A/N: Here is the next chapter. I'm so sorry it took so long but I've been extremely busy with real life. Hopefully the next one won't take as long, but you just never can tell. Reviews are appreciated and missed when absent.

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica is the intellectual property of and Glen Larson and Universal Studios. This is a work of fan fiction and the author of this work neither receives nor will accept any compensation, material or otherwise, WHATSOEVER. No copyright infringement is intended.

Terran Shield was on standard patrol of Jupiter's moons when Petty Officer 1st class Reed reported, "Incoming transmission from Vessel Operations."

"On screen, Ms. Reed," Yin ordered.

Admiral Perez appeared on the screen.

"Good morning, Admiral," Yin greeted.

"Good morning to you as well, Hong. Command suiting you?"

"Yes sir," the Captain replied.

Perez nodded. "We have detected an unknown craft at Saturn. You are to divert there immediately and determine their intentions. Use the hyperfold for the transit."

"Yes sir. Do we know anything about them?"

Perez shook his head. "No, sorry. You are the closest asset we have to that position. We need you to find out who they are and what their intentions are. We are pretty sure they aren't Cylon, Beyond that, you'll be the first to know."

"Yes sir," Yin replied. "Any orders concerning first contact procedures?"

"Just one. Use your discretion but do try to avoid getting us into another war if you can help it."

Yin nodded. "Yes sir. That would be the last thing we need right now. I'll take care of it."

Perez nodded. "Good luck, Captain." The screen went dark.

"Hyperfold calculations in progress," reported the navigator.

"Hyperfold is charging. It will be fully charged in one minute." This from Petty Officer Reed.

Yin nodded. "Excellent work, Commander, Petty Officer. Mr. Culpepper, recall CAP."

"Recalling CAP, aye."

Shortly, Reed reported, "Hyperfold charged and ready. Awaiting destination coordinates."

"Just about there," Commander Whyte said. A pause. "Complete. Coordinates sent to hyperfold control."

Three minutes later, Culpepper reported, "CAP aboard"

"Engage hyperfold," ordered Yin.

"Engaging Hyperfold, aye," Reed responded.

There was the split second of disorientation and then Reed reported, "Hyperfold translation successful"

"Launching CAP," Culpepper said.

"Mr. Running Deer, anything on scanners?"

"Contact bearing zero three zero by zero zero five. Range four hundred thousand kilometers."

"Ship just appeared, Captain," the science officer reported. ''They appeared some three hundred and eighty maltorans ahead and slightly below us."

"What do you mean appeared? Ships don't just jump in and out of existence."

"Well this one did," his wife said. "They are moving toward us very slowly. They launched two smaller ships and all three are now moving toward us."

"Possible they are at the maximum speed of the smaller ships," Artook mused.

"The smaller ships have just docked with them, they have increased speed to one tenth light."

"Hail them. Identify us and ask their intentions," Artook ordered. "Bring weapons online but do not fire without my order."

"Incoming message," reported Lt. Jr. Grade Mark Culpepper. "I've never heard anything like it."

"Run it through the computer," Yin ordered. "Let's see if the computer can get any kind of a match."

"Aye, Ma'am." He worked the controls and then his eyes widened. "Captain! It's Rotrokan!"

Yin's head snapped sharply in his direction. "Confirm, mister."

Culpepper worked more controls and then reported. "Language is confirmed as Rotrokan. Message reads as follows. 'This is the Exploration ship Metalaiki. We ask what your intentions are.' I looked up the word Metalaiki. It means explorer in their language."

"Activate defense envelope," Yin ordered. "Keep weapons powered down."

"Defense envelope activated," Reed reported.

"Captain, do you expect hostile action from them?" asked Commander James Hines, the XO.

"Didn't you read the report of the first mission of this vessel, Mr. Hines?"

"I skimmed it, Captain, I've been rather busy."

"I'm disappointed in you, Commander," Yin told him. "You need to be up to speed on everything that could affect this vessel. I expect you to have read the complete report by start of duty, day after tomorrow."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"I'll fill you in, but you still need to read the report. The Rotrokan homeworld of Sakath was decimated by Cylons. You have heard of them, I hope."

Hines nodded.

Yin continued. "If they came home from an exploration mission," she said gesturing to the viewscreen, "and found their world like that, then hear an alien, to them, ship speaking Rotrokan, I would not be at all surprised if they assume the worst and open fire on us."

"Without knowing our capabilities?" asked the XO.

"We have no idea of their mental state. Finding their world like that could have deranged them. We just don't know. All I know is I am not willing to risk this vessel by assuming the best."

"They are again hailing us, Ma'am," Culpepper reported. "They ask us our identity and intentions. They say they will assume us hostile if we do not respond."

"Send them our audio/visual protocols. Tell them we would like to speak with them in a manner that we can both see the other."

"Yes, Ma'am," Culpepper said. A pause, then, "Message sent, now sending audio/visual protocols."

"No response," Artook Begal said. "They seem to be ignoring us."

"Send the following. 'This is the exploration ship Metalaiki. Please identify yourself and your intentions. If you do not respond we will assume you are hostile."

"Receiving response," Begal reported. "They say they would like to speak to us face to face. They are sending us their audio/visual protocols."

"Finally," Artook muttered. "Implement protocols and then open a channel to them."

"Complying," Begal said.

"They have opened a channel, Captain," Lt. JG Culpepper reported. "It's Audio/Visual."

"Put it on the main viewer." Yin ordered. "Route audio through the computer using a translation filter, both ways, so we can understand each other."

The viewing screen lit and showed a man with bronze colored skin with pointed ears.

"This is Captain Hong Yin of the United Earth Confederation Battlecarrier Terran Shield. We seek peaceful dialog."

Captain Artook was looking at the face of what appeared to be a woman. Unless he was mistaken, which he acknowledged he could be since this was an alien race, he believed he saw authority in those eyes. When he heard what she said, he became immediately distrustful. How could they know the Rotrokan language? He had noticed that her mouth didn't match her words so he assumed their computer was translating, but how could they know his language even in computerized form.

"This is Captain Artook Meto commanding the Rotrokan exploration ship, Metalaiki. How can your computer know our language?"

This was just as Yin had feared. He didn't seem enraged, but he did seem distrustful and a bit upset.

"We developed a faster than light method we term the hyperfold. It is a method of folding space. Rather than send armed military vessels to our nearest neighbors we sent unarmed exploration ships. Actually only the first was ever sent. Your system was the first. Our ship was destroyed in your system even after sending a surrender signal. The ship..."

"You think we destroyed your science vessel?" Artook inturrupted. "We are a peaceful people. We would never destroy a ship that was not presenting a threat. And yet you assumed we did it and destroyed our world?" Artook's eyes were blazing now.

"No!," Yin exclaimed. "We never jumped to any conclusions as to who were the culprits. Our government built this ship as a response to a threat. We used our space fold to go to your solar system to find out what we could concerning who had destroyed our ship.

"We never found any debris. When we reached your world it had been destroyed for twenty of our months. I commanded the landing party that went down to investigate. We know your language from the data we collected during that visit.

"I am very sorry for what happened to your world, Captain. Yours would have been the first alien, for us, species we would have contacted. And someone had prevented that by decimating your world. We were very upset."

Artook saw what appeared to be real anger in her eyes. "Did you ever find out who did it?"

Yin nodded.

"That's too bad," Artook said heavily. "We would like to know who is responsible."

Yin was puzzled and then it hit her. "Captain, this gesture," she nodded her head, "means yes to us. This one," she shook her head, "means no."

Artook's face lit up. "So you do know."

"Yes," Yin nodded. "They are a race of machines called the Cylons. They are a threat to all organic life forms. They will attack organics without notice."

"They must be stopped, then," Artook said.

"My government agrees. We have declared war upon them. If we encounter them, our orders are to open fire with no warning, no mercy and no quarter. We will accept an unconditional surrender, but at the first sign that the surrender is not genuine, they are to be destroyed.

"There's more. They destroyed another civilization. Out of more than eighteen billion people, only half a million survived. They did it under the ruse of peace talks."

Artook stared at the alien woman on the screen in shock. Almost eighteen billion people dead? Killed under the pretense of peace talks?

"Were these your people, Captain?"

Yin shook her head. Artook started to offer condolences but then remembered what that gesture meant to these aliens.

"Except for some genetic drift, they are the same species as we are, but they are, we believe our antecedents. We believe their ancestors colonized our world and then lost contact."

"Could that have happened with our people too," Begal asked out loud.

Yin heard her and said, "I'm sorry. I just don't know. I was on your world for only about seven of our hours. We didn't get any kind of complete data, archaeological or otherwise."

"So where do we go from here?" Captain Artook asked.

James Hines, the XO said, "I have some questions, if I may."

"Down here, where he can see you," Yin ordered.

Hines stepped down into the command well. "Captain, this is my Executive Officer, James Hines. He would like to ask some questions."

"Yes?"

"Your ship was the first Ratrokan vessel to leave your solar system?"

Artook shook his head then caught himself. "I'm sorry, I keep forgetting that is a negative gesture to you. Yes it was."

"From what we've scanned of your vessel, your drive looks to be fairly complete and well thought out. This seems incongruous to us. Unless you reverse engineered it from an alien craft you discovered."

Artook started to nod and then caught himself. He shook his head. "No we came up with the idea of warping space on our own."

"Had we come up with this idea it wouldn't be nearly so developed when we used it the first time to go to other planets."

"You sound like an impatient people," Artook said.

Yin nodded. "Yes, we can be."

"Well, we aren't," Captain Artook said. "When we put something to use, it doesn't have to be perfect, but we usually make sure it's as safe and stable as we can make it."

"That's unusual to us," Hines told him.

"Not to us," Artook told him. "Impatience is unusual to us. We have found that haste kills."

"We would say, 'Haste makes waste,'" Yin said. "That's a saying of ours. But we don't always heed that saying."

"Then why have it," Artook asked.

Yin shrugged. Artook's ears quivered, the equivalent of widening the eyes. "I apologize if I have said something to offend you, Captain. No offense was intended."

Yin looked puzzled. "Offend me? You haven't offended me."

"But you... " Suddenly he looked relieved. "What does this gesture mean?" He shrugged his shoulders.

"It means I don't know. Does it mean something else to you?"

Artook started to shake his head, then stopped and nodded. "Yes. It is an indication of anger, usually caused by offense, among us."

"I apologize. I didn't know that.," Yin told him. "As to your question of why have the saying, I don't know why. We just do, although we don't always follow it. I'll try not to use body language until we get to know each other better."

"It seems our two species have some differences in body language," the XO observed.

"Did you expect different, Mr. James?" Artook inquired.

"No not really. And that would be Mr. Hines, not Mr. James. James is my given name. My family name is Hines."

"Another difference between our two species," Artook noted. "With us, the family name comes first, the given name last. I apologize for any offense, Mr. Hines."

"None taken, sir," Hines replied.

"So you would be Captain Yin, not Captain Hong, is that correct?" the Rotrokan asked.

"That's correct, Captain Artook," Yin confirmed.

Yin shook her head as she reviewed the Control Room flight recorder. The UEC needed some protocols for first contact. They had been lucky. This could have easily gone bad. They, both the Rotrokans and humans, had sought peaceful dialog. Because they sought peace, they had been tolerant. But what if Yin or one of her crew had committed a breach so grievous, in the Rotrokans eyes, that they would have been unwilling to forgive? What if the Rotrokans, in their ignorance of human customs and mores had done the same? Yin didn't know of anything that would have been so bad she would have been unwilling to forgive, but first impressions were very important.

She was waiting for a call to Command to go through. She needed to make a verbal report. A written report would follow of course, but she felt that she needed to report face to face concerning humanity's first contact with a non-human species.

Yin had been unwilling to allow the Rotrokan vessel any further access into the Sol system until she received orders. She was perfectly capable of taking the initiative, but in this case there was no need. The Metalaiki was not running low on supplies or fuel, there was no medical crisis or other urgent need for space dock facilities. Artook had actually been very understanding when she said she wanted to contact her superiors for instructions. After what had happened to his people, he was fully cognizant of the need for caution when dealing with outsiders. Yin's comm unit sounded.

"Yin here."

"We have Command. Admiral Perez is ready to speak to you, sir," Ensign Culpepper said.

"Patch him through here to my quarters."

The screen lit up and Perez looked out at Yin. "What news, Captain?"

"Sir, the alien vessel is Rotrokan."

Perez mouth dropped open. "Rotrokan? I thought they were all dead."

"I'm sending you our Control Room flight recorder. I'll submit a written report, of course, but I wanted to tell you in person."

Yin told Perez what had transpired/ Perez listened in silence, nodding his head now and then, thinking.

"You did good work here, Captain. Bring them in to Earth orbit. We can resupply them, if nothing else."

"That's my feelings as well, Admiral. I feel they should be accorded full humanitarian aid. They've lost their world. They should be allowed to settle, if they wish. Although, I don't think they would want that."

"You think they want to go after the Cylons," Perez said. It was not a question.

"Wouldn't we, sir?"

"Of course, Hong. But with one ship? That's suicide and you know it."

"By themselves, yes sir. But if they coordinate with our forces..."
Perez shook his head, interrupting her. "Command won't go for that. They would be a loose cannon on our deck. And I can't really see their captain, subjecting himself to our authority. We're not his people."

"Their world has been destroyed, sir."

Perez let out an explosive sigh. "I know. I was there, remember? I feel for these people. I really do. And I want to help them all I can, but we can't have a unit we are coordinating with run off on a personal vendetta. No. It just won't work.

"They will be welcomed and are welcome to assume standard orbit. We'll restock and refuel them if they don't want to settle. We will welcome them and do all we can for them, but we cannot include them in military plans unless they submit to our authority. And if you think I like doing it this way, then you don't know me at all."

"I do understand, Admiral," Yin said, nodding. "And I have to, reluctantly, agree with you. But you didn't look into that man's face. We are kindred spirits, he and I. We both command vessels and we both understand the grave responsibility of such a position. I'll talk to him and carry your words to him. I think he will understand, even though he won't like it."

Perez nodded. "I'll expect your written report to be transmitted by 0900 tomorrow. Bring that ship in to Earth."

"Yes sir," Yin said. "Terran Shield out."

A/N: That's it for this chapter. Hopefully the next one won't take so long. But I was hoping this one wouldn't take as long as it did, so you never can tell. Don't forget to review.