The year was 2004.
Star Trek: Enterprise was still airing. The Galactica miniseries was out, but the new show wasn't. Mass Effect wouldn't be released for another three years. Space Battleship Yamato 2199 almost a decade away, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith wouldn't hit theatres until next year.
Also the US Air Force had been secretly running a guerilla warfare campaign against a race of technologically advanced (though feudal) aliens who ran a massive galaxy-spanning slave empire while masquerading as gods.
You know.
If you were interested in minor things like that.
The Stargate Command Radar Centre was not a busy place, most of the time.
At the moment however, it was packed with busy Air Force personnel running back and forth from station to station while those manning desks frantically operated phones and computers.
At the back of the room stood its only civilian occupant – Elizabeth Weir staring intently at the map displaying the returns from the various radar probes scattered throughout the Solar System. So far nothing unexpected was showing, but according to their intelligence that was soon to change.
The serviceman seated at the desk next to where Elizabeth was standing kept stealing glances at her. Eventually, he cleared his throat. "You, uh… okay there, ma'am?"
Their was a pause before Elizabeth responded. "Well, a couple of days ago the president contacted me to let me know he was placing me in charge of a secret project the Air Force had been running where they were waging a war against extraterrestrial forces without actually telling the rest of the planet."
"Uh…"
"The president tells me he wants the military operation shut down down to focus on the diplomatic potential, so naturally my first order after assuming command is to authorise a special forces team to go looking for weapons of mass destruction for our own use."
"Well that's –"
"Because naturally, there's an alien styling himself after the Egyptian god Anubis coming here with a fleet of starships to wipe out all life on Earth."
At this point Elizabeth actually turned to look at the serviceman. "No, nothing about this is okay."
The serviceman forced what he thought was an encouraging smile. "Well, it's not like we haven't been through worse."
"I appreciate the sentiment, but thinking about how many times the Earth has nearly been destroyed is not nearly as encouraging as you seem to think it is." Elizabeth snapped, causing the serviceman to wince.
Lifting a hand to rub her eyes, Elizabeth let out a slow exhale. "I'm sorry. None of this is your fault. I just can't believe that the only thing potentially standing between us and destruction at the hands of a genocidal madman is ancient weapons of mass destruction."
"Actually, it's Ancient, with a capital 'A'." The serviceman gingerly corrected. "Its the nickname for the race that built the Stargates, seeing as how we don't actually know their name –"
"I did actually read the briefing reports, you know." Elizabeth said dryly.
The serviceman winced again. "Sorry."
The somewhat awkward conversation was prevented from continuing when the phone on the serviceman's desk rang. He picked it up, listened for a moment, then called out "Prometheus reports unknown sensor contact out past Mars orbit!"
Elizabeth visibly steeled herself, ready to start giving orders… then paused. She was new to this job, but… "Prometheus did? Not the radar probes?"
"Uh…" The serviceman eloquently replied.
The servicewoman on the desk next to him answered for him. "Confirmed, space-based radar reads no contacts!"
"Prometheus is quite sure they're picking up something, though." The first serviceman offered. "Ma'am."
Elizabeth bit the inside of her cheek. "Prometheus is grounded currently, correct?"
"Correct ma'am."
"So what are they picking up contacts with?"
The serviceman relayed the question through his phone. "Uh… Prometheus says on their subspace sensors."
"I believe I remember reading that Goa'uld can cloak ships, like on Star Trek?" Elizabeth probed.
"Yes ma'am."
"Could that be what they're detecting?"
"Search me, ma'am." The serviceman shook his head. "Wouldn't surprise me either way – the Asgard gave the whole ship an upgrade, so it wouldn't surprise me if it can pick up cloaked ships now, even if theyare halfway across the solar system."
"Put me through to the White House."
"Sir." General George Hammond started off. "I recommend deploying Prometheus."
"Oh sure, send out our only defence against the Goa'uld on a wild goose chase, I'm sure that will end well." Said vice-president Robert Kinsey.
"I thought you didn't believe that Anubis was sending any ships, sir?" Hammond countered.
"I don't." Kinsey said flatly. "I think this is a transparent attempt by the SGC to steal billions of dollars worth of US government property to defy your shutdown order! Your attempts at regaining control over the Stargate are transparent as glass, Hammond. Glass. Mister President, I recommend placing Prometheus under NID control immediately."
"Between the SGC and the NID, only one of our organisations has ever stolen that ship." Hammond said mildly.
"Those were rogue operatives!" Kinsey blustered.
"Gentlemen, enough." President Hayes interrupted. "George, why deploy Prometheus?"
"Prometheus can get much better sensor readings at closer range." Hammond explained. "And if her contact does turn out to be Goa'uld, they may well need to be interrupted in whatever they are doing."
"Mr President, I object!"
"Bob," The president said "do you have a formal accusation to make against the crew of Prometheus?"
"What? No, listen –"
"Then I'll pretend that you haven't been casting aspersions on the loyalty of decorated service men and women." The president said firmly, frowning at his vice-president. "George, get that ship in the air. When you're done, check in with our off-world allies and the Russians, see if they know what's going on. I have phone calls to make to the Security Council."
Even before the Asgard upgrades, Prometheus could launch from its concealed hanger in the Nevada desert and hit orbit within minutes. Now, in that same time, it was halfway to Mars orbit and the site of their mysterious sensor contact.
"Still no idea what she's picking up?" Colonel Kirkland, the ship's current CO asked.
The radar chief (who in this case was tasked with overseeing the team that oversaw all of Prometheus's various sensor suites, despite their job title) shook his head. "The computer's definitely reporting a contact, but apparently whatever name the Asgard have for it doesn't have an equivalent in English, sir. It's just showing up as a set of runes."
"Of all the times to not have access to Daniel Jackson…" Kirkland shook his head. "Maintain course, but everyone keep their eyes peeled! Even if our mysterious contact isn't a Ha'tak, we're expecting a whole fleet of them any hour now."
"Colonel…" The ship's comm officer said, then paused. "I feel… weird." Beads of sweat were visible on her forehead.
"30 seconds til visual range of contact!" The pilot called out.
Kirkland frowned. "Now that you mention it, I think I feel it too. Anyone else feel like…"
"My head's in a vice, sir?" The radar chief offered. "Yeah, me too."
"15 seconds!"
"The pain's getting worse, sir." The comm officer reported. Her training was holding up, but she was also clearly in pain. As Kirkland looked around, he realised everyone in sight was. "I think…"
"10!"
Belatedly, Kirkland put 2 and 2 together. "Full reverse!" He ordered. "Get us clear of the contact!"
It was too late – even Asgard thrusters needed as much time to decelerate as accelerate. The migraines of the crew got worse and worse, each feeling like something was crushing their brains inside their skulls…
Cracking an eye open, Kirkland managed to catch a glimpse of their mysterious contact on the main screen. It looked like a white point of light, only with lightning somehow crackling around the outside of it despite it being in space. As he watched, it wobbled and distorted once, twice…
Kirkland's eyes widened then shut firmly, raising his arms up to shield his face…
Thankfully, the point didn't explode, but it did suddenly expand outwards in a wave of light that washed over Prometheus, fading as it went.
Prometheus blinked, smacking the side of her head a couple of times. "Colonel? Hey colonel, you alright?"
Her captain didn't respond – or maybe he did, and she didn't hear him over the tinny sound of her knocking on her helmet.
She looked down at herself and grimaced. Her outfit was a horrifying mismatch of an air force pilot's helmet and flight jacket, a NASA spacesuit and, unfortunately, some bits of antiquated-looking armour where her designers hadn't been able to squash the aesthetic of the Goa'uld tech she'd been reverse-engineered from. Not even her Asgard upgrades helped there – those changes were all internal. Honestly – what B-movie hack was in charge of my wardrobe?!
Coming to a dead stop, Prometheus cut her engines and stared forwards. Then she rubbed her eyes and stared again r̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶e̶v̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶d̶i̶a̶g̶n̶o̶s̶t̶i̶c̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶s̶o̶r̶s̶.
"Alright." Said a ship that Prometheus couldn't possibly fail to recognise, not the least because Jack O'Neill had tried his hardest to get her named after that ship. "Who's not dead? Sound off."
"I'm here." Said Babylon freaking 5. "Galactica's here with me."
"Normandy-san and I are here." Said another ship that was supposed to be a cartoon. "Was this supposed to happen?"
"Well no, but given that we haven't already disintegrated we should be past the worst of the danger."
"'Should be'? …wait, where's Chimaera?"
Prometheus couldn't take any more. "What." She cried b̶r̶o̶a̶d̶c̶a̶s̶t̶ loudly.
The other ships (and station) all collectively jumped as they all realised at once that 'Chimaera' missing meant that the sixth ship in their midst wasn't one of the fleet.
"Ack!" The saucer-ship swallowed. "Um. Sorry about this – a dimensional experiment of ours went… a bit wrong."
"A bit, dearie?"
"Alright, more than a bit. The quantum reality we were in has been superimposed on top of yours. Assuming none of us dissolve into fundamental particles, we'll, um… be stuck here for the next 20 hours or so."
Prometheus stared blankly back at the other ship.
"Um." The saucer-ship cleared her throat. "Sorry, let me start over. Nice to meet you. I'm the USS –"
"USS Enterprise, yeah I know." Prometheus found herself snarling.
Enterprise blinked, visibly taken aback, then looked down at herself and remembered that her name was written on her saucer-skirt. "Um, right. And these are –"
"Babylon 5." Prometheus pointed at the station. Moving her finger down, she continued naming startled ships. "One really banged up Battlestar Galactica. Argo."
Yamato blinked. "Nani?"
"And you…" Prometheus turned to the final ship, one she could tell from her childlike appearance was a frigate despite being only slightly (on the order of about 20-30 meters) shorter than she was. She paused. "I have no idea who you are."
Normandy pouted.
"Have, uh… we met before?" Enterprise asked.
Prometheus closed her eyes and shook her head. "Nope!" She declared. "I'm not doing this Galaxy Quest thing right now. You are going to tell me who built you. Right now."
"We're human, just like you!"
"That… really doesn't narrow it down."
An unexpected ping noise made Prometheus look around wildly for a moment, before figuring out that the SGC was just sending her a radio transmission. "Prometheus? Prometheus, are you there? We're reading five new contacts on radar. Status report!"
Lifting a hand up to her ear t̶r̶a̶n̶s̶m̶i̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶, Prometheus responded. "This is Prometheus – and oh man, you are not gonna believe what I found up here."
A shadow suddenly enveloped Prometheus, and she turned and looked up… and up… and up at the enormous visage of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
"Oh. There you are." The ISD growled. "For a moment I thought I was rid of you all."
Oh. Chimaera. Right. Thrawn's ship. Prometheus thought faintly. Oh, this is going to be a fun sitrep…
There was abject silence in the SGC.
Even the staffers who would normally be quipping away, blowing the whole thing off as a joke, found themselves (just for a moment) lost for words. (Well, after the shouts of "What do you mean this isn't a joke?!" had died down.)
Everybody was staring at the images Prometheus had transmitted back, and the IFF (read: name) tags she'd attached to them.
It was the newcomer who found her voice first. "Could somebody please tell me," Weir said, slowly "that the Stargate program has not been releasing information on actual alien civilisations in the form of TV shows and movies?"
"Um." Said the serviceman next to her.
Weir whirled around. "You're joking." She said, eyes wide.
"I'm pretty sure it's just Wormhole X-treme." The serviceman defended himself.
"Check." Weir ordered. "I am not dealing with a Death Star today."
The fact that Anubis had his own method of destroying planets was not calming her nerves.
She looked around the room. "Anyone else have anything they'd like to add?"
The servicewoman on the next desk over nodded solemnly, her eyes fixed on the name listed under the Star Destroyer.
"Yeah." She said. "If they are hostile, then we must defend the Louvre at all costs."
"You guys know" Prometheus said, her voice shaking with either fear or anger (anger, if she had anything to say about it!) "that Chimaera's a bad guy ship, right?!"
There was a collective eye-blink from the other ships + station.
"Your slander would be more insulting" Chimaera said dryly "if it was said in stronger terms than could be managed by a five-year-old Gungan."
"Don't get smart with me, fascist." Prometheus snapped.
"Did you have to search the dictionary for that one, little ship?" Chimaera taunted, looming over the much smaller ship. Prometheus grit her teeth as the reminder of how much larger than her the Star Destroyer was – she wasn't far off from being able to fit into Chimaera's docking bay.
A sharp whistle h̶i̶g̶h̶-̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶r̶a̶d̶i̶o̶ ̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ caused both ships to flinch and whirl around.
Babylon 5 lowered her fingers from her mouth d̶i̶a̶l̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶o̶w̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶r̶t̶-̶r̶a̶n̶g̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶ ̶a̶r̶r̶a̶y̶. "Are you girls ready to talk now, or would you like perhaps to move into slapping range?"
"This isn't a joke." Prometheus growled, surprising Babylon 5 with her intensity. "There is a fleet of battleships here in my system. Why."
"I'm not a battleship!" Enterprise protested.
Prometheus glared at Enterprise, clearly not in the mood.
Enterprise sighed. "Look, we're sorry for causing a panic. We didn't mean to come here, really! It's just –"
"An experiment went wrong, yeah I heard you the first time. What, did you try beaming into an ion field?" Prometheus asked sarcastically.
"Oh, do you have that tech as well?" Enterprise blinked.
Prometheus opened her mouth, then closed it. Being reverse-engineered from Goa'uld technology, she was equipped with a set of Ring transporters, which let her turn matter into energy, move the energy somewhere else, then turn it back into matter; 'transporting' it at the speed of light. However, there needed to be a set of Rings at both the departure point and destination for that to work – the Star Trek style of transporters where you only needed equipment at one end was the domain of the Ancients and Asgard.
…well, and the Gadmeer, technically… hmm. Maybe her pool of suspects for 'who could fake these ships' wasn't as small as she thought.
And they were fake – of that Prometheus hadn't even entertained the notion of doubting. If you saw someone dressed as Darth Vader walking down your street, did you think that the character had somehow broken out of the silver screen? No! You knew it was just some fan in a costume. Same deal here – some alien race had apparently binged Earth sci-fi and gone way too far with their model ship building.
"If us being here really bothers you that much, we could just leave." Babylon 5 offered, breaking Prometheus out of her thoughts.
Enterprise went very pale. "Um…"
Chimaera pinched the bridge of her nose. "What is it now."
"While we survived the initial phase transition, Chimaera-san, the device we were testing did not have sufficient power to so transition the entire universe." Yamato broke in. After a moment of being stared at, she added defensively "Enterprise-san is not the only one who has a basic understanding of dimensional physics."
"I'm afraid I don't understand, dearies." Galactica shook her head.
"We haven't actually changed dimensions." Enterprise looked down, twiddling her thumbs nervously. "It just looks like we have because our two dimensions are overlapping at this point. If any of us go more than… um… about half a light-year away from here while the effect is in place, we'll…"
"Suffer from a bad case of 'Total Existence Failure'?" Prometheus added in what was supposed to be sarcasm, but came out more 'genuine concern'.
Enterprise winced and nodded.
Chimaera groaned into the palm of her hand. "Absolutely fantastic."
The gears in Prometheus's head (the figurative ones, n̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶s̶) started to turn. "So what you're saying is," she started slowly "that you're all stuck in this system for the next day, after which you'll leave automatically."
"Unfortunately, yes." "Hai."
A calculating gleam entered Prometheus's eye. "And you're all Earth ships, right?"
"I am." Yamato affirmed.
"I'm not." Chimaera huffed, crossing her arms.
"Not really, dearie?" Galactica gently corrected.
"Don't get me wrong, I wish Earth only the best; but I had to split from EarthGov years ago." Babylon 5 stared off into empty space, eyes haunted.
Enterprise tapped her index fingers together. "As much as any Federation planet?"
Prometheus's face drooped. That was nowhere near the result she was hoping for.
"I am." Normandy added.
"Gah!" Prometheus started, having totally forgotten that the frigate was there. (Which was ridiculous, as Normandy was almost as big as she was!)
"Oh, sorry about that dear." Babylon 5 apologised. "Normandy is a stealth frigate, and she likes spooking ships."
Huh?! …oh, I see. Prometheus realised. Normandy was radar-stealthed, and didn't give off anything that registered on her subspace passives. After speaking up h̶e̶r̶ ̶r̶a̶d̶i̶o̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶n̶s̶m̶i̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶ earlier, Normandy had quietly moved behind one of the other ships, and Prometheus hadn't noticed when she reappeared. Prometheus made a mental note to pay more attention to her thermal passives – there would be no way to disguise the giant thermal bloom whenever Normandy moved.
Getting her head back on track, Prometheus decided to change said track. "Well, sometime in the next few hours, a fleet of Ha'taks is going to arrive to destroy my homeworld."
While the other ships (and Babylon 5) looked various degrees of shocked and dismayed, a narrowing of the eyes was the only change in Chimaera's expression. "And this is our problem… why?"
"You can't leave this system." Prometheus reminded her in a sing-song voice.
There was a moment of silence.
"…well, I'd certainly be happy to serve as a neutral moderator for negotiations –" Enterprise started.
Prometheus rolled her eyes. "You guys can stop pretending to not know who the Goa'uld are now, this is serious."
"Indulge us, local ship-san." Yamato said, a quiet intensity visible in the tension around her eyes.
"Prometheus. The name's Prometheus."
"It is nice to meet you, Prometheus." Yamato nodded her head formally. "I am the Space Battleship Yamato."
Prometheus blinked. Yamato? Not Argo? She's ignoring her rename?*
*(Prometheus was not aware that the rename to Argo was added in by the English translators when the 1974 anime was localised. She barely knew the term 'anime' – the exemplars of that art style for her were Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh, which at the time of writing are still sold as 'cartoons'.)
Babylon 5 coughed gently into a hand. "You were about to explain why you don't think these 'Goa'uld' will negotiate?"
"Are you seriously going to make me explain this?" Prometheus said in a tone somewhere between a groan and a whine. "You guys all live in this galaxy too! …you do, don't you?" She added, suddenly unsure.
"Ah-hem?!" Chimaera forcefully cleared her throat.
"The rest of us are from alternate timelines of…" Enterprise trailed off, doing a double-take at the system's primary. "Wait, we're in the Solar System?"
"How nice of you to finally notice." Prometheus snarked.
"I've been very distracted!" Enterprise protested. "…anyway, we're all from alternate timelines of this galaxy. Except Chimaera."
"Been there, done that." Prometheus folded her arms. (She hadn't personally, but given the Quantum Mirror that was currently sitting in an Area 51 warehouse, she felt like she knew more than enough about the subject.) Prometheus then sighed. "Alright, fine."
"The Goa'uld are a bunch of snake aliens that like to curl up nice and tight around your spine to hijack your body. About 12-and-a-half thousand years ago they decided theyreally liked taking humans as meat-suits 'cause their healing devices could keep 'em and their 'suits' alive basically forever. Earth managed to break away about 3,000 B.C. –"
"Sorry, sorry, but um, what year is it currently?" Babylon 5 broke in.
"2004, why?" Prometheus said, annoyed at being interrupted when they were the ones insisting that she tell the story.
Enterprise, Yamato, Normandy and Babylon 5 all looked at each other, startled, then back at Prometheus, then back at each other.
Babylon 5 blinked several times, then began ticking off her fingers. "Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert…?"
"I really don't see how you listing off a bunch of dead musicians has to do with squat." Prometheus said dryly.
"Just… checking, dear." Babylon 5 shook her head. "Your version of Earth is… well, ahead of schedule."
That's because we're cheating, Prometheus thought, before continuing her story. "In those thousands of years, the Goa'uld ferried humans off-world to build up their slave empire. And that's where we are today – a galaxy-spanning empire patrolled by ships that can flatten continents, but whose average citizen has never seen any technology more advanced than a freaking wheelbarrow. They tell 'em it's magic, and that they're gods. Took the names of Earth gods to complete the illusion."
Enterprise bit her bottom lip, but spoke up anyway. "Have you tried killing the mother creature?"
There was a pause, then the other ships started giving Enterprise strange looks.
"Who are you and what have you done with Enterprise?" Galactica squinted suspiciously.
Enterprise's shoulders sagged. "Starfleet Command had a bad infection of creatures that sounded just like these creatures, and they all died when the mother creature did, so…"
"Oh, you're talking about those blue-gill neural parasite things." Prometheus waved a hand dismissively. "No no no, Goa'uld don't do that. No real species dies when its parent does, that's just stupid."
"…but they do, though?" Enterprise pointed out. "Apparently you've met them as well, you could check? Not that I'm advocating murder!" She added hurriedly. "I meant with medical scans and such."
"Listen, little miss shiny paint job." Prometheus said, ignoring the fact that Enterprise was in fact many times larger than she was. "This isn't some b-movie plot where all the threads are neatly tied up just in time for the credits to roll. Ending an empire of human suffering thousands of years old and spread over thousands of planets isn't as simple as 'go here, kill that thing'. We tried that the first time we met the Goa'uld – all that did was fracture the empire and plunge the galaxy into war as the system lords established the new pecking order."
Enterprise was looking less and less comfortable as Prometheus went on. "None of them are interested in peaceful co-existence?" She asked, somewhat desperately.
Prometheus glared at Enterprise for a second, before looking away with a huff. "There's the Tok'ra, the 'Goa'uld resistance' if you will, but even if we could trust 'em – and we can't sometimes – they control no territory whatsoever."
"And how exactly does an empire of feudal slaves maintain a fleet of starships?" Chimaera asked sceptically.
"Why, looking for tips?" Prometheus shot back.
"Listen here, you –"
"Logically, there must be a 'middle-class' of slaves who build and maintain the infrastructure needed for the empire. Am I correct?" Yamato interrupted before the conversation could devolve further.
Prometheus shot another angry look at Chimaera, then nodded at Yamato. "Yeah, the Jaffa. Human slaves genetically engineered to incubate – and be dependent on – Goa'uld larvae. They're still told it's magic, but they're at least taught how to operate and maintain Goa'uld tech. The Goa'uld themselves get by on a genetic memory."
"Okay." Enterprise took a deep breath. "So, if you're telling the truth –"
"'If'?"
"We've only just met you dear, don't take it personally." Babylon 5 reassured.
"Then this Goa'uld empire is like if the Dominion was run by the Trill." Enterprise finished. "And with no Federation to rally the resistance against them."
"This so-called 'empire' sounds to me like a world where the Geonosians conquered the galaxy." Chimaera said with some disgust. "Brain worms for everyone."
"Or the Drakh with their Keepers…" Babylon 5 shuddered.
"Wait, what's this about brain worms?" Prometheus's eyebrows raised. Was that some sort of prediction on how Episode III would turn out?
"Alright, dearie." Galactica spoke up. "There's an enemy fleet on the way. How many ships does Earth have?"
There was a very awkward pause.
"Prometheus? Please tell me it's not just you?" Babylon 5 implored.
Prometheus sucked in a breath. "I… also have some fighter-interceptors?"
"Prometheus, I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me honestly." Babylon 5 clapped her hands together. "Did Earth steal you from someone else?"
"What? No! No no no, we stole the tech." Prometheus waved her hands in warding movements. "Beat up a bunch of Goa'uld, stole their stuff, then built me."
Enterprise went very, very still.
"Is that why a Goa'uld fleet is here to kill you all?" Chimaera drawled.
"Kinda sorta, that's a way longer story." Prometheus then paused and squinted at Chimaera. "You don't seem worried at all about the hostile fleet about to arrive."
"Even if, though I sincerely doubt it, their ships were a hundred times better than those of the Galactic Empire, then we would simply bury them in a thousand times as many ships. The industrial capacity of uneducated slaves is simply not compatible to our own." Chimaera boasted.
"You're not in the Galactic Empire, dear." Babylon 5 reminded her.
"A situation I lament more and more with each new development." Chimaera muttered. "Truthfully, when this Goa'uld fleet arrives I plan to declare neutrality in the matter, and… why are you laughing?" She demanded.
Prometheus was bent over at the waist, gasping for air as she wiped tears of laughter out of her eyes. "Ha ha ha, ha ha… oh wait, you're serious? Let me laugh even harder! HA!"
"Prometheus…" Galactica admonished.
After a moment, Prometheus regained control of her self. "Ha… but seriously, that might work if it was… I dunno… Ba'al maybe, but it's Anubis on his way here. That guy's so cartoonisly evil the other Goa'uld teamed up on him! He's not going to care that you're neutral, he's just going to see you as a threat."
Chimaera's mouth twitched several times, as though she wanted to rebut that, but couldn't think of a way to do so. Probably recognised the attitude from back home, Prometheus thought.
"And with a creature like him prowling the stars, you decided to build only one ship?" Yamato frowned.
"Hey building me set back Uncle Sam several billion dollars, okay? We have to build entirely new infrastructure for this, it's not like we could just slap an FTL drive onto the… navy ships…"
One of Yamato's eyebrows rose. "Yes?"
Prometheus stared at Yamato for a moment, then shook her head. "Anyway, there's only so much that even the US military can do so fast."
"The US…?" Babylon 5 repeated, confused, before snapping her fingers. "Right. It's still 2004, you haven't formed EarthGov yet. What about the Russians? There's no way they'd let the US have a space fleet before they did."
"In the Cosmo Fleet, the European Union contribution is quite comparable to the one made by the United States." Yamato added.
Prometheus gave Yamato another confused look. "The Cosmo Fleet? Is that some kind of Star Force mistranslation? Whatever, it doesn't matter. It's just me and my fighters – the US Air Force against the universe."
"I wasn't built at the very beginning of the First Cylon War, dearie, but speaking as a veteran of that war you'll want to get your collective act together right away." Galactica observed. "No one colony could have funded Daidalos's construction efforts on their own."
"You say you are an Air Force ship? Not the Space Force?" Yamato tilted her head.
"We don't have a Space Force." Prometheus snapped.
Yamato frowned, looking like she was trying to remember something. "Ah. This must be before Donald Trump's presidency."
Prometheus gaped at Yamato. "You thought… that's a Simpson's joke! Nobody would actually let him be president!" Man, whichever off-planet faction binged Earth TV has clearly watched way too much. She thought.
"So what you're saying is that there's an alien fleet on the way, and you need our help because your planet was so lazy exactly one country built exactly one ship." Chimaera drawled.
Prometheus scowled. Of course a Star Wars ship would think of it like that – she 'came from' a setting where people bought starships like used cars. "It's not like that!" She angrily denied. "There were… trust issues with tech-sharing, okay?"
Yamato sighed. "When we are not in imminent danger for our lives, Prometheus-san, I shall instruct you as to how a UN space fleet works."
"Badly?" Prometheus guessed.
"This may surprise you" Yamato deadpanned "but alien invasions tend to change the priorities of many a politician."
Enterprise sighed. "How about you, Normandy? Did you have a unified Earth government like Babylon 5 and I, or did…" She trailed off. "Where's Normandy?"
"What do you mean, she's right over…" Prometheus trailed off, glancing over c̶h̶e̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶I̶R̶ ̶s̶c̶o̶p̶e̶ at where Normandy'̶s̶ ̶t̶̶̶h̶̶̶e̶̶̶r̶̶̶m̶̶̶a̶̶̶l̶̶̶ ̶̶̶s̶̶̶i̶̶̶g̶̶̶n̶̶̶a̶̶̶t̶̶̶u̶̶̶r̶̶̶e̶̶̶ wa… sn't anymore. What the actual…? How the heck had she disappeared without setting off her passives?! Even engaging a cloaking device gave off a radiation burst that she wouldn't have missed!
Chimaera cursed. "I am this close to having a leash made for that frigate!"
"Normandy! Where are you?" Enterprise cupped her hands around her mouth t̶r̶a̶n̶s̶m̶i̶t̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶s̶p̶a̶c̶e̶ ̶f̶r̶e̶q̶u̶e̶n̶c̶i̶e̶s̶.
Normandy's response was surprisingly quick, not-so-surprisingly-short, but overall quite surprising:
"Found the enemy." She responded using the subspace transceiver Chimaera had given her earlier.
In space, no one can hear a pin drop.
Then there was a lot of movement as the other ships tried very quickly to decide how they were going to play this. They didn't exactly huddle or anything, but it was obvious that Prometheus wasn't a part of this discussion.
Prometheus's radio squawked.
"SGC to Prometheus, do you copy? We are reading three Ha'taks in Earth orbit. Do not engage, repeat you are not authorised to engage at this time."
Prometheus scowled. She could probably take a scouting force of three Ha'tak, but not Anubis's full fleet - the Asgard had updated her shields, not her weapons. Even so, being told she wasn't allowed to fight for her homeworld stung.
"Kirkland, what is your final opinion on the… other visitors, over?" The radio continued.
"No idea sir, he hasn't said anything since the other ships showed up, over." Prometheus snapped, still sour at being benched.
There was a pause. "Prometheus, repeat last over?"
It was a really good thing the SGC had a subspace radio. Minute long pauses in this conversation would be unbearable. "I have no idea on the colonel's status, command. Far as I can tell he and the rest of the crew are AWOL, over."
"…Prometheus, who exactly am I talking to, over?"
"Prometheus, over."
"I'm aware I'm speaking to Prometheus, I meant who on the ship am I speaking to, over!"
"You are speaking to Prometheus! Over!"
Back on Earth, a man was wiping grease from a wrench with a dirty rag. He looked up as ringing filled the room, then grabbed a corded phone off a wall. "Yeah?"
"Jerry, please tell me that you're the joker who sabotaged my telescope."
"Bob?" Jerry looked up from his work station. Before him lay his own enormous optical telescope – the centrepiece around which this entire facility was built. "What, it showing everything upside down again? I told you, you need to –"
"Move to five arc-seconds underneath Mars, six-hundred magnification." Bob demanded.
"…Bob, the university has my 'scope booked out for the next three hours, I can't just –"
"Do it right now!" There was mostly anger, but also hints of fear and confusion in Bob's voice.
Jerry hesitated for a long moment, then reached forward to a control panel and typed a sequence of commands in. The enormous machinery that aimed the facility's telescope slowly ground to life, reorienting to the specified coordinates.
Jerry stared at the image displayed on his screen for a long moment.
"You see them too, don't you?" Bob, who could hear that the machinery had stopped even through the phone, asked.
Jerry's grip on the phone tightened. "Bob, you don't tell a soul, you hear me? Move your 'scope to something else right now."
"Jerry –"
"No Bob, listen to me. Some government suits will be by shortly to take a few things – it's really important that you do everything they tell you to do. We can't let this get out – it'll cause a panic, you hear me?"
"…that's going to be a problem, Jerry." Bob said, sounding apologetic. "Seeing as how you're the fourth person I called. I think half the 'scopes in the hemisphere are looking at this one."
The corner of Jerry's mouth twitched several times. Swearing loudly, the NID informant threw the phone back onto its cradle and stared at the image of USS Prometheus hanging out with a bunch of spaceships that shouldn't exist.
