching at me.
We were about a month into the exploration of what was now being called a technical Rosetta stone.
The place really started to come alive for me.
One enterprizing young officer, a lieutenant Caldwell, had already started to run some drills with some of the equipment he had been able to figure out with the help of a college friend on Serena her team.
He gave his demonstration with such skill that I gave him an instructor slot, ordering him to train other assigned personnel in the workings of the systems.
Thanks to Lieutenant Caldwell, I got another boon two days later, in the form of commander Sheila Wainwright. I suppose that the two had served together on a ship earlier in their career, but the lieutenant did inform me that commander Wainwright was fascinated by the stars and had tried to get on shuttle missions several times.
In all cases she had been turned down.
She came to see me in my quarters. " Lieutenant Commander Sheila Wainwright reporting as ordered, sir."
" At ease, commander and please, take a seat." There were some small leather recliners centered around a lounge table available for her to sit in. I moved some papers aside so I could sit opposite her.
" I don't really know how to start this except by saying that Lieutenant James Caldwell told me you're in love with space."
Her face hid a brief smile. "
I suppose one would call it that, sir." She paused, reflecting
briefly. " my father was an astronomer, sir. He installed his love
of the stars into me, and ever since that, I've had the wish to
dance amongst the stars."
I smiled at the commanders zeal for
her trade " Well commander, it's bumping into those stars that
has me worried. And it's also the reason why you're here. I need
someone to map the stars for me, and you're it. Welcome aboard."
She took my hand as i extended it. " Thank you sir, I'll try not to let you down."
After she left, I took another look at my crew roster. With flight ops in the hands of Steve Dunlap, I felt things were going to be okay in that departement. Sheila Wainwright filled the navigation position out rather nicely so I had no worries there either. Serena Quinn would handle the science team. If any military type was going to give her trouble, there would still be me and naturally, the admiral.
Lieutenant James Caldwell would handle any kind of situation on the bridge I felt. It hit me right then. I needed three more staff. And I needed to talk to Steve again.
Instead of Steve Dunlap I found an angry Serena Quinn, practically jumping at the bit and demanding to have a word with me. I ushered her into my office and asked her to sit down. She refused rather directly.
" Allright, what's wrong?"
" I'll tell you what's wrong. Most of those military types don't understand what we're trying to do here."
I nodded " I know, the officer I now have assigned to bridge watch thinks he's on the Enterprise. He'll get an education once things start happening."
Now it was Serena's turn to look perplexed. " What do you mean by that?"
I walked over to my seperate desk and handed her a stack of papers I had recently printed out.
" Just after I got in here, I found stuff that looked like log entries in the desktop computer over there. I had Jim and some of his friends look into it and you've got before you what they found."
" What is it?"
" The commander's logs. In a way, this changes everything, and I do mean everything!"
Serena was already reading. Nearly instantly, she found one of the parts I highlighted.
" Earth. Our new home, far away from those bumbling fools of the tribal council. I don't know what happened to the others, nor do I really care. The other twelve have followed the directions of that fool Romus. I don't know if he's under the influence of that priest. I even forgot his name. I do know this, the twelve other tribes are doomed. I do hope my brother, Lord Sagan, can talk some sense into them."
" That's one of the last log entries." I remarked as she finished reading. " We're not quite sure what happened after that."
" That's why I need you, Serena. We've only uncovered the op of this clue, and there's a heck of a lot more digging to do. That's what I need you for, Doctor Quinn." I looked her straight in the eye, giving her the message that I knew what I wanted her to give me.
" Allright, but I'll need something in return."
I wrote her demand down on the writing pad before I called the admiral again.
Instead of three, four people came into my office two weeks later.
First in was the admiral. The other three were the people I requested.
" Hello Bill, Glad to see Atlantis coming up nicely." I nodded as the Admiral and his entourage settled down in my office.
" Thank you sir, but that's not quite why I called you down here." I explained Serena her troubles along with some observations of my own and added that even though with my reactivated Navy comission I was technically head of the project, I couldn't do it alone. I needed someone with another science background to help out.
And since there was basically nobody else...
In the end Admiral Schulz did nothing but agree to the request. Then three men with him were up for my review.
The admiral handed me their folders.
" First up, Lieutenant Samuel Johnson. You're up for the weapons officer slot." He nodded asw I read on " You seemed to have managed a record time in target aquiring. What was it, five seconds?"
He smiled briefly " Well sir, I knew we had threats that would come in at sea level so I set one of the radars to find it. And find it I did. The missiles were away not much later."
" Right. As the weapons officer of this vessel, you'll have two distinct duties. Your first duty is defensive weaponry. Basically you're to keep us from getting scratched in the first place. In the second place however I want you to be able to scratch anything that comes up against this ship. Yet there will also be times I will ask for restraint. My orders will sometimes task you to the maximum. Do you feel up to it?"
Now Johnson started to smile. " Yes sir." Once released, this officer would have nearly carte blanche from me to scratch up anything we would come up against. And yet he would also show restraint when i would ask it from him.
The two other officers wore camouflage. One of them, a woman, carried the globe and anchor while the other carried a trident, marking the woman as USMC and the man as a Seal.
A brief glance at their files had shown me that I wanted these two officers to fill out my staff.
Mumbling ladies first to myself I started with the Marine. " Colonel Sandra Merryweather, I'm pleased to make your aquintance."
Through a stroke of luck the colonel had commanded an artillery battery during the second Korean War. She had repelled three Korean human wave attacks by firing point blank into the approaching mass of troops. When the North had tried it with tanks, then Major Merryweather had shown that 155mm guns make good AT guns as well.
Her battery became a rally point for survivours, and with those she held until reinforcements came up.And since Marines are also traditional she would fill the position I had in mind like a capital P.
" I'm resurrecting an old position, destined soley for this vessel." I started. " I'm formally requesting you to be my gunnery officer. You'll work with lieutenant Johnson in formulating defensive and offensive gunnery plans to implement, should the situation warrant it afcourse."
She nodded " When do i start sir?"
My answer sounded very final. " Today."
Last up, The trident. I skimmed through his file again. " Lieutenant Commander David Cain, Navy Seals."
I got a none telling stare in reply.
" Let me guess, don't ask, don't tell?"
" Aye sir, If ever got out what we did, there'd be hell." He answered.
I nodded " Good. This ship needs a viable groundforce that can raise hell, go into hell and get people out of there as well." I let that sink in before going on.
" You come recommended as someone who's not afraid to speak his mind. Yet also knows how to pull off surprises. I need unconventional thinkers, and you're one of them. Oh and by the way, you have carte blanche from the admiral to pick anyone you need for your team."
Now Cain also smiled " Aye sir, I'll get right on it."
That left me with the admiral.
" Allright Bill, Groom Lake is pretty much ready for you. Any ideas on how you're going to get Atlantis to there?"
Luckiliy now my office included a digital map screen. I activated it and selected the plans I had drawn in cooperation with commander Wainwright and captain Dunlap. The course lines appeared as an overlay on the map.
" As far as we can tell, there's but one option open to us, and that's up." I highlighted the course showing the giant half loop to the desert. " Everything else pretty much leaves us open to discovery, and we don't want that, do we."
Schulz half laughed. " No we don't. Do you plan to take her into space?"
" Yes sir, eventually. We're going to have to find out who put her here, and if they've left any other goodies behind. And this is nothing we want to 'stumble across."
" Allright Bill, continue what you're doing. Once Groom is ready for you, you're cleared to come in at your own." With that said the admiral got up and left as well.
I called up what was now technically my bridge. " How fare are we with departure preparations?"
The answer was satisfactoraly. " Alright, keep to the timetable." Not quite history making, but I knew we would get there eventually.
Again on the surface of the moon, Starbuck slept.
On the surface of planet Earth, the dustcloud that had been the telltale sign of a vehicle hitting its brakes, slowly dissapated on the light breeze that had been predicted by weather forecasters.
The first pair of boots that emerged completely from the vehicle, belonged to none other then Doctor Khalid Bin Sultan, head of the archeology departement of the university of Amman.
The Doctor stared incrediously into the distance. Where there had once been a thriving archeological dig, there was now exactly nothing except empty ruins.
Since he sported a thin beard, Bin Sultan began stroking it in thought.
" Something wrong?" The driver had also left the vehicle. This one however wore the uniform of the Royal Jordanian Forces.
" Perhaps, Captain Tahid, perhaps. What was it your superiors said about this area?"
Tahid, still overlooking the desert quoted his briefing " To asses in any way any form of involvment of the armed forces of the United States of America."
" Perhaps we should head back."
" Perhaps we should, professor."
The two men got in their vehicle and turned around, to commence the long yourney back to their respective starting points.