The puddle jumper exited the stargate into an open field filled with many ruined pillars. Anyone looking at the sight could have concluded that this planet, at least this area, had been abandoned for thousands of years. The jumpers driver pylons extended with a thud and the cockpit expanded forward, and then the sound of metal expanding filled the cock pit at the rest of the jumper reconfigured itself into something that resembled a miniature Asguard mothership.

'Now that was cool' Jack commented after the reconfiguration of the vessel.

'Sir, I think we should try to make contact with one of the ships in orbit' Carter stated from the co-pilots seat, while before her the holographic images of several of the alien ships loomed. She pressed on a crystal panel and the image of a very large vessel took center stage. 'I think this is their command ship'

Daniel who was paying attention from rear compartment stepped up behind Carter 'How can you tell?' he asked.

Carter pressed on another set of crystals and windows with technical data opened next to the image of the ship. 'It's the most heavily armed vessel in the fleet, the rest look like a conglomeration of cargo ships, passenger liners and recreational vessels'

Jack glanced away from the windscreen to look at the ship 'That looks like one hell of a ship' he commented.

Carter smiled 'It's about two kilometers long, manned with over 2000 people, all human. If it had shields I'd say it could be a match for the Goaúld' she commented.

Jack returned his attention back to the windscreen and accelerated the ship up into the atmosphere 'Well lets just hope they don't decide to blow us out of the sky before we make contact' he stated as the clouds parted to reveal empty space. 'Bringing hyperdrive online, this should take all of ½ a second'

He was right, in less than a second the ship jumped through hyperspace to a position just outside of the Galactica's sensor range. Even from this range the Galactica look huge.

Jack put the ship on auto-pilot and turned to Carter 'So how do you want to do this?' he asked.

Carter stared back at Jack trying to think of what to do when her consol beeped frantically.

'Whats that' Daniel asked from behind her, startling her slightly.

Carter looked back at her terminal and watched as an image of a small craft about half the size of an x-302 appeared 'It looks like a small recon vessel, it's got to have picked us up visually'

Rainer double checked his scanner, it was detecting nothing however there was clearly a ship directly in front of him. 'Rainer to Galactica actual I've got visual confirmation of a ship, but its not showing up on scanners… how do I proceed?' he announced over his com link.

Col Tigh was manning the bridge while Adama was on Kobol searching for the President. He had been on edge ever since the Cylons had boarded his vessel and Cringed when the report from Rainer came through. 'Launch Alert fighters, tell them to disable this craft… if the toasters have designed a new stealth vessel I want to know how it works' he ordered 'have 2 raptors standing by to tow it back'

While Jack and Sam were conversing Daniel was watching the Galactica and saw several objects detach from it 'Um guys what the hell is that' he interrupted while pointing towards the Galactica.

Jack returned to attention and pulled up his own scanner 'It looks like more of those smaller ships, Carter can they hurt us?'

Carter was already initating active scans of the smaller ships 'No sir, they are using a machine gun like projectile weapon, I doubt they could pierce our haul yet alone our shields' she replied.

'Well I guess we should try to make contact with them now' Daniel suggested.

Jack knew Daniel was right, but he also knew that the Galactica wouldn't take kindly to a vessel sneaking up on their ship.

Rainer held position until the alert vipers took up formation around him 'Okay guys, we've been ordered to disable the ship only, and as you may have noticed, the ship doesn't show up on our targeting scanners…. Weapons free… go go go' he announced.

The ships broke formation and began firing at the vessel at what they assumed were the engine pods. The craft didn't even attempt to move and soon the viper pilots found out why. Before their bullets could impact the haul, an energy field would flash and engulf them, protecting the ship.

'By the gods, something's protecting their haul' a voice yelled over the comm. Link.

Rainer knew this came from one of the newer pilots 'Compose yourself pilot, you're in combat now… keep on firing' he then changed frequency to Galactica's com 'Rainer to Galactica, the Cylon craft has made no move to evade'

Tighs voice came over the speakers 'why the hell not?'

Rainer didn't know how to reply but did so anyway 'The ship is surrounded by some kind of…' he paused.

'Of what?' Tighs voice was angry 'spill it'

'Some kind of energy field sir, none of our rounds are getting through'

The threesome watched as the group of a dozen ships fired frantically at their ship 'Carter, status?' Jack asked.

Carter, who had been frantically trying to recalibrate their communications system to broadcast on one of their frequencies was still frantically recalibrating the system 'I'm almost there'

Jack looked to Sam 'Good because if I'm reading these sensor logs correctly they have nukes aboard'

'Um, can we withstand a nuke?' Daniel asked, he was clearly worried.

Sam smiled 'Our shields are stronger than the Daedulus, we could withstand a hundred nukes' she replied. 'Okay done, ready to broadcast'

Jack tapped the com link button 'This is General Jack O'Neill of the United States Airforce, we mean you no harm' he announced.

The CIC went silent as Tigh had the transmission from the craft broadcast over the speakers. He picked up a head piece from the Draidus console 'This is Col Tigh of the Battlestar Galactica, which colony do you come from?'

Jack pressed the pause button, 'Colony?' he asked in the direction of Daniel.

Daniel searched his memory of the scroll then it click 'Colony… he must be referring to 12 distinct tribes, tell him we are from the planet the 13th Colony evacuated to'

Jack looked at him skeptically, but then he remembered that Daniel was usually right about stuff like this so activated the com link 'We're kind of from the place your 13th Colony went to'

Tigh stood in shock, Roslyn believed in the 13th colony, the planet called Earth but he did not. But if they were human, if they were the brothers of mankind, then they had already proven they could aide them in the war with the Cylons. These shields of theirs were something out of science fiction shows. 'I am sending a raptor to dock with your vessel, once they confirm that you do not intend to destroy us, they will escort you and your vessel to our landing bay'

Jack paused the transmission once again 'I don't know if we should let them onboard'

'Jack, they maybe the key to finding the ancients in this Galaxy' Daniel interjected 'we need information from them'

Jack shook his head 'Fine' he stated then turned on the com link on again 'Okay, well be waiting' he replied then terminated the com link.

The group waited in somewhat silence as a vessel roughly one third the size of the reconfigured puddle jump departed the galatica and headed towards them. As it began its final approach several bright flashes filled the night sky and the ships that were in orbit of the planet had suddenly rejoined the fleet.

'My God' Carter gasped.

Jack and Daniel both turned their attention to the sensor screen she was looking at 'What?'

Carter smiled 'You know that FTL drive the scroll talked about… these people are using it'

'I thought their ships were primitive, well at least according to Thor' Jack commented.

'Well, some of their systems are primitive others are quite advanced, like the gravity plating and the FTL drive. Their scanners are a slightly more advanced form of Radar, but are nothing compared to ours, and they don't seem to have any grasp of subspace or hyperspace'

'Then how did they get FTL drives?' asked Daniel.

'My guess is they reverse engineered a version from the Ancients, or the humans that worked with the Ancients' she commented.

'Do you think we could adapt their technology to our own?' Jack asked.

'We can easily fabricate the device they have attached to their drives, but the problem is the hyperspatial calculations. In other words we'd need a copy of their FTL equations' Carter replied.

'Couldn't you come up with the equations?' asked Jack.

Carter smiled 'I may be smart sir, but even the Ancients of our Galaxy weren't able to formulate those equations' she replied.

'Great, so we make contact, offer trade for their equations, and then use the equations to get back to Earth… umm we do have enough power to get back to Earth right?' Daniel asked.

'Well based on the amount of power they used to jump this distance, I'd say we could make it all the way back to Earth in 3 jumps' Carter replied just as the com channel beeped breaking them out of their conversation.

All eyes made for the window where a Raptor loomed 'This is Raptor 387 stand by to be boarded' the vessel flipped upside down and approached from beneath the jumper.

Jack disengaged the shields then activated the com link 'Raptor 387 what the hell are you doing? Our docking hatch is out back'

'Your docking hatch is incompatible with ours, we are going to burn through your lower haul' a voice replied.

Jacks eyes went wide 'The hell you are!' he shouted and reactivated the shields, he heard shouts moments later as the Raptor bounced of the shields. He then turned towards Carter 'Do we have transporters on this thing?'

Carter turned back to her station and fixed a lock on the passengers of the Raptor. In a flash three people materialized behind them.

'What the frack' one of them shouted.

Jack, Sam and Daniel all moved to the rear compartment to greet the newcomers.

Adama, Lee, and Roslyn marched onto the bridge.

Tigh turned to Adama, he had briefed the commander on the current situation, but he had also just received word that the craft activated it shields the moment the Raptor latched onto the underside of the ship causing it to bounce off. 'They wont let the Raptor party board' Tigh informed.

Adama took up a position beside the Dradus consol just as a report came through that 3 of the boarding party had just disappeared in a flash of light. 'Open a channel to that ship' he ordered.

'Channel open' Gaita replied.

'What have you done with my people!' Adama almost shouted.

'Sir, we are fine, it appears they have some sort of matter transference device' Rainor's voice came over the com link 'They didn't want us to damage their ship'. Adama sighed, this was further proof that the craft was not Cylon, matter transference technology was well beyond them. 'Sir, we have completed our check of the ship, they have no radiological devices, but some of their technology are giving off power readings beyond our ability to monitor'

Lara Roslyn had taken up position on the opposite side of the Dradus and had picked up a headpeace and listened to the entire exchange.

Adama looked to Roslyn and smiled 'You will escort them to the starboard landing bay'

The jumper glided into the landing bay with grace and hovered slightly above the ground as the floor beneath it retracted into a pressurized area. In its current configuration the jumper could not land without falling forward. It floated into a chamber with a red carpet laid down and what looked like a full diplomatic entourage waiting.

President Roslyn stood next to Adama, Lee and command Tigh who were all dressed in formal regalia for this meeting. The Earther craft was like nothing any of them could imagine, it was pale white and oddly shaped, the group wondered how it remained suspended in air without any form of thrust. And then the most amazing thing happened, the vessel swung around in the limited space to face its rear to the carpet. Roslyn thought it would smack its head against the bulkhead, but instead the vessel reconfigured itself in to an compact cigar shape and landed perfect. The rear hatch opened shortly after and three humans exited escorted by the boarding party.

'Welcome Aboard the Galactica' Roslyn smiled as she extended a hand to the older man who was clearly in charge 'I am President Lara Roslyn, this is Command William Adama, Captain Lee Adam, Colonial Tigh, and Lt Thrace'

'It's a pleasure to meet you fine folks' he replied shaking the presidents hand. 'May I introduce Colonial Samantha Carter and Dr Daniel Jackson'

After the introductions the group was lead to a conference room where the command crew, and Starbuck sat opposite the three humans from Earth.

'So, we finally found members of the mythical thirteenth tribe' Roslyn smiled.

Jack smiled back 'Well apparently so'

Carter chirped in 'We actually came here with an ulterior motive' she stated.

Tigh stared at her 'Ulterior?'

Daniel chirped in this time 'Yeah, you see were are looking for the ancients'

'The Ancients?' Starbuck questioned.

'Well you may not call them the ancients' Daniel continued 'Some cultures on my world called them the Road builders, they were brothers of the Alterians'

The word Alterian sparked something in Starbuck 'The Alterians were the brothers of the Gods' she remarked 'The ancient scriptures talk about how the God's heard the cry of the Alterians, but could do nothing to save them'

'Well that's actually true' Daniel replied 'You see 2 million years ago the ancients were suffering a plague, those that were not wiped out either ascended, or hid themselves aboard vast city-ships and traveled to other Galaxies. We have even uncovered one of the ancient Cities called Atlantis… anyway, the ancients sent out a distress signal throughout the universe, and because of how far away Earth is it took a million years to reach you, much to late to save the ancients'

'Millions of years?' Lee interrupted 'that's impossible, we just discovered a map to Earth its in this Galaxy'

'Um no it isn't' Carter replied 'We just came from Earth, its 281 billion light years away'

Adama pulled out a picture of a nebula and handed it to Carter 'do you recognize this body?'

Carter stared at the picture 'Of course, it's the crab nebula you can see it from Earth'

Adama pulled out more pictures of constellations and placed them in front of the humans 'What about these'

Jack looked at them and a strange look came over his face 'How did you get these pictures? You can only see these constellations from Earth' he demanded.

Roslyn sighed 'Then its true, Earth is not in this Galaxy'

'281 billion light years' Starbuck almost whispered 'We'd never have enough fuel to reach earth…' she then froze a moment and looked to the humans that sat before her 'How did you get here if Earth is so far away?'

'That's a little complicated' Daniel replied hoping Carter would not go into techno babble mode, but he was mistaken.

'We used a micro-singularity to open a wormhole between our two galaxies via a stargate' Carter replied.

The group returned a puzzled stare at Carter, which was broken by Apollo 'Can we use whatever you just said, to return the fleet to Earth?'

'No, we don't have technology to make a singularity nor do we have the defenses to tow a stargate into range of one… but' she continued 'Could you explain to me how your method of FTL travel works?'

'Our FTL drives work like every other FTL drive' Tigh replied 'Aren't your ships equipped with FTL drives?'

'Yes, but our drives run on different principles' Carter explained.

'Different principles?' Adama echoed.

'Yes, they work by opening a hyperspace window and surrounding the ship in a bubble of normal space as it enters hyperspace, thus allowing it travel at FTL speeds' Carter explained 'The only limitation to velocity in hyperspace is the amount of energy you can input, unlike normal space where light becomes a barrier'

'So exactly how fast can your ship fly?' Lee asked, clearly intrigued.

'About 1200 light years a second, at cruising velocity… much faster when we're clear of the galaxy' she replied.

'By the gods, you could span the galaxy in just over a minute' Starbuck gasped.

Daniel and Lt Thrace walked down the hallways of Galactica heading towards library. Kara seemed to be taking a liking to the Earthling 'Call me Starbuck' she stated as they exchanged names.

Daniel laughed at her name 'I'm sorry, its just that Starbuck is the name of a very popular coffee place on Earth' he apologized.

Starbuck smiled and the pair continued towards the library.

Carter had been escorted by Lt Gaita and was being shown the FTL plotting tables. She Gaita seemed to hit it off pretty well, and the pair talked about the sciences behind the use of FTL drives, she also learned much about why these humans were a mix of technologically superior and inferior components.

'So you actually blew up a sun' Gaita gaped in awe at Carters recollection of the events surrounding the destruction of Apohis fleet.

Carter smiled 'Yup, but it wasn't as difficult as you might think' she replied, then the two conversed over the method she had used, which lead to the sciences behind the stargate itself.

Jack had been escorted to the brig by Lee Adama and Halo, he had been told to call Lee by his call sign Apollo.

In the cell stood an Asian woman who seemed to be very happy at the sight of Halo. 'So this is the Cylon creature you were talking about' Jack commented as they approached the woman.

'Halo, who is this?' the Cylon asked.

'That's none of your business' Apollo shouted at the woman.

Jack looked to Apollo, he was clearly very angry at this creature and given what they had done to his people and to his father, he could understand. The Colonials had asked if they had sensors capable off detecting Cylon infiltrators and at the moment he was carrying a portable Asguard/Alterian hybrid scanning device.

Boomer looked at the man, he was wearing a uniform but it was clearly not Colonial and he had some strange device in his hands. 'Whats going on?' she asked.

'Its nothing to worry about Sharon, he's just going to do a few scans' Apollo tried his best to comfort her.

Jack pushed the device up against the cell and began actively scanning the woman. He was surprised when she let out a scream and fell to floor.

'What have you done!' Halo shouted, smacking the device out of Jack's hand and running into the cell.

Sharon was sprawled on the flaw in the fetal position, shivering, her skin appeared red as though she had been in a fire.

Jack picked up the scanner and looked at his readings, he now knew why the Cylon had reacted so badly to the scan. Though her skin was clearly organic, the cells contained molecular sized synthetic devices that were Kryeon in Origin. The same technology used by the Replicators. The hand scanner used a high level energy pulse that over energized the Kryeon based devices, causing them to burn into the organic cells. He recalibrated the device for a lower energy scan and stepped into the cell.

'Get away from her' Halo shouted, he had the woman in his arms.

Jack approached him slowly 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt her, I've reconfigured the device to scan her on a safer frequency' Jack tapped on the scanner screen causing a flash of light to deposit a medical kit beside him. He placed the scanner on the ground and pulled an Asguard bio regenerator from the med kit. He slowly moved towards the woman. 'Im just going to do something for her pain'

The woman reeled further into Halos arms as Jack approached them, as he kneeled next to the pair the device lit up in his hands and as he passed it over her the redness and scarring appeared to vanish.

'What is that thing?' Sharon managed to asked as the pain slowly subsided from her body.

'It's a bio regenerator, designed to repair cells on the molecular level' Jack replied 'I'm sorry about my scanner, I didn't realize you had Kryon pathways attached to your cells'

Sharon gasped, if they could detect her technological component, all her kind in their midst would be detected.