Chapter 15

Author's note: Thanks to my reviewers for pointing out the screw up in the previous chapter. I should have re-watched the miniseries before writing the chapter. I will fix it in my rewrite. Sorry for the delay, I have been really busy lately. Also, I am considering giving the story a different name. When I posted the first chapter, I wanted to make it about the first contact between the 12 colonies and an alien civilization. But then I got new ideas and took the story in a different direction.

It turned out that FTL capable ships had just left 10 minutes before the arrival of the Pacifica. Sheba's vipers managed to quickly destroy the attacking raiders, suffering only minimal casualties, and saving all but two of the civilian ships. After the brief battle was over, Crichton called for a meeting with all the surviving officers to develop a plan how to deal with the civilian ships. They could not stay here for long. The Cylons would eventually come back.

Sandra Robbins had regained consciousness and had been dismissed from sickbay along with several other crewmembers who had suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Not only did she have to deal with all that confusing new knowledge inside her head, but now she also suddenly found herself as XO of the Pacifica and had been called to report to her new CO. He was a stranger, a man named John Crichton, who had been picked up from one of the other battlestars. She had never heard of him before, but according to Hill he seemed very capable. On the way to the briefing the Lieutenant had briefed her on what had been going on during the time she had been unconscious.

"So, Captain Delgado is now getting your old job, as soon as he can use both hands again", Hill explained.

"Delgado was the leader of green squadron, saw him leaving sickbay with his arm in a huge cast", Robbins noticed.

"Yeah, he has been removed from active flight status. When he mentioned he broke his left arm in three places, Crichton warned him not to go to these three places anymore." Hill mentioned.

"This Colonel Crichton has a weird sense of humor." Which Colony was he from?"

"I don't know, but not Caprica and certainly not Gemenon"

In the meantime, Vipers were patrolling in flights of twos to watch out for returning Cylons and Raptors. Besides the regular CAP there were several flights patrolling further out in all directions.

"My wife is part of a top secret government project investigating an alien ship that was found in the Thetis Sector about three years ago. The ship is about the size of a battlestar and can take on enough passengers that we can evacuate several of the smaller ships." Crichton explained, hoping they would buy into his cover story for Moya's existence.

Many of the officers were surprised, but welcomed the news.

"Our repair teams will be able to restore power on the Botanical Cruiser within the next two hours, and we can take several hundred people aboard the Pacifica", Hill reported.

"That is still not enough. There are thousands of people on these ships."

"Is it possible to tow some of the other ships during an FTL jump? Something like a tractor beam, a magnet, super glue?" Crichton asked.

"There are possibilities, but I'm afraid we don't have enough time", Edwards, the acting deck chief answered. He had been in charge of the repairs, since Chief Collins had been critically injured in a fire when the Pacifica got hit in the recent battle.

Then the phone rang until an Ensign picked it up.

"Sir, this is from auxiliary control. Seems important. They are picking up a strange signal"

"Tell them I'm on my way", he said to the Ensign.

"Sorry folks, party is over. We will continue this briefing at a later time. Grab some snacks on your way out." Crichton said as he left to auxiliary control. Hill followed him.

Off course there were no snacks and Crichton's comment left looks of bewilderment on the faces of some of the officers, who were not used to his sense of humor. At least two of them feared that his lose command style would lead to lack of discipline among the crew. Unbeknownst to them, Crichton's sense of humor was what had prevented him from completely losing his mind during the years he had spent in the Uncharted Territories.

"Sir, we are picking up an audio signal", the comm officer on duty reported as Crichton entered the auxiliary control room.

"Is it from one of our ships?" Crichton asked.

"Unknown, sir. It's... music... a song. Uhm..., but I've never heard this song before", the comm officer answered.

"Put it on speakers"

"...Whether you're a brother

Or whether you're a mother,

You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive..."

John Crichton immediately recognized this song. He had an eerie feeing that this was a message specifically for him, since none of the Colonials had probably ever heard of the Bee Gees or listen to any of their songs.

"...Feel the city breakin'

And everybody shakin',

And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive..."

"Can you pinpoint the source of this signal?" Crichton asked. In the back of his mind he wondered if Scorpius was behind this.

"The signal originates from a location only a short jump away", the comm officer said and pointed at the coordinates on his screen.

"Prep a raptor. I'm going to check this out", Crichton decided.

"Sir, you are the highest ranking officer on this ship now. This could be a Cylon trap, I would advise extreme caution", Lt. Hill warned.

"I know this song and I'm pretty sure the Cylons don't. I need to check out the source of this signal myself.

"Robbins, you're in charge. Evacuate as many people as you can to the Pacifica. If the Cylons get back before I do, give them hell and then head to these coordinates." He gave her a small piece of paper with some numbers scribbled on it.

Crichton boarded one of the raptors together with a pilot, an ECO and two marines.

"Sir, what are we looking for when we get there?" the ECO asked.

"I wish I knew that myself", Crichton answered as the raptor took off and left the port flight pod.

After a short FTL jump the raptor arrived in an area of space near a fleet of 26 bulky, yellowish ships, which hung in space the way bricks don't.

"Those are not colonial in origin", the pilot said.

"Whoever did the paint job on those things must have been colorblind", Crichton added. "Can we contact them?"

"I am sending them a standard greeting on the same frequency they are transmitting that song, but no response", the ECO said.

They managed to dock the raptor with the first of the mysterious ships, the one that was transmitting the song, and went aboard. The ship had a breathable atmosphere and tolerable gravity, but the temperature was only slightly above freezing.

The team walked through the corridors and opened several doors. What they found surprised them. The interior of the ship seemed to consist mostly of storage rooms. While many of them were empty, others were filled with food and medical supplies. There were cans and jars with white labels that had their content written on it in black letters, in English. When Crichton and his team reached the bridge of this mysterious ship, they realized that the ship had been stripped of some components. The seats looked as if they had been installed as an afterthought and did not match the overall design of the bridge. Also, some of the controls had been taped over with labels in English. Despite some controls missing, the ship still appeared to have a functional FTL drive.