Okay, really excited about this one guys. I'll be showing the new bad guys! I'm really excited, hope you guys are too.
Chapter 16
Location: Terra Nova, Fort Jacob Carter Training Preserve
Date: February 16, 2025
Time: 1900
The recent unknown discovery had been something that no one had seen coming, and it was being taken very, very seriously. The EDF had taken the pentagonal structure out of the cave, and quarantined it within a large station in orbit constructed for just such an occasion. The reasons were simple, and learned through hard-earned experience.
But by now they were learning a few things about what Sergeant Hanson and Hannah McGee had unearthed well below ground. However, one of those things had the scientists puzzled a great deal. So the one and only General Samantha Carter had decided to take it upon herself to figure out what it was. A large egg-shaped object that they'd surmised to be a ship of some sort now sat in a frozen laboratory. It took up quite a lot of the room, and had a team of HAZMAT suited scientists moving around with all manner of equipment.
O'Neill walked up to a window overlooking the dark colored vessel with Carter down among them, running a scan over it as she tried to get into the inside of the craft.
"Enjoying yourself Carter?" he said into the speaker.
"Not really sir, this…thing isn't like anything we'd expected. It's…not from a civilization we've ever come across."
"Not Ancient?" O'Neill surmised.
"No sir, the markings don't jive, totally different style, it seems more akin to…personalized graffiti pilots put on their aircraft. I've sent pictures to Daniel to see if he can make sense of it."
"So any idea what it's for then?" O'Neill persisted.
Carter smiled in her HAZMAT suit, shaking her head she was about to speak when one of their scientists with a simple crowbar finally got what he was looking to do. A sudden thud and subsequent hiss signaled that success.
"General! We've got something."
Carter quickly walked over, stepping up to the man as he and several others had started shining flashlights into the opening. Carter signaled for them to open the hatch fully, and a pair of strong scientists stepped forward with a long pole and began wedging it open. The craft began opening in three directions, three panels going up and out. A pair of guards aimed their rifles over the shoulders of the scientists, but there wasn't anything or anyone to be worried about.
"Oh God," Carter said as she stepped back.
Lying on the floor was a single mummified body, with an odd bodysuit with dull ceramic silver and black on it. The scientists with queasy stomachs turned away, some of them retching in their suits. Carter took of it all, and saw that the interior was as advanced as anything she'd ever seen. There was a glass and metal screen that wrapped around a seat bolted to the floor that was as dead as the man's body. However she also saw that there were minuscule beams of light shining through, indicating that the craft had a series of catastrophic hull breaches.
"Carter?" O'Neill asked.
"We've got a body, probably human, as for the ship…no idea sir, no obvious control surfaces aside from a screen, and the markings…" she said as she examined it closely, "Still unfamiliar."
"Alright, what're your guesses?"
"It could be anything from an escape pod to an exploration craft. The fact is I don't have a clue."
"That doesn't happen very often," O'Neill laughed, "Which means this won't have much of a break from you."
"Not in the near future sir," she surmised.
"So it'll be solved quickly then?" he quickly asked.
"We'll have to see sir, so far we're having to start from the bare minimum of the basics. Hopefully I can have something for you within a few days."
"Thanks Sam," O'Neill said as he stood up, knowing he wasn't going to be prying her away unless something far more dire came up, "Play nice with the other kids now."
O'Neill turned to leave and made for his staff car, a newly arrived black Chevy Tahoe complete with bodyguard and driver with a pair of flags with his rank insignia flapping on the hood. The vehicle was parked in the underground tunnel garage that connected to a network of underground and above-ground roads that wound their way through the Special Research Division Headquarters, Stargate Command, and the multitude of bunkers, hangars, and other such aspects of Fort Jacob Carter.
"Sir, General Landry," his aide said over his shoulder, passing a secure phone to him.
"Hank…what's new?" O'Neill greeted his second in command.
"Contact with the Colonials again Jack. This time there was no avoiding it, they inadvertently Bat-Phoned us."
"Okay what happened and how'd it happen?" Jack said quickly as he got into his car.
"An old contact on one of Yu's old capital worlds dialed in, saying they had a decently advanced people looking for the Taur'i. Of course we went, but it turned out to be the Colonials again for SG-1. Don't worry, Colonel O'Neill handled it, no bloodshed, a few cuts and bruises on the body and egos for some of our people and theirs but ole Bra'tac showed up after hearing of the meeting and got things going towards a peaceful meeting."
"That so?" Jack asked, annoyed at the way things had just happened after explicit orders to try and steer clear from the Colonials.
"Don't tell me you didn't expect something like this to happen Jack, you've been in the game too long to not believe in Murphy," Landry laughed.
"Well I think I'm really starting to appreciate what ole George had to put up with."
"You and me both."
Imperial Palace Meeting Chamber, P6R-111
The two sides sat opposite of one another, their civilian leadership sitting in the foremost positions while each had their military escorts, absent, excluding their military commanders standing behind them. At the head of the Earth team was the young Brenda Jackson, stoic and in the zone of politics, her natural environment.
The Colonials sat with the same two people she's spoken with earlier, Agent Fraser and Dr. Beverly, both professional as well. It was a veiled blessing that they'd been captured because it seemed that the Colonials were far more conciliatory than before, and the first thing that happened was an apology. It was a huge sign of the way the Colonials, in Brenda's mind, had changed.
Before, when she'd actually gone with her father to the Cultural Exhibition on Caprica, they'd been very prideful, showing off all they had to offer to her and Earth as a whole. The best way to describe it was a sales pitch, and the overall tone was "We have what you need and more, join us." But everyone now knew how well that seemed to have panned out for them. Earth had broken contact and lives had been lost or forever changed due to wounds and career failures on the part of some. Her hobby of keeping tabs on the Colonies had yielded surprising news of scandals and investigations into everything that had been in contact with Earth ranging from politicians to lobbyists to the Colonial military. Things were changing in the Colonies, which was why Brenda wanted a new contact with them.
Not this soon of course, but this was just the way things had worked out and as the team political and negotiations expert she had a job to do and was going to do it. However there was an additional factor, Bra'tac, the old Jaffa master had arrived at a seemingly opportune moment and this had stopped the fight that had erupted. In the following moments there'd been some lecturing, a swat on the head from Bra'tac to O'Neill and calmer heads prevailing.
"So, you had asked for the Taur'i to be summoned yes?" Bra'tac began.
"Yes, we'd heard a few things that matched up with the kind of civilization that the RSEC is interested in contacting," Agent Fraser responded.
"Well, the Taur'i are before you, speak," Bra'tac effectively ordered him.
The two Colonials looked at one another and Fraser leaned forward, "Figure it's best to ask what the status of relations between us would be?"
"In a word, not good," O'Neill piped up, "Wait, that's two words isn't it?"
"Colonel, if you wouldn't mind?" Brenda sighed, getting a mouthed 'sorry' from the man, "He's right though. Earth's policy lately has been to steer clear of you guys. The fact is we don't feel you to be trustworthy enough to maintain in-person contact."
"Well…we're certainly not in a position to say we are trustworthy right now," Dr. Beverly responded with a humble shrug.
"No I wouldn't think so," Fraser agreed and looked to Brenda, "To that end we oughta start trying to prove that now. After all, I think you are the one with the biggest axe to grind against us."
"I have that right," Brenda nodded, knowing that he was referring to her father's paralyzed lower body.
"How do we start…" the man mumbled as he considered his options.
"A state apology accepting responsibility would be a start," Brenda suggested quickly, knowing precisely what that kind of acknowledgement of guilt signified from a large established and prideful government like the Colonies.
"I'm not paid enough to make that kind of statement on behalf of the government," Fraser held his hands up in defense.
"No, not you. Your president. If you want to see something good happen between us we need to settle the matter of your government's stance that we are to be brought into the Colonies as a subordinate unit within your federal system," Brenda laid out, signaling Earth's own position in the same sentence.
"Yes I'm afraid there is also a matter of religious importance to this as well," Dr. Walt responded, adding his own say.
"I agree old boy," Beverly acknowledged, "Earth does not share our own religious beliefs. Which may be a problem for some hardliners, but they are a minority and are fading with every election but still hold sway in some ways."
"That will have to be dealt with. We've fought against religiously motivated entities and many of our servicemen died protecting Earth from that kind of threat," Brenda explained.
"I see, you're afraid we'll turn into a raging religious crusade to be dealt with," Dr. Beverly mumbled, rather dumbstruck at the notion of his people distorting their religion for such a purpose, "A hundred or so years ago that may have happened. But not now, not with the current religious foundation we've developed over the many, many years."
"That won't happen. Only two planets have that kind of religious leadership, and they're politicians first, religious second. That's just the nature of our political system," Fraser tried reassuring her.
"And the military wouldn't let such a foolish endeavor occur," Colonel Black added on top of that.
"I'm sure," O'Neill coldly responded with his arms crossed.
"Indeed, many have crossed the wrong paths with the Taur'i," Bra'tac butted in, wanting to make something clear to the Colonials, "I have seen the System Lords go from the ultimate power to being extinct in twenty years. All of it, thanks to the Taur'i."
"Your welcome," O'Neill grinned, smirking at the Colonials.
"So you're a great power, but is another great power what you truly fear?" Dr. Beverly asked.
Now a new voice filled the ears of everyone in that room. To the Earthers this was new, but to the Colonials this was actually something they'd experience once before.
"It is the consequences of power that they fear," the deep voice said calmly, "They fear their own power and what it could do to themselves and others."
"Is that?" Fraser whispered.
"Sure is," Colonel Black said with a surprised smile, "Can't believe it."
"Care to explain something?" O'Neill asked as he looked around the room.
"We've met the owner of that voice once before," Fraser explained.
"They're big, powerful, and know more than they let on," Black elaborated.
Indeed, the voice said with a good deal of humor in his tone, even in its telepathic form.
Right then, the seven foot plus tall owner of the telepathic conversation revealed himself, seated at the other end of the table, facing everyone. The Furling towered over all of them, but still maintained an air of calm and collected. His black fur was smooth and had a sheen to it, and he even had his silver gauntlet still attached to his arm.
"Whoa!" Brenda yelped upon seeing the figure, and O'Neill brought his rifle to his hip to aim at the creature.
"Okay…that happened."
Sit, Colonel O'Neill, the creature nodded slowly without moving its lips, I am only here to speak.
"Uh-huh…" O'Neill said, and pointed to his own lips, "Yeah funny, I'm not seeing much speaking going on."
"He's telepathic Colonel," Fraser informed him, "We ran into him a few days ago."
"You 'ran into him'?" Brenda scoffed.
Into another of my kind and then into me, the creature responded, and shrugged, sorry about that by the way Colonel Black.
"Don't worry about it, the injuries we suffered were easily enough healed," Black responded, waving off the incident that SG-1 now really wanted to hear about.
"Hold on, who, or what are you?"
My name is…difficult for you to pronounce, the being stated in their minds, but as to what I am. I am a Furling. An ally of an old friend of yours, the Asgard.
"One of the great races," Bra'tac stated, bowing in respect, "It is an honor."
And you as well Master Bra'tac. Thanks to those like you your kind of now free.
"So you're a Furling huh? Mind if I…ask what you're doing here?" Brenda asked, clamoring for proper words.
I am on orders from our elders, they've been intrigued with the progress of these, the Furling responded, gesturing to the Colonials.
"Them?! What have they done?" O'Neill snapped.
They kept their foe from turning their fury on the other human worlds. If they hadn't spent their blood waging that war entire planets would have been wiped out. And upon further study they seem to have put themselves in a position to take the role of guardians alongside Earth.
"Guardians? All that's left is the Lucians and some pirates. We don't need anyone else."
"Colonel!" Brenda snapped, "Listen we don't think we can trust you. Plain and simple, and we have no reason to change our minds at this time."
"That's up to us then," Fraser responded.
And you shall need to hurry, the Furling said calmly, you will soon need each other.
"What're you talking about?" Colonel Black quietly demanded.
All we've been able to ascertain is that the ancestor of an old enemy of ours is returning after thousands of years of exile. We called them the Jove.
Lucian Homeworld
The Lucians had enjoyed an unparalleled level of prosperity lately. It was so prosperous that they hadn't even bothered with their previous pirate ways and thuggish habits. The Cylons had become their new workers, enforcers, and builders. But they had no idea the Cylons wished to be their executioners. The massive armada of Basestars sat in stationary orbit in defensive positions against the ever-present threat of an Earth or Jaffa assault. Swarms of Raiders roamed about, causing a shimmering coat of sparkles to appear moving between the two thousand Basestars and the hundreds of battle satellites.
These ships were no longer the same Basestars that had arrived a few years ago. Each had gone through a rapid upgrade program with the addition of shield systems more powerful than that of the Ha'tak, and eighteen plasma cannons added to their missile volleys. Their Raiders had also received a single plasma cannon like that used by the Death Gliders slung underneath their chins. Their battle satellites were a simple device, mounting six plasma cannons and a dozen missile launchers around a six-pronged metal device with a small generator and shield array mounted in its center.
These new weapons systems were all protecting a planet the Cylons had plans for, their goal being its inhabitants' elimination and replacement with a new system of Cylon models. These models, numbering in the dozens, had been in the works for years. And the first handful would be the first of many if things went well. And so far, the Lucians were none-the-wiser.
However something would change that, and the first sign of it came from a single unknown signature.
"Hey boss," a Lucian technician called out from his station in the Lucian assembly hall, "I've got something on my scanner. Looks like a ship."
"A ship?" the semi-drunk superior asked as he hobbled over, and saw the image on the old Gou'ald tech screen, "Not one I've ever seen."
The image was one of a three-pronged ship, quite small, no bigger than a small transport. The overall frontal profile was one of an arrow, its weapons were really just missile launchers, six of them.
"No idea whose it is?" the younger man asked, but then his board lit up, "It's powering its systems!"
Before anyone could say anything the ship accelerated forward from its position at the outer system. Then it seemingly darted in, in a burst of speed measured in Astronomical Units per second. The ship landed quietly several hundred kilometers from the Cylon defensive formations, which turned to face it automatically. The ship locked onto them all, the scanners sweeping across the formations as it examined the Cylon armada. Then, after assuming that it liked what it saw the pilot activated a special device, and out popped a red ball of uniquely energized material that gave off a signal that an armada was waiting for.
In a shower of red spherical bursts dozens, and then hundreds, and then thousands of gray ships appeared around the first ship. They came in an endless but standardized variety. They most numerous were thousands of frigates, many came in the original ship's design, and still others were in a stranger shape. A cockpit branched off to the side with a tall mangled hook-like hull teeming with powerful electronics were built into the ship's hold while missile launchers swiveled into position. The most numerous of this ship class was the winged swarms of ships that had their bridges mounted on a thin hull jutting in the middle of the wings facing forward, giving a fighter-like feel to the craft.
Hundreds of larger destroyers measuring a hundred meters in length shaped like sectioned boxes with wings and engines in the back in some shapes and others with lines of missile launchers along a cigar-shaped hull with a sea-faring ship-like prow in the front with armor plate jutting below and to the side with small wing-like protrusions in the rear.
Then there were the roughly one thousand cruisers that came in two primary forms. One was similar to the first frigate, with three hull connected at the engines which were the highest point on the ship. But the central hull lengthened and leveled out going forward with large missile arrays along the nose and wings. The other was somewhat more solid, with two engine nacelles out on the wings of its spade-shaped main hull with more missiles on its armored mass. Each of these was three-hundred meters long, and were the small-fry.
The big fish came in the form of three hundred battleships and five hundred battlecruisers. The battleships had a theme to them, with hulls like great birds with wide wings and stubby lengths. Massive missile batteries covered their hulls, and electronic warfare modules began activating on the less numerous class. This one was the more solid-looking of the two, with the most distinctive features with its swept forward wing hull and a tower like a scorpion's tail protruding up and forward, giving it a predatory shape. The other battleship was a different design with a main hull with a wing protrusion and an engine on the port side wing. The other three wings on the other side mounted on top of each other protruding at different angles and another small engine on one of them. This one had a pointy overall look, but was still incredibly deadly. Each had a size equal to that of any Basestar.
With them were more brick-like designs for the battlecruisers, one being having a sledgehammer bow with guns and another having a smaller profile and stubbier shape. From in front it looked like a piece of paper with two small folds on the ends, its length stretching five hundred meters. Both ships came in different paint schemes, signifying differences even within the classes.
Then came the largest ships in this fleet's arsenal. Generating enormous red globes as they arrived on-grid massive gray forms of carriers and dreadnoughts with similar overall designs emerged onto the field of battle. A dozen Dreadnoughts shaped like elongated bricks with a sensor station on a chin spire and thinning out hull to the engines dominated the sight with their four thousand meter length. Twenty twenty-five hundred meter long carriers with the same basic shape but a blue-lit opening from which dozens of flying wing fighters took off while the bridge sat on a forward protrusion in the bow at the top of the ship with stubby little wings in the lower stern and bow.
Behind these battle wagons massive tower-like support ships powered their support tech, ready to render aid to any damaged ships. These were every bit as large as the Dreadnoughts, but their size was vertical and their hangar bay wide open able to take in entire battleships in an emergency. Smaller cruisers and frigates specially designed for the support role accompanied a half dozen of these harmless ships.
All-in-all the Lucians and Cylons were faced with an unknown fleet numbering over five thousand ships. And from just about all of them came a few sometimes a few dozen drone fighters of various models. The space above Lucia was massed with perhaps the largest fleet to ever go into combat as the first volleys were fired.
Missiles launched from the largest gray ships filled the space and surged forward. The projectiles were soon joined by others from the smaller ships as they got in range. Clusters of missiles soon started making clear what was happening as targets were verified and the Cylons' swarms of Raiders began engaging the coming missiles as best they could while an angry swarm of Basestars assembled into battle formation slowly closing the distance and fired its own missiles.
Explosions riddled space as drones and fighters and Raiders tangled into a massive melee with one another. Hundreds of thousands of craft dueled and died in a furball that was entangled with the faster gray ships diving and firing their weapons into selected Cylon warships. The shields of the Cylons held from the attacks from these lighter ships and their weapons splashed across the tight hull-formed shields of their adversaries, picking the largest ships to deal with, the battleships and battlecruisers as the large carriers and dreadnoughts held back.
A surprise was in store for the Cylons, the smaller ships began moving deep within their formation and seemingly from nowhere a pulsating glowing blue orb of electromagnetic energy burst forth forming a globe surrounding dozens of Basestars at a time. The Cylon Hybrids found their FTL's were unresponsive from their orders and checks and many of their systems were sluggish and slow to respond as electromagnetic interference bombarded their ships, in some cases so much so that their weapons and missiles refused to function at all.
Then, the Cylons started to take hits, big hits. The massive missiles striking their Basestars from the enemy battle wagons were far more powerful than any missile they had, only nukes having a reasonable comparison. Their Basestars were rocked one and two and three at a time as missiles and a handful of guns and torpedoes hammered into them. The shields on several began failing and glowing brightly as they desperately ordered Raiders to swarm attack their opponents.
The first Basestar died with a massive explosion as its upgraded reactor was breached by a powerful missile blast from one of the battleships. It was not going to be alone for long. Soon other Basestars targeted in the initial wave of attacks went up, some blasted into pieces, some split in half, others just having gaping holes torn out of them sending red biomechanical debris spewing into the cold silence of space.
Some of the attacking ships took critical hits, the Cylons' hive brain working as best it could to coordinate their attacks. Some of the cruisers were ripped asunder and battleships took direct devastating hits. But the large support fleet behind them rushed to their aide, bombarding them with nanite repair swarms that rushed to the damaged components or sent waves of energy over to their comrades to boost their shields. This was an advantage that the Cylons had no answer for, and paid for it with more and more Basestars dying at the hands of an enemy that seemed to have every advantage.
And it only got worse as they neared the Colony and the battle satellite maneuvered to abandon Lucia and defend the massive Cylon station. The largest enemy ships now slowly trudged forward, their missile silos opening to loose massive missile bombardments that sent missiles and torpedoes larger than Cylon Heavy Raiders at the Cylon stations. It took very little to blow these small satellite apart, and the Basestars themselves offered less and less resistance even as several hundred joined the battle from their stationary orbit on the other side of the planet.
The wreckage was growing so thick that the swarms of Raiders and drone fighters still dueling were the only ships able to maneuver freely. Explosions and fires raged everywhere in orbit as the battle fanned out, formations of a few dozen ships slugging it out in a battle that could be seen from the surface as twinkling lights like so many fireflies.
Then, when the Colony was fully scanned, and the immense power of its shields understood something else happened. One of the reserve frigates lit another red glowing sphere, calling in one single ship built for such a purpose. As the glowing orb burned the other ships near it moved away, aware of what was coming. Then, a singular, massive red glow seemed to warp the fabric of space as a ship larger than any yet seen emerged from the singularity and replaced it altogether.
It was every as large as the Colony, measuring eighteen thousand meters in length and dwarfing everything near it with its sheer bulk. It was largest in the bow, where a fat needle-like protrusion formed a length of hull as long as one of the dreadnoughts. Missile and gun positions littered its gray surface, covering it from all angles with enough power to destroy most anything that came near. It was even seen clearly from the planet, where the population cowered from the sight of such a titan.
But it wasn't interested in them, its target lay to its left and the ship swung itself around ever so slowly to face the Colony head-on. Raiders swarmed towards it, only to be met by flak guns and drones. The Colony itself opened fire on it, sending the concentrated fire of hundreds of plasma cannons and rail guns and missiles flying towards in a desperate attempt to fend it off. It did nothing but amuse the crew of the lone ship as it lined up dead center of the Colony.
Across the ship's hull missile silos opened, and dozens of frigate sized missiles soared from their holes and bent their way towards the Colony. Such weapons rarely saw use back where they'd come from, and were the deadliest weapon in the arsenal of their owners. And when they impacted the Colony that was when the Cylons knew how futile resistance truly was. The missiles blew apart the shields, and then struck across the entirety of the Colony, tearing off entire pieces, splitting off arms of structure, sending atmosphere spewing from a spiderweb of cracks and holes caused by the deadly impacts. It only took one volley before the Colony began breaking apart and the Cylons began realizing that they'd lost.
Never had anything like it been seen before, yet there it was, and there was more yet to come.
I'm really nervous about this, I'm not exactly sure what the reaction is going to be here but I'm really excited to really get this underway. This war is one I've done weeks and weeks of research on, talking it over with my corp buddies from EVE Online, learning all I can as quickly as I can and maxing my imagination and planning to the limit to get this written. Speaking of which, we are recruiting for our Corp if anyone is interested give me a PM here or on EVE itself if you play. If you don't play I really recommend it, great game, mostly competent adults and high school and up.
Also, I pretty much eliminated the Cylons and Lucians, big deal, I was kinda run out of ideas for them anyway and keeping them around in force was over-complication. I never liked writing about the Cylons, so much of them didn't make sense and was never elaborated on like the Colonials themselves but I figured a statement piece like this was the way we all would like to see them go.
I hope you guys are ready, that's one faction here, three to go. And if you have no idea who these people are and want some visuals just look up Eve Online University for the ships and the people. Let the action continue.
Next Chapter Preview: Exploration continues, yet the Colonials have unfinished business on Kobol, and the Battlestars shall lead the charge.