Authors Notes:

I made a bit of a blunder last chapter, that's why it's taken so long to write this one; figuring out how to fix it. More Authors Notes at the bottom of the chapter

Reply to reviews:

Grayangle: The spots along the way to Earth were just systems with high amounts of resources – the stops that the Cylons did along the way if you will. They'll be important later on in the story

Tweeky: I'm getting to that. It'll be happening in a much, much different way than what's expected, I think.

Thanks for the reviews everyone.

Chapter 16

Colonial Battlestar Galactica

Admiral Adama was looking up at the DRADIS screen at the single enemy contact that had appeared near the fleet only moments ago. The CAP had been dispatched to investigate the target, but the size of it suggested that it was a Raider.

"Sir, receiving a signal from the contact," Dee, the communications officer said to him. "Video and Audio only," she added.

"Very well. Lets see it," Adama said to Dee. Moments later, an image appeared on the screen she had designated for viewing the video. Adama looked up at the screen, only to see static. Soon, it was replaced by what appeared to be an aerial view of a large city. The camera slowly panned across the city. Adama walked closer to the monitor as he viewed the video, and he sensed that Colonel Tigh did the same.

"My Gods," Tigh said as he was almost right in front of the monitor.

"What Colony is that from?" Adama heard someone ask.

"It's not from the Colonies," Adama replied. The image of the city stayed on the monitor for another few minutes before cutting away to an image of a woman standing on the ground, in what appeared to be the city from the shot earlier. Adama was stunned that he recognised her.

"To the Colonial Fleet. I am a number seven model Cylon Agent, D'Anna Biers, and I am here standing in a city called New York, on the Thirteenth Colony. We know that you are approaching the thirteenth tribe…," The image of D'Anna Biers said on the video. "Any attempts by any ship in the Colonial Fleet to contact Earth will cause the detonation of forty nuclear devices which are scattered around the planet in cities such as this, and will result in a significant Cylon attack against both your forces and the forces of Earth…" she said before the video cut out for good. Adama stood there stunned for only a moment before he turned to Lieutenant Gaeta,

"Gaeta. Assemble the marines and begin searching the fleet for D'Anna Biers," he ordered.

PDO Facility – Unknown Location

He had been held captive here ever since the Colonial Adriatic had been 'captured' by members of the Thirteenth Colony after one of their officers had been shot by the Cylon on board. He had heard that the rest of the crew had been let out of their cells, and were now piloting the Adriatic under the 'advisement' of Earth's military; but yet, he was still stuck in here, in his cell. He still received daily beatings from marines under the command of MacGuwyre, and it was only in the last couple of weeks that he had come to know MacGuwyre's name. There was another major player that came to see him every now and then, Miller, but he was still bombarded with questions about his origins and intentions of his people.

He heard a sound and looked up to see a very small package shoved through the slit in the door to his cell, and he recognised it as his meal for today. He slowly got up off of the floor so that he was crawling on his hands and knees towards the food, but halfway there the muscles in his wrist gave out and excruciating pain was sent through his arm. He held his upper body above the floor with his other arm and made his way over to the food box. He opened the package to find a small container of what was called 'Mashed Potato', and he had two 'carrot' sticks. Every week, when he refused to divulge information his rations would decrease. He used to get a full meal when he first got here, mostly composed of a white meat which tasted a lot like a daggit, but that had stopped too soon.

There was one person out there, in the facility that was looking after him. He recognised him as a Leoben model. He had had a few quick encounters with him, and he was assured that things were being done to get him out of the cell, and that the main attack force of Cylon vessels was on it's way from the overrun Colonies. He couldn't wait until that day came, and he would finally be able to inflict some revenge onto the peoples of the thirteenth tribe.

One Day Later – PDO Air-Base – Turkey

It was risky business, but Simon knew that it had to be done. It had been decided because of recent developments in Earth's political structure, that changes to the Cylon plan had to be made. This copy of Simon was a technician for the engines on the Falcon and Albatross craft which came and went from the Airbase. His job today was to attend to the Australian Falcon and the American Albatross wings that had landed. These two wings were to escort Turkish officials to France for official talks regarding the assassination of Quinn Geraldini, a leading member of the "Friendly Colonies" movement on Earth. The two fighter wings were being used to escort the Turkish officials as an official show of power by the IAO, to remind the French and Swedish governments that there was now a much more active international governing body on Earth. That was the official story released to the press anyway, in reality, Simon suspected that the PDO's stance on the "Friendly Colonies" political movement was much the same as the French and Swedish Governments.

He approached the first Falcon, climbed the ladder next to the cockpit and opened it. He looked at the name plate which was attached to the controls, and it read Henry O'Connell.

"Poor bastard which has to fly this," Simon thought as he unscrewed the front panels covering the main computer systems of the fighter. He then reached into his backpack and retrieved an Earth created network cord and connected the computers up. He then reached into his backpack and grabbed a modified Cylon device, and plugged it into the back of one of the computers. He closed the cockpit and climbed down the ladder and started moving onto the next craft.

BBC News Report

Simultaneous bombings occurred today in Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Spain and Thailand, each bombing targeted at leaders of the 'Friendly Colonies' faction of political leaders world wide. The 'Friendly Colonies' faction is calling on the International Affairs Organisation to act and start to root out these terrorists. The IAO has stated that they will start using all of their resources to try and track down those responsible for these attacks.

Fingers are being pointed towards the French and Swedish Governments, but both have come out and officially denied the claims. It is known that the attack in Thailand was carried out using two F-22 Raptor aircraft. Speculation has claimed that a terrorist cell is operating against the 'Friendly Colonies' faction, but it has been stated today that no known terrorist organisation possesses military aircraft, however the German, Argentinean, Brazilian, Spanish, Thai and Turkish governments have raised their military alert level, as well as a number of other countries in which members of the "Friendly Colonies" faction are said to reside.

PDO Airbase – Centre of Australia

Flying Officer Steven McDonaldson looked out of the cockpit of the A8-001, formerly designated X8 aircraft, the Artillery/Bomber aircraft that had been developed by the PDO. This was the first actual flight of the operational aircraft beyond prototype stage. McDonaldson looked along the specially built runway in one of the Airbases of the PDO. There was absolutely nothing around them for hundreds of kilometres, so they could do what they wanted. He turned his head to check that the rest of the crew was strapped down and ready for take off. Behind him to the right was the sensors and communications officers, sitting facing their consoles which were on the right side of the craft. Behind him to his left sat the navigation and weapons officers, facing their consoles on the left side of the craft. He looked above him to the screen showing the crew compartment directly behind the craft, and he was glad to see that the five crew were strapped into their chairs, although there was a room for a couple squads of marines if needs be. The rest of the craft was mainly cargo space, for cargo, ships, and ammunition for the craft.

He gave a nod to his communications officer, and turned back around to look out the front cockpit of the aircraft. He could see from his console that the wings were situated behind the aircraft, and he pushed the lever up to rotate the wings out from behind the aircraft. The aircraft itself was forty-five metres in length, twelve metres wide, and had a thirty-four metre wingspan, when the wings were rotated out. Simply put, the Hawke craft was a little shorter than, and a little wider than, a Boeing 737 aircraft, and a hell of a lot heavier. He rotated the wheel situated beside his seat to rotate the twin rotateable engines, as situated on an Osprey aircraft, so that the exhaust was pointing downwards. The design had been made so that when the engines were vertical, the intake would be just behind the wings, if they were rotated outwards. The power of the Osprey engines wouldn't be enough to get them off the ground, or to let the aircraft hover, but it would help it get off the ground and slow it's descent when landing in an atmosphere.

McDonaldson heard his communications officer relay the communication that they were cleared for takeoff. He put the flaps down on the aircraft and started to rev up the two large engines which took up most of the rear of the craft. He also began to rev up the four smaller engines which were situated on the sides of each engine housing, jutting out of the back of the craft. When the rumbling of the engines was reverberating around the whole ship, he disengaged the brakes and the Hawk ship began to roll along the extra-long runway. He engaged the Osprey engines watched as the craft accelerated. They were very quickly approaching the end of the runway, but the craft wasn't about to get off the ground.

"Come on, lift, lift," McDonaldson said to himself. It was just the moment when he began to believe that the craft wouldn't lift off the ground, when he felt the nose come up. He then felt the air hit the wings, and lift the craft off of the ground just before the end of the runway. "Mick, tell the rest of the wing that they'll need to push it to take off," McDonaldson said to the communications officer. Steve hit the lever to put the wheels up and he pointed the nose of the craft upwards into the sky.

Not even half an hour later, and the blue sky was disappearing to be replaced by blackness as they exited the upper atmosphere of the Earth and entered space. That would be the last time his Hawk craft would be in an atmosphere for a very long time. There was a total of thirty Hawks launching today, and none of them would return to Earth unless it was absolutely necessary, as it was too much effort for the giant craft to exit the atmosphere. Instead, each of the aircraft would serve as a mobile defence and sensor satellite orbiting the Earth, getting re-supplied from Osprey craft, as there was a hatch on the top of the craft which allowed Ospreys to dock with them. Some craft would also be going to the asteroid belt, to assist in mining operations, as their very large guns could be used to blast apart asteroids, instead of having to waste a missile each time, the large shells could be used. As far as Henderson knew, each of the craft were also carrying a defence satellite which they were to place in orbit before moving off to their designated missions. There were only a select few craft, Henderson's included, which weren't doing any of the previous missions. They were heading to Europa, the ice covered moon of Jupiter, where they had just discovered months before, contained an underground ocean that encompassed the entire planet, and in their cargo hold were two Manta class underwater vessels developed by NUMA, and a hell of a lot of construction equipment.

Steven McDonaldson asked the Navigation officer if the jump to Europa was calculated, and after receiving an affirmative, he hit the lever to rotate the wings so that they were now behind the craft, and he engaged the hyperdrive. The jump to Europa was about the limits of the hyperdrive that was onboard the Hawk craft, but they had been told that scientists from the PDO were very close to discovering a new technology which would allow them to jump to the next star system, almost instantaneously.

Once they exited Hyperspace an hour later, McDonaldson was surprised to see the amount of activity occurring before his eyes. He had been briefed about the project, but he didn't think it would be going along this quickly. There were two Poseidon class ships in orbit around the moon, with what looked like dozens of Osprey craft buzzing around both near the surface and the pair of ships. He looked down to the moon, and he could see the tiny set of lights which indicated the small base which had just been completed on the surface, insignificant when compared to what they had planned beneath the surface in the Icy Ocean of the moon.

Viper CAP - Colonial Fleet

Lee Adama sat in the cockpit staring at the DRADIS screen, the blank DRADIS screen. He had been flying CAP for three hours now, and he had three hours to go. The repetitiveness of his activities was slowly smothering his will to live. All he did was fly CAP, shoot Cylons, sleep, eat, and repeat. It never got any different. He was sick of living in space, always in fear of attack, always fleeing the Cylons. Now, they were just two jumps from Earth, and they couldn't proceed because the Cylons would decimate a large number of cities around the planet with nuclear weapons which were supposedly planted in them. Sure, there was a great variation in the ways he flew his Viper and killed Cylons, sometimes almost being killed by the Cylons himself, but in the end, it was just the same thing.

He had been very, very, sceptical about the whole idea of Earth, and the lost thirteenth colony. Eventually, over time, it had become a kind of goal for him – to reach Earth. Once there, they could finally rest, or have some of the responsibility for protecting the fleet taken off of them. He was sure that they'd need to work to build up a fleet capable of protecting them from the Cylons, if Earth didn't have one itself. He knew that he'd probably still have to fly Vipers and protect the Galactica, but he would at least get to set foot on a planet, have a home outside his rack that he shared with others, maybe even find a nice Earth girl and settle down. He had began to view Earth as their salvation – once they got there, everything would become easier. He now knew that that wasn't the case; that it was never the case. They couldn't reach Earth because of the Cylons. The thought occurred to Lee that a lot of people onboard the Galactica as well as people within the fleet were probably going through the same things as him right now. At the beginning, everyone was sceptical of Roslin's faith in the scriptures and Earth, but it had turned out she was right. He had seen the planet with his own eyes, albeit, from very far away onboard the Raptor on their one, and only scouting mission to the planet.

It was then that an idea formed in Lee Adama's mind. They didn't have to just sit here and wait for the Cylons' next move. They could do something about it. He wasn't sure if his father or President Keikeya would approve of the idea, but they had to give it a shot. It may take them years to complete it, but, once they did, they'd finally be able to make a stand.

Authors Notes: Well, my blunder was – the Galactica wasn't meant to get this close to Earth till much later. Too many things have to happen on Earth first. So, well, I came up with a method to fix that.

It might be a while till next update. I'll try to make it tomorrow however. I have many many 'pieces' (things that need to happen) on Earth, but I gotta find out how to put em together, and in the right order. And, even then, I don't know if these 'pieces' will make the right 'picture' (if we're using a jigsaw analogy). Hope you enjoyed, and leave plenty of reviews.