By ChaosEternus
Thanks to LONA of the BSGWS for Beta'ing this fic for me.
Chapter 10As it turned out, we didn't actually get to Tempest before the secret got out .
Donally translated the question that let the cat out of the bag, and we had to blame it all on 'Command Presence', sorry Adama. I know his name now; I really should get into the hang of using it but 'Command Presence' fits him so well.
"Technology-wise, how does Earth compare to what you have seen?"
The room fell dead silent.
You could have heard a pin drop, easily.
Well, we Earthmen exchanged glances, and basically began an unspoken conversation and not much of a pleasant one at that.
"What can we tell them, really?" I asked Donally.
They seemed to be nice, to be the good guys but there is a very good reason one of the standard briefings for everyone , including one that the NASA pukes, that basically goes " Do NOT lead any aliens to Earth."
They may act, look and behave friendly but you have no way of knowing for definite. And to be perfectly honest, aliens showing up, even if they truly are friendly are going to cause CHAOS.
Capital C, capital H, capital A, capital O, capital S.
On the other hand, let's just say, if these 'Colonials' were telling the truth about where humanity came from("Yeah right …" was my response to that idea) but if they were telling the truth then I knew exactly which group had ended up on Earth.
The whack jobs, religious nuts and the like. We certainly had far more of those than the Colonials appeared to, but maybe we should reserve judgement on that. After all we were on a military ship that would have restricted access at the best of times, let alone in a war that would make survivalists ecstatically happy.
By now the Colonials were getting worried, they didn't know what we were saying but they knew it couldn't be good. (Earlier you said the conversation was unspoken. I had the character speak to Donally.)
The end result of our quiet discussion was unfortunately the only real choice we could make.
Donally, now speaking fluently in the Sumerian derivative we used to communicate with the colonials, the result of all the practise he had been having today, dropped the bomb.
"As far as we can tell, barring one or two exceptions, Colonial technology is far advanced beyond Earth capabilities"
The room fell dead silent again, the only noise being the slight rocking of the chairs as the Colonials almost as one, dropped back in their seats, dismayed by the latest information.
They should really have figured that out before now though. They had access to Tempest, they had to know what she was capable off, hell it wasn't as if we could stop them going aboard really.
And they had had enough other clues as well. All the Earth wars we told them about that would have redirected resources away from research, the fact that we hadn't mentioned any space forces when we gave a very brief overview of the groaning weight of Earth's military resources…
But Broody, sorry Tigh, apparently had c aught the qualifier we had placed on that statement and maybe he had gotten a hunch or something because he suddenly rose upwards in his seat and jumped on it.
"What do you mean, barring one or two exceptions ?"
"Well…" Donally shrugged, "your computer hardware is a joke, your programming languages are DOS era… hell, I have so far seen no indication you have any form of 32-bit processing."
Baltar, a man who all of us had been watching very, very closely, blinked at that point and finally started to show some sort of interest. "32-bit processors are restricted technology, only used for the most up-to-date and powerful mainframes. Where did you hear of them?"
We shot him a look.
"Oh right…" he chuckled nervously, his hand moving as if to brush something off his shoulder, an impression that was reinforced by the glare he shot over his shoulder, something he brought quickly under control.
We exchanged significant glances with each other; this guy was most likely certifiable. I labelled him "Psycho."
"…it's not as if you have broken the mythical gigahertz barrier"
We turned as one, and turned a matching set of two-thousand watt smug grins at 'Psycho'.
"You haven't, have you?"