Disclaimer: I never have and never will own the characters, ideas or anything else based on these 2 shows. The TV studios that produced them, do. This story is also free as it is a pet project. Enjoy.
"Talking"
"Thinking"
"Wireless/communication"
"Speaking in a different language"
"Reading a text"
Chapter two: The trouble with Colonials
Day 29 since the Colonial exodus, Earth date 22th of February, year 2378, Earth Starfleet ship Challenger, unknown star system, 24 Ly from the fleet assembly area
"Jump complete." The helmsman reported.
"Silent running active." Sisko reported from his station.
The captain nodded in confirmation. "The Colonial fleet?"
K'Lir went to work. "We are 27.000 kilometers from the supposed Colonial fleet. Well outside their active DRADIS range. I have a visual."
"Then let's see it." On the screen, a fleet of nine ships was visible. "Lt. Thrace, can you identify the classes of military ships we see here?" The captain asked her.
Like before, Kara went to her side. This time they were close enough to get a clean image right off the bat. "A Sobek... The Victory. Behind her... now way... No, how is that still here?"
"Lieutenant?" The captain and the bridge crew was getting worried at what she's seen.
"Behind the Sobek, a marinestar. A repurposed old Jupiter hull, redesigned as a large marine deployment platform. Modern computers, engines and everything, but no vipers and no real offensive power, except for point defense."
"And the third one?" Sisko asked, as a third military ship was clearly visible, but much smaller than the other two.
"Wow, an Adamant. Those were only used by local military forces. Not the navy. They were phased out decades ago. Talk about scraping the bottom there."
K'Lir began a passive scan. "All have sustained damage. Armor shows signs of impacts, some even radiological."
"To be expected." The captain remarked. "And the civilian ships?"
Kara now inspected those ships that were displayed on the main view screen. "A tylium tanker. The others seem to be regular civilian transport ships."
"The so called marinestar seems to be filled to capacity." K'Lir reported her findings. "I detect at least 1000 life signs from it. But due to the armor and EM interference, probably more."
Sisko meanwhile did a scan on the Sobek. "Same for that ship of the line. They already launched a CAP. What about that tanker?"
Commander Scott was already on it. "Filled up to... somewhere in the 70% range."
"Well, they will not lack fuel for a while, that's for sure." Kara surmised. "But sooner or later, without a refinery ship..."
The captain heard enough. "Helm, take us in slowly. We have less than 30 minutes before company arrives. Commander Hayashi, open a general comm frequency, in the open."
She did as asked. "You're on, Captain."
"This is Captain Sakari Hauaman, Commanding Officer of the starship Challenger. We come here in hopes of aiding you in your times of need, as we are aware of your current situation. If I am correct, your being pursuit by a Cylon fleet that arrives about 33 minutes after you initiate an FTL jump. We are willing to assist and initiate talks, please respond."
The comm frequency remained open, which would mean that sooner or later the Colonial force would be able to locate them. But they needed to try. The reaction was clearly visible. The CAP was doubled and the vipers were frantically searching for the ship that made this declaration.
A minute later, they got a response. "This is Commander Jerome Hasapis, Commanding Officer of the battlestar Victory. Whoever you are, I have little time for your games. My people are tired and exhausted and my ships in need of maintenance. Either show yourself so that we can determine if this is a Cylon ruse, or remain quiet."
The captain couldn't really blame the harsh reaction. They really must be on the edge. "Commander, we have a Colonial officer from the battlestar Galactica with us. She, like you, is escorting a civilian fleet out of Cylon reach. We wish to come on board to discuss the matter with you and to help you get rid of any tracking devices the Cylons may have put on your ships." She signaled Hayashi. "We're transmitting to you what we believe are the faces of Cylon humanoids. We also want to share the information, that it is possible that at least your military ships may have, what we call a tachyon beacon on at least one of your ships installed by a possible Cylon infiltrator. A while, disk like device, usually installed above your planning table in a ship's CIC. The Galactica had one like that. We also detect four tachyon signals coming from your fleet. The Cylons may be using them to track you. We are willing to help. Over."
More silence followed. Then a response. "The pictures you transmitted seem legit. The face marked as five is definitely the fraking traitor of an intelligence officer I had executed on my ship a week ago. As for the device you described... I indeed have one on my ship and one is on the marinestar. How can I trust you that what your telling me is the truth? Want to talk? Show yourself first!"
The captain signaled Hayashi to cut the feed. She looked at Sisko for advice. "I can't blame him for doubting us. We have to give more to earn our foot in the door."
"I know. I just hope they don't just shoot at us... return to normal mode, polarize the hull plating for combat, but keep shields down."
"Aye, Captain." They got spotted soon after. They were in active DRADIS range at this point anyway, 4000 kilometers. "They know we're here. Vipers are approaching us, but not burning it here either."
"They're going to take a look. Let them. Hayashi, open the channel again. Commander, to answer your question, we are from an organization called Starfleet, that represents the United Earth Federation. The Colonial officer here has informed us of your people's beliefs that we're a lost 13th tribe. I won't debate this with you, even if we have evidence to show you that isn't the fact, as we don't have time for this. I have a proposal. My ship can scan yours to find any remaining transmitters that we know can't be of Colonial origin. You can escort my ship all the time with your fighters. I and the Colonial officer will in the mean time go to your ship to discuss the matter. Deal?"
The delay and silence were nail biting. "We have an agreement. Port flight pod, 10 minutes."
The comm went silent. "Well, we are invited then. Commander K'Lir, keep citing protocol and not remind me why this is a bad idea." She stood up to give her first officer the chair. "Lt. Thrace. Let's see if you are as good a diplomat as you say you're a fighter."
"Sure, no pressure."
But K'Lir was not the only one who didn't like the idea. "Captain..."
"I get your intended protest, Major. But I have to risk this alone. No guards, no weapons. Commander K'Lir, the ship is yours."
10 minutes later, the Commander of the Victory was getting restless as to why no raptor was launched yet from this Challenger. "It's a toaster trap, sir. We should just blast them..." A marine officer said to the commander as he paced on the hangar back and forth. All the time, his people fighting to keep the vipers and ship working, or their own fatigue.
"What they already gave us is no small matter. I can't just..." They heard the sound, then saw the blue dots appear, concentrating, converging on a spot. Then two figures, humans appeared. Both female. One in a Colonial uniform, one in an unknown one. The marines pointed their weapons at them, but the commander gave them the order to stand down. "What the hell is going on?"
Kara made the first move, stepping forward and saluting him. "Lt. Kara Thrace, call sign Starbuck, viper pilot, battlestar Galactica, Sir."
He returned the salute half hearted, still not getting what was going on. "Lt. Thrace... how...?"
"Sir. We really don't have the time. We're down to 12 minutes before the toasters come. They did the same to us when we were chased. Please, let them find and destroy the remaining two beacons. You did scrap the ones on this ship and the marinestar?"
The urgency in her voice snapped him out of it. "Well... yes. We took them down and dismantled them. I only have your word for that, but..." He once again eyed Hauaman, not knowing what to do.
She now joined Kara. "Commander. The situation is difficult to explain and will take time, but the short version is this: We are lost in an uncharted part of the galaxy. We are re-assembling our scattered fleet, when Lt. Thrace stumbled on our ship. Our plan is to regroup, find as many Colonial survivors while pursuing the Glalctica fleet, then set a course for Earth space and not look back. For now, that's the best course of action we can hope for."
He now eyed Starbuck. "They really from Earth?"
"Not entirely sure myself, but tell me, Sir, when did you see point to point transporter technology, outside holo-novels? Earth never did AI research, but... they did genetic engineering and met aliens. As in real aliens. Good ones and bad ones. Even had a big war with one of them. So that will shake things up with us, but... do we have a plan B? Or any plan, except to just get the hell out of here?"
The commander didn't have a plan at all so far, but to survive. "We left other ships behind. We had to try a breakout. But the damn toasters always knew where to find us. There are others still back there. We were hoping to find a place to hide, regroup, go back and get as many out as possible. The battlestar Phalanx went ahead of us by a week..."
"It was the ship we found in a system 27 Ly from here. They're gone, but they did take a basestar with them." Kara explained.
"So, they're gone? Frak! Fraking toasters!" He really wanted to vent his anger. The fatigue was getting to him. The medication could not keep him up for much longer and it was beginning to show. "Even if this is a trap, we have no choice. We're at the end of the rope. I'll instruct our vipers to do nothing as your ship tries to find there beacons. Then... I hope you have a set of coordinates for us to hide at and get some rest. As you can see, we can't take much more of this."
That was all they had hoped for. Hauaman took out her communicator and updated the Challenger. "Get to it. Commander, we may use a low power energy weapon to shoot down any beacons, if they're attached on the outside of a ship. Instruct your pilots to not panic."
He did as asked and forwarded the message.
The Challenger went to work, always escorted by a wing of vipers. Approaching the fuel tanker, they defected a tachyon signal coming from her aft. Apparently the Cylons used missiles with a magnetic attachment system. It was not meant to explode, but to plant a beacon on a hull. It would run out of power sooner or later, but give the Cylons enough time to tire their prey out. The Starfleet ship deployed it's ventral cannons at minimum setting and destroyed the beacon, leaving the tanker undamaged. The other two beacons were in similar spots attached to the hulls of two civilian transport ships.
On the Victory, Hauaman got an update. "No signals detected anymore, Captain."
She let Commander Hasapis hear that update. "So, Commander. You ready to go with us? We're down to four minutes."
"I won't test fate and let them jump in the middle of our formation. Return to your ship. We'll follow you, once you give us the coordinates."
"Just to inform you, the first jump will be to where we came from. Our fleet has already relocated, for safety purposes. Once we determine, that we lost them, we make the second jump."
"Good... and I'll leave a raptor behind to monitor this space. If the toasters do arrive here in... three minutes. I'll know about it. And confirm your theory."
Kara had a better idea. "Captain, you return. I'll stay here for now, as insurance."
The captain and commander nodded in agreement and Kara went with him to the CIC as the Starfleet captain was beamed back. The Challenger transmitted the coordinates and saw the fleet begin jumping away, until only itself and a raptor were left. Then only the raptor. A minute later, three basestars appeared and deployed their raider wings. Only this time, they found only empty space as the Colonial raptor went after the fleet to confirm the Cylon appearance.
Day 29 since the Colonial exodus, Earth date 22th of February, year 2378, deep space, Earth Starfleet ship Challenger, new Starfleet gathering location, two hours later
Commander Hasapis and Colonel Hawks, the two top military representatives, one of the battlestar, the other of the marinestar, were currently on the Bismarck conference room, discussing matters with Commodore O'Donnell and Colonel Walker. Kara was a mediator, of sorts.
While the Starfleet ships supplies was really limited, they shared what they could spare. Mostly technical support for the damage the ships had sustained and medical support for the civilians, that were forced to live in a cramped environment.
The story the commodore had for them sounded too fantastic at first, but seeing people just appear and disappear put a stop to that. The one thing they all agreed to was that the fleet needed to be screened for more Cylons, so after the marinestar people were checked out, they'd help the MACOs to look over the civilians.
"So, food and fuel wise were in the green, for now. But we lack a real waste processing ship, so we're forced to do dumps into space, wasting water and bio mass that could be recycled and put to better use." Commander Hasapis explained their logistical situation.
"How did a battalion of marines get stuck on a marinestar during all of this, is what I want to know?" Kara wondered.
Colonel Hawks answered. "We were heading to a training exercise for zero gravity and planetary combat on the planet Pallas, when all went to shit. We're not much of use in ship to ship combat, unless the navy secures us a way to board the damn toasters. We and the other ships that didn't fall right away, didn't get the damn CNP upgrade yet."
"Logistical incompetence and bureaucracy saved our lives for once." Commander Hasapis joked, but didn't laugh. "Commodore, I appreciate your help, I really do, but we can't just leave everyone else to die back home."
She understood his impossible position. "And if you go back without a plan and as you are, they and you die. I say we follow our plan, until we assembled our entire fleet and gather as many stragglers as possible and as much information on the Cylons as possible. Then, if it's feasible, I will consider a plan to return to Cyrannus and rescue as many as possible. You said that you had ships in hiding. Mind telling me why the Cylons haven't found them in their hiding spots yet and only when you broke cover?"
Colonel Walker had an idea. "Perhaps these beacons don't work in some environments. Our own short range FTL comm system uses tachyons, but is unaffected to extreme conditions, most of the time. The Cylon system may be more primitive and so susceptible." He turned to his Colonial counterpart. "Your ships are hiding in nebulas or gas giants, aren't' they?" He got a nod for a response. "Then if they can wait it out for us, we have to get more ships and resources to even hope of mounting a rescue. No point in charging blind and with insufficient power. An honorable death, that is meaningless, is not so honorable in the end, if no one remembers is." Walker had a good idea how some of these Colonials thought. Like Klingons, honor was important. So he played that card.
"I hate to say it, Jerome, but they have a point. We have civilians to protect and couldn't do even that. We lost three ships in the past five days. 1500 people dead, for nothing."
The commander too knew this was a better plan than to just do a hail Mary. "For now, I agree. Now..." He handed them several papers. "A list of people and inventory in our fleet. I know it's on short notice, but if you could find some space for a few people, 100 would be enough, to make life easier for the ones that would remain in our ships..."
"Our ships, while not purely military, have combat capabilities. Would you have civilians on your battlestars, just like that?"
"No, but that... other ship. It looks like a transport ship. Could you not have people there?" The commander basically pleaded to them.
"Out of the eight cargo pods, only three were made to hold Earth MACOs, so they have military style barracks in them... we can take 50 per pod, but the ship would be dependent on us for resupplies. And we would have our people man the main hull and control it." The commodore extended an olive branch.
"What is in the others, if I may ask?"
"Water in two, weapons in the remaining three."
The two Colonial officer exchanged glances. "Well, you could transfer the water to us..."
"Yes, but they would remain configured as a liquid tanker, empty or not."
"What about the weapons? Could you not move them?"
"We could, but would use up all space on our remaining ships. And before you ask, no, we're not handing them out to your marines. Not at the moment. We'll need time to trust each other. But for the moment, let's just assume that I'm in charge of this exodus." Commodore O'Donnell began slamming her rules down. "We know where Earth is, we have a plan and a chance to pull it off. You had nothing. Not even hope. Gentlemen, I don't want to sound greedy, but these are our cards. Once we find the Galactica or a fleet of equal or greater size or a fleet that has a Colonial representative that can be seen as a member of the old and current political body, I'll be willing to negotiate a new military hierarchical structure. For now, you can come with us, or stay here. I won't force you, but if you come, I have final saying." She waited for a response. It took a while.
"You have yourself a deal then. Besides, I'm too tired to argue at this point. So... permission to return to my ship and get some sleep?" The commander asked, really ready to fall over.
"Granted." As the two officers left, O'Donnell went to Kara's side as she was looking outside the window to look at the now larger fleet. "And so it begins." She jested.
"Yes. And while these two officers and the civilian captains will play along with you, as they have no other cards to play, using your terminology, it doesn't mean that all Colonial officers will go this smoothly."
"I'm aware of that. What about Adama?"
Kara knew this would come. She was fishing. And it was here where Kara was conflicted. She was still a Colonial. But they were all human. And the colonies were gone. "He can be stubborn. But if you say you know where Earth is and you can escort us there, he won't be much trouble. Neither will be the president. The political leaders of the 12 colonies are a different matter. There were talks of creating a new Quorum and some, like Gemenon and Sagittaron, will be a problem."
"We'll cross that bridge, when we get there. Good work today."
"If I can make a suggestion, Commodore."
"Please."
"I know why you don't want to hand out hardware. I get it. We wouldn't either, if the roles were reversed. But sooner or later..."
"Yes, I know. But that's not what you wanted to say?"
"No. What I wanted to say is that the nukes and vipers we salvaged. They could be useful to them. Not the raptor, keep that, but the ammo and vipers."
She smiled. "Now you're thinking like a diplomat and officer. I was intending to do that anyway. But let them have a day's rest. We begin our pursuit of your fleet tomorrow. Now, your free to go, Lieutenant Thrace."
As Kara left to return to the Challenger, she was feeling happy. Well, happier than lately. She wasn't the only Colonial here anymore.
Once on the Challenger, she decided to let better people deal with the civilians, unless she is asked to help with that matter. Right now, she wanted to get rid of some steam. Arriving at the locker room of the gym on deck three, she put on her training gear and went to the middle gym room.
"Oh, didn't expect you here." It was Lt. Hill. Lifting weights. More weights than a normal human ever could. "The recreational area is still a mess on the Crusader, so I come here for my fitness needs. Truth be told, I thought you'd be in the sports room right about now."
Kara was about to mount a bike to begin her exercise, but had to ask. "Why would I want to go there, not that it's far?"
"Target practice. Both here and the Bismarck."
"Target practice? Anything special?"
"Would ruin the surprise."
"OK, tell me. What is it?"
"Nope. Go look for yourself."
Curiosity got the better of her. "I hate you."
The sports room was just one room over, so not really far. But whatever she thought was going on, she didn't expect this. "Frak! Who's idea was this?"
One of the centurions that they salvaged, was mounted like a scarecrow in the target area. And already had some holes in it. "Lt. Thrace." It was Simpson. "Join us. We're testing our weapons on this thing."
The major was currently aiming the plasma rifle at it and concentrating. He fired a salvo and tore off an arm from its shoulder joint. "As we can see, it can't endure sustained fire." He switched to the phase particle beam and did the other arm. It took longer than with the other side. "Plasma bolts are better at the job. Besides, we won't bother taking them alive." He lowered his weapon and approached the test centurion. "Like with humans and other humanoids. Center of gravity is not always the best spot to shoot. Aim for the legs to disable it, arms if it's about to attack an ally, other than that, aim for the head. That should be a kill shot with a few bursts. But do avoid hand to hand, so keep them at arm's length. They will tear you apart, if they get their hands on you." He noticed Kara. "Hey. Want to have some fun?"
"Already having it just watching you work. Good recommendations. Look here..." She went to the now shot off arm and moved a finger to open position. It could extend to create a claw. "If it does this... man, I don't want to be near it. It could cut clean through to the bone."
"Good call. See this, people. It's designers thought of everything. Built in razor sharp fingers. So even more important to take them down from a distance. Now, anyone else want to try?"
Several did and took their turns. "You came to train?"
"Yup."
"Train later. Come, I have a better idea."
She followed him to the bar, where some were already watching replays of Earth sports, playing pool, cards or something else. And all were drinking.
They joined a group of MACOs at a table. "Today we have a day off, of sorts. The Colonials in that fleet were on their last leg. They really need the sleep right now, so we're the night watch." He handed her a glass of Andorian ale. "Drink up. Won't see days like this for a while."
"Yeah, get that. Tomorrow, the chase begins."
Day 30 since the Colonial exodus, Earth date 23th of February, year 2378, Earth Starfleet ship Challenger, fleet assembly area
That one day of actual rest worked like magic on the Colonial people in the fleet. But the rest now over, the decision making on how to proceeded would need to be addressed.
Right now, the Bismarck was docked to the Victory. And Commodore O'Donnell requested Kara to be present as the first steppes after the first contact would be made.
She saluted Commander Hasapis and Colonel Hawks. "Sirs, welcome."
They had some vague memories from the day before, as back then they were barely hanging on to consciousness. "Lt. Thrace. Don't know if I should even bother thinking of you as a Colonial, all things considered..." The commander was not entirely joking. To him, she was partially burned. And these people, humans or not, were an unknown. And they probably thought the same about him.
"No, Sir. All Colonial blood in me. But the situation needs us to adapt."
He nodded in agreement. The Colonel signaled his people behind them to stand down, as apparently this was not some elaborate trap. A third person stepped to the Bismarck side. The Colonel introduced her. "This is Captain Anu, chosen by the civilian fleet captains to be here with us."
"Pleasure, Ma'am." She turned around to escort them. "The MACOs will be going with us." She meant the MACO solders at the airlock. As they began walking, two went with them, four remained at the airlock.
"Would have done the same on my ship." The commander remarked. "I don't suppose you can fill us in on anything important about their situation here?"
"The Commodore will explain everything. I don't think they will omit much, if anything. At least not for the situation at hand."
As they turned the corner, the three Colonials inspected the corridors and design. The Commander was still fishing. "In your honest opinion, since you've been with them for over a week now, what can we accomplish the way we and they are and let's say that Earth would have been successful in locating us and not just stumble across us..."
"I get the question, sir." He gathered her thoughts. The MACOs were listening in to this as well, so she had to remain tactful. "Technologically speaking, with the exception of jump drives, they surpass us in almost every filed. If this fleet was assembled completely and we made contact like this, no difference. They, like we, lack a safe port, no logistical capacity, except for the materials already on the ships, limited personnel, fuel, ammo,... essentially, you can treat them the same as us. Homeless. Yes, Earth is still there, but so far away, that it's like the same damn boat. They have a course, we don't. They have the technical expertise, including how to track, avoid and perhaps gather information on the damn toasters far better than we ever did. But we have the ship numbers, if I only include the fleet I was part off. Now that would not be saying much, since, unlike with you, there is only the Galactica as a warship. We have the population and potential ability to have at least some form of government and industry, as pathetic as it would be."
"What about combat?"
"The Commodore is not an aggressive person. She knows that keeping the Cylons in the dark is of great importance. If they were able to deal with us in such proficient, they can't be underestimated. Weapons wise... they have more advanced weapons, offensively and defensively, but the sheer difference in size and number of weapons the toasters have per basestar... it's the great equalizer. Or, ad Lt. Garcia told me an old Earth saying goes: Throw enough shit to the wall, until enough of it sticks. I think he meant that the Cylons can wear them down as much as they could us. As for the 'what if' question, with the ships here, before the fall and if Earth was actual searching for us... Anyone's guess."
The colonel, who was listening closely to her unofficial report, had his thoughts on the matter. "The toasters would have hacked them as well."
"Not necessarily." Kara corrected him. "They had a war on their hands that was similar to ours, just not with rouge AI. So they know how to play the cyber warfare better than us... And here we are."
They arrived at the conference hall at the front section of deck six on the Bismarck. "Commodore, Captain, Colonel." She greeted the Starfleet officers, that were already waiting as she guided the guests to the room.
"Lt. Thrace. Being a good diplomat?" Captain Hauaman teased her.
"Not funny. Anyway, I believe you all remember each other from yesterday. This is Captain Anu from the Civilian fleet."
"Pleasure. Please be seated." The commodore encouraged them.
The commander, after taking his seat, made the first move. "On behalf of the survivors of this fleet, I thank you for helping us escape. I don't know how much longer we would have lasted."
"We understand the impossible situation you were in. And still are. Have you had any chance to talk it over with the other officers on our initial talks from yesterday?"
"Not really. We all slept like never before. But we did decide that the three of us will make the decision for the entire fleet. So we'd better make this work..."
Kara took her seat as well. This will take a while.
As the talks began, Lt. Garcia and Commander K'Lir were having their hands full in the computer laboratory on the Challenger.
Dr. Manor and the medical staff were busy with the autopsies on the Cylon humanoid corpses. The centurions were left in the tender care of the computer experts.
So now they had a centurion on the diagnosis table. They were using plasma cutters to open its torso and head plates. There were also several MACO guards present, just in case.
Garcia was inspecting the work of his people, as they were just about to cut through the attachment points. A small click was heard, as apparently the holding mechanism was not disabled. "I think that's it." Garcia informed K'Lir.
"Then begin the removal of the plate." She was behind the analysis station, monitoring the scans. They had the thing hooked up to their computer here. It was dead, but they had to make sure.
Four people stood at the sides of the centurion, two left, two right. They grabbed the upper plate and pulled it off.
Once that was done and the plate was moved to the side, to not obscure the view, Garcia's men went to work on the head while he inspected the interior of the torso. K'Lir remained at her station as the equipment allowed to see just as good as if she was above the thing.
"Do you see this?" Garcia asked, as he pulled a tube out that was apparently leaking some fluid. "Not any fuel or cooling fluid. Looks more like... blood."
"I would agree. It does have organic components as well. We will have to ask Manor to take a look as well."
"I have a better idea." Garcia said as he pulled an organic piece of meat that looked like an organ out. He deposited it into a tray. "We'll get it out, catalogue everything and let him have it. I'm more interested in the mechanical pert of this."
"Lieutenant, sometimes your crude approaches can be efficient." She noticed the head plate coming off now as well. Once the interior was exposed, she got curious. "Lt. Garcia, move the scanning light to the 'temporal' lobe of the centurion."
"Which one?"
"Either will do." As he did as asked, he went around the table to see what was interesting her so much, by looking at her monitor.
"OK, that is some form of poor man's CPU, but... em, is that what I think it is?"
"Organic computer circuitry. The CPU is apparently the main processing center, but the nerve clusters around it act as information highways. Impressive." Now Garcia got worried. Nothing impresses a Vulcan easily. "Ensign Millis, remove the cluster of memory chip at the back of the centurion." She ordered a lower ranking officer at the table. As they were delivered to her diagnostic table, the cleaned the blood off and inspected one.
Garcia began to understand her interest. "You think we can access them?"
"We'll need to construct a new interface. But I believe we will. I believe we can learn of its protocols, short term memory..." The computer beeped, alerting her to something. "Curious..." Now she stood up alone and went back to the torso. She spotted the device the computer alerted her to. Removing said device, she returned to her station. She hooked it up to the diagnostic tools. "This device, for some strange reason, was limiting the centurions capabilities."
Garcia was lost, like most in the room. "What?"
"The CPU and the organic nervous system were restrained from utilizing their entire capacity. This device was limiting it. And there is no reason to believe this single centurion was the only unit affected."
"But why would..." Garcia stopped mid sentence and grinned. "No way. Like reading a script."
"Lt. Garcia?"
He turned to her, grinning even wider. "Terminator 2. Like in the movie!"
"Lieutenant, we have little time for your free time activities..."
"No, listen to me for a moment." She finally relented, seeing he wouldn't shut up otherwise. "In that movie, the good terminator said that its creator, Skynet, left all the terminators, who were sent out alone on a mission, to 'read only'. Their CPUs that is. It could not do anything beyond its initial mission. It had the capacity to learn, to grow, but was denied."
"Fascinating. And your point to our situation here is what exactly?"
"This thing..." He pointed to the thin device that she pulled out. "Is the 'read only' part!"
Now K'Lir looked the device again, then began pondering. "Perhaps you are right. It would explain why it was so limited."
"Yes. Like in the movie, the creator didn't want it to think too much and perhaps come to a different conclusion. And rebel."
She now took his logic and expanded it. "Which begs the question. Who put it there and why did the centurions let it happen? Because there is one great difference between this and your movie. Here the centurions were first. The humanoids second. As far as we know."
"Yeah, that is a problem. Like the terminators making Skynet and not the other way around. But it is a control factor."
"Agreed. These humanoids wanted to control them. Which means that we need to either be successful in decoding these memory chips or we will need a living humanoid to interrogate."
Garcia, who now sat down on the desk she was working at, could hear the distain in her voice. "You sure, you would want to do it?"
"The question is not if I want to do it. I have to do it. The needs of this fleet surpass my needs after all."
Around two hours later on the Bismarck, they made some form of agreement. The Bismarck and Victory would exchange several officers and the Denarius would be made fit for passengers. The commodore even agreed to empty one of the other cargo module and refurbish it for habitation.
The Colonial officers agreed to her plan, as they lacked any of their own. The Victory commander also let his first statement of this situation remain. The commodore was in charge. But he now added, that if a move is made that would put the civilians in danger, he would not follow an order like that.
To further help accelerate matters, two additional compromises were made. The MACOs would aid the Colonial marines in searching the civilian fleet for any known Cylon faces. And to help coordinate the fleet better, should the need for splitting up arise or a ship miss-jumps or just gets lost, the Earth personnel would dismantle some of their communication buoys to use the subspace comm ability of the devices and install them into several colonial ships, beginning to with the Victory.
In return for this and the space that will be made on the Denarius, the Starfleet ships would get a food shipment from the Colonials, as food was currently not in short supply.
The talks were getting wrapped up as Commodore O'Donnell got a call from K'Les. "Commander, what is it?"
"We're transmitting some new information to the conference room you're in at the moment. Something you and the Colonials need to see."
Captain Hauaman stood up to activate the wall monitor. On it, the computer laboratory was now seen where the more and more disassembled Cylon centurion.
The Starfleet personnel were all still busy scanning the various components. "Commodore, Captain, Commander... I was partially successful in accessing the memory storage units of this centurion. And while some data is damaged, it was able to piece together some useful bits of information, that will shed some light on a few questions at least."
Everyone, even the commodore, who now spun her chair around to observe the monitor, was paying attention to this. "Please, proceed."
The laboratory live feed was changed to the Cylon humanoid faces. But now, names were added to them, as well as model numbers and an additional name, the so called Prime. "I believe that the Prime is the name of the first model of a line. So as you can see, John Cavil is the model One, and Cavil is the Prime name. Possibly that the model in mind here doesn't use many alternatives. On the other hand, the model Six is named Caprica as a Prime name, but has alternatives, like Natalie, Gina and so on."
"Why is Seven, the Daniel blacked out?" Commander Hasapis asked. "Why jump a number, from six to eight?"
"Unknown. I see three possibilities. Either the model number was retired, was faulty and removed or is for other reasons not part of this list. Perhaps in hiding. We can only speculate at this point."
"And you hate to speculate." The Challenger captain knew her all to well.
"Indeed. We also have a 'do not engage' marking on all of the humanoid Cylons. This was meant for the Centurion to follow. We also found a device that partially limits the centurions ability to fully utilize its cognitive functions. I have asked Lt. Garcia to inspect the raider in our hangar to see if it too has such a device."
Now the Colonials and Starfleet personnel in the conference room were lost. "Wait, they dumbed-down their own solders?" Kara spoke first.
"We do not know yet why, but the best reason for this would be that the humanoids are in control and do not want a repeat the Colonials had to go through."
The Victory commander was getting angry at hearing this. "So let me get this straight. The centurions fought us for their freedom, only for their next evolution to re-enslave them and they did it better than we?"
"The most likely explanation. But we will have to wait for more data."
"Anything else?" Commodore O'Donnell asked as she had a visit to the Victory planned.
"Just two things." Additional profiles appeared, only all was blanked out. "Five more models exist, but all information on them is removed. They are called the Final Five. Nothing is known beyond that."
"And the other?"
"We now know what the Resurrection frequencies mean. The Cylons named this for its literal meaning of the word. It's a process whit which a Cylon that dies, can download into a new body."
That revelation stunned them. "Frak. Immortal toasters. All we needed." The marinestar's officer cursed. "How do we fight this?"
Commodore O'Donnell had the same question. "And ideas, K'Lir?"
"Possible that this process can be turned against them. The Cylons have been emitting the tachyon signals on this frequency. But on the long range sensors we did detect specific concentrations that do not correspond with any ship type we detracted so far. It is possible that they use a specialized ship for that."
"Like a... and it will sound weird, but Resurrection ship?" Captain Hauaman asked.
"Whatever we call it, they would make more than one. But even with tachyons, the range would be severely limited..." The commodore pondered.
"Tachyons are affected by subspace, so it is possible that the highway effect is influencing them as well."
"So, instead of a limit of one light year, they could have an effective range ten times that?" Captain Hauaman realized where this was going.
"Correct."
"Are there any good ideas on how we can exploit this?" Commander Hasapis wanted to know. If they could turn this to their advantage, so much the better.
"Besides the fact that we can easily spot these ships on long range sensors and could with this data specifically target them..."
The commodore saw an issue with that. "I doubt they leave them defenseless. And even if they do now, they will adapt, once they lose too many of them. Anything else?"
"Only one possibility, but there is no guarantee it would work."
"We are willing to take anything at this point." Colonel Hawks muttered.
"Starfleet ships use tachyons on a small scale for short range communication. If we modify the comm systems on our ships, we could technically flood the local area around a ship with tachyons."
No one understood where K'Lir was going with this. "And what would that accomplish?" Captain Hauaman asked.
"We scramble their frequencies. One of two things would happen then, if a Cylon tries to resurrect out of a flooded area. Either it doesn't work and they die, or the data that is their mind, gets turned into useless random bits of information. In a way, you could say, we could lobotomize them."
"Wait, wait..." The commodore tried to understand this. "Either we deny them their ability or we send a vegetable back? Did I understand you right?"
"Yes, Commodore."
Kara liked the idea and was not surprised that her two co-Colonials had no qualms about implementing this as well.
But Kara noticed that the Starfleet people didn't like this idea as much.
Commander Hasapis saw it too. "Don't tell me you are considering not doing this? For what reason?"
"They are still sentient beings." Captain Hauaman responded. "Our motto is to contact new life, not to scramble its brains."
"They are machines! No soul, no moral values. They weren't born! And if this is all for nothing, then how about this: 50 billion of us are gone! Death is too good for them!" Colonel Hawks raged. "You can't be seriously considering showing them mercy!?"
The commander had to back his friend up o this matter. "Be sure of this, they won't show you any mercy, so its wasted on them!"
"Gentlemen, I understand your rage, but this would not even be feasible as a weapon. Only a short range countermeasure. And would you be willing to do to them what they do to you?"
"Yes!" They both said in unison. Kara, for the first time in a while, remained silent. Better see where this goes, before she backs any side.
"Lower yourself to their level?" Captain Hauaman now backed her superior officer.
"If it has to come to that, why not? We have nothing to lose at this point." Commander Hasapis yelled out. "They took everything from us!"
"And I get that." The commodore tried to stay diplomatic. "But this is neither the time nor the place. At best this is a defensive measure. I am willing to entertain the usage of such a possible weapon, but not to commit genocide."
"Captain, Commodore, may I intervene?"
They knew some Vulcan logic might calm the nerves down. Or fire them up even more. "Sure, go ahead." Commodore O'Donnell massaged her head. She felt a headache approaching, if this continued this way.
"I believe that we should use this in a defensive war. It is of no other value at this point anyway."
The two Colonial officers couldn't believe that an actual alien agreed with them. What was this world coming to? "Thank you! See, even..."
"I am not finished. Beyond the defensive application of such a countermeasure, more research would be needed. And I doubt that until we learn more about it, that we could actually disable their network. I agree that in this instance, the Cylons have clearly shown their intent. They do not wish to share this galaxy with any other sentient life. Until evidence to counter this is presented, it remains a fact. As humans tend to say, actions speak louder than words. The Cylon actions are deafening. That said, I am not saying that I completely approve the usage of a weapon of mass destruction to commit genocide, should we ever have such an option, but I will not prevent its usage either."
Captain Hauaman was taken aback. Her old friend surprised her this time. And not for the better. "Why?"
"The needs of the many, Captain. The first Vulcan philosophy."
"But killing potentially billions..."
"Billions of copies that have no genetic diversity. Doomed to extinction. Even this resurrection technology has limitations, even if they don't know it yet."
The Colonials, now that they calmed down, got curious. "Limitations?"
"The law of diminishing returns."
The commodore got it. "They are clones. Like all copies, once you make sufficient copies down the line, flaws begin to emerge. And then more and more. Until a point is reached, when a copy has so many flaws that it can't function. The Cylons may have reached an impressive milestone by integrating organics into synthetics, but their organics are still submissive to the laws of biology. If fresh DNA is not infused, the system begins to degenerate."
"In essence, the Cylons would need new DNA. And now that they have 'taken everything from you', any DNA they could have gotten from your people, will be severely limited."
"But K'Lir, what does that got to do with the Needs of the many philosophy?" Hauaman asked.
"The needs of the Cylon race does not surpass the needs of all civilizations in this galaxy. We, Earth and others can probably deal with them, but for every sufficiently advanced civilization, there are probably over 100 that are far from it. And the Cylons could easily destroy them. I am morally bound, like you, to search for other options, but logic does dictate, that we have to accept the possibility that there might not be a better option. Or that it can't be found in time. I am not blinded by hate or thirst for vengeance, like the Colonials, but by logic. Unless a dialog can be reached with them, we have to assume that their intent for the rest of the galaxy is the same as what they did with the Colonials. They will fail at that, but how many worlds burn before they are stopped, is the question. I am looking 'at the big picture'."
Well, K'Lir, intentionally or not, got all of the in the room to calm down and think about it. "Fine. I'll instruct our engineers to begin looking into this matter. Any ideas they have, will be brought to me." Commodore O'Donnell made a compromise. "But as stated, we are far from an offensive weapon. Deal?" The Colonials were, for now, satisfied. They all stood up. "Then, gentlemen, time for me to visit the Victory, so that we can see what more we can do and exchange. Captain Hauaman, inform Commander Scott of the idea we just agreed to and send Lt. Commander Nelson to the Victory, once he had all the components for the communication upgrade ready."
"Aye, Ma'am."
As they left the room, Kara and Colonel Hawks were halted by Colonel Walker. "Colonel, Lieutenant. A word. If we make this marine and MACO cooperation work and I sign off on any transfers of your people onto this or any other Starfleet ship, I have to see that marinestar of yours. And your marines."
"I thought it was already agreed?" His Colonial counterpart asked.
"I have the final saying to this."
"And you need the manpower. You yourself said that your fleet recovered another fleet and so distributed all people that were on board just for this mission. In simple terms, your understaffed. Am I wrong?"
They held each other's gaze. "No. I have 92 MACOs in total, including the other two ships. The Bismarck, in the height of the war, had 100 herself. So I won't say no, but I still want to see your men and ship. And if the commander agreed later, his battlestar as well. And Kara, I want to you guide me for a change, with your permission, Colonel."
The two men were marking their territory. One had the guns and real-estate, the other the muscle. They would have to cooperate, but that didn't mean they'd be friends right off the bat. "Sure. If you can make my ship a bit less crowded, I see no problem in that. But after your commodore sees the Victory. But... I guess you can see the marine facilities there first. But then do me a favor."
He crossed his arms. "Shoot."
"The Lieutenant mentioned that she got to see a weapons demonstration as well as a test on a modern centurion."
"We still have a viable centurion body or two. Giving them to you should not be an issue. As for a demonstration, I can arrange that as well."
Colonel Hawks held out his hand. But Colonel Walker saluted him back, which caught him off guard. He did return the salute. "I was told that Earth abandoned this practice."
"We did, I just like to use it. Some things are not so easily forgotten."
An hour later, on the Victory, as Commodore O'Donnell left and the first step towards a more productive future was done, mostly the additional exchange of resources was made, the Victory Commander, his XO, the marinestar and Adamant commanders were in Commander Hasapis' quarters, having a private discussion and drink.
"Quite a day." The Adamant commander remarked.
"Yes. And we can all be grateful for it." Commander Hasapis responded. "A day at most and that chase would have broken us."
"So..." Colonel Hawks finished his drink, but did not pour himself a second one, unlike the others. "You have a reason for only us being here. What's the plan now, boss?"
"The plan is that we go along with Starfleet's plan."
The other three were not surprised by that. "For how long?" His XO asked.
"Indefinitely. What I told her was the truth. Only if the civilians are put at risk, will I not go along her plans. Until then... we go as they say."
"And the others we left behind?" Hawks wanted to know.
"We already got a concession out of her. Once we find Adama and perhaps others and we form a military command structure of sorts, we come up with a solution for them. She isn't wrong, you know. We'd get annihilated if we go back the way we are now. She's willing to listen, even in her situation. I know of quite a few Colonial officers who wouldn't."
"Hm..." The other agreed with that analysis.
"What do you think our chances are to even get to Earth, based on Starfleet's projections?" His XO wanted Hasapis' input.
"Hard to say. But truth be told, we'd be better off, if we just count out Cylon issue into the equation, that we leave the others behind and burn for Earth. But now that we know that this galaxy is anything but empty... it's a wild card. Anyway... XO, tell me, how is that Starfleet crap they added to my CIC looking?"
"Hm, the tech guys tell me that it's a few generations ahead of anything we have. It'll make keeping the fleet together easier, if we do lose one of the civvies. But for the big picture, we have to rely on them and their ships."
"Tactically speaking, I saw the demonstration of their MACO gear and also logs of their ships systems. Their hand held gear too is several generations ahead, but the ships... while ahead, have small scale capabilities, when compared to us. When compared to them, we throw rocks, but we throw mighty big rocks, and lots of them." Hawks put his two cents in.
"The issue will be the same for the Cylons." Commander Hasapis replied. "Only they will have the numbers advantage times ten. So for now, we do as they say. The plan is solid. XO, what about the exchange, other than that cotraption that is now in my CIC?"
"Ehm, they transferred all the water from that transport ship to the civilian fleet. That ship will be made livable for 100 civilians by tomorrow, I'm told. 50 more in three days. They also gave us the nukes and vipers they salvaged from the Phalanx and are giving medical help to the civvies."
"Good... now I also want your input on them. The Starfleet people."
Hawks went first. "All sharp, but not solders. Well, their MACOs are, like Colonel Walker and even the commodore strikes me as more militaristic. But not like us. They put our engineers to shame, that's for sure."
"She's sharp, that Bismarck CO. Reminds me of Admiral Artemis." His XO said.
"Yes, but more... balanced. Thank god she's no Cain."
Day 32 since the Colonial exodus, Earth date 25th of February, year 2378, Starfleet / Colonial fleet, chasing after the Glalctica fleet
It was late in the afternoon as Kara and a few Victory marines, that were now on the Challenger, left the conference room, that was apparently capable of being modified into a small theater.
Other people from the Challenger followed them out as well. Garcia was grinning like a mad man. "Is it a great movie or not?"
"I hate to say it... but not bad." Kara threw him a bone. "The effects were really bad, but considering that it's, what, 400 years old, more or less..."
One of the Victory marines added. "And thematically on point with us. But that freaky endoskeleton... Frak. Don't know whats freakier, that or the fact Cylon's are almost completely flesh?"
Another marine intervened. "What this shows me is why Earth never bothered with AI. Earth really had an AI paranoia."
Garcia listened to all their input. "Well, just so you know, for every The Terminator movie, there were five bad rouge AI movies."
"Well, as fun as this was, I have an early shift in the morning. And I doubt we'll have the chance to do this as often as we'd like." Kara yawned. "And Garcia, you have the FTL inspection for the civvies tomorrow. So better not stay up for too long either."
"Yeah... good point. See you tomorrow then."
The Victory marines went along with Kara for a while, but they would have to take the lift to deck four, where the shared quarters were. Even Earth ships had to compromise sometimes. "You really assimilated with them, Lieutenant."
"Well, for one, not much of a choice there for me and two, they make it easy."
"I heard it was your idea to compel Lt. Garcia to show us this movie." The marine at the rear of the group asked.
"Well, he wouldn't shut up about it, how we made that movie script come to life. Well, except for the time travel part, that is."
They reached the lift and one of them already called for it. Kara kept on going. "Hey, Lt. Thrace, isn't your quarters in the other direction?"
"One last stop before I call it a day, boys."
They all shrugged and went into the lift that just arrived.
Kara's stop was in the bio laboratory, that was not far from the ward and morgue. As she entered the laboratory, she saw past the window into the isolation part of the room. Dr. Manor and an assistant were just checking the DNA results. She could also see all the monitors containing some sort of data on the different Cylon models.
"Lieutenant, you lost?" Manor asked her. "Or is my charming personality that brought you here?"
She smirked at that. He was an ass, but kind off grew on her. "No... it's just... how do I say it..." This was really awkward for her.
But Manor knew why she was here. "You want to let out some steam?"
The assistant didn't get it, but it worried her that Kara might start punching them. "Yes."
He sighed. "Come, Mary, the Lieutenant had some things to say to a corpse in there." He would give her the privacy she needed. Before he left completely, he turned around. "Just... please don't smash anything in there. While I got all the samples and data already, punch the corpse all you want, but not my beds and other equipment."
"Sure, Doc. I owe you that much."
Now that she was alone, she went into the isolation room. She now knew the procedures well enough that the green light meant that it was not dangerous to enter even without a bio-hazard suit. Pulling a chair next to the corpse of the Eight, she sat down and just stared at her. Someone like Garcia would have said that this was a great scene for a horror movie. A young, blonde and beautiful woman in a room full of corpses.
"You were like a little sister to me." She started sobbing. "You... we flew together, even at the academy! Did you let Helo die? Did you..." She started hammering on her torso. Punch after punch, Kara let out steam. "You fraking bitch! Liar. Mole! I loved you! We all loved you!" This lasted for a few minutes until Kara was spent. "I swear, once we find the fleet, my foot and your ass will have a meeting. But... if you hurt anyone there, like Lee, the old man, hell, even the drunken bastard, I don't care what my Earth friends think. I'm spacing you!"
Day 37 since the Colonial exodus, Earth date 2nd of March, year 2378, Starfleet / Colonial fleet, Earth Starfleet ship Challenger, chasing after the Glalctica fleet
They made good ground. 500 Ly in eight days. In the old Starfleet days, that would be considered insane. But here, the highway effect and jump drive made things possible. So now they were 1000 Ly from the Cyrannus cluster. They avoided the largest highway effect area, that was infested with Cylon patrols. But they went as close to is as possible, to get the best boost. During all this time, they found and collected other stragglers. In total, they now had 37 ships. They managed to find the Danube, Pathfinder, Oracle and Nightingale from the Starfleet's side of things. They were all originally disabled and were to be moved back home, but the Nightingale did have a crew that they brought with them for that salvage, originally. Mostly lower ranking officers and some medical staff. But quite welcome, as the ship was now the de facto hospital of the fleet. As they found more Colonial ships, some Colonial doctors were found in them to be utilized there. So the Nightingale was in fact now 50% manned by Colonials. The commodore even relented and allowed the Colonial marines that were assigned to the Nightingale to be armed with MACO and Starfleet weapons and equipment from the Denarius' stock. But while the Nightingale was a Poseidon class, it had a more limited armament, as more space was used inside for medical needs.
As for the Colonials, they found a Valkyre class, the Morningstar, with two escorts, also outdated Adamants. The rest were civilians. They even found a prospecting ship, mining ship and refining ship. Ironically, from illegal prospectors, who wanted to do some black market trades after finding tylium out here. Water and waste recycling was the issue. Most civilian ships had limited or no capabilities. But throwing such materials out, rather than recycling them, was a waste. So any military or Starfleet ship that could take some of the load off of them, would. It was, however, a painstaking and annoying process. All in all, a total of 22 civilian ships, with a population of just above 7000 people. The marinestar alone had 2000 marines and 400 regular navy personnel. So the Colonials had almost 11.000 people now. When compared to that, Earth ships could muster less than 600. They would find the others, they were sure of it, but the power balance when it came to numbers, was not on Starfleet's side.
The commodore, in order to keep some semblance of order and control, decided to have daily meetings, either in person or via comm system, with the captains. The other military officers agreed that their plan was the best to go with and decided to acknowledge her as the current military leader. They also liked the idea to catch up to the Galactica and her fleet. They can have a military decision then to decide how to proceed. But they also knew that they would need Starfleet. Not only to know where Earth is, as only a few besides Lt. Thrace, now knew its location, for safety reasons. But for their technical capabilities. To be able to avoid Cylon patrols so easily thanks to their sensor systems and subspace knowledge was a godsend. They could not ignore this.
Right now a raptor just returned from scouting an area of space, where Colonial signatures were spotted by the Starfleet ships.
On the Challenger, they received the update, like all Colonial military ships. They decided to treat all Starfleet ships as military, even the cargo transport ship, as it was better armed than what a Colonial counterpart would be.
And as the main explorer ship, the Challenger would normally go first, but since they knew they were Colonials and civilians, they decided to jump the entire fleet just outside any DRADIS detection they might have.
As the jump was done and the fleet was all there, the Colonial battlestar Victory decided to initiate the first contact, to not scare them away. A total of 15 ships were in this fleet, which would double the Colonial fleet size.
"Captain, I'm detecting a waste processing ship, 11 civilian transports, 3 cargo transports and... science ship, if you can call it that." K'Lir reported.
"Not by our standards, K'Lir, but give the Colonials some slack."
"If you say so. Transmitting our findings to the Colonial ships."
An hour later, the ships had entered formation, after their captains saw that it was all good.
Commodore O'Donnell knew that she would need to be involved more, now that they found so many in one go.
"Captain..." K'Lir alerter her CO to her station. "I believe you departure to this meeting of the captains will have to be delayed. I found something... disturbing."
She leaned over her console to see what she was looking at. "Massive tachyon emissions, smack in the middle of the highway. Cylons?"
"As far as we know. Perhaps this is a communication station?"
"We know that even with the effect here, without subspace technology, they can't effectively communicate at longer distances."
"Then perhaps, like in the old days, a resting spot for curriers. Raiders used to move information back and forth. Possible... wait."
"What is it?"
"A power signature... something jumped to the area."
"Possibly a basesatar, judging by the power spike."
K'Lir disagreed. "No. Basestars are not this massive. According to the data we received from the Colonials, this matches up with a Mercury class ship."
"Shit... who would be insane enough to launch an attack like this... Inform the commodore and the Colonials. A ship like that it too valuable to let go."
A minute later, they had a conference via the comm system. "I agree with your assessment, Captain. " The commodore replied. "But we can't let the civilians go with us into combat."
"Depending on the commander on it, we can have a fast response from them..." The Valkyrie commander thought.
"And if not?" Commander Hasapis responded. "In the worst case scenario we might have to take it by force. Capture the CIC with those transporters of yours, Commodore."
She inhaled deeply. "That's plan B. But we'll have to move fast and probably beam MACOs over anyway. Don't want the Cylons to know about us, if it can be helped. Colonel Hawks, have 50 of your marines on the Nightingale ready for transport. We'll move them to the Challenger. Captain, have your MACOs ready. We'll do a combined boarding of that ship and secure the CIC, whether it's commander wants it or not."
"Then I'm coming along." Commander Hasapis added to this plan. "They will listen to me more than to our marines or a pilot from the Galactica."
"Then be quick. Captain Hauaman, you and the Crusader will jump there and enter silent running. Once the name of the ship and so its commander is known, we'll let Commander Hasapis decide what to do. To hail them or just board them. But do not engage the Cylons and so reveal your existence, unless absolutely necessary. Only if that ship can't be save otherwise, can you engage them at will."
"Understood."
Day 37 since the Colonial exodus, Earth date 2nd of March, year 2378, Earth Starfleet ship Challenger, Cylon communication array and staging area
As the two ships appeared an entered silent running, they began assessing the situation. It was indeed a Mercury and it was about to engage a force of raiders that were superior in numbers than its own viper wings.
"K'Lir, can you zoom in on the Colonial ship?"
When they got a better picture, including the ship's name, Commander Hasapis cursed out loud. "Frak. Of course that mad dog would survive!"
"Commander?"
"The Pegasus! It's Cain's ship. She won't listen to reason. She's a pit bull. We will have to either kill her or arrest her. And to be honest, I'd rather see her dead. She'll be only trouble in the future."
"We'll see. Helm, take us into transporter range, best speed that you can, without revealing our location. Sisko?"
"Sir. We're ready here. The size of that monster will make it impossible to get a lock so deep inside where their CIC is."
"I know. You'll beam as close as possible. But then hurry. I've been told that it's apparently the Pegasus, one Cain commands her."
"Rear Admiral Helena Cain." Kara cursed in the background. "She's going to be an issue."
The captain eyed Commander Hasapis. "So I've been told. Get ready. Commander, best go down there as well. Who knows when we'll have to deploy you over there."
As he left, they entered transporter range. And the battle in front of them was getting from bad to worse.
"K'Lir, Scott, how's that tachyon scrambling system looking?" The captain ashed her two senior officers.
"Em, we're mostly done, but the system is untested." Scott answered in a shocked manner. She didn't think it was ready for deployment yet, nor that they should do it.
"Then get it ready. I have a feeling we might need it."
Commander Kelly Rose Scott - Jennifer Lawrence (Chief Engineer) (Scotty's distant relative)
Captain Sakari Hauaman - Catherine Bell (Challanger Captain)
Lt. Adrian Garcia - Michael Peña (Computer scientist)
Major Michael David Sisko - John Boyega (MACO Commander) (Benjamin's distant relative)
Lt. Commander Sachiko Hayashi - Kim Tae-hee (Challenger comm officer)
Dr. George Manor - Hugh Laurie (Rank Lt. Commander, Chief Medical Officer of Challenger)
Commander K'Lir - Melinda Clarke (Vulcan and Challenger's XO)
Commander Naomie Evans - Emmanuelle Vaugier (Crusader XO, now acting CO)
Lt. Noah Hill - Timothy Olyphant (Crusader tactical, an Augment that Dr. Soong tested out after altering his DNA to remove the behavior defects, but kept the others unaltered. Noah saw the aggressive nature of the others and went to live by himself on Tiralas IV. The others saw him as weak. He couldn't convince Udar to stay with him, as the others saw him as defective. Was located months after the Augment incident by the Enterprise crew. When both Starfleet and Dr. Soong saw that his idea actually worked and Noah was behaving like a normal human, augmentations or not, Starfleet decided to give the Augment idea a test attempt, without informing the public. Noah joined Starfleet and earned his uniform and ranks like all the others, if a bit easier for him. The hope was if this worked, the Augment issue could be one day in the future looked at again. One good example could get the foot into the door that if applied correctly and carefully, augmentation does work. Since he was declared MIA, the program was scrapped and buried.
Major Jacques Friloux - Casper Van Dien (Champion MACO Commander)
Lt. Commander Alex Nelson - Dean Cain (Crusader Chief Engineer)
Dr. Krisha Kumar - Aarti Mann (Rank Lt., Chief Medical Officer of Crusader)
Commodore Fiona O'Donnell - Lauren Holly (Bismarck CO)
Colonel Alan Walker - Michael Biehn (Bismarck MACO CO)
Lt. Jacob Rivers - Seth MacFarlane (Paladin Chief Engineer) (Ship's acting CO, all higher officers are dead)
Captain Carlos Ramirez - Josh Cruze (Champion Captain, transferred from Intrepid, as Starfleet needed all experienced officers in more capable ships)
Captain Khari Oladoyinbo - Cuba Gooding Jr. (Knight CO)
Commander Sek'Ris - Tom Selleck (Officer of Vulcan Command)
Colonial officers:
Commander Jerome Hasapis - Bob Gunton (BSG Victory)
Colonel Colin Hawks - Nathan Jones (marinestar commander)
Ships in taskforce:
The ships that did the retrieving:
Challenger NX-03 (Updated NX class) Possessed many upgrades from the standard NX class, like the secondary hull addition and a warp six plus engine.
Crusader NX-25 (Poseidon class)
Paladin NX-26 (Poseidon class)
Champion NX-27 (Poseidon class)
Knight NX-28 (Poseidon class)
The fleet so far:
Colonials: 22 Civilian ships (now adding 15 in next chapter)
One Marinestar, A Sobek, the Victory, three Adamant, one Valkyre.
Starfleet: Challenger, Crusader, Nightingale, Bismarck, Volga, Denarius, Pathfinder, Oracle and Danube.
Disabled ships in the retrieval area:
Vo'kor (D'kyr class cruiser) Requested by Vulcak High Command (Reactivated due to Romulan aggression) and kept safe by Starfleet for retrieval after the Romulnans managed to disable it and kill most of the crew with a radiological weapon. The Romulans were desperate to get their hands on warp seven technology. Earth was desperate to stop them from doing that. They hid their ship with their own disabled fleet, but mined it just in case. Rather destroy it than let it be captured. Vulcan Command agreed.
Nightingale NX-34 (modified Poseidon class, used for medical needs at the front)
Bismarck NX-53 (Yorktown class) One of the classes designed specifically for the war with Romulus.
Yamato NX-47 (Yorktown class)
Boston, Marco Polo, Pathfinder, Oracle (Intrepid classes)
Mississippi, Danube, Volga (Delta Wing class)
Denarius, Merchant, John Brown (Y class transports, repurposed for troop transport needs during the war or military supply ship, heavily modified)
Concordia, Settler's Dream, Frontier - Conestoga class (repurposed colony ship, heavily modified, used as cargo ship for military needs or troop transport)
I threw the time table for the Pegasus out the window, as I could not pull it off otherwise. Besides, even the writers were not entirely sure, when the massacre by the Pegasus crew on the civilian fleet really happened. It was assumed around a week after the fall. Well, I more than tripled that time table. To make it fit. And it made no sense that they could repair a big ship like the Pegasus so fast, with half the crew and without a dry-dock and then so fast, initiate an attack, to get their asses handed to them.
To answer some questions: Delta Wing class, sometimes called Neptune or Jupiter class (neither name works for me). The older ship class that was replaced by the Intrepid class. Two were seen helping the Intrepid engage Duras' Bird of prey in the final episode of season two. Also seen in one of the best episodes, Twilight.
The updated NX class is also called the NX Columbia variant. I prefer a version I don't know where I found it, where it had the secondary hull, like the official deck plans show. But the version I mean, is the one where the original deflector in the saucer is removed and now a complete saucer is there. Also, the old engineering is completely removed, now the shield generator is there, plus a water tank and an arboretum (all two floors tall).
The Klingon and Romulan Empires are not so big, even in 24th century, to not allow anyone to go past them closer to the galactic core, or further out. And remember, space is 3D, so you can go above or below them as well. The Colonial sector is in the outer arm of the Beta Quadrant. I'll come up with a reason there aren't any habitable planets there. Like Voyager writers came up with the 'Night' episode.
At some point I thought to add more ships to the 'Lost' Starfleet taskforce, but that would be going too far. And I think the Daedalus class looks silly, with that orb for the main hull. And the Franklin... no thanks, Jar Jar Abrams.
To anyone who didn't get my rant about the speed inconsistency in Star Trek: I am aware that in TNG the warp scale was altered. As in ENT and TOS warp 5 is 125 times the speed of light, but in TNG, warp 5 is 213,7 times the speed of light (Thank you, Daystrom Institute.) What I meant with that rant, was the glaring inconsistency in SPEED alone. How could the Enterprise in TOS reach the galactic edge or the center of the galaxy in a few days in Star Trek 5, but for some reason, Voyager, who can humiliate any Kirk era Enterprise in speeds, takes decades to get home (TOS warp 10 is 1000 times Light speed, TNG warp 9,975 is 5552 times the speed of light?) Some use warp highways to explain this inconsistency, but I believe it's not cannon. You can correct me, if it is. But we all know the real reason. In TOS the writers were just throwing numbers out, not realizing they'd have to use them later in the movies and so on. Then, when TNG came out, it got even worse, so they either ignored it or tried some way to explain them. I had a talk with raw666 about this, and while he made good points, I like consistency more than anything. So yes, perhaps there were anomalies that can be used to explain the speed differences between Star Trek shows, but they never mention them! It's taken as normal.
I am also keeping the OC characters at the end for now, as I will be adding more.