Chapter 10 Council

The owl bounced and rocked in the howling storm outside, the black painted Owl was being pounded by the white snow. The Owl banked as it came in almost purely on radar, on the sensors nothing was there and to the visual eye nothing was there aside from ice and snow.

"Frija Base, this is Owl Echo 9A transmitting clearance code." said the pilot over the radio before pressing down on the control panel. The computer transmitted a code which went out and they waited to fight the storm.

"Owl Echo 9A, this is Frija Base." Said a voice over the radio. "You are cleared to enter."

With that lights appeared out of nowhere through the storm as the entire base turned on its lights. From above the base looked tinny with only two large enclosed runways similar to what could be found on a warship only much larger. A central control tower shot out of the storm, there was of coarse other buildings but those buildings on the surface where either part of the cloaking system or anti-air defense systems. A large chain link fence surrounded the entire base with walking paths for the guards who had to go out in the snow on patrol with the greater concern being polar bears then actual unwanted visitors to the base named after the wife of Odin.

The Owl came in for a landing moving under the covered landing strip, thanks to the shield it kept the heat in and the snow out. Inside was a whole squadron of Eagle Fighters ready for takeoff along with Osprey attack aircraft and Adders attack helicopters. The base also had tanks and ground vehicles to defend itself but None of them expected a fight but they were on alert 24 hours a day. The Owl moved down the runway toward the landing area assigned to it only to see multiple armed guards waiting for them. The Owl landed and killed the engines before lowering the ramp.

"General Young welcome to Frija Base." Said a familiar voice as General Young looked to see another former member of the Destiny crew, now Major Matthew Scott.

"Major Scott how are you doing?" inquired General Young

"Good but you know the drill." Said Matthew as another solider rolled up a cart, it looked like a tool chest of some kind but it had a hand pad on it and a long thin neck shooting out of the center. General Young focused on the eye piece on the neck as he placed his hand on the scanner.

"I am General Young of the Tau'ri alliance." said Young as he answered three additional questions before it finally turned green. With that done the cart was rolled away as Matthew stood beside his old commander.

"Sorry about that, but this is the heart of our research and development." Explained Matthew as Young nodded his head.

"Which is why in addition to a cloak the transport blocker means no one can beam in or out so I had to come in by Owl." Stated Young

"Well you could have walked but the nearest humans is almost 1,500 miles away and that is a nature science station with a 15 man crew." offered Matthew

"Not the way I would want to go by." stated Young as they headed toward the elevator. Frija Base was in the far north of the long narrow continent on Valhalla with weather similar to Northern Greenland. This continent had been set aside when they first started to settle the world, while the larger continent and the smaller islands would be in time fully settled this continent which stretched from North pole to south Pole and had the same land mass of North and South America along with Australia and India had been set aside for nature. Officially the only areas fully settled was a large area about the size of the state of Texas. That area had multiple military bases and live training area and multiple nature research stations spread out to study the Earth wildlife transplanted to this new world. That was the full extent of man's touch on the land, officially. Unofficially there was a another, Frija base the heart of Tau'ri advance Research and Development. The base was so remote and guarded that not even General Young commander of Valhalla could come without going through a scanner. The staff stayed on duty for three months and then had three months back with their families in the main part of Valhalla. "How is Chloe?"

"She is good, found out we are expecting before I had to report to duty here." reported Matthew as they reached the elevator which would take them down into the main part of the base.

"Nice to see that we are all getting a life after spending so much time away on Destiny." added Young as the elevator arrived and they dropped down into the base. The front of the elevator was made of glass as they dropped down they entered a large underground construction bays.

The bays where massive with enough room to construct 6 Tau'ri battleships at once, this was where the prototypes ships of the Tau'ri where being constructed away from any eyes that could spy on them. Currently only three ships where rising up in the bays once they were done they massive hanger doors above them would open and the ships would rise up into space for trails. The 4th ship class under development was the Prometheus deep space exploration ship and that design was so large it had to be constructed in the main shipyards elsewhere on the planet in the open.

"They are really coming along nicely." said Young as his eyes scanned toward the two ships that where closest to being launched. The first was the Houto class pocket battleship, it was almost half the size of a normal battleship and was shaped similar to a colonial battlestars only thanks to the Tau'ri shield technology there was no need to bring the flight pods into the ship to travel through hyperspace. He knew the designs of the ship, it would fall in the middle between a Battleship and a Carrier, it wouldn't be as heavily armed as a battleship but it would bring more space craft into battle and still be able to mix in the fight unlike a carrier which stood back and let the aircraft do the fighting. The plan was to have these ships be the center of smaller task forces and defensive positions.

The other ship was much smaller, smaller even then a Galahad class Destroyer or the Akula class stealth ship which were equal in size and the smallest warship classes in the Tau'ri navy. It was the Normandy Class Frigate, it was shaped like a block Y with large powerful engines in the two points at the end of the Y. The Normandy would be the fastest warship but it lacked any of the main weapons of the larger ships. It would have only a single Asgard beam cannon and only 12 anti-air rail guns which was folded into the haul along with multiple missile tubes. The key advantage it had was like the Akula class, the Normandy would have cloaking on board but it would have sharper teeth and a lot of speed. The other ship the corvette was just beginning to be built and was nothing more than metal beams rising from the keel.

"Yes, they are." said Mathew as the elevator dropped down under the construction bay until it finally came to stop only to see a woman standing there waiting for them.

"General Young, I am surprised to see you." said the leader of the science and research team here.

"I am sorry for dropping by so suddenly but this is stuff that couldn't be sent over communication channels." said Young as the researcher looked at him.

"We may have found two things you are looking for." said Young

"Oh, what are those?" inquired the woman.

"1st a possible pilot of the Normandy." explained Young as he handed over the file in his hands. The researched looked slightly disappointed, that was important but not important enough to wake her up in the middle of the night for. "And if our first scans from Drones are true enough of this element Zephyr in one spot to equipment every ship in our fleet with a three maybe even four ZPMs."

That caused the researcher's eyes to widen and sleep to leave them. If the Tau'ri had access to new ZPMs that would be the key to major upgrades and make the Tau'ri fleet already the major power in the Galaxy the unquestioned power. Currently the Tau'ri fleet was the smallest fleet of any of the major powers which after the ORI war had been building like crazy warships, however these ships where almost perfect copies of the same Goa'uld ships that had been in the galaxy for thousands of years. Dangerous and powerful yes, but one on one a single Tau'ri ship could defeat them with easy the problem came to numbers, they had more than the Tau'ri did.

At the moment one of the other powers going up against the Tau'ri would mean a Tau'ri victory but if they all joined together the Tau'ri would lose in a long and bloody war. Luckily the different free Jaffa and Lucian Alliance groups distrusted each other and couldn't come together to challenge the Tau'ri. With ZPMs on the ships that would shift so that it would be likely that even united the other powers in the Galaxy couldn't take on the Tau'ri and win. The other powers would also be slow to adapt, the Goa'uld who had enslaved the galaxy for thousands of years hadn't really taught their slave labor how something worked only how to put it together. So while they could build ships, they didn't understand for the most part how they worked and that made making upgrades hard.

"This is a game changer, where is it?" inquired the researcher

"Only a couple light years from Earth actually, on a world occupied by an alien race called the Race." Explained Young "The Odyssey is on route to confirm just how big this despot is and how much is actually there and then we have to decide to either back the native rebels on the planet or make a deal with this Race. Either way once our leaders get this report we will get you the material you need to make ZPMs."

"If this world is so close to Earth, it could be the source of the Zephry that the Ancients used." Added the researcher "That is something we will have to consider as well, the Ancients may have left something behind."

"We should know in a couple of hours, after the Odyssey arrives and it's teams do more surveys." Explained General Young.

"I bet Rush leaped for joy when you told him." Said the researcher

"I haven't told him yet." admitted Young with a smirk. "He is overworked let him focus on other things."

"Then he will hit the ceiling in anger when he finds out he was the last to know." laughed the researcher as Young smirked.

Leonis was the heart of Colonial industry and the current home of former Colonial Navy Viper Pilot, Kara Thrace. All around her the sound of people chatting and enjoying their lunch hour was driving Kara Thrace best pilot in the Colonial Navy up the wall. She was one of the few pilots in the colonial navy who could confirm a kill on a Tau'ri Eagle fighter. There was of course more than one Eagle shot down during the war but almost none of the pilots who had done so lived through the war or could confirm the kill. Even with her war record and pull among the highest in the newly formed colonial military she had been forced out of the military when the new budget gutted the colonial military. Her long record of insubordination and talking back to officers had marked her to be forced out of the military. Back before the war, those actions where accepted because it was hard to get people to join or stay in the military when they could make more money as a civilian. Now with a military a shadow of its former self, she had been forced out.

"So I got my vacation approved." Said a young pilot across from her in the lunch room. "In about a month, I get to go speak to my former high school about what I did in the war."

"And what did you do?" inquired Kara with annoyance "If memory servers, you had just finished pilots training and was shot down almost at once."

"I did shoot up a Tau'ri tank." countered the young man, she couldn't remember his name only that he was from Libra, the 1st world to surrender and one of four worlds which wasn't in depression. Aquaira and Libra being the favorites of the Tau'ri where in an economic boom and Caprica and Tauron had jobs rebuilding everything the Tau'ri had destroyed in the war. Outside of those worlds the colonial economy was in the toilet and with unemployment almost 20% on some worlds but it was getting slightly better compared to right after the war.

"And you didn't even destroy it." added another one of the pilots as a roar filled the air. "Looks like the Tau'ri transport is here."

"Fraken great." said Kara as she looked out the window of the break room toward a large black Tau'ri transport coming in for a landing. Waiting for it was multiple cargo containers full of colonial Vipers, Vipers that the other men and women here had made and she and the other pilots had test flown. There were rows after rows of them, enough to fill out a small fleet of Colonial battlestars and all of them where going to the Tau'ri.

"I wonder what the frak they want the Vipers for? They aren't even our most advanced Vipers, they hardly have what could be called a computer." Stated another pilot "They don't let us paint them black like all their other, instead we get a strange mixture of colors and the Tau'ri load them up and take them somewhere."

"Who the frak cares." said Kara as suddenly the Public Address system came alive.

"All workers report to their assigned break rooms for a security check." said the voice of one of the managers.

"What the frak is that all about?" inquired the young pilot as Kara looked out the window toward the Tau'ri transport only to see a couple squads of men and women in Tau'ri battle armor getting off the transport carrying large cases with them. They were not alone, behind them walking as if they were puppies following their masters came a lot more Colonial Military Police.

"It is going to be a long fraken day." complained Kara wishing she could have something to take the edge off but the viper production center she worked at wouldn't allow it.

On Valhalla, Acacia felt like a choice piece of meat before a pride of Caprican lions. Then she corrected herself in her mind, the Tau'ri symbol was a wolf so she was before a pack of wolves not lions. She didn't know which would be worse, she had studied both native colonial animals and new Tau'ri animals in school and while not as big as the Caprican Lion the Tau'ri wolf packs where generally larger and more skillful hunters then the big cats of the Caprican grasslands. She was so lost in thought she didn't hear Robert at first.

"What?" inquired Acacia

"They got cinnamon pancakes here." Repeated Robert as both colonial woman turned to the page in the menu which had the image. Robert laughed as his family looked at him confused. "They don't have cinnamon in the colonies that and ginger, we introduced them and I swear we could sell them for five or six times the price here."

"Well you like the Sagittarian Peppers." countered Acacia feeling the need to defend her home.

"True, the only thing I like about Sagittaron." admitted Robert "Great spicy peppers but not worth dodging incoming gunfire form the locals."

"God, you even sound like a couple." complained his younger Lisa as she drank more coffee.

"So my son has told me you are studying zoology?" inquired Mrs. Lefeld as she locked eyes on her son's girlfriend.

"Zoology plus Veterinary." Explained Acacia "I got into one of the best schools on Libran and thanks to my Military veteran bill I don't have any student loans."

"I was a Veterinary myself." Stated Grandpa Lefeld with an old man's kind smile. "What sort of animals? I did mostly livestock and small animals"

"Well I am studying mostly big cats." Explained Acacia "I want to work in a zoo, maybe taking care of the Tau'ri animals, I am studying them as well."

"You guys introduced them to Aquaria when you terraformed it." added Medea "Not many animals left alive outside of the single cell range after the nuke went off."

"Yes, that was unfortunate, they hit a Naquadah deposit and that increased the force of the blast." Said Mr. Lefeld, the bomb had burned off the entire deposit of Naquadah on the world which was the only deposit in the colonies. "Even we were amazed by that, must have been worse for you."

"War is Tartarus." said Acacia with a heavy sigh.

"War is Hell." Translated Robert

"But at least you two found each other on the battlefield. Kind of romantic if you ask me." added Stacy "I have even seen the video of it."

"There is a video of it?" inquired Acacia as she turned and looked at Robert for his part he shrugged.

"Not that surprising all our power armor comes equipped with cameras to document everything." explained Robert.

"They aren't available to the public, I work for Daniel Jackson University on Earth as an administrator and I asked the record department to pull it up for me." explained Stacy as she looked at Medea. "You are in it too."

"I assumed, I lost my legs on the battlefield and got new cloned ones from you all." Added Medea tapping her legs. "Or I would be moving around on a wheelchair right now."

"So how much longer do you have on your schooling?" inquired Grandma Lefeld who had been sitting back studying Acacia like Acacia herself would study one of the animals under her care. Seeing how it reacted to different things and gathering information to make a judgement call.

"It is a 4 year program and I just finished the 1st semester of my second year." explained Acacai "So I have just under 3 years left in my program."

"Shorter then my study in police and criminology, but I have to work around military posting." explained Robert as the server arrived to take their orders and the talk changed as the children of Stacy took over the talk as they turned to what they wanted to do on the vacation. Only when the food arrived did they return to more adult conversation.

"And what do you do for a living?" inquired Acacia as she decided to ask the questions instead of being asked the Questions.

"Well, I work for a military as a civilian contractor." explained Stacy's husband Mike. "I mostly arrange shipments between your colonies and Valhalla and then sending all the equipment we are getting to their proper destination across this galaxy and the Pegasus galaxy."

"What equipment?" inquired Medea

"Mostly military, your vipers are the top thing we move." explained Mike as both colonial woman looked at each other in confusion.

"Wait, why would you want our vipers your Eagles crushed them in the war." inquired Acacia

"The Eagle is the best space superior fighter in the galaxy at the moment, two galaxies if you count Pegasus but the thing is the Eagle is a complex machine." Stated Mike "It takes a lot of people in the form of ground crew and equipment personal to keep an Eagle combat ready and it uses a lot of missiles. Those are two problems your vipers don't have, they use bullets and cannon shells those are easy to make and the stripped-down version we are getting could be fixed by someone with access to the most basic of tools and material. Also the Viper can take off from a dirt road or even a grass field."

"But why would you want a downgrade?" inquired Medea "I know one of our former classmates was a Viper pilot and he was lucky to get out alive from a fight with your Eagles."

"Oh, they aren't going to us." said Mike with a slight laugh "We are giving them to less developed worlds to defend themselves against pirates and slavers. We can't be everywhere and in the one case so far when slavers did attack a world with the vipers they were able to hold out long enough for our warships to arrive and to finish off the slavers."

Mike didn't add that most of the pilots who were really farmers hadn't made it back from a tangle with slavers armed with death gliders but they had saved their families from being sold into slavery. Which was becoming a major problem once again in the galaxy, if it had ever gone fully away.

Starbuck hated her life, she hated her job and she hated dealing with the Tau'ri and now she had an to deal with them more than normal. A manager had come into the break room and announced that the Tau'ri along with some Colonial Military Police where coming in. The Tau'ri where going to ask everyone a couple of questions and anyone who didn't answer them would find themselves out of a job. Since the job market after a war they had lost was bad, no one wanted to loss their job. The Tau'ri came in and set up small briefcases on five tables. They opened them to show a strange looking device with a long pole which was about eye level when a person sat down across from it. She expected it to be a camera and that she was going to have to spend the rest of the work day if not longer in the break room as the Tau'ri questioned everyone.

To her amazement that wasn't the case, the Tau'ri would call up people in groups of five and sit one of them across from two Tau'ri with the device in the center. They then asked them a couple of questions the average number seemed to be two or three before letting them go.

"Kara Thrace." yelled the manager as Kara moved toward one of the tables and sat down in the chair across the two Tau'ri.

"Are you Kara Thrace, test pilot?" inquired one of the two Tau'ri across from her.

"Yes." answered Kara, she was going to talk to these Tau'ri as little as possible. The one asking questions looked at the other one who nodded his head.

"Alright, we have gotten information that test missiles are being sold and modified to be used as weapons. So we have some questions, since the war ended have you ever carried out or helped with another person or group carry out attacks on the Tau'ri or the Colonial Government?" inquired the one asking questions.

"No." answered Kara coldly as the second Tau'ri nodded his head again.

"Alright one last question do you know anyone who had helped or talked about how providing weapons or material to a 3rd group beside the Colonial Government or the Tau'ri." Inquired the 1st Tau'ri.

"No." answered Kara again.

"Alright, you are free to go." stated the 1st Tau'ri and he made a mark on the computer pad as Kara blinked.

"That is it?" inquired Kara

"Yes, this machine here can tell if a person is telling the truth or not and therefore we know you don't have anything to do with what we are after." Said the Tau'ri before looking down at his list of names. Kara stood up and stormed out angry at the Tau'ri.

Space ripped open just outside of the Vantic system as the TAV Odyssey came out of hyperspace, among the ships in the Tau'ri navy the Odyssey stood apart. It was one of the oddest ships and had seen more battles then any other ship in the fleet, that by itself would have made it stand out however what made it stand out was that it had an advanced Ancient cloaking field. Unlike the current Tau'ri cloaking technology which was based of Ancient technology taken from Atlantis which replaced the shield around a ship with an invisibility cloak at the cost of a shield somehow the Odyssey was capable of having a cloak but still having shields up. This happened during the ORI war when Daniel Jackson using knowledge from the Ancient Merlin which had been downloaded into his brain somehow upgraded the ship to a level beyond even the standard Ancient or Asgard Cloaking technology. Tau'ri technicians and engineers had been studying and trying to figure out it worked for years but had never been able to copy it, before they had ended their lives even the Asgard had studied the cloak and couldn't figure it out. With this unique ability to have a cloak while keeping the shield up the Odyssey had become a favorite ship of Tau'ri special forces. While the other cloaked capable ships like the Akula class ships where more common the risked having a ship run into them while cloaked and damaging the ship in one way or another. They had almost lost the first Akula class ship during the Colonial war that way and because of that the Akulas never moved in under cloak toward an unknown planet without a lot of care and planning. The Odyssey didn't have to worry about being damaged but it had to worry about being discovered.

The Odyssey moved in alongside the Akula class ship the TAV Spartan and at once the operation began. Since the Odyssey was a Daedalus class ship it could carry more cloak capable Owls then what the smaller Akula class could, because of this the ship had become a key of the Tau'ri special forces. Five Owls prepared for launch the moment the ship exited hyperspace, each ship was going to be manned by four teams of special forces and another ship was carried a team from the SGC which specialized in geology and mineralogy it was going to be their job to confirm the findings of the drone. The Owls lifted off the deck of the Odyssey and headed toward Vantic 5, three of the Owls headed off toward the mineral despot site while the other two headed toward the team already on the ground.

On the surface of Vantic, Finia was hugging her mother and her younger sibling all around her in the wood was her family and distance neighbor children. They were not alone standing near them where three of the six Tau'ri which had saved them, so far no one had gone toward them. Everyone was unsure who they were and they had just watched them slaughter the soldiers of the Race, something that they never thought possible.

"Maybe they are the monsters of the underworld here to kill us." whispered one of her neighbor friends in their native tongue.

"If that was the case then why did they save us? Why not kill us or leave us to the Race?" countered Finia

"Then why aren't they feeding us? Why not give us food?" inquired her neighbor "if they are good spirits then they give out food to those they save, that is what the legends say."

"Also have you heard of any of those good spirits killing or walking on only two legs?" added another.

"What the hell do these things eat?" inquired the Tau'ri special forces member only a few feet away, they spoke in English so not to be understood by the locals. "We have some MREs but what if we give them something and it kills them. Not really a good way to make friends with the locals and they are bugs after all."

"They are people, bug people but people." countered the female member of the team as she looked around the forty two Vantic civilians which was now under their protection. Her eyes locked on one of the Vantic going off the clothing it was the one they had first encountered when the Solider from the Race was beating him or was it her? "We might as well ask."

With that she turned and walked toward the gathering of civilians, they didn't cower away from her but all the dark eyes were on her causing her skin to craw. She forced her fear of bugs aside before coming to a stop in front of the one they had saved.

"If I remember correctly you are the one we meet in the woods?" started the female Tau'ri to this Vantic.

"Yes, I am Finia who are you?" inquired Finia

"Specialist Kim Rillis Tau'ri Special Forces." Said Kim "But that doesn't answer your question does it?"

"No it doesn't who, what are you?" inquired Finia as all eyes were on them.

"I think the best way is to show you but if I take off my helmet we will not be able to talk because of the translator program so I am going to take it off and put it back on, ok?" explained Kim

"That is fine." Said Finia as the Tau'ri lifted her hand up to one corner of her helment, she must of depressed a button because a hiss of air could be heard. The helmet front opened up a bit then grabbing the helmet with both her hands she lifted it up to show a dark brown skin but it had no scales or hardened plates. She had black fur on the top of her head which was branded back into a short tail. She had similar strips of fur over her black eyes and she opened her mouth showing white teeth.

"What are you?" inquired Finia before she realized they couldn't understand each other.

"We are humans." answered a new voice as she looked to see one of the Tau'ri still had his helmet on and was translating while the other had taken off his helmet to show a pale flesh with yellow hair with blue eyes. "The Race came to our home system to conquer, lets just say we stopped them and then we came here to see what they were up too."

"So you didn't come to help us?" inquired Finia

"Not originally." admitted the Tau'ri "But we saw they were taking you from your home and we entered the fight. Why where they doing that?"

"They want to take us from our families to take us to be raised to be like them." Said another Vantic "They don't have families, they want us to be like them."

"I see. The people back home will not like that when they release the video we have." said the Tau'ri as he translated what the Vantic where saying to the other Tau'ri who had taken off their helmets.

"So you are a different species like the Race, I thought you all where Ishias." explained Finia

"Ishias?" inquired the Tau'ri

"Yes, they are horrible monsters that drag the evilest of souls down to the underworld to be frozen for all time away from all light and warmth." explained Finia

"Sounds like you thought we were demons." Laughed the Tau'ri

"Demons?" inquired Finia

"Basically our legendary form monsters from the underworld only they drag people into fires to be burned for all time." Explained the Tau'ri

"Fire is warmth and light why would your underworld be full of that?" inquired Finia

"Just different cultures" Explained the Tau'ri "We have some food but we don't know if it will make you sick."

"We are willing to take the chance." Said another Vantic as with a nod one of the Tau'ri began to hand out bags of something. When they ripped into them they found strange food which was tried with some concern but everyone was hungry. While everyone was eating the Tau'ri lifted his hand up to the side of his helmet and began speaking in his own tongue. "We have Owls coming in, they will drop off reinforcements and take the civilians to the Odyssey."

"Owls?, Odyssey?" inquired Finia

"Owls are transports and the Odyssey is a ship, we will take you up there and the race will not be able to touch you." Explained the Tau'ri "Unless you know somewhere on this planet where we can take you where you would be safe?"

"With the Resistance." Said one of the older Vantic "We will be safe with them."

"You have an organized resistance?" inquired the Tau'ri "And you know how to contact them?"

"Yes we do and I know someone who can get us in contact with them." Said the older Vantic "He lives two days away but I can go get him."

"Alright, we will go by Owl once we get your people out of the combat area." explained the Tau'ri

President of the 12 colonies of Kobol Laura Rolsin really hated her job, she was in her office in Delhi she wasn't sure if she would ever take over the still being rebuilt Presidential estate in Caprica City. She would go down in history as the 1st President since unification to not live in the palace but she was going to go down in history anyhow as the first to have to deal with an outside power after losing a war. She wanted to let out a sigh as she listened to this Priest drone on and on about how the Tau'ri actions on Sagittarian was wrong but instead she sat behind her desk and listened as if she actually cared.

"So Madam President once again our godless cousins force their will on us? They launch raids into our cities violate our homes and rights and kidnap children from believing homes." Said the Priestess as a member of the Quorum stood beside him nodding her head in agreement.

"Did you forget, that they are taking children that you already kidnapped and returning them to their families on Aquaria." countered Vice President Baltar as he sat in a chair to her left. As much as Roslin hated to admit it Baltar not her was the real power in this office, he would win election to this office whenever he decided to run, maybe he would let her have two terms while he plays behind the scene before taking over. Then his soon to be wife would likely follow him in the office, that would give them power for over a generation and they could shape the Colonies the way they see fit. On top of that any children they would have would automatically become players once they got old enough. The Baltars where on the path to become the most powerful family in the colonies like the Spiro family used to be.

"They are attack our sovereignty." countered the Quorum member

"Did you forget that the treaty we signed with them ending the war allows them to do that?" added the Presidential Lawyer "Along with their base on Aquaria and up to five space stations in orbit they have the right to carry out counter terror operations to recover the kidnapped children and any attacks on them."

"The holy scrolls say…" started the Priest

"The holy scrolls aren't the law of the land anymore, if anything the Tau'ri are." admitted Admiral Adama as the head of the Colonial military sat in a chair behind the two visitors. "And we should be grateful."

"Grateful." Snapped the Priest

"Yes, did you ever read the report about the Cylon virus they disabled before we went to war with them?" inquired Adama "That would have disabled our entire fleet and then Cylons would have killed us all. All of humanity gone in nuclear fire and while we have lost a lot in the war we are still here."

"The Tau'ri enforce their Godsless will on us." countered the Quorum member

"Not really, not to the extent they could." countered Roslin "I could be a puppet for them instead they let us do whatever we please as long as we don't cross lines mostly freedom of and from religion."

"Do you not see that they are taking us over in a more underhanded way?" snapped the Quorum member "They don't have troops occupy us but look their companies are buying up our companies, our children are worshiping the Tau'ri culture and they are importing all these new ideas and they are corrupting our children, our future."

Everyone in the room shared a look, they had a point but no one wanted to admit it. The Tau'ri where taking them over but instead of a sudden rush it was a much more clear and likely more successful way. Tau'ri companies had come in after the war and they were more than happy to buy up companies similar to them across the colonies.

To help win the war the colonial government had ordered large amounts of raw material and finished goods from large and small companies across the colonies. They had paid these companies with promises of land and resources on Kobol, they never got Kobol and those companies had tried to go to the government to get paid only to find the vaults empty. It was a miracle and a large amount of money from the Tau'ri which had kept the government afloat but it had weakened those companies and their Tau'ri counterparts had taken the opening. Major shipping companies like Hermes Wings and Colonial Express had been bought up by Tau'ri companies called UPS and FedEx. That was just one example, every field was being invaded by the Tau'ri in one way or another.

Some time it wasn't even a takeover but a straight up replacement, heavy machine companies which had been turning out tanks and weapons instead of their normal tractors and bulldozers had been destroyed. So Tau'ri companies like Caterpillar and Komatsu had taken over the market for heavy equipment for construction and there was a lot of construction going on. It had gotten so bad that the Tau'ri dollar wasn't just worth more than the colonial cubit but some business actually gave extra credit if people use Tau'ri dollars.

The Tau'ri where also sending in their culture, Tau'ri movies where extremely popular because they had movies and shows that would have never been allowed by the religious police on Sagittaron and that was a large market to give up back in the day. Whole movie theaters showed nothing but Tau'ri movies and in a few months, something the Tau'ri called Streaming movie downloads would be coming to the Colonies. The food was also taking over along with music and clothing style. There was going to a Tau'ri TV and Movie convention on Aquaria in a few weeks with the headline being the 1st Tau'ri film to be filmed on Tauron and set in the Colonies, John Wick 5. The President hadn't seen the movie series yet but it is a huge hit on Tauron and rumor was it was going to be a cross over with the long running movie series Hade's Hand which was about organized contract killers.

"In a generation, maybe less we may find ourselves under Tau'ri control fully as citizens of their nation not them of ours." Snapped the Priest as everyone looked around the room. All of them knew that he was right and that instead of having the Tau'ri flag flying among its brothers and sisters from the rest of the colonies with the Colonial flag over them all. That it was far more likely that it would be the blue and silver Tau'ri flag flying over them all.

Emperor Rison was getting board, he had lost track of how long this meeting had been going on. They had gone from deciding who should handle the situation of a massive fleet over their heads on a military side to which department should make the 1st draft of their official response. After much debate, they had settled on the science and technology department with the cultural department in support. Next, they were moving on to what should be done to get every citizen of the empire back to a calm and normal pattern of life. That debate would take at least another two hours or so following that they would take a short break and move on to the next in a long line of items. If this meeting followed the others it would last at least 20 days and that was when they had everything planned out beforehand. With no plans that time frame was going to double.

He didn't know what took over him, but he raised his hand in the middle of the heavy industry minister talking about how to get his workers back in their factories. At once the entire hall went quiet, it wasn't unheard of and against tradition for an Emperor to interrupt a speech, it hadn't happened in living memory but there was some records of it happening in the past.

"Forgive me fellow Males and Females but I fear we may be missing something right below our snouts." stated the Emperor as he stood up from his throne, all eyes were on him and his golden body paint. "We have been discussing how best to handle these Tau'ri but we are going off unknown data. We need more information and the only way to do that is by talking with these Tau'ri. Hereby I am pushing the other issues to the side and we shall invite a small delegation of the Tau'ri down here. That way we can gather more information about the Tau'ri Empire."

The ministers all looked at each other, none of them dared to speak up against the Emperor and even if this was in their view a rash choice it had been made by the Emperor and had to be carried out. So the message was sent out to the Tau'ri ships and they expected to have to wait at least two days for a response. When an aid returned ten minutes after being ordered to send the message out to the surprise of everything he announced that the Tau'ri would send a delegation down in two hours.

"These Tau'ri are moving at a totally unreasonable time table." complained more than one ministers, even so there was a rush as they looked forward to meet a diplomat of a new Empire. The male who addressed them Admiral Hackett was in command of this 7th fleet. That likely meant he was equal rank to a fleet lord that allowed them to place him in the hierarchical of positions and they believed they knew what to expect when he arrived.

On Vantic 5, Fleet lord Straha was not pleased, while everything was going as well as he had expected in rounding up the Vantic young and bringing them to educational centers to be raised as true citizens of the Empire. The problem was the number of natives fighting back, he had reports coming in of workers in high positions fighting the males of the race when they come to collect their children. Those natives where believed by planners to hand over their off spring with ease but they were fighting like it was their very lives on the line. That was bad enough and a troubling sign of what could be a major problem, a sign of what could possibly be a worse case outcome was what happened in the South where 43 males had been slaughtered by terrorist Vantic. Now he had a large force heading in to go into the woods after the terrorist.

"Once we get our claws on those weapons we will punish those who gave weapons to primitives." hissed Starha as he turned his attention to the plans to knock down the last couple totally Vantic cities and replace them with Race designed cities.

The Owls came in for a landing using a small clearing that was just big enough for a single Owl to land at any one time. Since there was Race military activity nearby they landed under cloak which meant the only outward sign of them was the wind which was forced out by the engines which kicked up grass and dirt. On the edge of the field the 1st team had gathered the Vantic civilians, for their part they were confused at the sudden strange wind. Then they were more confused when suddenly a ramp dropped out of no were and they could see inside a strange vehicle. Ten more Tau'ri ran off the back of the ramp with weapons ready.

"Go!" yelled the lead Tau'ri as four Vantic ran toward the ramp, they were bigger then Tau'ri so while a special forces Owl could carry up to 12 soldiers or six if they bring down drones only four Vantic could get onboard at any one time. An adult plus three children, the youngest of them where the first to get on board. Once on board the Owl lifted off the ground and headed back toward the Odyssey.

"What is the situation?" asked the newly arrived Tau'ri special forces team.

"Looks like the Race has a force assembling to move in to get us, we need to old them off." Said the originally commander as the Second Owl came in for a landing. Once again the back ramp lowered as 12 more Tau'ri ran off the bird but they weren't alone. The Vantic turned and gazed at the strange creature, it was just short of the Tau'ri hip but walked on 4 legs. It was covered with hair mostly black and a deep brown and had what looked to be a tactical vest over it's body. It had pointed ears with a muzzle that shot out to a black nose with rows of teeth in it's jaws.

"What is that?" inquired Finia as the next group of her people ran onboard the transport.

"A German Shepard attack dog." explained the nearest Tau'ri as Finia looked at the two nearly arrived Tau'ri teams talked quickly with the team they had already met before taking off into the woods heading toward the Race the six original ones weren't even following them. Twenty Tau'ri plus this dog creature against whatever the Race was sending after them, she just hoped that they where all away before their rescuers where overrun.

Back on the Odyssey the commanders monitored the developing situation on the ground with some worry and some amusement. They race had gathered a good size force of almost a hundred and fifty fully armored and combat ready soldiers however the six men team had been reinforced. There was now 24 additional Tau'ri special forces members on the ground in the woods. It would be those reinforcements who would carry out the attack while the original six stayed close to the civilians as a back up force.

"So Gentlemen looks like it is about to start." Said a middle level officer as he and a handful of other operators monitored the situation.

"Time to take your bets." said one of the technicians in the chair.

"Who do we have on the ground?" inquired the second technician.

"An SAS team but one is protecting the civilians and the Owl landing site, the two attackers are a Spetsnaz team and a Delta Force team. We have a 162 armed lizards coming toward them." said the 1st technician "So take your bets."

The technician thought about it for a moment, with the formation of the Tau'ri there had been talk of rolling in all the special forces groups into a couple of larger groups. That idea had been pushed aside because each group, be it British SAS, American Delta Force, Demark Jaegerkorpset and others all had pride in being Elite and always tried to outdo the other special forces units. That drive, that sharp edge, that need to outdo and to be the best was something the Tau'ri leadership didn't want to loss by merging the units together. So they didn't not fully at least, instead they opened it up so that any Tau'ri citizen could attempt to become a member of whatever special forces they wanted to try. For example, if an American want to they could try for Spetsnaz and if a native of Lanagara wanted they could attempt to join Delta Force or the Seals because all of them where Tau'ri. This allowed them to keep the drive but still showed unity.

"I'll take Delta for the most kills but the most over the top kill for spetsnaz." said the second technician. "Either way I feel sorry for the Race, those two teams will be competing against each other and that will not be good for the Race."

The soldiers of the race where forming up to enter the woods, the star Vantic was sinking below the horizon as darkness began to cover the land. The front group of these males where all highly trained males trained in counter terror and special operations. These where the best of the best of the race and they were all expert level marksman and hand to hand combat.

"Alright form up. Remember the crawlers do not like the dark, they can't see well and they are less active at after dark. Keep an eye turret open, the crawlers glow under ultraviolet light." Ordered their small unit commander as he dropped his night vision equipment over his eyes and instantly the world turned red. The Race saw better in red light then they could see in any other colors, they could see more in the red scale of light then humans could. They also flipped on small lights on the fronts of their guns which flooded the area in front of them with ultraviolet light. "Now let's go get the crawlers."

With that the best soldiers of the Race headed into the darkened woods after their enemy believing that they were going after crawlers not realizing that they were not facing crawlers but where in fact going up against highly trained Tau'ri Special Forces. They were heading toward a pack of wolves and the wolves where ready for them.

Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter, I am sorry for the delay between chapters but while I like my Job and the people I work with for the most part. At the moment, we are doing 58 hours a week mandated time which eats into all free time. I hope you enjoyed the view into the Colonies and what Kara Thrace is up to, I have had a lot of PM and reviews asking about her. Now until next time please keep reading, Wilkins75.