Authors Notes: I'm back from the mine, and the next 3 or so chapters will be laying the groundwork for future chapters.
Reply to reviews
Kou Shun'u: It's purely a coincidence that the majority of personnel in command are women… I was writing the story, and when I need to introduce a new character, I usually think 'most the ppl in this are male so far, so, I need a female character'… in the last couple of chapters, the characters introduced have been in command. I'll try to keep it even from now
Grayangle: thanks for the numerous reviews… there is a plan behind why the Cerebus has Earth's coordinates… it'll be coming up in 5-10 chapters or so.
Chapter 14
Three Months Later
Battlestar Galactica
Colonel Sol. Tigh was watching as Chief Tyrol and the rest of the deck crew was preparing some of the last remaining Raptors for what very well may be the most important mission they would ever undertake. The deck crew was upgrading the ships' sensor equipment with all passive remote sensing devices that it was capable of carrying. They were then going to load the rear cargo compartment with fuel and supplies, just in case the pilots of the Raptors would need them.
Four Months ago, Admiral Adama had suggested to himself, Starbuck, Apollo, and President Keikeya that they overshoot Earth and continue running in hope to lose the pursuing Cylons forever. They were gambling on the fact that the Cylons were just waiting for them to reach Earth so that they could then exterminate all of humanity in one quick movement. If they made enough jumps past Earth and changed their general direction a couple of times, the Cylons may never find them again. They had decided not to undertake that course of action two months ago, as repeated Cylon attacks had devastated both the fleet and the Galactica herself. Of the forty ships that had left the twelve colonies, nineteen were still with the fleet. They were quickly running out of ways to accommodate for all the civilians within the fleet without running out of resources. They needed to get to Earth, and they needed to get there now, in any hopes that the Thirteenth tribe would take them under their wing and offer to help them, if they were capable.
The Colonial ship the Adriatic which they had dispatched four months ago to race ahead to Earth had never returned from the fleet, and they hadn't heard from it since then. Obviously, it had been captured or destroyed by the Cylons, or had run out of fuel and was drifting in space somewhere 'behind' the fleet.
They were now roughly ten jumps away from Earth, and the Raptors were being dispatched, along with the Blackbird to jump ahead of the fleet and bring back an initial assessment of the solar system which Earth was supposed to be located in, according to Cylon information.
Tigh had seen the morale among the ship, and also in the civilian fleet. He thought that all the civvies needed to toughen up, but somewhere in his mind, he also knew that they needed a rest. They were literally packed into the remaining ships like sardines, with viruses sweeping through the population every week. He knew that they had it fairly good on the Galactica, although their standard of living was deteriorating rapidly as well. They needed this mission, and he hoped to the Gods that the Raptors would bring some good information back to the fleet.
Lt. Agathon was just staring at them, locked up in separate cells, not even communicating with each other. They were staring back at him, both clearly with a haunted look in their eyes, not sure if they were beyond the verge of insanity or not.
"You should know, we're going on a mission to Earth in a couple of hours," Helo said to the forms of Baltar and Gina in front of him. He noticed Gina gaze straight into his eyes, still a distant look in them.
"If there's anything left of the planet when you get there," Gina said still distant. Helo had had enough and turned around to exit the brig, a plan in his mind already.
"It doesn't matter. Once we get there, I'm going to make you pay for what you did," Helo replied, his mind racing back to the instant when the Number Six model had killed the pregnant Sharon Valerii, another Cylon, in cold blood.
Planetary Defence Organisation – Earth
Leoben was mentally going over the preparations one more time. He had to make sure that everything was exactly right. From the intelligence he had acquired from a download from a single Raider which had jumped into the system, the Galactica and her fleet was due to arrive in the area of Earth within the week, two weeks at the outside, depending on how fast they decided to get here. The plan was simple, and as far as he knew, Earth's law enforcement authorities hadn't found any of the devices as of yet, but then again, they weren't looking. He looked over to his associate, D'Anna Biers as she was preparing to present another news report. This time, she was interviewing key staff among the PDO's personnel about the writings that had been found about the twelve tribes of 'Kobol'.
BBC News Bulletin
"Good Afternoon and welcome to the BBC Space Revolution Show. Today we are at one of many offices of the Planetary Defence Organisation, and we will be talking to a number of personnel who have agreed to an interview. Today, the topic is the rumoured Twelve Tribes of mankind, which the PDO declassified information on just three days ago. Our first interview is with Dr. MacGuwyre, one of the head scientists with the PDO. Dr. MacGuwyre, it is a privilege to be here with you today, and we thank you for participating in this interview," Biers said.
"Any time D'Anna,' MacGuwyre replied.
"So, to start off. For those unfamiliar with the information which was released by your organisation three days ago, can you quickly summarise it for us?" Biers asked.
"Gladly," MacGuwyre replied. "Information was found within 'The Great Ship' that told of a planet called Kobol. On this planet, thirteen tribes of mankind existed, much like nations. A war broke out on the planet between the first twelve tribes, and the thirteenth tribe, us… For some reason, presumably the war, the planet had to be evacuated. The twelve tribes of mankind went one direction, and we went another direction and settled upon this planet. There is much controversial evidence about the timing that this thirteenth tribe supposedly arrived on Earth. Some say it was thousands of years ago, at the very beginning of human civilisation. Other evidence suggests that it may have well been as little as four hundred years ago," MacGuwyre explained. D'Anna Biers just nodded her head, already knowing the information.
"One of the rumours floating around is that these Twelve Tribes may already be on their way here, and may have hostile intentions; that they may even be the people who launched the attacks against this world?" D'Anna Biers said.
"So far, we are about sixty percent sure that the Twelve Tribes may still have hostile intentions towards us, but we are unsure whether they are the ones who launched the attacks upon us," MacGuwyre replied.
"Any statement to the rumours that you have captured an unknown ship entering the Solar System, and have captured an enemy soldier in a raid on Chicago, where the PDO denied any enemy incursion had occurred, but continued to bomb the city and lose fighters in the process?" Biers asked, cutting right down to it.
"I can only say that those are nothing more than rumours. We have been bombing Chicago to test some new weapons and as training exercises. The city was hit with approximately five nuclear warheads, and will be unlivible for the next couple of hundred years," MacGuwyre replied.
"What of the locations of these Twelve Tribes? Do we know where they are?" Biers asked him.
"From the information we have gathered, we believe that the Twelve tribes each settled around one of the stars in the constellations of our zodiac. In other words, we believe that there is one tribe inhabiting one, or more, solar systems in the stars that make up the constellations of Aquarius, Aries, Capricorn, and the other constellations of the Zodiac," MacGuwyre replied.
"Any talks of travelling to these systems and establishing contact or launching a retaliatory strike if they are responsible for the attacks against us?" D'Anna asked.
"It has been considered, but with our current technology, it would still take years to get to the closest one…" MacGuwyre replied.
Poseidon class Vessel – Solaria
They had finally arrived at their destination, after spending days in hyperspace and Commander Galtua was glad that she had been chosen for this mission. The fleet that her ship was a member of had travelled the greatest distance from Earth in the history of mankind, and they were the first ones to arrive in another solar system which possessed planets, four of them to be exact.
"Jump completed successfully. Reading signals from all ships of the fleet. Awaiting orders from the Soperta," the Radar officer said out loud. Commander Galtua nodded her head in recognition and looked up to the monitors which showed images of the rest of the fleet. The Soperta was Earth's second Triton class Battleship, and apart from a few modifications from the original Triton, she was identical. The ship, as well as the rest of the ships in the fleet, possessed three hyperdrive generators, along with a separate power generator for each. Both of the Poseidon class ships, as well as a number of smaller support ships that had been built for this operation had been modified to accommodate for these three hyperdrives. The three hyperdrives allowed the fleet to travel almost completely in hyperspace, with minimal time spent stopping to let the hyperdrive cool down and the power to recharge. The idea was that once the first hyperdrive began to overheat, the ship would drop out of hyperspace, and then enter hyperspace using the second hyperdrive generator, and so on. Once the third had reached it's overheating point, the first hyperdrive would be almost ready to go. This allowed the fleet to travel great distances in a much shorter time.
Their mission was to begin to explore the area in the direction of some of the constellations of the zodiac, and currently they were heading towards Capricorn. Although they were a very long way from reaching the constellation, it was a start. This was the fartherest their mission would take them this time, but Commander Galtua was sure that they would be back here and continue onwards to one of the constellations. They were also to explore the system's planets, for minerals and any chance of habitability and/or long term terraforming once the technology became available.
"Sir, Soperta is requesting all ships to launch their Falcon wings. It detected an unknown contact in-system when we came out of hyperspace, but it hasn't detected it again as of yet," the Communications officer said to Galtua.
"Launch Falcon squadron. Expand our Radar range to maximum and start scanning with all sensors," Commander Galtua ordered.
Colonial Ship Adriatic
Riley Tuoa had finally been let out of the cell that he had been held in on Earth, only to be held in another cell. This one was much larger, and was in the shape of his ship, the Adriatic. The rest of the crew had been released, and they had been ordered to accompany a fleet of Earth ships as they exited the solar system. Since the Earth's mode of FTL was much different, and much more inefficient than that of the Adriatic, they were ordered to meet the Earth fleet at their destination. It would take the Adriatic three jumps to reach their destination, while it would take approximately half a week for the Earth ships to get there, using their new FTL system. While it was their own ship, they were outnumbered by four to one by Earth's marines. This was their last jump and then they would be rendezvoused with the remainder of Earth's fleet.
"FTL in 5…4…3…2…1…," his co-pilot said. With a flash of Light, the ship disappeared from space and arrived in a solar system light years away.