Chances of Survival

Chapter 4

"Send message to the unknown ship. Message reads: Unidentified ship, this Admiral Adama of the 23rd Battlestar Group. Identify yourselves immediately, or be fired upon. End message."

"Sending message."

"Captain, we are receiving a radio transmission from the group of ships."

"Put it on speakers."

"This is Admiral Adama of the 23rd Battlestar Group. Identify yourselves immediately, or be fired upon."

"Open up communications."

"Yes, Sir."

"Admiral, they've opened up communications."

"On speakers."

"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise. We come in peace."

"This is Admiral Adama of the Battlestar Galactica. We have not seen a ship of that configuration before."

"We could say the same for you. You're human, right?"

"And you're not Cylon?"

"I'm sorry, but we have not heard of the term "Cylon" before. Can you explain to us your situation?"

"Yes I can. We are the only human survivors from the 12 Colonies of Kobol. We created the Cylons, artificially intelligent machines, to do the menial tasks of everyday life. They eventually rebelled, and after a 12 year war, we signed an armistice, but both sides knew that the armistice was to fall back, regroup, build our forces, to finish what we started. They came back, 40 years later, hacked our computer programs, and infiltrated us with Cylons that look like humans. They wiped out everyone except the 40,000 of us left. Right now, we are trying to find the mythical planet, Earth."

Jim thought this through.

"They are humans, but come this 'Kobol'. But according to our records, Kobol doesn't exist. Odd."

"The Preservers might have had something to do with this. They might have taken them from Earth to this so called "Kobol" tens of thousands of years ago, when humanity was in danger of being extinct. That might explain their story."

Jim turned to look at McCoy.

"In my opinion, they seem desperate, but might not take it nicely if we say that their planets don't exist," McCoy added.

"'kay, then."

Kirk turned back to the screen.

"We come from the planet, Earth."

"We come from the planet, Earth."

Adama was stunned.

"We found Earth," he muttered.

"Earth?!" Saul Tigh asked.

"If you don't mind, Mr. Kirk, we would like to visit your ship."

"By all means, be our guest."

"Saul, call President Roslin, Baltar, and the Chief. We're going over there."

A few minutes later, a Raptor glided out of the port flight pod. It turned toward the Enterprise, and the thrusters blazed on. As it approached the Shuttlebay, they received a transmission.

"Galactica Raptor 6-4-2, turn off you engines at 250 meters."

At 250 meters, the Raptor cut its engines, and to Adama's surprise, the Raptor still went forward, gliding into the Shuttlebay effortlessly. The door lowered. As he stepped out, he was greeted by a young man in his mid 20's, with brown hair, blue eyes, and a yellow shirt on with an odd symbol on the corner. Adama assumed that he was a petty officer or lieutenant, but again, to Adama's surprise, he extended his hand, and Adama shook it.

"Welcome to the Enterprise. I'm Captain James T. Kirk."

The Enterprise was amazing.

As he walked through the clean corridors, he noticed that there was not a spot on them. And the equipment was futuristic, and seemed to do the impossible.

"Want me to show you Engineering?"

"Actually, yes."

"What the hell?" Chief Tyrol said.

Adama looked up. He saw what they called the "Warp Core". Apparently, it used matter-antimatter reactions to power the ship, of all things. Chief Tyrol and Gaius Baltar were both going crazy over the extremely advanced technology.

"Pardon me for being rude, but how does the Enterprise actually propel itself, and how does it defend itself?" Baltar asked.

"That's a good question," Mr. Scott said as he walked towards the group.

"You see, for sub-light propulsion, we use our impulse engines, which are controlled fusion reactions."

"Controlled fusion reactions?" Tyrol asked.

"Yes, and to negate any g-force throwing us out the back of the ship while accelerating, we have what's called an inertial dampener. It uses and energy field to negate acceleration."

"Wow. That's…incredible."

"What about your FTL?" Baltar asked.

"Well, that requires our Warp Core, which runs on matter-antimatter reactions."

"Matter-antimatter reactions? How?"

"Well, we discovered an element called dilithium, which becomes porous to light element antimatter when exposed to extreme heat and pressure. Every planet has at least some dilithium, some more than others."

"We then have dilithium crystals in the warp core, and that allows us to travel faster than light. We are able to do so by creating a warp bubble that distorts space-time, but at the same time, not really go faster the light at all," Scotty ended.

"How far is your FTL range?" Tyrol asked.

"FTL range?"

"You know, how far your ship can go with each jump."

"Umm, we don't use the same method of travel. We just go faster than light, not instantaneously from one point to another."

"Oh."

"Now, do you want me to show you the weapons capability?"

"Yes. I do." Galen replied enthusiastically.

"Okay. Right this way."

After the tour of the Enterprise, Bill Adama paced his quarters.

He couldn't believe some of the technology that was casually used on the ship.

Turbolifts, transporters, warp cores, phasers and photon torpedoes, tractor beams, it all was incredible.

Plus, he didn't want to think what would happen if they had to fight the Enterprise.

Maybe an alliance, Adama thought. This might be a good thing for the civilian fleet.

"We've established communications with the Enterprise."

"Captain Kirk of the Enterprise. What do you need to discuss?"

"I'm thinking of an alliance between us. If you would help resupply the civilian fleet, and keep them out of danger, then the assault fleet could go after the Cylons."

"Seems reasonable. I'll think about it. Kirk out."

"Jim, this whole idea is stupid."

"Aw, come on, Bones. They're also humans. I mean, really, would you just leave them to fend for themselves?"

"It's not like they're little kids that don't have their parents. They're grownups, Jim."

"Then what would happen if the Klingons found them? Or the Romulans? They would have no chance at all."

"Damn it, Jim. You might have a point. But what would Starfleet say?"

He's right, Jim thought. What WOULD Starfleet say? They won't congratulate him and pat him on the back; past experiences taught him that. Would they turn them away? That wouldn't be good. What about trade negotiations? What do the Colonials have anyways? The more Kirk thought, the more he made up his mind. He made his decision.

"Mr. Sulu, set a course for Earth. We're going to talk to Starfleet about this. And, hopefully, nothing bad happen to me or to us."

"Yes, Sir. Setting course now."

"Engage."