Author's note:
WarBeserk: Suit yourself. This story had already been a multi universe crossover since chapter 2, if you haven't been paying attention.
Ridli Scott: I didn't want Gina and all those people on Cloud 9 and the other ships to die. Having the Doctor show up to defuse the warhead seemed the best solution at the time. He will play an important role in later chapters.
Robo Reader 21: Thanks for always keeping me on my toes about inconsistencies. By the way, I have the multiple universes under control and I am even planning to add a few more. Yes, I'm insane. Don't Panic.
All reviewers: Thanks again for taking the time to read my story and posting comments. Your comments help me greatly improving my story.
Several raptors had landed on different locations in the habitable part of the planet. Each raptor, except the two sent to capture the missile installation, carried a pilot, an ECO, and two marines. Some of them had civilian scientists and engineers on board as well.
"There is an opening over here. I think we should check that out", one of the marines shouted.
"Looks like a tunnel", Helo said. That's definitely worth checking out."
Helo contacted the Pegasus and reported what they had found. Then he and his team entered the tunnel. After a while they discovered some strange symbols on the wall, which Helo suspected to be Old Kobolian.
In the meantime, Racetrack and Skulls had landed with their team on a plateau in a rocky area. Their task was to determine if this would be a suitable site to build a communications tower.
It went dark rather quickly on this part of the planet. After they had been walking for a while, Racetrack got hungry for a snack and realized that she had forgotten her candy bar in the Raptor and decided to go back and get it.
"I forgot something in the Raptor. I'll be right back", Racetrack said and walked away from the rest of her group for a moment.
"Watch out for bug-eyed monsters", Skulls joked.
After she had gotten the candy bar out of the raptor and slowly unwrapped it on her way back, she thought she had heard something and stopped for a moment.
"You chose a cold night to visit our dead planet", a voice behind her said. She turned around and saw an old man in a white robe with long grey hair and a long grey beard standing a few feet away from her. She immediately recognized him as the old man from the hologram.
"Who are you?" she asked him.
"My name is not important", he answered and began taking measurements with a strange instrument, some sort of electronic sextant which emitted a series of short, fast beeps.
"You kinda scared me, popping out of nowhere behind my back", she said.
"Do not be alarmed. I will not harm you", the man reassured her.
"But you fired nuclear missiles at our ship", Racetrack said.
"An automated system. Ancient computers ranged in the long caves deep in the bowels of the planet tick away the long millennia and the ages hang heavy on their dusty databanks. I believe they take the occasional potshot to relieve the monotony. I'm a great fan of science, you know", the old man explained, walking around. Then he stopped and looked through his instrument again.
Racetrack thought the man must have been a junior officer or junior crewman on his first tour in his late teens or early twenties at the time when his ship had crashed here fifty some odd years ago. If there had been other survivors, most of them would have died of old age by now.
"Really?" she asked.
"Oh, yes", he answered.
She pulled out her comm unit to report that she had met a stranger on the surface, but it didn't seem to be working.
"You seem ill at ease", the man said, suddenly standing behind Racetrack.
"Yes, well, actually I don't think we expected anyone to be around. In fact, no disrespect, but I figured you were all dead", Racetrack said, still thinking he was a crewmember of a ship that had crashed here decades ago.
"Dead, no. We have but slept for five million years. Nothing much seems to have changed"
"Slept? For five million years?" Racetrack couldn't believe what she was hearing. This guy is a few feathers short of a whole duck, she thought. She decided not to tell him that the Cylons had destroyed the Colonies, for fear that might upset him.
"Yes, through the economic recession." he explained.
"Economic recession?" she asked confused.
"Well, you see, five million years ago the galactic economy collapsed, seeing that custom built planets are something of a luxury commodity. "You know we build planets here?"
"I kind of figured that", she said, playing along. He must have gone insane from being on that planet here all by himself for the last 50 years, she thought to herself. He had probably spent most of that time watching science fiction movies and reading comic books that had survived the crash, that's where he had gotten his crazy ideas from. Maybe he had hit his head pretty hard when his ship crashed.
"Fascinating trade. Doing the coastlines was almost my favorite thing. I used to have endless fun doing all the little fiddly bits around fjords. Well, anyway, the recession came and we thought it would save a lot of bother if we just slept through it. So we programmed the computers to revive us when it was all over. "
"Huh?"
"They were index linked to the galactic stock market prices, you see? So that we would all be revived when everybody else had the economy revived enough to be able to afford our rather expensive services"
"Isn't that rather unethical behavior?" she asked, just to keep the conversation going.
"Ah, is it? I'm afraid I'm a bit out of touch."
"Have you guys seen Racetrack? She should be back by now", Skulls asked the two marines.
"She is right over there", one of them said, pointing with his finger.
"I wonder who that old guy is", Skulls said, "Looks like the one from the hologram".
"I don't know. He just showed up a few minutes ago and she's been following him around since then", the marine said.
Racetrack and the man came closer and the marines pointed their rifles at him.
"Put your guns down, he's harmless", she said to the marines.
"You heard what the young lady said. I don't think you would want to shoot an unarmed old man", he said to the marines.
The marines slowly lowered their rifles.
"This is Lt. McCall and these are Sgt. Nowart and Sgt. Fischer", she introduced her team.
"And this is, err. Excuse me, what is your name, by the way?"
"My name? My name is Slartibartfast"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Slartibartfast"
"Slartibartfast?" Racetrack laughed
"I said it wasn't important"
The day after his inauguration as president of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, Dr. Baltar sat behind his desk aboard Colonial One, looking at a report in front of him that had the word "CONFIDENTIAL" printed on the cover page.
"Maintenance crews found a nuclear warhead inside a storage room aboard Cloud Nine this morning. We suspect the warhead was stolen from your lab, then smuggled aboard Cloud Nine by a Cylon agent with the intent to detonate it", Adama told him.
"Can I interest you in a cup of tea... ambrosia, whiskey?" Baltar offered, visibly uncomfortable with the topic, considering his involvement in getting the warhead aboard Cloud 9.
"Mr. President. This may be the first step of a coordinated Cylon attack." Adama said, "I suggest our first priority be to focus in on internal security."
"No. No, I don't think so. My first priority is to the people. To see that they are safely established... on New Caprica", Baltar said, trying to change topics.
"You're not listening"
"I don't have to listen. I'm the president", Baltar said defiantly and sipped his drink. "The settlement begins and it begins now."
Admiral Adama had his orders from the president. They were to settle on the recently discovered planet, and there was nothing he could do about it now. At least he had managed to convince President Baltar to let him send out survey teams in raptors first to explore the planet to make sure that there are no threats and that the location chosen for settlement is really the most suitable one.
Meanwhile, Adama was to coordinate all the logistics involved in landing a large portion of the fleet with the captains of the individual civilian ships, and prepare the Galactica and Pegasus to run with skeleton crews. As soon as the ground teams had returned and been debriefed, the first ships would land in their designated landing areas.
Below the surface of the planet, Helo and his team had been wandering through the tunnel for quite some time. Suddenly they heard footsteps.
"I thought I just saw a movement down at the end of the corridor", a man who had served as Helo's ECO said.
The two marines pointed their rifles in the direction the sounds were coming from. "Who's there?" Helo shouted, "Identify yourself!"
"Please do not kill Zathras", a middle aged, slightly hunchbacked man pleaded, raising his hands. His face looked mottled, as if he was suffering from some kind of skin disease, and he was wearing shabby clothes made from animal skins. Clothes that looked as if he had probably made them himself.