I own neither Battlestar Galactica nor Battletech and don't claim to. There's no point suing me for borrowing the storylines or characters unless you want a share of an underpaid Civil Servants salary and trust me it wouldn't be worth the trouble.
This is a spin-off story from Hunted Tribes which is co-written by myself and another writer known as Cannonshop, you'll likely notice the style of writing switching back and forth between us. A little more familiarity with the Battletech universe might be helpful for this one than for Hunted Tribes and it uses characters from Cannonshops other battletech stories (it's not strictly necessary to have read them though).
3046/04/11, 1700 Hours Zulu Time, 6 AU from New Lyonesse, a failed Star League colony...
Jump Detected.
Decades can pass in a moment on power-save mode, dreaming in isolation. Fuel bunkerage showed 11% loss from the last fully active period. Passive scan of the system showed little of the regressed colony on the planet. This was expected and fell within acceptable parameters. Stellar positions indicated 10,245 days since last active period.
Thirty years for the pirates to get their nerve up? not too shabby. She mused, running triangulation on the radio-linked detection grid to find the source of the Thermal/magnetic pulse that had awakened her.
Port ventral telescopic focused on the point her grid told her was the most likely source of the problem.
Odd. very odd design.
The jumpship had no docking collars, and already had fighters flying CAP.
She increased her focus, looking for markings.
Something big, and black, and decidedly alien flashed into being in the scope's range, its pulse picked up.
Delay calculations showed a twenty minute delay window between the light/RF reception, and the activity.
The alien vessel released fighters, and started firing as she watched.
Oh, you are NOT going there. TQF-142M5D's position put her near a stable temporary point.
She adjusted vectors.
KF drive charged, LF batteries at full capacity. Calculations indicate 97% stable course in-system at clock time 02:31:45 seconds.
She ran an inventory of on-board combat stores as she adjusted to "Ride in" to the temporary jump-point with a four second burn.
Sub sorting indicated that the unknown initial jump vessel was squawking a modified SLDF IFF code, this backed with the markings of the fighter group-331st Royal battlemech Division markings.
the black, alien looking craft she had NO familiar signals from at this range, but the architecture was clearly NOT of human make.
Forward batteries are 75%, Broadside laser batteries are 50% effective. Missile and Gun systems are at 12% of ammunition capacity for Capitals, 61% ammunition capacity for point-defense systems. Electronic Warfare Suites including ECCM and Advanced EW suites are 100%. Damage to port forequarters still un-repaired, armour at location Starboard Fore is 33% of capacity. Sensors clear, main, secondary, and tertiary manuever systems 100%, Nuclear Weapon lockers still inaccessable due to internal damage. Voidseeker fighter complement reduced to three. Set VS complement to launch on arrival, mission prioritize smaller Alien fighters, weapons hold on all craft larger than 1000 tonnes.
Systems dormant for decades warmed up, as the clock counted down.
An asteroid passed within a few hundered meters...
Discontinuity.
TQF-142M5D's arrival was preceded by a relatively small EM and thermal pulse-the in-system jump put her between an inbound comet and a large asteroid. A small three gravity push from her main sublight drives moved her neatly out of the way of the coming collision that had generated the tiny point.
Sensors cleared, and the Voidseekers popped out of her remaining functional bay, streaking off to find and engage the black, strange looking alien ships.
Without the time-delay and signal dispersion, the radio traffic was much clearer.
Either the Aliens are really weird-shaped and small, or those are drones. she decided they were drones, and adjusted her strategic direction accordingly to the Voidseekers.
One of the Alien fighters pulsed something at Voidseeker 2...
TQF-142M5D's datalink to the fighters was being attacked by someone with an effective, if somewhat strange, digital architecture, and the freighter was clearly in a struggle for its life while its drives rushed to re-charge.
"These are not for you." Tabby 'spoke' to the Aliens on the band their forces seemed to do most of their chattering on.
The aliens' response was something in a language she did not understand, then backed it up with a flurry of missiles and their strange fighters.
She engaged the missile and fighter swarm with an electronic warfare attack, and the carrier vessel with her foreward, forquarter, and broadside laser and cannon batteries, while bringing her PD systems into play, hurling LBX flack, AMS bursts, and lasers with fine precision.
The Aliens sent a broad-wave of their strange data 'chatter' at her. Subsystem analysis indicated Heuristic virus structure written in a binary machine-language.
She shifted part of her time-sense, running clock speeds up 2000 percent to decipher the enemy's signals, breaking down the software's structure and elements.
Signal Reciept (SR) +.0001 seconds
Run simulation series 1 through 250
SR+.0015 seconds
in 88% of the simulatons, the signal the aliens sent was intended to cripple and hijack military computer systems, the remaining 12% was divided between attempts to communicate, and random cries for assistance.
The language itself was, in TQF-142M5D's estimation, rather crude, with lots of extra coding that it did not need to function. Fast processors and lots of memory, but brute force programming methods... she was amused...slightly.
SR+005 seconds
Run countersignal response Dieron version 32.7
She turned the learning-virus inside out, and re-oriented it with root code from the battle at Terra in 2779, the virus she'd used to bring down the Reagan SDS net's coordination.
SR+009 seconds
Pinpricks of pain from the alien ship's lighter missiles detonating off-hull and off-contact.
Voidseeker 2 was behaving strangely. Tabby's accellerated processing forced her to slow down to 'real world' speeds, slow enough to orient a PDW battery and bring it down. She accellerated and evaluated the results in-simulation before sending Dieron Version 32.7 with the full strength of her EW arrays.
SR+10 seconds
The cargo-ship, and most of her escorts flashed out with a small pulse-their escape was secured.
Most of them.
The aliens hesitated-their commo systems were filled with confused signals
VS 1 tangled with an alien fighter...and the alien vanished.
The alien carrier vessel vanished as well.
run sensor logs-what the ****** just happened?
There was wreckage drifting, and among it, a single IFF indicator of an SLDF vessel...or what she hoped, given it was on standard frequencies, was an SLDF fighter.
Could technology have advanced that far in only seventy years? She thought it unlikely, but worthy of investigation.
besides, according to the ship's telemetry, there's a pilot still aboard, maybe he can shed some light on this...
She initiated a dataworm entry into the crippled fighter. This took an eternity at three seconds running at combat speed.
New fighter type... wow. who'd have considered a jump drive that SMALL?? Must be something pretty special...class is... Kirghiz? interesting small-craft design, anyway. Medical read shows the pilot's in good shape, good thing I don't need a sick-bay...
She found the fighter's control systems with a little work-including frequency penetration into the fly-by-wire circuits themselves.
She moved in and, through the ship's autopilot (after locking out the controls) brought it in, along with her remaining functional void-seeker.
* * *
From the Cylon Perspective
The colonials' convoy was an easy target-or looked like one, anyway. Samples of their allies technology would, with luck, be obtained with light casualties.
At first, the battle was going as expected-the Thirteenth tribe's heavy combat shuttles inflicted casualties at great speed, but the weight and numbers of raiders were sufficient to achieve victory.
"Keep pressing them, don't let them jump away." Cavil/John ordered, "We need samples of their technology."
Everything went to hell when the human warship arrived.
It was, like every other capital ship of the thirteenth, a bit of a surprise to look at-it resembled other vessels the Cylons had encountered-but only faintly. This one was more heavily armed than its length and mass would indicate, and it had signs of prior damage.
The Electronic data attack it launched was Loud, and the Hybrid screamed.
and there was good cause to scream-the Human ship's weapons slashed and scored at the base-star's hull...but that was nothing compared to the sudden agony that ripped through-raw emotion, anger, disappointment, loneliness...a mix of fury and despair the likes of which none of the Cylons aboard had even contemplated could exist.
"They are Not for You. Go Away."
Rejection ripped through his perceptions..and it was having the same impact on the others. A number Six dropped from her station, weeping.
The Hybrid...
"...dragon in its den has awakened to intruders end of line.
Damage to Ventral portside launch tubes, ammunition explosion on multiple decks, we are/I am on fire. She fights for those of the world below. End of line"
It was nauseating-the raw power of the attack made him think of Ragnar Anchorage..but this time, it was coherent.
"What the hell?" the base-star shook with more impacts. Raiders were flying 'confused' outside.
The human mining ship and its escorts jumped out, leaving only the strange warship, and its primitive drones.
Another wave of rejection, tinged with despair, ripped through the base-star's network. This time, Cavil recognized it for what it was-and the blended subtlety and brutality of it.
Kill Yourself Now. the urge and the words hammered into his skull. It was like hearing the voice of a god...
"...the guardian of the gate! the Guardian demands...jump." the Hybrid made Cavil's decision for him.
An eight was throwing up. One of the Twos was looking, glassy-eyed at nothing. "wow." the Leoben said.
"Didn't predict that, did you?" Cavil/One said, "what the frack did we just run into?"
"I think it's their version of a Hybrid." the puking Eight said, getting control of herself. "Maybe their version of a Cylon...did you feel that?"
a Six wiped her eyes, "Powerful, alone...or just lonely. Angry." she said, "I think we woke it up. Whatever it is, it most certainly is NOT a human on the other end of that."
Cavil frowned..."How did it get in?"
"Raw transmitter power." Leoben said quietly. The others looked at him. "I'm serious. raw power-it picked up our tactical comms and Dradis, and just...slammed. The power plant pushing that had to be pretty heavy. the other half of it is raw speed. It not only figured out our virus transmission, but reverse-engineered the programming language and designed a fairly complex reply in less than a second."
"Damage?" Cavil asked, feeling his equilibrium return.
"Heavy damage to the outer hull-superficial, but there is a lot of it, we lost one...two missile magazines and some of our launch systems. There are also several Centurions who-" Six looked up, "Several dozen Centurions have gone off-line, they killed themselves." she said.
"Only a few dozen?" Cavil asked expectantly. At Six's nod, he smiled. "Well...that's a relief." He quipped. He turned to Leoben, "what's our position?"
the Two looked nonplussed, "Seventy light years back the way we came." he said, "We can return-"
"Frak that, until I know what just hit us-what just happened for certain, we're going to rendezvous and pick up our resurrected comrades, finish repairing our damage, and go over the battle again to determine what that monster is." Cavil said, "We also need to find a counter to that...attack, and determine if it affected anything else." he sighed, "Besides, our primary targets are long gone, and until we know more about that thing, it would be stupid to go running back in to face something that can scare the hell out of the Hybrid."
"Agreed." the six and the eight said it simultaneously with the Four. For a moment, those three looked at one another in surprise.
Note from the Author:
TQF-142M5D is a Caspar, one of the AI warships built by the Star League at its height. When Stafan Amaris murdered the rightful First Lord and took power in a coup in 2765 he used the Caspar's to fight the Star League Defence Force since they were programmed to obey the head of government without question (even if he was a usurper).
The Caspars were made by man, most obeyed orders, some rebelled...