"There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of Maya, the Toltecs, or the Egyptians. They may have been the architects of the great pyramids, or the lost civilizations of Lemuria, or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive far, far away, amongst the stars.
The Battlestar Galactica hurdled through space, with Doppler streaks of light seeming to speed past. The vast spread of the galaxy illuminated space beneath her like a carpet.
"Major Adama, Major Adama, a moment, if you please!" Lee turned at the urgent, cultured voice and found the flustered figure of Doctor Gaius Baltar hurrying towards him. "Major Adama please!" Busy crewman angled around Lee, and he took a step to the side of the busy corrider.
"I hear you Doctor Baltar." He called as the doctor made his way through the crowd. "I'm on my way to a meeting with Colonel Shaw, can it wait?"
"Well..." Baltar puffed as he finally reached Lee, "As a matter of fact, I am afraid that it cannot, you see I have been trying to reach the Commander for several days and she has not answered my calls. As you are one of the few individuals I know in the command structure on board, I need your help, you see it is urgent that I meet with the Commander."
"What is it Doc, is something wrong?" Lee asked. He had become a bit more casual with the man over the past few months, first during his time on the Galactica.
"Yes!" Baltar exclaimed. "I've had another visit from.." He lowered his voice "Her."
Adama looked around and pulled Baltar into what turned out to be a laundry room. "The Seraphim? The alien entity you had visions of, that looked like a Cylon Six? I thought Doctor Bashir undid whatever hooks she had in you?"
"He did, he did." Baltar assured Lee, and then paused, "Well I suppose there's no way to know that for sure I suppose, Doctor Laurette isn't entirely familiar with all the documentation on the scanning devices we were left, but as far as I can determine, this is nothing like what happened before."
"It's still a hell of a security breach." Lee told him. "The Seraphim were instrumental in helping the Ones execute the Attack on the colonies. If they decided to let the wrong people know that one of our last operational battlestars is halfway across the galaxy trying to set up a base..."
"The oldest one though." Baltar pointed out Adama shook his head.
"With one of the largest remaining trained crews, Doc. It was a risk sending a ship out when we can barely defend ourselves, let alone trying to set up a base while looking for lost technologies. Modern battlestars aren't designed to carry a crew of this size, the antimatter...and the experimental deflector-"
"I know, I know," Baltar said, "But that's precisely the problem Lee, the research team isn't in charge! Galen and Tory are both under very close surveillance in an orpheus cage that blocks all transmissions in or out, and they are our allies."
"You're lucky The Commander doesn't know about your encounter then." Lee said, then pinched the bridge of his nose at Baltar's guilty expression. "She does know, doesn't she." Baltar nodded. "She confined you with the others and you broke out." Baltar nodded.
"How did you.." Lee began and then shook his head. "Tyrol..."
"Look we had no choice!" Baltar protested, "I believe that it is vital that the Commander be apprised of the message I received but the moment I began to explain she locked me up!"
"Doctor, those creatures can manipulate the course of our entire civilization." Lee hissed, "you can't take whatever they told you at face value!"
"Well I certainly know that better than most." Baltar said, "But you do realize that as a consequence, neither Tyrol nor myself have been able to supervise the matter/ antimatter reactors hurling us accross the universe?"
"Oh frak." Lee groaned.
"Exactly." Baltar replied, "Both Tyrol and I have felt shifts in the warp field, that suggest we are all in very real danger!" Suddenly a half dozen Marines burst into the room, guns drawn.
"No you have to listen!" Baltar protested as he moved towards them. "we are under immediate threat!"
"Get in the ground Doc." Lee said grabbing the back of his collar and dragging him down, "whatever might be wrong with the engines, it's not as immediate a threat to you as a pissed off marine."
. *. *.
"Well Lookee who's in hack!" a familiar voice crowed as Lee stepped into his cell, head ducked in embarrassment. He stared at the wall for a moment, took a deep breath, and turned to his neighbor.
"Hello Kara." He sighed.
"Hello Lee." She purred. She was reclining casually on the bunk that Lee knew to be incredibly uncomfortable, looking for all the world as though she were in a 5 star hotel.
"This is a bit of a misunderstanding." Lee explained. Starbuck smirked. "You're on your last day?"
"Yup." She said, popping the P. "I figure I'll give Greenbean an hour or two before I pay him back for ratting me out."
"Sounds very strategic." Lee said diplomatically. "Any regrets regarding the whole incident with the still, and the regulations you broke, or-"
"There are no regrets." Kara clarified. "After three months of complete monotony, if I HADN'T found something for my squadron to do, there would have been blood. 3 days in hack is more than worth it."
"That's because we arrive at Earth tomorrow." Lee replied, "And the Commander needs every pilot on board to ferry marines and combat engineers to the planet, when we aren't surveying every inch of the planet and every rock within a light year of it."
"Worth it." Starbuck concluded. "Plus she never found the other-"
"Attention on deck." ordered a quiet voice, Starbuck bolted out of her bunk shocked, as Lee snapped to attention.
"Motherfracker you are as quiet as a cat!" She hissed. Commander Cronus stood outside the row of cells, unimpressed.
"That's Commander Motherfracker to you." she replied, hauling Starbuck's door open and jerking a finger behind her. "Get lost, or I'll dismantle your other still." Starbuck gave the Commander a look mixed between hatred and adoration that Lee found easy to empathize with.
"She.. actually seems to respect you more than most." Lee observed, to the commander. He stood at attention "Ma'am."
"Adama, I let her out early because I don't really want whatever inscrutable madness Doctor Baltar may have passed on to you to affect her when we land tomorrow." Cronus said, "And instead, I now expose myself to the Very Thing I had hoped to avoid, in avoiding Doctor Baltar." She was a few decades older than Lee, but very attractive, with a fit figure, lustrous blond hair and striking blue eyes. She considered further and said, "That and his oily attempts at charm." She gave a theatric shudder. "And speaking of charm..." She dragged a chair from down the hall, reversed it and sat in front of Lee still at attention, resting her arm on the back of the chair and glaring indignantly, "Didn't I play that cool, Major? When you came on board, the son of the admiral of the fleet, didn't I use charm? I could have put you in your place, embarrassed you publicly, dressed you down about how I wasn't going to give you special treatment, showed you up on front of your shipmates, I could have, but I didn't." She paused for breath.
Lee began to speak. Cronus put up a hand stopping him and continued.
" I had a drink with you. I told you this mission was.. an absurd one, setting up a base on our legendary missing planet after our own civilization was nearly wiped out by 40 year old toasters returned from the darkest corners of space, back for revenge and evidently egged on by alien space gods." She scraped her chair as she got up pacing with her hands behind her back. "That alone could have caused something of an existential crisis, no? Where do we truly come from. What is... life. What is the soul, what is.. self? How does one become co-opted by an energy being? Are these Cylons fleshbags, possessed, insane.. possessed by something insane-" She waved her hand dismissively, "I did none of that Lee, I shared with you command level briefings from Captain Sisko himself, the alien star messiah, and then approved as Need To Know only by your father, and our School Teacher turned President turned prophet." She stopped for breath and glared at Lee and said "Briefings that were Very Clear about quarantining individuals identified as under an unknown alien influence, yes?" her eyes drilled into him.
Lee felt, as he had many times before in her presence two conflicting and disorienting impulses. It was a though a great chorus of voices within him were shouting at once for him to either fall madly in love with this striking, older woman, brimming with passionate self confidence, and to assert himself confidently in return, to win her respect, perhaps to begin a connection that could lead somewhere, or-
to retreat utterly from her in terror as a commanding officer so utterly out of his league that he was simply grateful to have survived the encounter. She waited glacially, while Lee managed his existential crisis quietly.
"Yes ma'am the orders were clear." He fumbled more towards the second impulse, but as his inner chorus booed his cowardice he offered, "But I didn't know what was going on."
"Well welcome to the fleet!" Cronus exclaimed. She whipped open the cell door and stalked inside and suddenly Lee had dawning realization that he had been less confined by the bars, so much as protected by them. He gathered himself as a thought crossed his mind. She was listening, at least, and as she prowled into his space, his inner cacaphony rose again.
This was his chance to explain how quickly the situation had unfolded, how he had worked to contain the situation, to gather more information, how he had been nothing but the epitome of a competent and capable Colonial Warrior. He sensed that her next question would give him the opening he needed to set things right, to rebalance the scales between them and yes, perhaps to win some small recognition of his quality from her. Her next words would be the tools to opportunity.
"So Explain to me Major, how hiding an escaped mad scientist under the influence of a space angel, in a laundry room came about?"
Lee sighed.
A universe away, a Klingon tore through a field of leafy plants. He could hardly spare time to glance over his shoulder, and only the rustling of the leaves around him told him where his pursuers were. He spotted some sort of stone silo ahead, and some sort of dwelling beyond. Sturdy clay bricks, it was little refuge but moments were key. An energy blast flew past him striking the silo as he charged towards the hut. A solid looking door flew open and he saw a wiry grey haired humanoid holding a weapon. "Look out!" He shouted in Klingon. The man saw him and his eyes narrowed in hatred. The Klingon stopped short putting his hands out, but looking over his shoulder. "I mean you no harm, I am being pursued!"
The stranger raised his weapon smoothly, the Klingon accepted death as the gun barked. The Klingon heard the leaves crash behind him and whirled. The eight foot Hirogen that had been hunting him shimmered into view, behind him, a hole in it's chest. It toppled like a falling tree. The Klingon looked at the man warily as he stepped forward.
"I know you can't understand me." The Klingon said, "But I mean you no harm."
"I'm Captain James T Kirk." He informed the Klingon, shocked, the Klingon realized he could understand every word Kirk was saying. "If you want to live, listen carefully."