Jack never liked giving speeches or briefings to politicians. There was something about it that made it so much worst then doing the same with his men, but it was a part of his job and he had no real choice in the matter.

Before him sat seventy three representatives from Earth's Systems Alliance. Each civilian inhabited world held a seat in this meeting, most of it dominated by Earth and her former Site locations which were now seeing tens of millions resettled to, with much of the rest being the worlds of the Cyrannus system, Hebridan and her colonies or protectorates of Earth from the Protected Planets Treaty.

"Ladies and gentlemen, our galaxy is once again under the threat of an extinction level event. What I'm about to tell you is classified at the highest levels of secrecy, discussing this outside this room with anyone save your heads of government will be considered an act against the security of the Alliance and treated as such." The opening was somewhat corny in Jack's opinion, but it grabbed the attention of the representatives. "Several weeks ago The Peak picked up an unusual signature over the Galactic Hyperspace Monitoring System. The science behind this system is complicated, but to simplify we have thousands of satellites tracking hyperspace displacement throughout the galaxy which allows for sufficiently large objects to be tracked when moving." He paused as he brought up an image behind him, showing different celestial bodies for scale. One was Earth, another was Jupiter, and the last was a large red sphere. "This was what had been detected, it's several hundred thousand light years away from our galaxy, but we have confirmed that it is approaching, and will reach us in approximately tix to eight weeks. We believe this object to not actually be a single object, but a large fleet, one of a scale unseen in the history of our galaxy."

He brought up another image, one showing a person, a Viper, a 205, and a drone of some sort that seemed to have dozens of mechanical red eyes at the front of its black figure. This image had another part to it, which showed the objects to a different scale where another similar but far larger drone was compared to a 306 carrier. In the case of the smaller drone and the larger one, they were both noticeably larger than the objects they were being compared to.

"This is what we are facing, a fleet of tens of thousands of large drones escorted by millions of smaller ones that we believe intend to eradicate all life in our galaxy."

"If we haven't seen them yet, and they aren't here, how do we have this information?" One of the representatives asked.

"That's a long story, one that's classified, but suffice to say we believe this information to be accurate." Even if Jack had been allowed to discuss the nature of how they had obtained the information of the invaders, he had his doubts that a story involving time travel, an organization which did not exist on paper and several individuals who also did not exist would win anyone over. He knew he would doubt it had he not had firsthand experience with all three. "A mobilization order has already been given to forces throughout Allied space. The reason you have been brought here is for the approval of a formal request for assistance in fighting this menace with non-allied powers."

"Will the Alliance really not be enough to deal with this threat given the power Earth's fleet alone has to offer?" Another representative asked.

"I'm afraid I can't answer that question. While we are aware of what these things are we don't know how well they handle Starburst or Imperial class missiles. That's going to be the real determining factor here given the numbers we're talking about, but the presence of others to bolster our numbers would be better had and not needed then to be needed and not had."

"What of the Dakara Device? If we were to scrape together enough people to rebuild it could it not be used to rid the galaxy of whatever these things are?"

"In theory yes, but we'd need a lot of information about these invaders we don't have to make sure anything done using the device only effected them. That's before we even get to the fact the device needs to be rebuilt, and god only knows how long that would take."

The representatives looked amongst each other, many trying to gauge the reactions of those around them to all this information they had been given. The representative for Juno, a newer Earth colony, spoke up.

"What of Hive ships or the Everest?" The Galar representative asked him.

"Our Hive ships and their escorts have already been pegged for this mission, as have our Ancient vessels save the Destiny. Though the Everest will only be involved should her construction be finished in time." Jack realized in hindsight he should have mentioned that before. The Hive ships Earth had at her disposal where a massive asset, the Bounty having been the first but far from the last of her kind. The means of constructing Hive ships without the use of human life had been discovered, and over the nearly two decades of using Wraith biotechnology two more Hives had been constructed. These two ships had also been modified before, during and after their growth so that they would have their colour match the standard grey of Earth ships, as well as to make their hardware more easily compatible with Earth's own. This had led to the two Earth build Hive ships, the SSV Liberator and SSV Independence, being equipped with a dozen overlapping city-class shields, hundreds of thousands of Ancient drones, thousands of fighters, tens of thousands of missiles and countless energy and ballistic weapons of all nature on top of those which naturally formed the Wraith Hive. The Bounty, by comparison, while still a formidable warship, was not in the same league as these flying city-sized fortresses, and was instead relegated to transporting settlers and massive amounts of material between Earth and her colonies.

The Everest was, however, in a league of its own. It was an experimental ship, officially designated the BC-307. It was being built as a prototype for the possible 308 heavy battleship, with the 307 built around the skeleton of an Earth built Largrangian Point satellite. Earth currently had eight such satellites in orbit, and a plan had been derived to use two as the basis for an experimental warship to bring the firepower of such a ship and make it mobile. Should the experiment work the 307, and later 308, would be the most powerful ship pound-for-pound that the known galaxy had ever seen.

The only problem was that the first ship of their class would be cutting it fairly close for preparations for the new threat that was being thrown their way. It was still up in the air if it could take part in the mission at all.

"This threat is a clear one just by its size. A menace like that could easily fly through us like a wave over a rock. I think we have all we need to know to vote on the matter." At the declaration by the Earth representative, the group voted on the matter. While there were six abstentions, none voted against. "The motion is carried. Out of curiosity, director O'neill, what is the name of this menace we are facing?"

"It calls itself Gah Lak Tus."

Imperial Helicarrier Demeter

Airspace over Old Caprica City, Caprica

"Director Agathon, I'm getting a priority message from the capital. It's marked for your eyes only."

"I'll take it in my office." As Karl left the bridge he wondered what could be important enough to take him away from his exercise. At that moment the Demeter and her crew where taking part in the annual exercises involving the current class from the Imperial Academy for Enhanced Individuals. The Academy had thousands of students across its two campuses on Caprica and Canceron, the two planets chosen due to their depopulation leaving large areas of urban environment that had not been resettled. The exercises involving Imperium build helicarriers where usually reserved for final exercises near a class graduation, their use being used to make things as close to reality as possible.

The importance of the exercises was why Karl, as Director of the Imperial Shield, took part in personally to see the state of each class about to enter his organization. And he made no secret of this fact. Which made him curious about the nature of his call.

Opening a line to the capital, his monitor showed the Imperial Crest before showing Imperator Belzen.

"My lord, to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Cut the crap out Karl, this is a secure line."

At that moment Karl had his shoulders deflate and his posture became more relaxed. "I see. So what's this about? I have an exercise to observe."

"It's about your assets. We could be seeing the need for the activation of quite a few of them."

"What's going on?"

"A mechanical threat has arisen that the fleet may not be able to deal with."

"Is it…"

"It's not Aschen controlled Cylons, no." Karl was unsure how to feel about that. Ever since the betrayal of the Aschen he, like most, wanted revenge. Being the director of the largest law enforcement and counterterrorist, he was reminded each day of their nemesis due to the fact the face of Administrator Borren was plastered on the bridge of his ship at the top spot in their top ten most wanted.

"So what type of menace is this?"

"I can't say." Karl rolled his eyes at that answer.

"You can't say? What, are the Earthers keeping something over your head? Outside of a few in the Alliance you can do whatever you want."

"I can't say because I don't know."

"I see. How big of a threat is this?"

"Fairly large. I can't go into details because we simply don't know what they are, but given what I've been told by those working on Heliopolis Station, the Earthers seem scared, some even say terrified. I've seen the phrase 'like the Mad Titan but on a galactic scale' or something like it used from more than one source."

"By gods, could we even survive something like that?" Karl had a rare hint of terror in his voice. He knew the horrors that Earth had felt due to the actions of that insane alien. Many of their best had fallen on that day, and he had been present at the memorial unveiling in which John Shepard had been given Steve Rodger's mantel. It was a somber day, one he had feared his worlds would be forced to endure once more. He was unsure if they could handle it. And he did not want to find out.

"That's what we'll have to find out."

"Well then, I'll do my best to prepare the class." With that, the line closed and Karl walked back onto the bridge. "Increase the difficulty of all variables by twenty percent."

"Sir?"

"Do it."

"Yes sir." Without another word he walked to the center of the bridge where he could get a good view both of the large bridge and out the forward windows to the city below. He knew he could never get those training below to be truly ready before whatever they were called for saw their need, but he would make sure they were as prepared as possible for when the inevitable arrived.

Haida Household

New Acadia

Timothy rubbed his eyes as he looked out over the fields. Leaning on the porch railing he could not help but wonder what was going to happen when his unit was activated.

"You're too nervous."

He turned his attention to the door, his soon-to-be sister in law Rei Haida stood. Her hands each held a glass of juice.

"It's that obvious eh?"

"Yes. You're just like Jon was before we settled down here." She offered him one of the glasses. "It's a mix of punch and apple juice with a bit of maple syrup mixed in. It always works to calm him down."

"Thanks, but should you be drinking something like that given you're…" Tim trailed off as he looked down at her rounded stomach.

"Oh, the other isn't for me, it's for Jon." At her comment about his Tim turned his attention to the open space between the house and the fields. He could see Jon, Mei and the six oldest children of the family working on their abilities by braking logs. While the father trained the older children, some of the younger ones played amongst themselves or imitated the physical motions of the older ones.

"So many kids" he said under his breath, though Rei caught it.

"You should know what you're getting into when you marry Mei. When she has her first pair of twins she will want more, and will continue to do so until she can't anymore. And with the state of medicine as it is that will be in quite a long time."

"I have a feeling I'm going to be asking Jon for a lot of advice on the matter." While money would likely not be an issue, tax breaks for child dependents where very generous on New Acadia, the sheer stress of raising so many children was something he could not imagine. Jon and Rei had raised Mei as their own, and then on top of that had six sets of twins and counting on top of that. Thankfully through renovation their home had become large enough to deal with the needs of their large family, but Timothy wondered how he was supposed to handle it all. Despite the man being like family to him, and his assurances to the contrary, Jon was one of many people who still had some mysticism around him in the eyes of Tim and many others.

"You know we unsheathed Avalon 1 today. You should have seen the look in Jon's eyes as he pulled off the tarp and ordered some technicians to get her ready for combat."

"I would think he would have been heartbroken to have to take her into combat again."

"Oh, he was. I don't think I've seen that look before in him. I'm going to be honest, I think a small part of him died inside." He finished the last of his drink. "I don't know how you handle it, him still being in the service. I'd have thought after you got the farm up and running you'd force him to go reservist or quit outright."

"Did I ever tell you about how the two of us met?"

"No, not that I can remember."

"We were a few years younger than you are. The two of us had been conscripted for years at that point due to our abilities. Both of us where young pilots of billion dollar weapons of war made from alien technology. We met in a hanger and the first thing he did was flirt with me." She giggled at that moment, taking a momentary pause before continuing. "It wasn't for several months after that when we began to develop a relationship that became what we have today. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Tim took a moment to think about it. "No, not really. I don't really get it."

"What I'm saying is he's a fighter. He has always been a fighter. He needs a fight, his upbringing demands it, and so he fights. It'll take time, but eventually he will reach a point where the fight is no longer needed. Until then, all I can do is watch, hope for the best and when he needs it give him help getting through it all. But when the day comes when the fight is out of him, then I'll be waiting here, ready for him to come home one last time."

"And what if he dies before that day comes."

"He won't."

"But what if he does?"

"Then I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. He wouldn't be the first person I've lost in the line of duty, though he would certainly be the closest."

"Well you don't have to worry about that for this mission. I'll be watching his back." Tim's comment earned a heartfelt laugh from Rei.

"I see you've managed to get quite the bit of self-confidence since you first came here."

"I feel slightly insulted by that."

"Don't, Jon has a lifetime of combat experience over you, it's only natural that he would be better in a fighter that was designed around him." She took his finished glass from his hand. "There's a full set of iced tea on the tray in the kitchen. Could you get it for me? The kids are probably getting thirty with all their training."

"Oh, sure."

As he entered the house, she looked over her husband, sister and children as they continued their training. Behind them in the fields a half dozen harvesters and tractors collected grain, the automated machines brining in the real source of the household's income.

Looking out at the fields she wondered when the day would come he hung up his uniform for good. She had hung up her uniform to take care of the kids, and had never looked back.

"I wonder when I'll finally get to keep you here for good." She thought to herself.

"You know I want to, but I can't stop the urge, only channel it, control it. When it goes away I'll be as happy about it as you are." She turned her gaze to him, who was now looking right back at her.

While it was only for a moment, the two forgot of the dangers inherent to their world.

Author's Notes

And now the enemy has a face, specifically that of the Ultimate's iteration of Galactus. Now I'd say props to OMA001 for figuring it out, but I did explicitly state it in Avalon two full years ago that he was coming, and hints of his arrival where dropped throughout Brother's Betrayal. You have good memory.

As for Nimbus, the Aschen and Cylons are mostly going to be non-entities in this story. At least the Aschen controlled ones won't, the other two faction of Cylons will.

In any event, we now inch closer to the inevitable conflict. And hey this update came quickly. Probably won't happen again, or it might. I can never tell how fast these things will come.