Chapter Three
COLONIAL ONE – COLONIAL FLEET
"Aliens?!" Laura Roslin snapped. The President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, or, what was left of them at any rate, wasn't in the mood to be the butt of anyone's practical joke. Still in the midst of her recovery thanks to Hera Agathon's stem cells from the illness due to her cancer, she was very tired. Despite being ahead in the polls, the constant campaign against Gaius Baltar had sapped her reserves. So, somewhat in a testy mood, she asked Margaret Edmonson, "Lieutenant, pardon my Leonese, but are you trying to yank my frakking chain?"
Racetrack shot a nervous look at both Skulls and Admiral Adama as the trio stood in front of the President's desk before she recovered her composure and said, "No, ma'am! I would never kid either the Admiral or you about an important matter concerning the fleet!"
Laura simply nodded and sighed deeply. At first, she'd been shocked by the news that the two officers had discovered a habitable planet when they'd misjumped during the rescue mission back to Caprica. Then she'd become almost apoplectic when she'd heard they'd stumbled upon a ship in orbit above the planet claiming to be from Earth. However, she almost completely lost it when they had delivered the news that the Thirteenth Tribe had dealings with sentient alien life forms.
Why, in all the time humanity had lived on both Kobol and in the Colonies, neither the Colonials nor the Cylons, as far as she knew, had ever encountered sentient alien life forms among the stars. Now she glared at Racetrack over the top rim of her eyeglasses like a school marm scrutinizing her most troublesome pupil. "Lieutenant," she enunciated the word crisply, "could you repeat the warning you received from the people you claim are members of the Thirteenth Tribe for me once again, please?"
"Yes, ma'am," Racetrack said. Then she gulped deeply before she began her recitation. "The woman told us the Thirteenth Tribe was a member of an alliance that included sentient alien life forms. However, Skulls and I suspect that the Thirteenth Tribe leads the whole operation because she said Earth was the most heavily defended planet in the alliance. At present, this alliance is at war with another alien race she called the Sakqua. The focus of the Sakquas' aggression is apparently against humankind and not the other aliens in the alliance. However, if those lizard-like aliens run across our fleet, they won't hesitate to attack us according to the Thirteenth Tribe woman because we're human. After she told us that, she offered to have her people provide warships to protect us from their enemy."
Roslin blinked twice as her weary mind processed everything Racetrack had recounted to her. "Lieutenant, did they say if they share any of their colony worlds with the aliens in their alliance?"
"No ma'am, that subject never came up in our conversations with them."
Laura nodded to Racetrack then turned to Bill Adama with the cheeky smile she reserved solely for him despite the fatigue that threatened to drag her under. "What do you think about Lt. Edmonson's report, Admiral Adama?"
The man simply regarded Laura in his calm way for a few moments before he began to speak softly in his gravelly voice. "The fleet must remain at its current position until Starbuck's search and rescue mission to Caprica returns. Fortunately, we're currently in deep space, light years from the nearest star system. It's unlikely that these Sakqua would run across us out here because they're searching for the Thirteenth Tribe's planetary populations. For the moment, I think we're safe because we're essentially a tiny needle in a huge haystack."
Laura nodded in agreement with his reasoning. Then she smiled at both Racetrack and Skulls. "Lt. Edmonson, Lt. McCall, thank you both for your report. If these people are who they say they are, you both have most certainly delivered our fleet from the Cylons. Please accept my thanks on behalf of our people. Now, do you mind waiting for the Admiral outside in the foyer? I need to discuss a few important matters with him before he returns with you to the Galactica."
After the two junior officers had exited the room, she turned to Adama with her presidential façade firmly in place. "Okay then, how do we know this isn't a frakking Cylon trick?"
He shrugged and said simply, "We don't." Then he added, "However, I trust my officers. According to Lt. McCall, these people had plenty of chances to have captured or killed them yet they didn't take the shot. Also, if they were Cylons, I doubt they would have added the complication of aliens to the mix. Instead, they'd have fed us a story we'd want to hear, simply that we'd encountered members of the Thirteenth Tribe without mentioning anything about their interstellar alliance or their war with the Sakqua."
She smiled warmly at him then. "I find it hard to argue against that, Bill." Then she shook her head and noted, "By all the Lords of Kobol, it will be difficult enough for some of our people to accept that we've found the Thirteenth Tribe in and of itself. Now, we may also have to tell them our prodigal tribe not only has encountered sentient alien life forms, the Thirteenth Tribe also established a government with some while it's at war against another?"
"Well," Adama drawled, "it IS a big universe out there, Laura. Truth to tell, the possibility of meeting sentient alien life forms was something the Admiralty had seriously considered. However, the first war and our need to build our forces for a possible return of the Cylons put most of our plans for deep space exploration and the search for sentient extra-colonial life forms on the back burner. A fat lot of good that did us, though," he grumbled.
"I know," she whispered, sharing the pain he felt over the Cylons' destruction of their colonies. However, they had to deal with the here and now, so she tried to get them back on track. "Do you have a recommendation on how we should proceed?"
He narrowed his eyes for a moment then locked his gaze onto hers. "We need to send Racetrack and Skulls back in their Raptor to meet the Thirteenth Tribe's ship and see if the people on that vessel would be willing to send some representatives on our Raptor to meet us. Now, Saul raised a good point before I came here to meet with you. He said the other tribe may want some assurances we'd return its representatives safe and sound, so we should consider leaving a few officers with the other ship until we send their representatives back."
She regarded him soberly. "Hostages?"
"Well, I would prefer to think of them as liaisons," he offered.
"That's all well and good if these people are on the up and up, Bill, but would happen to our officers if this turns out to be a trap?"
"Nothing good, I'm afraid. But sometimes, you've got to roll the hard six. I think this is one of those times."
She closed her eyes for several precious moments before she flashed them open and gave him a resigned look. "All right then. Who are you going to send to represent us?"
"Well, I'd like to send Baltar along because if it was a trap and we lost him, I think I could live with that," he joked and Laura smiled along with him. "Seriously, though, we need to send officers who can keep their wits about them yet are confident enough to walk into the lion's den."
"Should whether or not they are expendable to the operations of the fleet be considered as well?"
The Admiral shot a hard look at her. "None of my officers are expendable, Madame President."
She raised both hands in an effort to appease the man. "My mistake, Bill, I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry."
He nodded, apparently willing to let the matter go.
She smiled demurely at him and asked, "Do you have someone in mind?"
He nodded like a weary old man and said, "I do…Captain Kelly and Lieutenant Katraine."
"Okay," she said simply. "What's your plan?"
"I'll ask them if they want to volunteer for this assignment. I won't order either of them to do it, but knowing both officers, I know they'll step up to the challenge. I'll instruct them we're coming back for them but until then to keep their eyes open, ask a lot of questions, and, for gods' sakes, be diplomatic!"
"Are you going to stress that last part with Lieutenant Katraine, Bill?" she asked with a saucy smile.
"Although you might find it hard to believe, although she can be a wildcat, Louanne is certainly better for this mission than Kara, Laura," he drawled. Then he grew serious once more. "Before they board the Raptor with Racetrack and Skulls, we'll have all four officers in environmental suits. Before I left the Galactica, I discussed the possibility of this mission with Dr. Cottle. He told me that both the Thirteenth Tribe and we should insist on our personnel wearing protection during our initial contact to ensure neither side exposes the other to any deadly bacteria or viruses until both sides run enough tests to show unprotected exposure would be safe. Besides, the tests, at least in our case, would also prove to us if these people are actually human."
A disturbed look crossed Roslin's face then. "You know," she whispered, "I'm glad you checked with Dr. Cottle about that. I was so excited by the prospect that we'd finally found our long lost brothers and sisters, I'd never even considered the possibility of either side wiping out the other from an infection."
"Well," Adama quipped, "that's why he's a physician, you deal with children, both as a schoolteacher and the leader of the Quorum, and I drive battlestars."
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XANADU – CAPITAL CITY OF GAMMABRUCKE, PLANETARY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
The glistening skyscrapers and twinkling towers of Gammabrucke's skyline signified the wealth and power the Schlein family had wielded throughout this sector of space. Even though the planet had been settled by humanity during the halcyon age of the First Imperium, the megatropolis, that's name meant 'the bridge to the Gamma Quadrant' in German, still appeared to the casual observer as shiny and new.
As she stood on the balcony of her Sector Administrator's office on the top floor of the Planetary Administration Tower, Alexandra Schlein enjoyed a tiny bit of serenity afforded her between the back-to-back meetings that cluttered her busy schedule. Like most Schlein women, she was lean and tall like the Administration Tower her ancestors had built a thousand years ago. The thirty-eight year old woman was blessed both with hair of gold and her family's regal bearing. Although she was an achingly beautiful woman, under Syndicate custom, she was considered to be the second 'son' of the Schlein Family in line to succeed the 'Father' or Chairman of the Board of the company, at least what was left of it after the war with the Alliance. Now, demilitarized and operating more like the regulated corporations of the Alliance, her family still had the means to persuade the Alliance to allow it to administer the sector so long as the family worked within the Alliance's representative republican framework.
"Administrator," a voice over her earpod concealed inside her right earring intruded upon her all-to-brief solitude.
She turned away from the view and asked her personal assistant, "What is it, Greta?"
"You have an incoming message from Senior Captain Jackson of the Fleet. He's calling from the Alcubierre. It's logging in as urgent."
Alexandra's eyes opened wide at Greta's news.
Before she'd transferred to the administrative track, she'd been trained to be a liaison manager, or in Fleet-speak, an intelligence operative. Before and during the war, a liaison manager was responsible for engaging with the Syndicate's vassal aliens to provide both strategic command and control and to manipulate them into attacking Alliance worlds and commerce. It had all been part of the game to protect the Families' way of life from being assimilated by the far larger and insidious Alliance of Planets government.
Although she'd learned to master her job as an administrator, in fact, she was still a liaison manager deep down inside. The espionage game, with all its intrigue, particularly when interests and alliances shifted depending upon the stakes, appealed to her far more than the less-than-subtle sausage-making inherent in the political process.
So, after the Alcubierre had arrived, she'd thrown a welcoming gala for the battlestation's senior staff. During the celebration, a tall, African American Fleet officer caught her eye from across the room and gave her a rakish smile. Then he strode toward her and engaged her in a conversation she found both challenging and stimulating like fencing with words instead of sabers.
Malcolm Jackson was quite different from any man she'd met before. Superficially, he was unique from the perspective that the Family worlds had been mostly settled by Caucasians of European descent. Until the Fleet had defeated the Syndicate, Alexandra had never met a black man before.
However, after several dinner engagements with him, what had really interested her about the man was the fact he'd not been intimidated by either her beauty or her position. Further, unlike nearly every Fleet officer she'd met, he hadn't treated her as a 'traitor to humanity' albeit it had been true her people had unleashed their vassal aliens on the Alliance.
Now she smiled and said, "Very well, Greta. Please link the good captain to my personal channel."
"Yes, ma'am," her assistant said and connected the call.
"Hello, Alexandra," he said in his pleasant tenor voice.
"Hello, Malcolm."
"Is this a good time to talk?"
"Yes."
"I usually wouldn't bother you at work but I had to call to tell you I can't make our dinner engagement for tomorrow night. Something's come up. The brass has given me a mission that just popped up out of the blue. Unfortunately, I'll be out of pocket for a week or two before I can see you again."
She pushed down her disappointment and labored to strike a cheerful tone. "Oh, well, Malcolm, I understand that personal plans go out the window 'when duty calls.'"
"That's the nature of the beast but I wanted you to know I was really looking forward to seeing you again, Alex."
Her right brow lifted toward the ceiling. Malcolm referring to her by her 'pet name' was something new! Until now, only her father called her 'Alex.' Yet, for some reason, she didn't mind that the dashing officer had called her that.
Even so, she decided to tease him a bit for taking such liberties with her. "Now I won't ask you about the particulars of your assignment; I wouldn't want Admiral Amato to think I was a Syndicate Mata Hari seeking to use my wiles to steal away your military secrets."
He chuckled warmly and said, "Well, if I return, I promise to tell you all about it, all right?"
At that moment, her breath caught in her throat when she'd heard that dreaded word. "Malcolm…don't you mean to say 'when' instead of 'if?'"
He didn't say anything for several moments. Then he responded. "Of course, Alex"
She blinked several times before she was able to speak again. "Are you leaving soon?"
"Yes—within the hour or so."
She crossed both arms against her chest, seeking solace yet finding none. Then she said, "All right then. I will see you when you return. Oh, and Mal," she drawled, devising a pet name for him since turnabout was fair play. "When you get back, I'll prepare dinner for you at my place with my very own hands. All you have to do is bring a bottle of fine wine and show up with an appetite."
"Is that incentive or a warning, Alex?" She heard the smile in his voice.
Her tone took on that of a mock rebuke. "Senior Captain Jackson, I'll have you know my family spared no expense to have me trained by a Sorbonne educated chef."
He laughed and acquiesced. "All right, I surrender, okay? It's a date!"
When she saw Greta enter her office to provide the two minute warning for her next meeting, a very sober Alexandra said, "Mal, I've got to go now. Travel safely and…come back to me."
"Is that your directive, Sector Administrator Schlein?" he asked with a bit of his usual swagger in his voice.
"But, of course, Senior Captain Jackson!" she drawled. "Now be a good Fleet officer and do as you're told!"
"As you wish," he said softly.
At that moment, she smiled sadly and had a burning desire to hug him close. "Take care, Mal."
"See you soon, Alex," he said then terminated the call.
Before she left her balcony to go inside for her next meeting, Alexandra Schlein took one last look at the skyline. When the sight seemed rather stark in comparison to what she'd seen before she'd taken Malcolm Jackson's call, she shuddered despite herself.
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