Author's note - this chapter is based on the fact that any one who comes through the gate is apparently qualified to be on a team :)

Clash of the Titans 2

Kara Thrace looked at the crumpled remains of her Viper and tried not to let the situation get her down. There was something of a bright side to the whole mess, she told herself. I could have crashed on a planet without oxygen. That was much more unpleasant than crashing onto a planet with lush greenery. Yeah, breathing versus not breathing, she knew what she preferred, but it was still a bad situation. She wasn't a half bad mechanic, in fact she knew that she was pretty good considering how little formal instruction she'd had, but there was always a point to where something broke and had to be replaced, not fixed. The Viper was not going to fly again, not without a massive refit.

And that meant that she was there to stay. It had been three days, one day more than what the commander would allow for a search. Worse yet, she had been off course so it was unlikely that a search party would have found her. It was time to face facts. The foggy green forest was going to be her new home for the foreseeable future.

She ran a hand through her short blond hair and breathed deeply. It could be worse, she supposed, but she wasn't sure how. She had taken the required Search Recon and Evasion course but only a head case would want to live that way all of the time. Even the instructors had to be rotated out occasionally. It didn't seem likely that she was going to find any alien life. The universe was pretty bare, as far as she knew, and knowing her luck she would run into something worse than Cylons. Besides, she had crashed a ship. It had not been stealthy, not at all. If there were aliens, she figured they would have been looking for her by then.

Still, the correct thing to do was to reconnoiter the area and make sure that she was not smack in the center of some alien nature preserve. The responsible voice inside her head, the one she liked to call "Lee Adama" was all for the idea. She really didn't have anything against the notion, except that it felt defeatist. It meant that she was going to spend the rest of her life on the planet she'd crashed on.

She picked up the pack of emergency supplies she had salvaged and settled it on her back. Her plan was to circle around the area and make sure that there were no Cylons in the area and no other potentially dangerous things in the heavy forest. At least I've got a gun, she thought darkly.

The pity, she thought as she roamed around the woods, circling farther and farther from her wrecked ship, was that it seemed like a pretty nice planet. Had she been able to report back to the Galactica, they might have considered it for colonization. Earth was the target but some of the ships were becoming increasingly unstable. Seeding a colony on some backwater pastoral planet was starting to look like a better option than forcing more and more people onto fewer and increasingly more crowded ships. It might even be safer to spread people out a little, but she hadn't planned on being the test case.

She had made a cursory walk around the immediate area when she had first crashed, enough to know there was potable water and live animals to eat if necessary, but as she walked, she had to admit that it seemed a shame that it didn't appear to be inhabited, at least not with intelligent life. Somehow she had expected that as they moved farther away from the colonies and from Kobol that at some point they would start to run into some Earth colonies. Or, more unlikely, alien sentient life. The colonies had never found any sort of alien life but that didn't exclude the possibility.

As she was musing on the idea, she reached the top of a short rise and found a meadow littered with large stone markers. It reminded her of the pictures she had seen of the ruins at Kobol, except for one glaring difference. In the center of the meadow, with all of the stone markers radiating from it like points, was a giant circle of metal.

" Well," she said softly, " someone must have lived here." She knew that wasn't entirely true. All the metal circle with the ring of stones around it meant was that someone had taken the time to build the site. By all appearances the place looked abandoned and well weathered. She stepped out of the tree line, with her gun out. Nothing swooped out at her, that was a good sign. She walked up to the giant ring. Kara had never paid much attention in the obligatory classes on ancient history but she couldn't help but recognize some of the many symbols that covered the wheel. More the pity that she was the one stuck there. Most everyone in the fleet was attending crash courses on the Pythian prophecies, but she, of all people, hadn't bothered. Now that she thought about it, there was a strange familiarity to the set up. Stone circles were a fairly common theme in a lot of parks on Caprica, although usually the center of the circle was devoted to a public religious altar or occasionally a play area. She wondered if the odd circle had somehow been left by the people who had colonized Kobol. There was plenty of evidence on Kobol, a number of people in the fleet said, that was a sign that Kobol had been colonized by Earth and not the other way around. She wasn't sure what she believed, but she doubted that it mattered any more. She would never see Earth, that was for certain. She sighed.

Suddenly she heard the sound of shots being fired. I'm not alone, she thought as she ducked behind the closest stone. More than one person, and more than one kind of weapon. She could hear the electric sound of energy weapons, and the more robust bangs of chemical propellant guns. Two men dressed in camouflaged uniforms burst out of the tree line, heading towards her position. Behind them, a row of armored men appeared, firing energy bolts. Both of the men were hit as they ran, and from the boneless way he fell, Kara knew that one was dead. The other was alive, and struggling to reach the small podium that was in front of the ring. In an instant, she made her decision.

She dove out from cover and came up on one knee, firing. The volley of fire took out the first four soldiers. They went down in a heap and she was surprised to see the last two start to run toward her. That took brave men. Stupid but brave. She calmly took aim and fired, dropping both. Now, she thought as she stood up, let's hope I made the right choice.

The uniformed man tried to move away as she walked towards him. " Take it easy, I'm friendly."

He eyed her carefully, scanning her outfit. She could see that he was in pain and wounded badly enough that leaving him would mean that he would die rather quickly. He didn't recognize her uniform, that much was clear. " Are you… one of the Jaffa? Or Tok'ra?"

"No," she said easily. The words he spoke were vaguely familiar, from the ancient religious texts. His accent was definitely not one of the common ones in the colonies and she didn't understand any of the rank badges on his uniform. " Are you expecting more of those guys?" She gestured to the fallen soldiers.

He nodded. " Help me up… to the DHD. I'll take you with me… the general will be pissed but…" he patted one of his pockets. She heard the crinkling sound of paper. " We need this intell. The Goa'ld are planning a big offensive. The whole system is… at risk."

There was a war on, with multiple players and she had crashed into the middle of it. She hoped that her luck was going to hold and that she was about to pick the right side. She helped the wounded man to his feet and half dragged, half carried him to the podium. He began to hit the various symbols, in a well remembered sequence. The large ring began to light up and spin and then it seemed as though water exploded from the ring, coming right at her, only to pull back, leaving a silvery force field in the ring.

"What is that?" she asked her companion.

He grinned, despite the pain he was in. " That's the gate. Haven't you ever… seen it before?" He was about to say more when they both heard the sound of many people running and more of the energy weapons being fired. The man began to look panicked. " We have to go!" He took a few steps away from the podium and collapsed.

"Fracking hell!" Kara muttered as she ran to him. She grabbed him up into a fireman's carry and ran towards the silvery force field. I don't like this, she thought as she looked at the shimmering field, but I think the folks chasing him aren't going to be too charitable either. She took a deep breath and jumped into the forcefield. It was ice cold and she couldn't seem to feel anything and yet also felt like her insides were being twisting to the outside. After what seemed like forever, she felt a force pushing her forward. She stepped and found herself standing on a steep metal ramp.

And all around her were armed soldiers pointing their guns directly at her.

It could still be worse, Kara told herself a few hours later as she sat at an interrogation table. I could be dead. Or on a planet with a deadly atmosphere. Or back on the other planet. The truth was, she had a pretty good feeling that the people who ran the base were more interested than angry over her arrival.

She had been taken to a holding cell immediately after arriving on the ramp. The man she had brought, who apparently was named Rogers, had been immediately taken by a group of medics. She thought they were medics, anyway. She had also been examined, while under guard, although the doctor had seemed more concerned with verifying that she was human than in checking on any possible injury. Whatever they were looking for, they didn't find it, and they seemed very relieved. Kara wasn't a fool though. She had walked into an armed camp. There would be an interrogation and these were military people.

The door to the room opened. " Tell General Hammond that we need to reschedule the Project Nine debriefing." The man who spoke stepped into the room, followed by two companions, a man and a woman. The first man, and the woman, were both in similar uniforms, dark green pants and shirts. Military, that she was fairly certain about, particularly since their outfits matched the armed guards in "the gate room". The third was in civilian attire, the sloppy sort of casual wear that Dr. Baltar wore. He had the same quizzical look, though he did seem to be lacking the odd physical twitches and sleazy leer of Dr. Baltar.

That was a plus.

The older man, gray haired but handsome, slapped down a pile of files. " So, who the hell are you?" He said it in a cheerful way, and he smiled. " I need to know who to thank for postponing an endless debriefing on who saw shiny objects in the sky in 1973."

So he was going to play the good cop. She was surprised. She had figured the good cop to be the attractive scientist guy. " Lt. Kara Thrace, of the Colonial Military. Where am I? How's your man? He said he was carrying some important information."

" What were you doing on that planet? P76A1 is uninhabited." That question was from the blonde woman. It was professional and to the point and Kara wondered if she was the one playing the bad cop. She just didn't seem tough enough.

" You should tell all those people that were shooting at us," Kara said easily. " I crashed my viper there. I was shot down."

" By Goa'uld ships?" That was from the younger man. He seemed very interested in her answer. " I'm not familiar with the colonial military. Where are you from, Lt. Thrace?"

" Where are you from? What's your name? Why the hell have I been treated like a criminal for helping your man?" She let her irritation come to the surface. These people, after all was said and done, were human. Her patience was wearing thin. " Who the hell are the Goa'uld anyway?"

The younger man smiled at her. " That answers one of my more important questions." He held out his hand to her. " I'm Dr. Daniel Jackson. We're Tau'ri. Does that mean anything to you?"

The problem was that it did mean something to her. Or, at least, she thought it did. She almost didn't want to be right. The sensation she had when going through the gate was one of extreme distance. That meant that the fleet was a very long way from it's final destination. If she was right.

On the other hand, if she was right, then there was a real place for the fleet to go, with a human population that had one hell of a neat travel trick. She suddenly wanted to be right.

" It's an old word, for the lost tribe. The lost tribe of Earth." She watched their reactions. They didn't seem terribly surprised. They shouldn't be, at least to her thinking. The thirteenth tribe must have some sort of tradition about the other tribes. They probably just weren't experts. She certainly wasn't. No, they weren't surprised, but only Dr. Jackson looked more than casually interested. " Is this Earth?"

The three looked at each other. " Yes, it is," the blonde woman said. " I'm Major Carter, and this is Colonel O'Neill and you rescued one of our scouts, which we do appreciate a great deal. You said you crashed your… Viper? Onto the planet… was anyone looking for you?"

" No, the fleet would have given up and moved on by now." She was trying very hard to keep cool. " We... the fleet… what's left of the colonies, we're looking for Earth. Do you have ships out there?" That came out in a rush. If Earth had such a powerful tool as the gate, then it stood to reason that they probably had ships either on that planet or nearby.

" Unfortunately, our space resources are very limited," Maj. Carter said slowly. " In fact, the majority of our interplanetary travel is with the gate. We're going to want to talk with you a great deal about where you're from and what you know, but you will be considered a guest here."

Dr. Jackson nodded. " I already have dozens of questions." He smiled reassuringly. " What about you, Jack?"

The colonel eyed her carefully. " I have a few." His tone suggested that his questions would be less friendly. " What did you do, in this fleet?"

She leaned back in her chair. " Primarily flew a viper against enemy assaults. I have some experience with interrogation, tactics, and sniper work, and I instructed others in flight." She didn't consider herself an expert in anything but flying but it wasn't the time to be modest.

" A pilot? Do you have a call sign?"

" Starbuck."

" Do you like coffee, Starbuck?"

Her eyes narrowed. He was making fun, that was obvious from his twinkling eyes and the covered smiles of his companions. " What's coffee?" she shot back.

" Well, fortunately we already have a barrista on staff." He seemed to consider her carefully again and then make a decision. " How would you like a job with us, Lt. Thrace?"