Before we start I've got something that should help visualize some of the OC's and previously unseen characters. As I get new more major characters I'll have, in bold and in parentheses, the names of actors I envision these characters to be. This is something I've read about as a tool for authors in writing about OC's in terms of their appearances and I decided why not? Let's give it a try, and you know what why don't I issue a bit of a challenge for people to do this themselves, just to see how it works.
Lieutenant Kelsey Adama: Rose Byrne
Colonel Henry Black: Jason Statham
Corporal Heather Dean: Eileen April Boylan
Admiral Nagala: Danny Huston
Admiral Queen: Robert Patrick
President Richard Adar: Rick Hoffman
Chapter 1
Location: Caprica City Outskirts, Caprica
Date: February 6, 2020
Time: 1845 Hours
It was good to be home, that was for sure, the Adama's as a family were all in agreement there. It had been six years, six long years since the Galactica had accomplished her final mission. Kobol had been found, the Colonials had arrived in force upon the home of their ancestors and had established themselves upon the great homeworld of Humanity thanks to the massive expedition fleet that Galactica had led to Kobol. But there was something missing from the official report. The Galactica and the Kobol Expedition Fleet had come in third place in the race to arrive on Kobol. They had been beaten by the Colonials' Ring Security and Exploration Command who themselves came in second place to Earth's Stargate Command.
This information was still classified, as was the events on the planet Frencalis where Lieutenant Kara Thrace had found herself caught up in a war amongst the indigenous human population and shot down. A tense situation with an Earth battlecruiser had been avoided after a mission led by the Marinestar Ravager had rescued her and then a still classified recovery mission had awarded the Colonials a very special crystal whose properties were still, as of yet, unknown to the Adama family. But through all of this, the Colonials had not had a handful of anonymous accidents that were, upon investigation, just accidents.
However, for one beloved Battlestar, her return was marked with slight sadness. The Galactica had been slated to return to her previous fate as a museum ship upon her return from Kobol. And with that old Battlestar's retirement came the retirement of Admiral William Adama. He'd been slated for retirement before one event changed everything. His only daughter and his youngest child, Kelsey, had found herself caught in a devastating accident that caused her Raptor to randomly jump and lucky for her, jumped right on top of an Earth controlled planet. From there, things happened quickly, starting with Earth arriving in the Colonies to return Kelsey. Admiral Adama had seen his daughter return to him alive, only to have her kidnapped hours later by the Cylons and he got to see Earth's very forceful rescue mission that had made him and the Colonies as a whole realize things weren't the way they'd thought in regards to Earth.
But all of this had led to the culmination of his career, the mission to find Kobol and do so with his son Lee and his daughter Kelsey. He'd also been made Admiral for the mission, which was pretty nice to have under his belt in terms of retirement benefits. But his retirement thus far was a bit of a half retirement. Like any serving member of the Fleet he had to serve a term in the reserves, but they already had a commanding officer and all he had to do was come in every so often to the local Fleet Planetary Command Center, observe some training amongst the reservists, and then go home. It kept him in touch with some old comrades along with the latest developments in the fleet, including one recent development that had pleased him just fine.
There was a new class of Battlestars nearing completion. It was set to replace the Columbia class as a medium sized Battlestar, cheaper to produce than the upgraded Pegasus class, faster than the Pegasus class, smaller crew compliment, and still extremely powerful with a large Viper compliment. There were only a handful of Columbia's left in service, and those few were just awaiting scrapping after the ones in the best conditions were picked out for mophball yards and training ships. The crews of these ships were merely in those ships fresh from training getting basic experience before moving onto the rest of the fleet. But the loss of all these ships meant there was a gap in the midsized Battlestar role, and these new ships, whose class name was not yet known, was set to become the backbone of the Colonial Fleet. Or so the rumors stated, the first batch of eight ships was a few weeks from being launched and going into trials. But the military, politics, and the hubbub about the latest colonization efforts of over a dozen different planets that had been just outside Colonial Space in what had been Cylon space was not on the minds of the Adama family, it was Earth. To put it lightly, Earth had simply disappeared.
"Admiral sir!" the chippy voice of Kara Thrace sounded off as she stood in front of the opened door and in front of her former commanding officer, dressed in a simple button up shirt and black slacks.
"Hey Kara," the eldest Adama said, gesturing her inside his new flat.
"So you finally got the new cabin, nice," Kara grinned as she walked into the new apartment that he'd just bought with his pension.
"It's got all the comforts of home," Adama said with a bit of smugness as the two made it to the common area.
"Took ya long enough," Lee Adama called out from the kitchen.
"Whatcha cooking Apollo?" she asked.
"I am cooking," Kelsey Adama laughed from the kitchen, emphasizing the 'I', "some side dishes for the barbecue. Did you bring what you were told to get?"
"Ambrosia for everyone baby," Kara laughed, holding up the bags with a couple of six packs in each one.
"So the Lieutenant finally did something right for once," Lee chuckled.
"What was that Captain?" Kara questioned.
"You've already pissed off your CAG aboard the Titan. You were on that Battlestar for what, two weeks?" Lee asked, "Isn't that some kind of record for you?"
"Well I've only been four ships since the Galactica was decommissioned so no."
"Four of those years were at the Academy, if you hadn't been there half the fleet would know your name," Lee launched on back.
"So you did miss me?"
"Guest room's second door on the right," Kelsey sounded off, getting a pair of dagger glances from her brother and her old friend.
"Steaks are almost ready," Adama called out walking in from the balcony where he had a grill going with a set of steaks on with a fantastic view of Caprica City.
"You hear the news Kara?" Kelsey asked.
"What news? I've got a ton to choose from Lightbulb."
"Someone blew the whistle on what happened at the meeting station. Apparently it wasn't a misunderstanding that made Earth jump the gun on beating feet out of our space."
"Really? What happened?" Kara asked, grabbing a bottle and sitting down.
"Our diplomat got pissed off at the Earth delegation and both sides drew their guns when he made a threatening gesture and an Earth guard fired a shot when their diplomat shoved his gun away and all hell broke loose."
"Let me guess, that's why there's an angry mob at the doorsteps to the Quorum?" Kara asked with a satisfied grin.
"For what good it did, Earth's gone," Lee said, leaning on the counter, "We all saw what Earth was capable of. If they don't want to be found we're gonna have to look far and wide."
"You think they'll be back once they think things have settled down? Kelsey?" Kara asked.
"I don't know, maybe," she shrugged, "They weren't hostile with me. But that could have just been empathy for me being lost and alone in their care. The Earthers I met seemed to be good people at least."
"Well obviously they were hostile enough to whoop some Cylon ass when we rescued you and then they fought us on that satellite without blinking an eye," the elder Adama said calmly as he too sat down.
"Well their ships didn't open fire on our ships at all, remember that planet during the expedition?" Lee said to Kara, "And oh you forgot to mention one thing to her Kelsey."
"Mention what?" Kara asked, taking a swig on her own ambrosia.
"The Earth ship at the satellite wasn't one of their small uh…battlecruisers I think they called them. It was Battlestar sized."
"Really?" Kara perked up her eyebrows.
"That ship would have ripped apart the entire fleet by itself. But they didn't, Earth didn't want to burn any bridges, just cover their tracks," Adama stated plainly, "I think one day they'll be back. We'll just have to settle our own problems first."
"Like not pissing off your superiors," Kelsey jabbed at Kara, who glared with a mischievous grin right at her.
"Better not leave your plate Lightbulb, shame if something fell into it."
"Remember who's cooking Starbuck," Kelsey warned waving the spoon she was stirring with.
"Don't egg her on Kara she's vindictive," Lee said, "And whatever you two end up starting will somehow affect me."
"Hey dad I think those steaks are ready," Kelsey called out.
"Kara, why don't you get them off the grill for me," Adama said calmly.
"Yes sir Admiral sir," Kara said with exaggerated precision as she stood up and walked out to the porch and started to get the half dozen steaks off and onto a plate.
"What were you saying earlier Lee?" Kelsey asked as she began to finish up the last of the sides.
"Yeah I just got my new assignment aboard the Choros," Lee said, "We'll be shipping out in a few weeks to the Kobol Corridor to escort a few construction platforms that are needed for building the new command satellite at Kobol."
"CAG?"
"Yeah, not much of a challenge, she's a Valkyrie, but I'll finally get into one of those new Mark VIII's. She just slipped out of the new shipyards over Sagitarron so we'll have all the new teething problems that new ships always have."
"Heard their CO asked for you specifically," Adama asked.
"That's what I heard as well," Lee replied, "Guess he wanted someone who's been beyond the red line."
"Steaks are ready," Kara called out as she sat down with everyone after putting the steaks on the table.
"Alright, now that everyone's here let's eat."
At that moment, the door sounded out as someone knocked on the other side. Everyone was a bit surprised because they weren't expecting any other company. So the fact that someone had driven out to William Adama's cabin outside of Caprica City was unexpected. After looking at his kids and Kara Adama got up and went to the front door. He peered through the eye hole and saw a black uniformed man about his own age with two other men in similar uniforms standing behind him.
"Colonial Intelligence," Adama said, looking over at his guests who furrowed their brows in curiosity.
"What're they doing here?" Kelsey asked, her voice etched with worry, knowing exactly what had happened the last time that she'd had anything to do with them.
"Let's find out."
Adama opened the door and the man in front of him did not look surprised at all to see him.
"Admiral Adama?" the man asked.
"Was," he replied.
"As a reservist you're still an Admiral in the Colonial Fleet, and are subject to activation whenever you're needed," the man said calmly.
"Am I being called up?"
"No, at least…not yet," the officer replied calmly, "Admiral Galen Queen, Colonial Intelligence."
"I recognize the uniform."
"You may also recognize what I'm in command of. Ring Security and Exploration Command ," Queen replied, getting an odd look from everyone present, "So needless to say, I was never here, and we never had this conversation."
"Understood," Adama replied, "What is the RSEC doing at my cabin?"
"Perhaps we should talk inside," Queen replied, getting a nod from Adama who gestured him inside, "My men will make sure we're not disturbed," Admiral Queen added as the two of them entered the house, "You're familiar with our operation on Kobol correct?"
"Somewhat, your commanding officer on the ground didn't exactly brief me on the details."
"Colonel Black had been having a tough few days," Queen responded as he sat down at the table, "And the events that occurred right before the fleet's arrival are still classified."
"What happened?" Kelsey asked, "Sorry, just curious."
"That's alright Lieutenant, the allure of classified information. Just makes you wanna know more," Queen chuckled, "But, seeing as you've all kept your end of the deal with keeping quiet about your abduction Lieutenant, I'll let you in on it. You would've found out eventually and you'll need to know if you're to be of service."
"Service?" Lee asked, "Sir if you don't mind me asking, what are you driving at?"
"An incident occurred on Kobol, with a detachment of Earth troops," Queen said carefully, "Over a dozen of our people were killed or wounded."
"Is that what triggered the meeting satellite fight?"
"Indirectly," Queen said, "But that was six years ago and a two years long series of investigations and a four year ban on ring operations outside of Kobol has finally cleared the RSEC to active operations two months ago. I'm here because you four have had contact with Earth's people on their own turf to some extent. Our impression is that they seemed to trust you."
"You want us to help reestablish contact with Earth because they trusted us and you think that they'll at least give us a chance to explain ourselves," Adama asked, getting a grin from the Intelligence admiral.
"You're still sharp as ever Admiral," Queen said.
"Have you gotten Earth's location?"
"No, we're still working on it," Queen admitted, "But we're getting close."
"What exactly would you expect us to do?" Kara asked, "When or if you find Earth?"
"The plan we had in mind was for you, Admiral Adama, to take command of a Battlestar, and move to Earth's location in company with as few support ships as possible so we don't appear hostile. They know you, they seemed to trust you. We're hoping that they'll at least receive you and hear us out. From there, it's up to a handpicked team of negotiators to reestablish diplomatic relations."
"That seems like a bit of a long shot sir, why can't you use the Ring?" Lee asked.
"We wouldn't be speaking if we had succeeded," Admiral Queen replied, "Earth's address is unknown. There are hundreds of millions of possibilities we can try, but we haven't had time to thoroughly explore because of the investigation into the RSEC. But even if we did contact Earth through the ring it's not as good as having a Battlestar on their doorstep they can't just ignore. They'd have to at least talk with you."
"What do you expect us to do in the meantime?" Adama asked, "These three are due to ship out for patrol aboard their assigned ships within the month."
"You'll be surprised what kind of pull Colonial Intelligence has Admiral, you three should make yourselves at home for a little while."
"Well sir if you're going to have us do this mission make it fast please," Starbuck grumbled.
"Galaxy's a big place Lieutenant," Queen responded as he got up, apparently satisfied he'd made his point, "You three pilots will be getting your new orders for assignment to Caprica City's local defense squadrons."
"Well, at least we don't have far to go for work."
Kobol, City Ship Olympus
It was still hard to believe they were on Kobol. Even after six years the sheer importance of their mission hadn't really dawned on many of the RSEC's personnel. But most of the people in Choros weren't ever going to step foot on that planet, at least through the ring they weren't. Most of them were security and technical personnel who were there to be sure everything inside the massive hollowed out moon base was proper working order and was secure in doing so. There was a minority of scientific personnel that were all focused on technological upgrades and making sense of the jigsaw puzzle that was Olympus.
The scientific portion of the RSEC had expanded exponentially since operations had been cleared to restart once the investigations into the secretive branch had run their course without much in the way of blame being officially bestowed upon the members and command staff from top to bottom. But privately and off the record the command staff had gotten a real tongue lashing. But it wasn't like they could do anything to change what had happened in the past. Although there were bets that they'd find a time machine in the city's endless labs, rooms, and halls within the enormous beautiful towers.
But as of now Earth wasn't on people's minds, it was Kobol and all they had found and were yet to find. The ancient ruins of several cities had already been found, but the oddity was this, they weren't anywhere close to the level of advancement or in as such great condition relatively speaking as Olympus. This boggled the minds of the archaeologists in the RSEC, who had to be careful when around the Kobol Expedition's own scientists who had been barred from Olympus until such time as the city was completely mapped, secured, and not deemed a security risk.
That was another thing that the RSEC had to contend with. The Kobol Expedition had long since established itself and its military escort had rotated several times, establishing a permanent base of operations on the planet with a working landing zone, spaceport, supply center, and archaeological headquarters on the ground. All of the donated ships had been returned to their proper owners once their people and equipment were on the ground and work had begun. Hundreds of buildings were already erected in several basecamps combing through the ruins, country sides, and forests on several continents. Each one had a marine fire base nearby for protection and three divisions of Colonial Army troops was set to ship out for Kobol in just a few days along with a few brigades of engineers to establish a working infrastructure for a fully operational space port to bolster the already present one which was having trouble dealing with all the supplies, equipment, people, and ships arriving each week from the Colonies.
Only qualified archaeologists, scientists, and religious scholars were allowed to set foot on Kobol's soil, but a few areas were beginning to become available for the public. And the people of Kobol desperately wanted to go there, and business was booming around there. The first part was to get a secure corridor to Kobol established, and this meant that the Fleet was now committed to this venture with a fifth of the fleet on patrol in that area at any one time, widening the corridor and escorting fleets of civilians back and forth between Kobol. But this wasn't on the RSEC's priority list, Kobol's still growing list of questions was.
So that was the reason for Dr. Baltar to be there. Although he'd been working at trying to understand the power systems for Olympus he hadn't been able to make much progress thanks to the overwhelming sense of caution pervading the scientific process. The Kobol Expedition had arrived with two odd crystals that seemed to be made for the purpose of powering Olympus. However, as any scientist would have done, they'd attempted to get a few experiments by jerry-rigging it into the largest ship's power systems and nearly blown themselves to bits after they'd realized just how powerful the power crystals, as they were now known, really were.
This left everyone associated with the program extremely paranoid about doing something like that to Olympus, which meant experiments with the city were left to the bare bones of exploring, picture taking, chemical make-up of the city, and structural analysis which had taken quite a long time. But they were running out of things to do, and their patience as a whole was running thin.
"Doctor, we've got the generators patched in," Baltar's personal assistant chirped up from her desk at the entrance to his own makeshift lab in the same building as what the Colonials believed was the power control center.
"Are they certain they did it right this time?" Baltar asked without much excitement and continued studying the latest reports on the structural analysis, remembering how many times they'd failed at this attempt at getting some form of power to Olympus.
"The engineers have used your corrections and are quite certain that they've got it right."
"Very well, let us try this once more," Baltar groaned, grabbing his mug of coffee and led the way out of the lab and into the hall where a wide variety of individuals were moving about, going through their own tasks and responsibilities. He was followed closely by his PA, and walked right to the buzzing power control center.
The halls were strung with power cords, work lights, fans, and people working on them and installing and moving around new ones. The Colonials had to bring in their own light, their own air conditioning and heating, their own kitchen, refrigeration, and everything else that they needed due to the lack of power in the city proper. And that included the main power room.
The room wasn't that big, which meant only four scientists of Baltar's own choosing were able to comfortably fit. They also had eight powerful computer towers that had been manhandled into the room and plugged into the strange consoles in the room. Or at least they thought they had, as the Colonials hadn't succeeded in getting power into the city. So here they were, with three massive power conduits strung all the way from a flat area on the city foundation where three massive generators shipped in from the Colonies had been set up and covered by their own building with all the support and personnel that they needed. The conduits themselves were high end, not even in commercial circulation, mostly used at high cost research institutes and each of them was plugged into the holes that could have only been meant for the power crystals.
"Doctor Baltar, we're ready to try for power again," one of the older men called out, seeing Baltar walk in.
"I take it we're already set up for tests?" Baltar asked, taking a seat at his own control station.
"Of course," the man replied.
"Excellent, let's give it another try shall we?"
A few nods and some deep breaths of anticipation replied to that order as the senior most scientist in the room tapped in the command keys for the power conduits to start sending their glut of power into the power station. A slight whirring could be just barely heard as the power was routed to its destination and the Colonials held their breath. They had been trying this for such a long time that they didn't think it was going to work, but logic told them that they'd get there sooner or later. So why not sooner?
"Doctor, I think we're getting something!" one of the more junior members of the team called out excitedly as the power flooding to the city seemed to finally done something.
"Record everything, Doctor Wade be ready to move around the connections to the terminals so we can access the city's systems," Baltar ordered, sitting forward and began to hover over his own keyboard, awaiting any sign of life.
At that moment the lights above them started flickering, as power seeped into the city-wide systems. The hanging screens of the consoles each of them sat at were starting to show some form of life, as their color changed from opaque to a light green.
"Finally, we've got something," Baltar sighed in relief, and tapped at his computer, hoping that maybe they'd gotten their connections right.
"I'm not getting any signal from the computer systems. But we expected that," Doctor Wade said quietly, getting up and plucking Doctor Baltar's computer cable off and started putting it onto the now glowing white crystals in front of him, "Tell me when you start getting a signal Doctor."
"Nothing yet…" Baltar replied, now fully in the zone, running scan after scan, waiting for the connection to be made and the secrets of these computers to be before him.
"Okay…next one…"
Baltar tapped in another scan order and after a few seconds of waiting he got a connection.
"That's it! Hold it there Wade! We have got a connection, at long last."
Baltar checked to be sure his computer was securely connected to the hard drive towers behind him and decided to look at the power levels that they were actually getting. He typed in a broad keyword search using the word power and came up with a whole lot of nothing. Just a set of symbols that appeared in a separate window that was from the connection with the city's console. He'd never really seen these before, but thanks to a year and a half of preparation he had a full recording and scanning program going on to make sure that they didn't miss a thing. Even if none of it was decipherable.
By now Dr. Wade had gotten the other scientists' computers hooked up properly and all them seemed to be getting a whole of nothing, just like Baltar.
"Doctor, looks like we'll need to download everything we can to try and decipher or translate this data."
"I agree, start downloading, we'll have to build a translating program from scratch to communicate with these systems," Baltar ordered, "And send what we get to a team of linguists. See if there are any parallels or similarities to any ancient languages we've discovered in the Colonies."
"Just when we think we're making progress."
"At least we don't have to worry about the power anymore."
Ring Security and Exploration Command, Moon of Choros
Colonel Black was glad to finally be standing here again, awaiting the opportunity to take another historic step through the Ring of the Lords. This time he wasn't off to Kobol, but a new planet altogether. For the first time the Colonies were taking their first steps into a larger galaxy, and he for one was excited for the opportunity to do so. As was his team, and a rather impressive team it was.
Twenty-seven people, both military and civilian made up the handpicked group that was called Recon One. There were seventeen military and ten civilians in this team, quite an enlarged force from the team that Colonel Black had led through the gate to Kobol. But it also had quite a bit more baggage to haul around. The group was handpicked by their respective military and civilian leaders, Colonel Black and Brian Fraser. (Karl Urban)
Fraser was a mainly political appointment meant to appease the civilian leadership as a concession to get the RSEC back into exploring through the ring. But at least the RSEC itself had the final say on who got to go through with the exception of the team leaders. Fraser was a former agent in the civilian Colonial Intelligence Service, and as a member of Colonial Fleet Intelligence's principal sister agency and rival he held a deep mistrust of the military, and vice versa. So needless to say he and most of the military members didn't seem to get along. Yet there was an added oddity, he had moved on from the CIS to politics, and was supposedly good at it. And this was why he was here, as a diplomat on the ground and yet a competent leader and could fight if need be, although that was the only reason Colonel Black had allowed him on his team. He was a decent sized guy, but was somewhat impetuous, and like any CIS field agent, seemed to be inherently suspicious.
But thankfully Colonel Black had been able to keep the majority of his last team, including Corporal Heather Dean, who'd personally appealed to Colonel Black to stay on the team. He'd kept his two squad CO's, Captain Thomas Stinson(Chris Evans) and Captain Samuel Fredericks(Rob Lowe). Their XO's were still the same, Lieutenants Robin Bragg and Nicole Arroyo, the two highest ranked women on the team. There were then the four fire team sergeants, older and very much more experienced than some of the officers in the RSEC. And then to flesh out the team eight corporals who were experienced in counter-terror and counter-piracy operations in some form or another. They were all armed very similarly to what they had been armed with when they'd taken their first steps, but there were some upgrades. The most used of these upgrades were the underslung twenty millimeter rocket launchers on their rifles which held a four round magazine of the long ranged high-explosive rounds. There were also new missile launchers that were originally meant for filling in anti-aircraft and anti-armor roles that were able to be reloaded with a detachable rear portion. One in four NCO's had one on their back, with three reloads and several crates of additional reloads strapped onto their big wheeled drones along with ammunition, supplies, water, scientific equipment, and some rather large rigid tents for shelter. And the uniforms they were wearing were just as new. They had on a semi-rigid armor plate system on their chests, backs, arms, and legs along with a newly developed communications and data sharing system that was set to be the deployed for both the Marines and Army within a month or so. This screen was able to be brought down over their choice of either right or left eyes and the comm equipment was placed within their ear pieces that were attached to the helmets on the back and linked to their speakers which covered their ears and had a speaker linked from there.
Then there were the civilians, many of whom had just passed the physical requirements for going through the ring, but only just. But where they definitely lacked in physical prowess in comparison to their military counter-parts they more than made up for in their mental and scientific capabilities. In each RSEC Recon Team there ten civilians, the leader and chief negotiator, a historical and religious expert who also acted as a linguist(but was really more of a bone thrown to the Quorum by the military), a medical expert and assistant, a technological expert and assistant, a botanical expert and assistant, and a geology expert and assistant. Each held a doctorate, but the assistants were chosen by their superiors for efficiency purposes. Brian Fraser had already been chosen, and he himself had in turn picked what, even Colonel Black had to admit, was an impressive team.
Their religious expert was as kind and understanding a man as Colonel Black had ever met. His name was Victor Beverly(Michael Caine) and his depths of lingual knowledge were yet to be fully explored. He always seemed to in the midst of a lesson on interesting facts to whoever would listen. He was reasonably religious of course, and knew the Sacred Scrolls backwards and forwards. But unlike most other holy men and women that Colonel Black had met he wasn't judgmental.
Some of the others such as their tech expert such as Dr. Dylan Cruz(Elyes Gabel) were less pleasant to be around. He was quite young for someone as brilliant as he was, and he gave Dr. Baltar a run for his money in every appreciable sense and that included his rather arrogant personality and lack of respect for authority. And other civilians such as Dr. Franklin Gorman(Thomas Ian Nicholas), the team botanical expert, and Dr. Denise Hepler(Sarah Gilbert), the team geology expert, were not exactly prime physical specimens. Their assistants were all young and able in their right, and most team assistants had been chosen for their previous work with their superiors by their superiors. All of this meant that they hadn't been chosen by Colonel Black, and he didn't like not knowing who he was working with.
"Fraser," Black called over once he'd made sure he'd gotten his team set up for departure.
"Yeah," the almost insubordinate civilian replied as he walked over, helmet under his arm.
"First," Black said, his voice low, "Remember who's in charge, me."
"Yeah and look what happened when you guys were in charge on Kobol. Oh yeah, we about went to war," Fraser said quite smugly, "And that's why I'm here, to make sure you guys don't make that make that mistake again."
"If you CIS pukes knew anything about a real op you would know what really happened on that mission," Black responded with no small degree of anger, "How about you stick to what you do best and talk. We'll keep your precious blue bloods over there from becoming a long night of paperwork."
"I'll give you that, they aren't exactly field agents or commandoes," Fraser shrugged, "Whenever the team's in danger you're in charge, I can take orders when the time is right but when we're doing our job let us do our job."
"Fair enough," Black replied sternly after a moment of staring into each other's eyes and both walked away. This left an impression on several of the troops, including his senior NCO, Gunnery Sergeant Charles Bradley(Dolph Lundgren), and the biggest man on the team.
"Oh I'm gonna enjoy this assignment," the big man said with a characteristic smirk, "Mostly because I'm feeling comfortable in my fifty credit bet you and Fraser will come to blows on this mission."
"Already have a pool going huh Gunny?" Black said without turning to acknowledge him.
"Aren't going to disappoint me are you sir?" Bradley replied slyly hefting his squad automatic weapon in one hand.
"We'll see," Black chuckled.
"Ring room be advised, beginning dialing sequence," the loudspeaker spoke out as the control room began dialing in the address to the planet that the RSEC had now chosen for its first real exploration mission.
And they knew that they had a planet of interest because this was the third time that they had dialed its address. A week ago the RSEC had sent a probe through the ring to check the immediate surroundings of the ring, and found that the planet was able to support life, and apparently did support life of sorts. Large pine trees, small brush, and a couple kinds of cactus had been observed with a few small mammals observed moving about in the immediate area. The temperature was observed to be quite hot with low humidity and reasonably high winds. But these conditions could have simply been an oddity, and to make sure that the RSEC had an idea of what to expect they'd left it there for a five days, and the probe had gathered atmospheric data and a rat and a bird nestled in two cages in the probe hadn't shown any signs of diseases affecting them. The RSEC had noted that the area was the equivalent of a high desert pine forest, similar to what was found on Gemenon. It was quite hot during the day, and quite cold at night, not exactly very comfortable weather. But the probe had also gathered a bit more video data of the surrounding area, taping several different animals, a few birds, and above all looked for signs of civilization, which it didn't see.
This then allowed Recon Team One to properly prepare for this mission. There was a pair of large drones carrying large three hundred gallon tanks which was much more than twice the required amount for each of tank. They also had two equally large drones with supplies like food, coffee, water purification tablets, and several flavors for making their water less boring. Then there was another pair of drones carrying the equipment for the civilians along with their respective tents and cots and finally two more drones carrying the military contingent's equipment, weapons, and ammunition and a final drone meant for carrying a large UAV and a drone helicopter for long range recon. In total nine large eight-wheeled remote-controlled drones were lined up in the large room crawling with technicians, guards, and the team itself.
And these Colonials were now back to the business of exploring a wider galaxy in the quest for knowledge, new economic opportunity, potential alien life, and above all, find Earth. They all watched as the ring began spinning as the mounted rollers began to spin to lock in the coordinates of this planet and send them through.
"Alright, listen up, we've been through this once and we'll go through this again. Stay together and keep your weapons on you at all times. If you feel any sort of medical symptoms coming on alert the Doctor at once. And above all obey your orders the minute they are given," Colonel Black called out, flashing a look at Fraser in particular.
"Chevron seven locked."
And just like that, a large whoosh sounded out and a massive flourish of the event horizon lashed out like a great big, rather dangerous, splash. And just like that it was sucked back in and Colonel Black smirked to himself as many of his team flinched or stuttered backwards. He knew precisely what they felt like, it was quite a thing to see the ring activate in person. But it was another thing to go through it, as they were all about to find out.
And there's the first chapter. A lot of you will obviously notice that there are no Earth POV sections here. And I realize that, and I'm here to tell you now that there won't be. All Earth POV's will be done in every other chapter, switching back and forth, I changed my mind.
Next Chapter Preview: Kobol was just baby-steps compared to what the RSEC is in for now. And unrest is stirring within Sagittaron.