Chapter 3 Contact and Missteps
Space ripped open in a flash of light as a small vessel, the vessel was less than 30 feet long and while other variants of the vessel carried heavy weapons this one did. This one was equipped with twine automatic cannons and ship-to-ship missiles; most of the ship was dedicated to DRADUS sweeps and wireless severance. One of the other main job of this version of Colonial Raptor was mapping of systems under the control of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.
"Helo, any wireless traffic?" inquired the pilot to the copilot/Electronic Countermeasure Officer Karl "Helo" Agathon who sat at his controls behind her.
"No." reported Lieutenant Karl Agathon as Colonial Raptor 312 from the Battlestar Galactica moved through space toward a cluster of asteroids, which marked the border between Colonial and Cylon controlled space. The border between the 12 tribes and their self-created demon of their existence had been established thirty-nine years earlier and since the signing of the treaty, no one had seen one of the robot Cylons. Every so often, a civilian ship traveling near the border would claim to pick up an unknown contact on the other side of the boarder but besides that no sign.
"I wouldn't believe so; the Cylons haven't been seen in what? 40 years?" asked the pilot Lieutenant Sharon "Boomer" Valerii as she guided the Raptor toward the mission. It was a rather simple mission to go to the asteroid cluster and sit for 12 hours in an attempt to listen to any wireless broadcast, which could be Cylons. Both of them thought it was a stupid mission since even if they did pick up any wireless traffic it would encrypted and breaking a Cylon computer code was almost as likely as Zeus himself appearing in front of them.
"Frak we are so far out I can't even get fleet wireless traffic yet alone a civilian station for music," cursed Helo as they moved into the asteroid field before coming in for a landing on a random hunk of rock on the outer edge of the cluster.
"Told you we wouldn't get anything, I did this post last year and we got nothing," laughed Sharon as she powered down the Raptor and took off her helmet. She checked her systems, which took a few moments before speaking again. "Tell me you brought the cards or else this is going be a very long day?"
Karl never got a chance to say another word as suddenly a blueish light filled the cockpit window as both turned toward the source however, a nearby asteroid prevented a view however it gave them a perfect view of the strange ship, which came out from behind the asteroid. The ship had to be far away from them for it to be hidden behind the asteroid. It seemed to be a gun metal grey with a long neck coming out of a thicker base. Out of the thicker base came four small crafts from what both veterans guessed had to be some kind of flight pod. The crafts separated into pairs before turning and burning in what looked to be a protective combat patrol.
"What the frak, is that?" asked Karl as turned toward his computer. He was getting some wireless traffic now but he could not make heads or tails of it. They were coded in a way he had never seen before and his computer database could not match it either. Seconds later, there was another flash of blue light, which came from behind the unknown ship.
"Second contact!" yelled Sharon as a second ship larger than the first came out from the behind the first unknown. This one was massive almost three fourths the length of the Galactica but it was no way as tall or as wide. It reminded them both of a flying sky scrapper with a rectangle shape which narrowed to a point at the front. Before the two colonial officers eyes the top and bottom of the vessel opened and out to show what appeared to be objects of some kind sitting on a flat deck. The deck took up most of the ship as if it was nothing more than a giant hanger with a bridge at the front and engines in the back.
"What the frak?" asked Sharon as she double-checked to make sure that the cameras were rolling. The powerful cameras were now recording everything as some of the large objects on the second ship lifted off the deck.
"Cylons?" asked Karl as his mind jumped to the only thing he could think of that would explain what they were seeing. The ships looked nothing like the twin disks sitting on top of each other like the primary Cylon vessel during the last war, it didn't even look like the second version which looked more like two letter Ys attached to each other. In fact these ships looked more in line with Colonial warships then anything close to what the Cylons used but they were not colonial.
"I have no fraken idea, but who else could it be?" stuttered Sharon as she trembled a bit in fear as she noted the position of the two ships on the Dradus system. The ships were just on the Cylon side of the boarder but it was only by about two hundred yards and the smaller fighter patrol was on their side of the boarder.
Unknown to the two pilots this wasn't the Cylons but the Tau'ri defense vessel the Daedalus class warship the HMS Ark Royal on mission to protect one of the newest ships in the ever growing fleet. The Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the six Hadrian class constructor, which was designed to carry parts for the new defense satellites and items too large for the Stargate to transport. The Da Vinci was unarmed so at all times at least one warship was assigned to watch out for the ship and its small crew.
"Anything on sensors?" asked the Ark Royal's captain as the London born Royal Navy officer sat on the bridge with a tea cup and platter in his hands. Captain Ian Taylor never dreamed that when he first signed up to protect his island nation by joining the Navy that he would be out in space.
"Nothing Captain Taylor." reported another officer as captain took another drink of tea already counting down the hours left that he and his crew would have to play babysitter. This mission while important was rather boring compared to exploring new parts of the galaxy or doing battle with monsters such as the Wraith.
"Sir, this is our last satellite placement before we head back to Earth for the unmasking correct?" inquired the second officer.
"Correct." Confirmed Captain Taylor as he looked down at his chair mounted computer pad "We actually got our assigned stop yesterday, while the Brittiania is showing off along with the other capital ships at the UN before going to London, we will make our appearance in York."
"Could be worst and where are the other big boys going?" inquired the officer
"From my understanding they will appear in New York before going to their capitals, the carrier in San Francisco, or was it LA one of the two I forget." Reported the Captain as he thought about it, the final orders where likely going out to multiple Generals for a general call up all military forces to secure that everything remains peaceful. Other nations not in the alliance would likely call up their own military not really knowing why but only responding to everyone else calling up theirs. The October 1st 2020 meeting of the United Nations was going to be a landmark event in human history but before that day they had to finish the mission here.
"So did your son enjoy your trip to Valhalla Disney?" inquired the Captain to the second officer who he knew had three children between the ages of twelve and six.
"Yes, sir but I loved the fact that we didn't have to wait hours to get on a ride." Laughed the officer
"Well that will not last long, I saw the estimates of people moving off Earth to Valhalla." added the Captain as he remembered the outlook at the number of people which would likely be moving. At first most of them would be from China and India but a strong number from Western countries as well. Since it would be too difficult to move all those people to the SGC before coming to Valhalla the plan was to transport the Gate to them and then depart them from their home nations. "They predict over 400 million people in the first five years, which is four percent of the population of Earth or about the same as the population of the United States and another 400 to 200 million in the next five years depending on colonization of other worlds."
"Damn no wonder they are building all those empty cities on Valhalla, right now." added the second officer "They will not be empty for long but how are they going to employ all those people?"
"Building ships." stated Captain Taylor as he remembered talking with some of the other ship captains. It was an open secret among that the IOA plan was to build up a 600 plus strong fleet of warships within twenty years, which was about double the size of the curtain United States Navy however it was going to be spread out over multiple nations. At first, he thought this to be an impossible idea but then he had talked with one of his old primary school mates which was assigned to the British army engineer core assigned to Valhalla. According to him, the major problem was getting the raw material out of the ground and refining it not the actual construction of the ships. The people building the ships where very efficient at putting everything together but without the raw material they could not do much.
Back on the Colonial Raptor, the two scared colonial pilots had finally figured out what they had to do. They kept the main gun video tape rolling as they zoomed in with the smaller cameras, they were trying to get images of these ships from every position possible but they still had no clue what they were.
"I think we should get going, like right now." stated Helo
"Good Idea, who knows when they will send some raiders in to check it out." stated Boomer as she slowly lifted the Raptor off the rock hoping that whatever those ships where didn't detect them. She quickly spun up the FTL and the moment it was ready she hit it causing a small flash of light.
Due to all the small asteroids floating in the field, the sensors systems on the Ark Royal never ID the Colonial Raptor lifting off the floating rock as a ship. It did pick up the energy spike from the jump drive but the radar operator passed it off as a false reading and went back to work. One of the 302 pilots flying combat barrier patrol did see the flash of light but only out of the corner of his eye and turned toward the source but seeing nothing moved on believing he had just imagined it.
Raptor 312 appeared a just far enough away to be outside the powerful long-range scanners of the Ark Royal. The Raptor was well within the DRADIS system range of the ship which had launched it only twenty minutes earlier. Deep inside the ship was Combat Information Center or CIC from this centurial location the Commander of the Colonial Battlestar Galactica could direct the ship under his or her command in war and in peace. The Galactica had not seen any major action since the Cylon war almost 40 years earlier, the only times the Battlestar's massive guns had been fired was in training and soon they would never fire again.
"Commander Raptor 312 has returned," stated the DRADIS officer a young Junior Lieutenant Anastasi "Dee" Dualla as her Commander, Commander William "Bill" Adama looked up at her from the map table in the center of the room. A viper pilot veteran of the Cylon war the old warrior was looking forward to his retirement in just under nine months.
"Sir, that raptor was due back for at least seven hours." stated the senior officer of the watch Lieutenant Felix Gaeta as the young up and coming officer reported information that the Cylon-War veteran Viper pilot already knew.
"Get Boomer on the horn." ordered Adama as he reached for the wired broadcaster located in the side of the table "Let's hope she has a good reason for this."
The war veteran waited a few moments while Dee manually switched the wireless broadcaster over to him. Unlike all the newer ships in the Colonial Navy, the Galactica had no networked computers on board she had been designed that way since the Cylons had shown themselves more than capable of hacking computer networks during the war. The newer ships had systems which was supposed to stop even the best hacking attack but the old war dog didn't trust them and since Galactica was nine months away from becoming a museum the high command saw no reason to put her in the list for upgrades.
"Raptor 312 this is Galactica Actual, did you forget something Boomer?" inquired Commander Adama, he expected to hear about a problem with the scanning systems or maybe with another key system however he got an answer he nor anyone was not expecting.
"Sir, contact I say again we have contact with what we believe to be two Cylon ships." reported Boomer as Adama and everyone else on the CIC eyes widened a bit, that wasn't something they had expected. "We need Combat information teams standing by to print out photos to confirm."
"Get Combat Information to the hanger." ordered Adama knowing that Combat Information was nothing more than two junior officers with a portable printer and a laptop computer so old it was laughable. Together they would download and print up anything captured on the Raptors cameras and dradis systems. Once they had that done they would make four copies. One would stay on Galactica the others would board Raptors for the jumps to the nearest battle group and two raptors would take them all the way to Colonial command back in the colonies.
"Where is the nearest battle group?" inquired Adama to his watch officer who quickly studied star map located on the center table.
"Here sir." reported Gaeta as he pointed toward a spot on the map "Pegasus Task group three Battlestars plus seven other ships, not sure about their class. Under Rear Admiral Helena Cain I believe."
"Alright, I am going to go down to the hanger and see this possible Cylon sighting myself. Prepare the ship for possible jump, If it looks good I will take this information to Admiral Cain myself, so prepare the ship for a jump." ordered Adama as Gaeta blinked, a jump was something they had trained for but hadn't done in two years. "Is something wrong?"
"Sir standard orders are to send a Raptor if there is any sightings." countered Gaeta
"Yes, but if these ships are Cylon then we are supposed to organize a strike against them and that would be easier if we are all together." countered Adama as Gaeta lowered his head giving into the logic of that, even as his Commander started walking away. "And someone get my XO out of bed."
"Yes, sir." confirmed Gaeta
Back with the Ark Royal everything was going on schedule, the first couple of pieces had lifted off the deck of the Da Vinci and with the help of small retro rockets where being moved into place. Each part was designed to fit together sort of like a giant Lego construction set, all the pieces fit together and then a small team would beam onboard and finish the final attachments. Unlike the larger defense class Kusanagi Class Defense station which where almost ¾ of a Kilometer long they were assembling a class C station which was a lot smaller had no defense system besides a cloaking system which would hid it from almost everyone.
The Kusanagi class defense station had three sub classes based on what their main role was. The Class A was almost ¾ of a kilometer long with a beam weapon capable of punching through any ship within two hits. Those stations had a bay for launching fighters and drone weapons along with anti-air defenses. The next class was the Class B which was smaller with less weapons but was more versatile easier to produce and faster to assemble. Finally, the smallest was the class C which main job was not to fight but to serve as lookouts and broadcasts stations. With their powerful sensors and cloaking systems, they could monitor large parts of space unseen and unnoticed.
"Anything on sensors?" asked Captain Taylor board out his mind.
"We are getting fait radio traffic but we can't make out what it is at the moment." Reported an officer
"Radio traffic?" inquired the Captain as he moved toward the broadcast station "I thought this part of space had no of advance life?"
"According to the Asgard Database it is and when we inquired about this space to the Jaffa they had no world's here." responded the officer as she pulled up information about the area on her computer. "Combine with the fact that none of the dials to this area of space done by the SGC connect to anything lead command to declare it void of life."
"And yet we are getting radio traffic, isn't that a clear sign of life?" inquired the Captain as the officer blinked "The Asgard where amazing but they were not God we can't take everything they wrote down as Holy Scripture."
"Should we move toward the source so that we could get a better idea of what is going on?" inquired the officer as the Captain shock his head.
"No, we need to protect the Da Vinci but once the work is done we should look into it. In the mean time I want fighters on standby and bring the ship up to level two alert." order the Captain as the officer nodded his head. "Is the communication systems on the satellite up yet so that we can contact Earth in real time?"
"Should be sir, hold on…" said the officer as he moved to another station where a lower officer was manning a computer to confirmed it.
"Yes, sir we have communication with Earth." Said the officer in front of the computer before deciding to cover her ass "May be a little static but other than that it should work."
"A little static never hurt anyone." confirmed the Captain as he sat down in his chair and tapped a small computer screen, which was attached to the armchair. The Ship's seal disappeared and within a few moments, a man's face appeared.
"Captain Ian Taylor HMS Ark Royal for General O'Neill." reported the Captain as the man who was sitting behind a desk in Washington DC nodded his head.
"Please hold for one moment." said the man as the screen went to another seal, this one showing a Stargate with the upside down V with a circle on top symbol which had become the symbol of the Tau'ri. It didn't take long before the face of another man this one dressed in an American Air Force blue dress uniform appeared. He had salt and pepper hair had become more salted since leaving the SGC but there was strength within him.
"Captain Taylor how are things going out there?" inquired one of the greatest heros in Earth's history even if only a handful of people knew about him at the moment.
"Sir, we may have a small situation," reported Captain Taylor to the head of Home World Command.
"What kind of situation?" inquired General O'Neill as he put down his pen which he had been using for paper work.
"My ship is currently guarding the Da Vinci while they put up a defense satellite for the outer rim of the Valhalla defense line and we received some radio traffic. The radio traffic is coming from an area of space which according to the Asgard database is supposed to be empty of life advanced." Reported Captain Taylor as General O'Neill raised an eyebrow.
"What kind of radio traffic?" inquired O'Neill
"It's too weak to tell could be a highly advanced culture or it could be the first broadcast of a culture who just discovered radio." admitted Captain Taylor "However we will not know unless we move closer to the source."
"We can't leave the Da Vinci unprotected it is one of only six construction ships we have." stated the General
"Yes, sir I totally agree which is why with your permission once the satellite it finished and the Da Vinci heads to join the fleet we head toward the source and find out what it is." Advised the Captain, the Da Vinci could handle the journey in hyperspace back to Valhalla by itself. "Should only take 90 minutes at most to move closer to the source of the radio broadcast to understand what it is. Then we will know what we have on our flank for sure."
"Agreed but make sure your back at Valhalla to join the fleet heading to Earth. I don't want to explain to the British PM why one of his ships didn't show up for the unveiling of the Stargate program." ordered General O'Neill
"Yes, sir." confirmed Captain Taylor the screen went black and the Captain checked his watch. He now had orders but he couldn't do anything for at least another five hours when the Da Vinci would be finished. "What are they serving for lunch today?"
"Baked Cod with Chips." reported the nearest officer "However we can get something different you want."
"No, I'll eat with the men today," ordered the Captain wishing it time for lunch already.
Meanwhile outside of sensor range from the Ark Royal another Commanding officer was enjoying her lunch in her private study. She had her long dark hair was pulled back into a pony tail and her dark blue uniform was in perfect condition like always. While she ate her meal, a traditional Tauron meal which was heavy on the red meat and potatoes she looked over the timeframe for her ships overhaul back at the Scorpion Shipyards. Her first ship was due in to port in three months with her own command ship the Mercury class Battlestar Pegasus being the last one in nine months. A knock at her door caused her to lift her head from the paperwork and toward the door.
"Enter." ordered the Rear Admiral as the hatch opened up as her XO Jurgen Belzen entered the office. It was rare for the XO to interrupt her meals since it was normally the only time apart from sleeping when Cain was not working in one way or another.
"Rear Admiral Cain, we may have a situation," reported Colonel Belzen as the Admiral looked up at him with her dark eyes that made Special Forces marines run in fear. "The Battlestar Galactica has jumped a few hundreds kilometers to our front."
"The Galactica is supposed to be at least a jump away from our us." stated Cain with a grown as she placed down her knife and glared at Belzen in anger "So tell me who is in command over there and why is he here?"
"Commander Adama is there and according to his broadcast he wants to come onboard to speak to you personally." reported Belzen as he took a deep breath and looked down at his paper again. "He says one of his raptors sited two possible and I stress possible Cylon ships right on their side of the board in section P145."
Admiral Cain's eyes widened as she grabbed her knife and stabbed the wooden table letting the point of the razor sharp blade just sit there.
"Cylons?" asked Admiral Cain as she looked at the knife "I knew that they would return."
"Possible Cylons, the Commander reports two unknown ships on the boarder but who else could be." corrected Belzen "His raptor got some pictures and wants to come onboard to present them to you."
"Get him here now! I want every Commander in my fleet here as well!" ordered Admiral Cain with a force, which caused Belzen to snap to attention to carry out his orders.
Just under twenty minutes the aged warrior of Commander Adama moved through the corridors of the much more advanced Pegasus. Unlike his Galactica this battlestar didn't smell of mold mainly because it didn't have decades of build up from drippy water pipes in the wall. The two marines who stood guard in full combat uniforms in front of the Admiral's office snapped to attention as he neared before opening the door. He entered to find the commanders of all ten ships in the fleet already standing around the table with Admiral Cain at the head.
"Admiral Cain." said Adama as he saluted his superior who returned the saluted at once.
"Commander Adama, Admiral Cain tells us you have a Cylon sighting?" inquired a much younger woman.
"A possible sighting." corrected Adama as he moved to stand at the other head of the table across from Admiral Cain. Quickly he unrolled a large map which had been printed up only recently onboard the Galactica. It covered maybe half the table and was sectioned off with thin lines, which formed a grid, however an image was clear. It showed two strange ships with some asteroids covering parts of the image. "This was taken just over 90 minutes ago by Raptor 312 which was in a standard passive recon sweep in an asteroid belt a single jump from this location."
"90 minutes why so long?" inquired another Commander "This should have been brought to use at once."
"Galactica's printers are very old and very slow. Also I wanted to make sure that we were not dealing with a drifting hulk of some kind, the two pilots where not alive during the last war and their story was unbelievable at first." explained Adama as the other officers nodded their heads.
"Understandable." defended the second oldest person at the table "One of my rookie pilots thought an old Cylon raider was a UFO because half the thing was missing."
"Your rookie believes in UFO?" laughed another Officer, belief in life outside of humanity was seen as laughable in the colonies. This was because scared scrolls said the universe was made for humanity by the Lords of Kobol and in over forty years of space travel they had never made contact with any.
"This isn't a wretch of any kind." said Admiral Cain as she leaned over the table looking at the two ships, the ships that belonged to her enemy.
"No, Sir and they appear to be setting something up just on their side of the boarder." Stated Adama "The pilots reported that the larger of the two ships opened up and large pieces of something likely a space station began moving off the deck."
"They are be setting up a launching point for an invasion." stated Cain with such force that it took the others aback "They did this during the last war, set up a defense station from which they could have their Basestars fall back to when threatened and from which they could resupply from. Look from this location they are only three jumps away from our homes."
"Which is why stations like those where banded within a single jump of the board in the treaty." Noted another officer "Aside from the conference station we don't have any space stations within a jump of the boarder and neither should the Cylons."
"Alright I want this hit and hit now," ordered Cain
"Sir we should inform high command first." advised another Commander
"No, it is well within the confines of the treaty to destroy any station of any kind by the boarder and that is what we are going to do." explained Cain "Send a Raptor to the high command with word of this and our actions, and then we will move into combat."
"Madam there may be a slight problem." reported one of her three Battlestar commanders as Cain's head snapped toward him like an angry big cat "We have a News crew from Caprica on the Orion it will be hard to get them to leave without raising an alarm."
"Why do we have a film crew on one of my Battlestars?" snapped Cain
"High command orders trying to drum up news stories before the next budget cuts start happening." explained the commander of the Orion.
"It may be for the best let them see the threat the Cylons still pose to us." offered up another as Admiral Cain put her hand under her chin as she thought about the point.
"I agree." ordered Cain
"It would look bad if the news reporters are taken out by a lucky missile if things go bad, maybe put them in a Raptor near the rear." offered up another Commander "That way they can jump away if needed."
"Two Cylon warships against four Battlestars and seven support vessels we shouldn't have any issues." stated Cain as she brushed the worry aside "And it looks like one of the ships is a support vessel likely not even arm."
"We should send in a Raptor for a scouting mission to make sure everything is the same we don't want to jump into a trap." offered Adama
"I wise move," confirmed another Commander
"No we can't alert them to us," countered Rear Admiral Cain "Once you all return to your ships have your crews go to condition 1 and then we will jump into combat, launch everything you have. Galactica as the oldest ship you will take the rear while the Pegasus takes the lead if I should fall then as the most experience senior officer command will pass to you, Commander Adama."
"Yes, Madam." confirmed Adama as she start to lay out her attack plan not know who she was really attacking.
Yes, this story is taking place before the fall of the 12 tribes of Kobol by a couple of months. I hope you liked this chapter, I am sorry for the delay of a couple of days but I forgot to say in my last chapter I was going to a cousin's wedding so I would be late in posting. Now until next time please keep reading. Thanks Wilkins75