Chapter 6: First Contact

Deep in the bowels of Galactica men and women were hard at work fighting the fires. Enlisted in fire fighting gear lead by the senior ratings doused the raging blazes in foam and water while engineers frantically worked to get the suppression systems back online. They were valiant in their work but ultimately futile. Shoddy work done in the rush of the Cylon War was paying in dividends now as Galactica seemed to be fighting her crew trying to save her life.

Eventually some imaginary line was crossed and a harried Lt. Gaeta declared, "I'm calling it. Vent the fuel pods."

Chief Tyrol and his team nodded and executed the emergency purge. Refined tylium flooded from the ports on the engines and into the atmosphere of the gas giant. A greasy black stain filled the orange-red flesh of the giant. A crack of lightning struck it soon after and created a massive fireball that shook the Galactica, giving the crew a big scare but otherwise left the lumbering leviathan alone.

It did, however, draw the attention of another ship hiding in the clouds.

"Action Stations!" Lt. Gaeta called out. "Set Condition One throughout the ship!"

"Dee," Adama called out, "What can you make of its IFF?"

"Ughm," Dee stuttered to buy time as she examined the yellow contact on her screen. "It's not a Cylon one. Looks like a Concordance, ship! IFF says it's the Sovereign Guard Ship Serene Hymn. Sir they're attempting to hail us! They want to know who we are!"

"Send the Universal Greeting," Adama ordered. "And launch a raptor team to get a visual inspection."

With the wind speeds of the giant so high it was too dangerous to launch vipers, so a trio of raptors were launched. They closed in on the new contact through the rough winds of the gas giant. Bone Rattle was the first to get a good look at it. The crack of lightning made it easy to make out as the range closed down.

It was undoubtedly an alien ship. It was long and slightly bulbous with a dark green hull and yellow trim. It was about six hundred meters long and generally fat on all axii. It also had no launch tubes for fighters and just one hangar that could probably launch fighters or gunships, but maybe only one or two of them depending on how deep the hangar was.

The hangar abruptly opened and Bone Rattle blinked in surprise. She radioed the Galactica, "Galactica, I think I just got invited inside."

"Bone Rattle, Galactica. Actual says go ahead and land."

Bone Rattle brought her raptor into the open hangar and settled down. The interior looked much like the Galactica's except a bit shinier and smaller. There were a pair of boxy shuttles shoved into a corner that could be a derivative from the standard model that seemed to be ubiquitous everywhere for the last seventy years. It was all unnervingly familiar in design construction.

The hangar doors closed and the crews began to emerge. There was about a dozen or so of the Alkrani emerged from the back of the hangar and approached the raptor. Bone Rattle was surprised at how small they were. Their pressure suits looked like they were made by the same companies as hers but with different devices and insignia. A trio of who were clearly marines held back and watched with weapons held in non-threatening readiness, holding what looked like PDWs to her eyes if held by humans, but for them were probably heavy assault rifles or something.

Bone Rattle told her copilot, "I'm heading outward. Keep your helmet on."

Fungus gave the thumbs up and the hatch was popped open. Bone Rattle stepped out and approached the Alkrani. She was twice as tall as any of them. They were dressed in fatigues that were probably for the deck crew. None of them looked ostentatious enough to be officers. She wondered what she should be doing now? Everything she did right now was going to be overanalyzed by the staff back home.

Right now, though? Right now she was surrounded by friendlies in a storm. Friendlies she wasn't expecting to find. She couldn't help but smile as gooseflesh sprung up all across her skin. She made sure not to show her teeth. She remembered that showing teeth was something predators did when they were going to attack. Instead she just beamed her best smile and saluted.

The Alkrani seemed to be smiling at her and saluted back. Their salute was a motion that swept their hands over their hearts, over their foreheads, and then straight outward with the palm up and fingers pointed straight ahead.

The first to salute dropped the motion and presented its hand for a shake. That surprised Bone Rattle. Was a hand shake really a universal sign? Or had they learned it from that Colonial Fleet scout ship? She accepted the hand and shook it. She couldn't hear them speak through theirs and her helmets and their radios probably didn't cover the same frequencies, but Bone Rattle saw them smiling and the presumed enlisted starting to jabber to each other in excited voices.

Adama felt like he was going to faint. Standing in from of him was an alien. He was so used to the idea of humans and cylons being the only beings in the universe. Even now with the proof right in front of him he was amazed he didn't fall over. Yet he managed to keep his balance and shook the hand of the Alkrani captain of the Serene Hymn.

He was in the war room of Galactica with Colonel Tigh, Doctor Simon Gau, and the Alkrani Ship Lord who had identified as Rynael and was an example of the female of her species. Her XO was along too and identified as being male, and Adama couldn't tell the damnedest bit of difference between them. He supposed that was good. They were both military afterall and clearly sex was no object of concern with the Alkrani's Sovereign Guard. He was just glad that their ranking insignia was different enough to tell him who was who at a glance. Thankfully Colonel Sinclair was down in the medical bay with a head wound so he wouldn't be a bother for a while.

Doctor Gau was acting as translator for this meeting. He was sweating a little from the stress but had insisted on doing this himself. He claimed to be the best translator in the Colonies and this was his job, and he wasn't going to stop a little thing like a head wound stop him. With Doctor Cottle's begrudging allowance, of course.

"Ship Lord," Adama said to the diminutive alien. "Welcome aboard the Battlestar Galactica."

Doctor Gau translated that into the universal trade language. The Alkrani replied back in a series of quick chirps and careful growls.

Gau said, "The Ship Lord is glad to be aboard. She says that the Galactica is very big. There is no ship like a battlestar in the Sovereign Guard. She asks what we are doing here."

The whole time Adama kept his eyes on Rynael. He replied, "We were ambushed by the Cylons and made an emergency blind jump. We were lucky to survive."

"Very lucky. The Alkran must have kissed your jump drive to end up here. I am happy to meet a super heavy warship like your super dreadnought."

"Super dreadnought?" Tigh asked.

There was a brief exchange between Rynael and Gau. The doctor said, "There is no word for battlestar in the Alkrani language and its difficult for them to pronounce Caprican. Or any human language. That's the closest word they have for what Galactica is."

Adama nodded and felt an impatient temper growing within him. This was such a clumsy way to communicate. He hoped Dee and Gaeta could jerry-rig an automatic translator soon enough. It was a damned inconvenience to talk like this.

Adama said, "Ask her what she's doing her."

"She says that her ship is an electronic warfare ship for a dreadnought squadron attacking a Cylon fuel depot in this system. They were ambushed. She hid in this gas giant. Cylons pursued and combing the planet's atmosphere."

Tigh asked, "What kind of shipping do the Cylons have here?"

"Standard garrison is four corvette-class ships and one cruiser-class."

"Frak me," Tigh grumbled. "That's too much for us to handle right now."

Rynael chirped and growled something that sounded like a question. Gau said, "The Ship Lord says that your ship appeared heavily damaged and recommends avoiding direct confrontation. How many, uh, dart fighters do you have?"

"Dart fighters?" Adama asked.

Rynael and Gau had another brief conversation. Then he said, "I think she means vipers."

"We've got forty-two vipers ready for launch immediately," Tigh announced. "The rest need repairs or we don't have the fuel to launch them."

Gau relayed the information and Tigh and Adama both were pretty sure that Rynael scowled.

Gau said, "It seems that fuel is a concern on her ship as well."

"And here we are sitting on top of a Cylon fuel depot," Saul Tigh murmured. He looked at Adama. "They shot at us first. I think it's fair we take their fuel, right?"

Adama looked at him, then at Rynael. He asked, "How long as it been since you started hiding."

"About a day or so."

Adama nodded and thought, and like pieces of a water damaged puzzle a plan began to come together.

"Okay. This is what we'll do."