Act Two
Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns
"Come in" she said
"I'll give you shelter from the storm".
-Bob Dylan, "Shelter From the Storm"
::Meatshield::
Earth! The home of the 13th Tribe! And here I was, on frakking Earth(!), shaking hands with one of the Cousins.
The woman who had spoken to "Mahler", whose hand I was shaking, had replied to my "Greetings, etc" spiel in a halting a slurred form of archaic Colonial Standard. Words to the effect that I was welcome here and emphatic confirmation that yes, indeed, without a doubt...this was Earth.
Mahler introduced the other four members of his welcoming party. The woman with the language skill was named "Costa", the other uniformed man was called "Masterson". The two in civilian clothing were "Stewart" and "Peacock". Handshakes all around.
The scorching sun and high humidity (seriously, it was like the jungles of Scorpia) had me boiling in the flightsuit, and my hosts seemed to pick up on that due to my profuse sweating. They indicated that we could move the whole show indoors, pointing at the huge hangar behind them. Nodding, I stepped off toward the hangar, and we proceeded across the hardtop.
::Mahler::
My job now, as I understood it, was to keep our new playmate, Adelanii, safe and comfortable, then stall for time while NASA (and, allegedly, the State Department) threw together a team to communicate with him.
We entered the VAB (currently empty), with a noticeable drop in temperature (Adelanii was obviously not dressed for Florida in July). I requisitioned the manager's office suite to house our party, sending one of the SFs off to fetch some water.
Motioning our guest to make himself comfortable on one of the 1980's vintage couches, we watched as he unzipped his flightsuit, sliding out of the top half and tying it around his waist. Taking a seat and placing his helmet on the next cushion, he glanced around, clearly at a loss as how to proceed. That made two of us.
::Meatshield::
Well, frak. What now? I had now idea how to handle things from here on. Except for the Old Man, and maybe Roslin, I don't think anyone had thought about what we'd do when we actually got to Earth! Given the language barrier, how do I communicate the Fleet's situation, where we're from, why we're looking for Earth, the Cylons...
One of Mahler's subordinates entered and passed around bottles of water. Unscrewing the top (some things are universal, I guess), I took a deep pull. Odd how my last drink was on a Battlestar, in some other part of the Galaxy...
I wished Frosty could be here. Could see Earth. She always believed in the road to Earth, even when a lot of us had given up. Starbuck would be pretty good, too. She'd probably figure out some crazy way to get the 13th Tribe to help us. Me? I was not that confident.
The female soldier, Costa, who knew a few words of broken Colonial, was a possibility, but I couldn't risk screwing up and a mistranslation turning some simple phrase into a mortal insult or hostile declaration. Writing, on the other hand...
Looking up at Mahler, I mimed a writing motion with my hands. Catching my meaning, he nodded and ransacked the desks in the room behind the glass partition, producing several pads of paper and two ink pens. Handing them to me, he took a seat across the room.
Thinking for a minute, I decided that, if the 13th had people who could understand Archaic Colonial, then it was likely they could understand our writing. Wincing at the glaring right angles of the paper, I leaned over one of the pads and began to write out our story (short form).
::Mahler::
Outstanding! Our new friend evidently thought that things would go easier if he wrote things down, instead of the two of us trying to pantomime concepts via Costa's (admittedly) limited grasp of his language. NASA staff had told us the Ospreys transporting the UF language guys had touched down, and we'd be setting them up in the main work floor of the VAB. In a few minutes, we'd go in there and they'd try to kluge together a basis for real communication. I figured they'd appreciate a lengthy sample of the written form.
More ominously, orders had come down from the Office of The President. Based on howling from the NASA Biology types and their counterparts at CDC and USAMRIID, everyone who was in the VAB was now under quarantine. The rest of the personnel were confined to the Cape. The words "Virgin Field Epidemic" were used. Having read enough scifi to know what that meant, I could understand the motivation. I just hoped Adelanii wasn't carrying Space Rabies.
On the lounge television, currently muted, FoxNews was showing enhanced video of Adelanii emerging from his spacecraft, meeting us, and shaking my hand, with the headline: "First Contact". "Well, sir, you're in the books with Yuri and Neil now", Costa snarked. One particular shot had the VAB parking lot's Stars and Stripes fluttering in the background behind Adelanii and I as we shook hands. Costa laughed, "Get used to that picture, Boss. Fox'll be using it as their lead in for the next decade!".
Costa wasn't laughing a few seconds later, when the clip showed her shaking Adelanii's hand, after Peacock and Stewart. "Are they zooming in on my ass? Fuckers!". There is justice, after all.
Adelanii had filled up two pages with squiggly greekish letters, looking like a prose version of my Mechanics notes in College. He handed the pad to Stewart, who had been circling him like a hawk, looking over his shoulder as he wrote. "Stewart, take that to the UF language geeks. Let 'em get a head start". Nodding, he stepped out onto the floor and walked over to the tables where the Linguists and Classics guys were setting up.
Stewart dropping two pages of text, handwritten by a man from another world, instantly caused a nerd flocking event, as about 3 dozen PhDs tried to look at them simultaneously. I turned away from the lounge window. We'd give them a few minutes to calm down, then escort our guest over there.
::Mahler::
Taking a second to study Adelanii, as he stared at the television, I noted a few details. 5'8" or so, but with a starved look that spoke of quite a few missed meals in the recent past. Light blonde hair and blue eyes, with a wiry build and extremely pale skin. His flightsuit showed signs of wear and multiple repairs.
Obviously military, but with worn gear and looking malnourished. There were several scenarios to explain that, all of which were pretty forboding.
The nerds out on the VAB floor looked ready to go, so I stowed my woolgathering, gestured to Adelanii and our entourage, then stepped out of the lounge. The language team was seated at several long bench tables, with a seperate table and chair for our guest, along with pads of paper, pens and bottled water for everyone. Several other tables were set up for both my little company and the linguist's assistants.
Once everyone was seated, the academics dove right in. They showed Adelanii flashcards with Greek words, and he would speak the word if he recognized it, or shake his head if he didn't.
This went on for about an hour, with the nerds taking copious notes at every response, before the actual Greek scholars tried verbal communications. Adelanii would get the gist of most phrases, apparently. According to the academics, the dialect was descended from Archaic Greek (what they'd have spoken during the Trojan War), but mutated, and with loan words from some germanic-sounding language.
After a couple of hours, I interrupted and closed the session for the day, throwing out the nerds (eager to collate their data) and setting up a hot meal for our friend Adelanii (Niko, to his friends, apparently). With a meal in him, he looked about ready to collapse, so we set him up with a cot in one of the interior offices (complete with shower). He promptly went to sleep, understandably. After setting a couple dozen guards in and around the office block, I went off to the VAB floor (now the "Contact Center") for a summary briefing from both the language team and my SF leaders.
Our celebrity guests for the evening included General Ericson (the Space Command CG), the President and the entire Cabinet, right down to Veterans Affairs, all joining us via video link (quarantine, remember). Someone from the NASA staff had arranged for food, and I grabbed some snacks and coffee, then took my seat.
Addressing the cameras, I opened "Mr. President, Secretaries, General, this is our briefing on the events of the day. This is obviously a definitive moment in the history of our World. That is, however, beyond the purview of the teams on site. Our duties are to secure this facility and to learn about our guest. To this end, I will ask my Security Forces commander to update us on the current situation. Captain Jackson?".
Jackson stood in his trailer Command Post, out by the LCC, and reported the current security situation. Namely, that he had an entire squadron of SFs locking down KSC, with the local cops and State Troopers (with the National Guard on the way) keeping order among the crowd outside, which was growing by the hour.
There was an inner perimeter, thrown up around the VAB, out to about 500 meters. Inside the LCC offices, where our guest was resting, it was standing room only, packed with SF troops, both static guards and roving patrols.
Jackson requested additional assets including Mechanized support, to harden the complex against heavier events, such as VBIEDs or serious armed incursions. We had a Spaceman crashing on our couch, and the Zanies were liable to come out swinging. The Northern Command CG promised heavy elements from the 3rd Infantry Division would arrive by early afternoon tomorrow. Secret Service personnel were also en route, as they were the SMEs when it came to protecting famous and controversial people.
Jackson, having finished his spiel and having had his concerns addressedm sat down. We then focused on the leader of the language team. Doctor Karl Hahn stood and began his report.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, our visitor, who identifies himself as one Nikoteros Adelanii, speaks a highly variant form of Greek. It shows a definite correlation to Archaic Greek of the Late Bronze Age, but none of the main indicators that are hallmarks of the later forms of Greek. This gives us a good idea of when our civilizations split, and...".
The Secretary of State interrupted, "Wait just a minute, Doctor! Are you saying that his people are from Earth?". "Yes, Mr Secretary, we are saying that. The only alternatives are that the Greek language evolved in parallel in another world, or that we come from another planet!".
The President broke in, "Don't even joke about that, Doctor. Ancient Astronauts are the last thing we need in this mix. Continue, please".
Hahn nodded, "Yes, sir. Given the similarities of the dialect to such a well-understood and documented language, we are confident we can establish full communication in a fairly rapid manner. Either by teaching Niko the English language, or by learning his dialect ourselves".
"Today, though, we have managed to put together a preliminary translation of the document Niko produced and handed to Lt. Colonel Mahler. The alphabet is standard Greek, with only a few graphical mutations". Hahn paused and lifted a printout, reading from it.
"He is an Officer, some form of junior military leader...the rank is uncertain, in an organization he refers to as the "Colonial Fleet". He comes from the "Twelve Colonies of Kobol". He was seperated from his Fleet in an accident in space, arriving here".
The Doctor looked at the cameras. "Now the ominous items. Our guest seems to describe the destruction of all Twelve Colonies, along with the population, by mechanical lifeforms called Khylons or Cylons". "Here we go..." sighed the Secretary of Defense, leaning back in his chair. Hahn nodded. "Yes, sir. If we have the translation right, and there are a few terms that do not have known cognates, Niko was part of a group of survivors who escaped along with the last two warships. Several dozen ships, carrying less than 50,000 people. Apparently, they had some knowledge of Earth's existence, the details aren't clear as to how, and they immediately began looking for refuge here. In relation to this, Niko refers to us as the "Thirteenth Tribe", and siblings of the other Twelve".
::Mahler::
The President of the United States wore the expression of a man trying to unobtrusively determine whether or not he was tripping balls on LSD. "OK. Lt. Colonel Mahler will continue as our on-site commander. The Quarantine continues until the CDC says otherwise. NASA personnel will support the visitor-oriented activities, with an eye towards the health and comfort of our guest. Dr Hahn, I want you and your team to teach...Adelanii?..to understand English. Learning his language is your secondary goal. We need him to be able to speak for himself".
Looking my way, he continued, "Mahler, see if you can get him to show off his spacecraft, tomorrow. Other than that, you are to keep him comfortable and safe...while we figure out some kind of standing policy for this...situation. Good job on the First Contact, by the way. Very photogenic moment, that. I'll expect daily updates at 1800hrs. Keep up the good work".
With that, the meeting broke up, and everyone headed for their cots. I issued a few instructions to my subordinates, then hunted down my own cot. I was asleep before my head hit.
::Meatshield::
I woke up to the noise of people moving about in the corridor outside the room they'd given me to crash in last night, after the best meal I'd had since the Fall. After a second of being surprised not to be in my rack on Galactica, I swung to the side of the cot and stood up. Walking to the door, I opened it and look out.
Instant silence. Looking up and down the hallway, I was confronted by an even dozen armed men and women staring right back at me. One of the females, with more stripes on her arm than the others, rattled out instructions to the others. She mentioned "Mahler", my playmate from yesterday. Two troops dashed off, and I took a seat in the corridor.
After a few minutes, Mahler and one of their language guys walked in. Mahler came up, greeted me, and handed over a bundle of clothing, indicating the shower stall in the room. I guess I was pretty ripe, having worn the flightsuit and tanks since I left Galactica.
Demonstrating the shower mechanism, Mahler went outside and I took a rinse and changed into the comfortable clothing provided.
Emerging back into the corridor, I got a nod from Mahler, who gestured to the language guy, Hahn. "We desire(want?) to learn you the speech (of) ours", he stated, in very broken Colonial. I nodded, eagerly. At least one of us has a plan...
"Commander of One Thousand Mahler asks to see your chariot(?)". They need a better dictionary. "Raptor", I said, nodding. "Raptor?", Mahler repeated, gesturing in the general direction of the spacecraft, visible outside. I nodded, and made to lead him out to it, but he stopped us and Hahn said "Morning meal". I wasn't going to argue, that's for damned sure.
::Mahler::
ET likes pancakes. There's your fact for the day. With butter, evidently the syrup was too sweet.
3 plates later, we walked out to the parking lot where the "Raptor" (the F-22 mafia will be raging) was ringed with guards.
Moments after we stepped into view, a cheer went up from our legions of loyal fans out beyond the fenceline, who were staring at us through a variety of high-power optics. The local Fox affiliate had even provided a hookup into a Jumbotron screen, for those without a clear line of sight.
The 24hr news cycle had thoroughly exhausted all relevant data, sometime in the wee hours. My complete biography, to include old girlfriends and my Rocket Propulsion instructor from UAH, was now a matter of public record, as were those of my four cohorts in yesterday's greeting party. General Ericson had let slip that the SECAF was working on making me a full-bird Colonel, that being the traditional Air Force attaboy for major Space achievements. Which apparently included being in the right place at the right time.
Niko hopped up on the Raptor's ramp, undogged the hatch, opened it up and gestured for me to follow. Stepping from the concrete up onto the ramp, I entered a spacecraft built under another sun.
The interior resembled a cross between a PAVE LOW and a B-52, with two seats and control setups up front in a cockpit, along with some form of C4I/ELINT/Whatever station in a passenger bay to the rear. The cockpit was fronted by a large bubble canopy.
Much like Niko's (have to figure out his rank equivalent...) uniform and flightsuit, the spacecraft had significant wear marks. Scuffs, worn deck panels, patched holes, obvious weld marks, etc.
Joining my host upfront, I accepted his invitation to sit in the lefthand (copilot) position. The spacecraft controls were (to my surprise) obvious...Power, Pitch, Yaw, Roll. The electronics, of course, were a mystery. There were several screens that resembled MultiFunction Displays, along with analogue instruments, some of which were indecipherable. Possibly due to being related to spacecraft navigation.
On the console in front of the pilot's station, several photographs (with their corners clipped off) were taped into position around the instruments.
One of them showed Niko embracing a young woman with short dark hair, both of them in some form of blue service uniform. Another photo had a dozen young men and women, Niko among them, posed in a lineup in front of a Raptor and a spacecraft with a red-and-white paint scheme that had to be a fighter. A third picture showed a grainy image of a man in some form of black combat dress, on his knees with a rifle at his side...and an identifiable mushroom cloud looming over him. A cityscape burned in the background.
Giving Niko a questioning look, I pointed at the picture with the brunette. He saw where I was pointing, gave me a sad look, and said "Iris" while touching his heart. Ah, a wife or lover. I nodded sympathetically.
Indicating the group photo, he said "Raptors", pointing to the pilot seat and himself. Squadron photo, I guess. The ominous picture got an angry frown. "Aerilon". Pointing to the mushroom cloud, he said "Cylons". Not really knowing how to respond, I gave my best "serious nod".
Starting up many of the electronics, he appeared to check them over. Possibly a diagnostic checklist. He tapped on one analogue gauge, in particular, several times before looking thoughtful and switching all the systems off.
Nodding to me (this language barrier is for the fucking birds!), he moved into the rear of the spacecraft, rummaging around in the lockers. Grabbing a small toolbox, he left the spacecraft, motioning me to follow.
Hopping down, he walked to the rear of the Raptor, accessing a hatch in the lower rear of the fuselage. Taking a small wrench from his toolkit, he removed a plate from the cavity inside the hatch. Replacing the wrench, he pulled out a bulb-pump and a length of transparent hose, which he fed into the cavity.
Turning to me, he pantomimed a container for a liquid. I sent a minion to fetch one, and we sat on the Raptor's personnel ramp.
After a few minutes, a graduated beaker was produced. Niko took it and, using the handpump, extracted a half-liter of viscous golden-brown fluid from the Raptor. "Tylium", he said, indicating the fluid. Handing the beaker to me, he mimed a giant explosion. After he handed it to me...Great. Must be the fuel used by the Raptor.
Calling one of the SFs, I told him to go fetch a NASA rocket geek. Nodding toward the VAB, I led Niko back inside (holding that fucking beaker very, very steady). Reaching the "Interview Area", where the language team waited to do their thing, I set the Beaker of Doom carefully down onto one of the tables.
Summoned by my call for geeks, Peacock and several white shirt & calculator types rolled up. "Morning, Colonel. What's up?". Pointing at the Beaker, I said, "Stuff in the jar is called Tylium. Niko says it's extremely explosive. The Raptor runs on it, and he got a little for you guys to play with. Get it the hell out of here". That got their attention. They trooped out with their prize like the Levites with the Ark.
The Greek Inquisition sat down for the pre-lunch interview, looking at us expectantly...
To be fair to RDM, I can keep Pegasus around because I don't have to pay for the upkeep of the Set.
We'll shortly have some "XY days later..." timejumps, just to keep the plot moving.
Originally, I was going to use Starbuck, as this started off as a "the other way it could have gone" version of ICE PALACE, my other (much slower-going) fic...with a public First Contact instead of the hushed-up affair of ICE PALACE, but it was a little too close to already ongoing fics (like The Long Road Home, by Uberscribbler...which is awesome, by the way). This led to the OC "average joe" character of Niko/Meatshield.
