Rating changed as per request. My first fic on this site, so I'm not quite sure about the differences yet. We'll see how this goes. Thanks for the reviews and encouragement, btw.
Neither Stargate:SG1 nor BSG:2003 is mine. If they were, the 4th season of BSG would have played out differently and they wouldn't have drawn lots the psychotic episode of the week.
Now, on with the story.
The universe is infinitely vast. It is also infinitely diverse. Apart from some basic laws, no single truism holds true for the entire universe. In one corner of the universe a band of humans desperately search for a way home, only to drift farther and farther away. In another corner of the universe another band of humans have no more homes to speak of, their homes burned in nuclear fire. In one corner of the universe humans played the dominant parts. In another, they were little more than cattle fit for harvesting. In one corner of the universe, the gods were dead and reviled. In another, though not necessarily alive, the gods are nevertheless invoked, prayed to, and called upon on a regular basis.
One such god was on the receiving end of prayers now. The baseship had lost primary power and life support long before the miniscule unknown ship had appeared seemingly out of empty space to broadcast its challenge on several wireless frequencies. The ship itself was curious. It was shaped somewhat like a miniaturised version of a Colonial battlestar, with a pair of pods at the sides analogous to a battlestar's flight pods. The forward section was elongated, and a control tower was perched on the dorsal side. No one had known what to make of its challenge, despite having been, as far as most could tell, repeated in several languages apparently known to the unidentified ship. The baseship's human form crew had by then evacuated to the heavy raiders, hesitant to launch yet due to the large numbers of raiders still on the prowl. Hands were on the datastream as they watched the feed from the baseship's still functioning external sensors.
At first they had pitied the small ship. The reaction from Cavill's forces was predictable. A formation of raiders had jumped out and opened fire with nuclear warheads. Pity turned to surprise at the ease with which the attack had been swatted away, then turned to disbelief as the smaller ship moved to counterattack. What had followed had been surreal. The unknown ship had fired a spread of missiles that efficiently cleared out an entire area of space of raiders. Then it struck at the baseships themselves. Blue-white beams alternated out from either side of the ship's bow to quickly eviscerate one offending baseship. Then it had seemingly turned its back on one baseship so it could face another, only for that baseship to be suddenly engulfed in several miniature suns. With so many nukes flying around no one had taken note of the radiological alarm. The gathered Cylons had wondered at how the nukes had been delivered until an Eight was able to pinpoint the eight dark shapes on the visual sensors, looping away from the dead basestar and back to the unknown ship. Fighters, again with curious designs. The flying wing configuration was strangely reminiscent of Cylon War era raiders. The cockpit layout however, and the triple engine design was closer to the Colonial vipers. Vaguely humanoid shapes were visible through the transparent canopies. It was barely visible on DRADIS, the dark color schemes made them difficult to spot in the dark background of space, and thermal imagers were next to useless in the midst of a nuclear shootout. The fighters raced back to their beleaguered ship, already being overwhelmed despite its efficient AA fire as more and more raiders converged on it. Yet another of the Eights pointed out that the small ship had already taken enough hits to cripple a battlestar. Nevertheless it had maintained its course, shrugging off missiles, suicidal lobotomised raiders, and, as the remaining enemy baseships began to take notice, ship to ship warheads. Dogfights between raiders and its own fighter complement were raging around its stern as it opened fire on the third baseship. With a different set of fighters to keep them busy, the raiders did not even notice the relatively fresh squadron joining the furball until it was too late.
Less than a minute later, it was all over. The gathered Cylons had watched, awestruck, as the tiny ship cut another baseship to pieces with its energy weapons before the last one chose the better part of valor and jumped out. Then it had turned to face the huddled rebel ships. And stayed there, waiting. Their ships were damaged, two of them critical. Sonja did not want to risk offending this strangely small but powerful ship. She opened a channel, "Please do not open fire, we mean you no harm."
Contrary to what the Cylons thought, the USAF General George Hammond wasn't just "waiting". The scene at the bridge was one of controlled chaos as damage reports were collated and intelligence analysts pored over the sensor and communications logs. Sam had finally tracked down the "coded burst" Maj. Marks had mentioned at the start of the battle. A computer virus of some kind, though the fact that it was not written in any computer language she could understand and therefore neither could the Hammond's computers probably hadn't helped it much. Still, she transferred it into the Hammond network's DMZ. Some computer analysts on Earth would love to take a look at it once it was translated. Also, several intact samples of the enemy fighters had been beamed aboard for inspection, and Maj. Hailey had already brought her squadron in and was suiting up to join the rest of her contact team already aboard the remains of Hostile 4.
"Looks like we were too late for two of their ships." Maj. Marks was on the sensor console. "One's dead in the water, the other is showing power fluctuations." Then the comm station pinged. "We're being hailed."
"Παρακαλώ μην ανοίξτε πυρ. Δεν έχουμε καμία εχθρική πρόθεση."
Maj. Marks and his commanding officer exchanged glances. "Get Capt. Satterfield on the line."
Captain Satterfield was the Hammond's resident linguist. As Maj. Hailey's 2IC on the contact team, she was already on the basestar taking charge of the initial survey while Hailey got her squadron settled. This meant she was in charge of babysitting the "Three Stooges", her and Hailey's affectionate name for the trio of enlisteds who made up the rest of their contact team. So far they had a good haul. Several samples of "Terminators" tagged for beaming, and just now as they turned into a corner they found what appeared to be a hangar of some sort. With about a dozen shuttle craft of two distinct types. "Well, lookie right here," Corporal Matt Sanders exclaimed as he poked into what seemed to be an equipment locker. "What is it?" Satterfield moved closer. "Space suits, what looks like," the enlisted kept poking into the locker. "Way better than this junk we're using." The distaste was evident in his voice. The team was currently clad in Advanced Crew Escape Suits originally designed for NASA. It was red-orange and extremely bulky and unwieldy. Both minus points for seasoned special ops soldiers.
"Hammond to Capt. Satterfield," her comm unit chirped just as a flash of light announced the arrival of their team leader, Maj. Hailey, who then moved over to the NCO's for updates. "This is Satterfield, over."
"There she goes," Maj. Marks noted as the power fluctuations on his screen translated into a massive explosion of a dying alien ship. "Looks like they were able to evacuate," Sam observed, keeping her eyes on the HUD and the yellow blips that signified shuttlecraft of some kind. "Satterfield, are you ready?"
"All set ma'am, it's a variant of Myceneaean Greek so I should be able to translate. Just tell me what you want to say, over."
And so the parley proceeded with Satterfield acting as translator. Needless to say, the Cylons were surprised.
"Please identify yourselves and your business in coming here."
"We are called Cylons. We are fleeing from a civil war. We jumped into this system at random."
"Any chance that your enemies will return and try again?"
"We do not know. They will be hunting us, but after this they will be wary of you. How is it that you can speak Ancient Kobolian? Are you the Thirteenth Tribe?"
"Friends and foes alike call us the Tau'ri. We are unfamiliar with the name Thirteenth Tribe. None of the other races we know call themselves that."
"There are other races in the galaxy? Are you human?"
"Yes."
"Can we send a delegation to your ship? Meet face to face?"
…(pause)...
"Yes."
Up until a few years ago, Capt. Vanessa Satterfield considered her life relatively normal. Scholar parents traveled a lot, bringing her along. Gave her a good grasp of several languages, but not much of anything else. Joined the Air Force to pay for college. Language skills got noticed and got her into the (relatively) low risk job of translator. Got out of the Air Force, completed college with a degree in linguistics and anthropology, at which point she was approached by the Air Force to reenlist, this time as an officer through the Officer Training School. There was a top secret program in need of translators. Surprised and more than a little intrigued, she'd asked around. She still had some contacts after all, translators regularly hobnobbed with intelligence types, and if anybody had any idea what this "top secret program" was it would be them. The replies had her stumped. She was to report at Peterson Air Force Base after OTS. That was all they were cleared for. There were rumors of a couple of top secret outfits operating out of the Cheyenne Mountain facility, which was even more perplexing. What did the North American Air Defense Command need with translators? The rumors spoke of a "Deep Space Radar Telemetry" project and some kind of hardcore black ops unit. Some said they were one and the same, which was absurd. Why would a hardcore black ops unit masquerade as radar operators or vice versa? For that matter, why operate from underground? She never really figured the term undercover would be taken so seriously. And so realizing her questions had only drawn more questions, she'd finally let curiosity kill the cat. She completed OTS and following her orders finally ended up at the Stargate Command. Which as it turned out had both black ops and deep space telemetry functions. She had gotten in just in time for the first ever SGC offworld training course. Up until then, new SGC personnel only came with the skill sets they were recruited for. There were a couple of primers courtesy of some resident geeks but aside from that, new skills were acquired on the fly. It was then Second Lieutenant Jennifer Hailey who came up with the idea of a training program to instill some standard skills into prospective SGC recruits. The idea would allow geeks some much needed training in weapons and basic small unit tactics and at the same time give riflemen time to hit the books.
Fast forward a few years, the Goa'uld empire had fallen and the Ori threat neutralized. The current baddies were the Lucian Alliance, but unlike the open war that their predecessors in the SGC rogues' gallery had espoused, relations with them were more on the order of a cold war with occasional flareups. They knew better than to challenge Earth head on. And Earth to be honest had no idea how to root out something so widespread. Why was all this relevant? Because without an full-fledged war to occupy Earth's fledgling fleet of starships, some "enlightened" minds at the IOA had decreed that the same fleet be put to use in exploration and surveys. That meant contact teams based on the battlecruisers full time. Col. Carter had approached Hailey to lead the Hammond's. And Hailey had approached her to be linguist/anthropologist for the same.
All that brought her to this moment in time. Standing in the hatch leading into the port side flight pod waiting for same pod to finish repressurizing. The alien shuttlecraft had landed a few moments before. It was of the same design as another on the starboard side that they'd beamed over from Hostile 4. Finally the all clear was given, and she followed Col. Carter into the deck, a squad of armored infantrymen following behind her.
A childhood spent tramping across a dozen countries. Eight years spent exploring alien worlds. None of it had prepared her for the moment the aliens stepped out of their shuttlecraft. "I'll be damned," one of the troopers behind her muttered. It could have been the tall, gorgeous blond that first stepped out of the shuttle and was obviously taking the lead role for the delegation. It could have been the one just behind her and to the side. That one could have been the first blond's twin, except for the longer honey blond waves that contrasted with the first one's platinum curls. More likely it was the two that followed. Two women with familiar long dark hair, tanned complexions and almond shaped eyes. And surprised expressions. Not quite fazed by alien doubles of SGC officers, Col. Carter had simply turned to her and asked, "separated at birth?" Satterfield could only look at her helplessly.
Lieutenant General Jonathan J. "Jack" O'Neill was in his dress blues. Or rather, it should have been his dress blues. At the moment he had his jacket off, tie loosened, and cuffs and top two buttons undone as he laid back on his chair and put his feet up on his table. An unseemly posture for a three star general but he had the blinds down. He stared up at his ceiling then back down onto his desk. The intercom captured his gaze. He stabbed at it and paged the aide outside his office.
"I am not to be disturbed!"
"Yes sir," came the terse reply. Probably something to do with the fact that it was the third time in an hour that he'd done that. Jack sighed. He was venting on the poor aide and he knew it. He'd just been through perhaps the most painful meeting in his life. Involving both the Joint Chiefs and the IOA. The verdict had been preordained, but no less painful. The DSC-304 Daedalus class cruiser was easily the most powerful capital ship in four galaxies. Its Asgard designed primary weapons could cut through any and all opposition, up to and including the gargantuan Wraith Hiveships and formidable Ori warships. Hence, Earth did not really need to design a larger ship type. At least, not for the foreseeable future. The main reason its battles did not always go well was the appalling lack of support and escort ships. Research would have to go into expanding a 304's fighter complement without compromising endurance. And Earth needed more ship types. Smaller, not larger. The Goa'uld and the Jaffa and Lucian Alliance that had inherited their fleets had Al'kesh bombers to support their Hataks. Wraith had cruisers to support their Hiveships. Earth needed something similar. Less expensive ships that can be built in larger numbers. Space to develop and build prototypes was for the moment not an issue. With Atlantis not having enough juice to go anywhere at the moment, 304 production was for the meantime moved to three of the unused piers, allowing work on three ships at a time. When not building ships for the US, the original construction crews now served as advisers for international crews building ships funded and to be crewed by their respective governments. The arrangement had worked so far. It had allowed them to repair the damaged ships from the encounter with the ZPM powered Hive in record time. Now, primary hulls for the newest additions to Earth's growing fleet were almost complete. In batches of three, one was always to be crewed by the United States. The other two however, were for the IOA allies. The current batch was for the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation. The next two would be for France and Germany, with Australia and Canada to follow after. Naquadah to build these weren't an issue either. Thanks to Anubis' efforts large amounts of both unprocessed ore and recyclable scrap were present in the solar system.
Now for the painful part. As the lead service for the Homeworld Command, the Air Force shouldered most of the budget and resources it required. This coupled with current commitments to strategic partners, national security, the War on Terror, the Stargate Command, as well as various Earthbound and offworld installations, not to mention maintaining and expanding its current fleet of 302's and 304's, had the Air Force stretched painfully thin. It simply did not have the budget and resources to fund the development and building of another ship type. Somebody else would have to shoulder the cost. Someone with the resources to build ships. That's where the Navy came in. Under the terms of the agreement, the Navy would fund development and building of two new ship classes, as well as provide crews for 60% of the new ships. One would be a lightweight, high speed reconnaissance and patrol craft, while the other would be a medium weight escort craft. As part of the agreement, the Navy asked for control of the latest 304. Jack gritted his teeth just thinking about it. They better not name it the Enterprise. The Air Force should have named their first 304 the Enterprise when they had the chance. Damned if the Navy was gonna use that name for theirs.
On the bright side, now the Air Force can finally use some of the funds for developing the next generation space superiority fighter. The 302 generally ruled whatever patch of space it could lay claim to, but it had its limitations. Ever since Col. Sheppard had brought home that first captured Wraith Dart, the Air Force had been imagining the possibilities. Now they would finally be able to go ahead with research for a newer, more compact space fighter. One that could remote dial and fly through stargates. But that was a problem for another time.
His intercom buzzed, and he frowned at it just as the message came through. "Col. Carter on subspace channel." "On my way," Jack replied as he fixed his uniform and moved to the outer area. Sure enough Sam Carter's face was on the subspace communications screen.
"Report."
"General, sir, at approximately 1400 hours Zulu time we made contact with another space faring race. They call themselves Cylons and appear to have originally been machines manufactured for purposes of labor and war, sir. They eventually rebelled against their creators though they seem to be deliberately vague as to what ultimately happened to these creators, sir. Their current form is that of synthetic human-like clones, a few times stronger and faster than the norm. According to them there are seven basic templates. They seem to currently be in a state of civil war over the status of some mechanical models they still use. In fact we made contact when they jumped into the vicinity of P3X-985 and started shooting at each other. We stopped them, since the battle was beginning to drift towards the inhabited planet deeper into the system, but I'm afraid we had to use lethal force, sir. One faction cut and run, while the other met with us and exchanged cultural information."
"Terminators, huh. Where are they from?"
"They claim to be originally from the planet Kobol, sir. Two thousand years ago, their creators left Kobol and colonized what they now call the Cyrannus system, then around 40 years ago created them. According to them, sir, the Cyrannus system has been abandoned and they are searching for the descendants of those original colonizers, now called Colonials. Also according to them, both they and the Colonials are searching for Earth. We haven't told them our connection to Earth yet. For now, we are just the Tau'ri to them. We are sending a data burst containing our logs as well as our findings on the samples of technology we managed to acquire."
"What can you say about their technology?"
"Aside from spacegoing technologies, they seem to be at par with us, sir. Hailey's team recovered several samples of handguns and rifles fairly similar to ours. They seem to have a love for missiles in space combat. Both conventional and nuclear warheads. Coilguns, artificial gravity, inertial dampeners, though not as efficient as the ones we use. They seem to have better space suits though."
"Allright, what do you plan to do now?"
"We managed to acquire a shuttlecraft that does not seem to be from the same technology base as the ships these Cylons use, sir. We think it's Colonial. It appears capable of FTL, though not the usual means we're familiar with. We hope to decipher and translate its logs. See what else we can find, maybe even locate the Colonials. Make contact with them first, sir."
"See what the deal is from their side of the story, that's good. Need anything from this end?"
"If we could send a ship, sir, I'd recommend investigating the Cyrannus and Kobol systems. Hailey thinks she's found some starcharts, though we'd still have to match them with ours. Might be something else for us to find. Also I might need some backup on the cultural side, sir."
"I think we can spare the Odyssey and maybe even SG-1, the new team. Though I'd have to check with Hank for that. I can give you Daniel. If you give a gate address where you'll pick him up, that will be fine. And one other thing, send Marks back, he has a new assignment. Anything else?"
"Will do, sir. P3X-985 should be fine. We managed to uncover the Stargate there. We'll stay in system a bit longer, make sure the Cylons don't come back. That should be it for now, sir. I'll be sending Maj. Marks along. Hammond out."
When the time is right, you will remember. Maj. Kara "Starbuck" Thrace's eyes flashed open. She'd been dreaming the same dream she'd been having over and over for the past several weeks. But the dream had not been something she could recall upon waking. She had a feeling it was important though. She was currently on her bunk on the Demetrius, almost 3 weeks into the mission. Already the air on the small ship stank of discontent. The handpicked crew she'd brought along was beginning to think her crazy. She wasn't even sure she would disagree. Around her bunk were several hand drawn sketches. Most were dominated by a figure composed of three comets side by side, the middle one slightly ahead of the other two. The other motif common on these were a pair of stars hanging side by side in space.