Chapter 16
Broken
***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***
**Dead Space (Colonial Fleet)**
*Captured Baseship (Hybrid's Chamber/Server Room) [two days later]*
Getting the necessary equipment to retrofit the Baseship with a more Human-friendly interface proved to be easier than Kimi thought it would. Getting the extra terminals was as easy as asking the Admiral for their spares, and anything not in use in the fleet as a whole was shipped over by a swarm of Raptors along with a few specialists like Doctor Baltar and everyone from the Odyssey's crew. Now, as one of the three technologically inclined members of the squad, Kimi was helping to oversee the part of the repair effort she could actually help with; hacking the Cylon 'Hybrid' and replacing her with a server bank.
The room had gone from a cold, slightly creepy place to a hot, technological marvel. The leads for the servers that had been put together by a few Colonial tech specialists were connected to the same wires that once pierced the Hybrid's head. The Hybrid itself had been relocated to a med lab that the Colonials had helped them set up to be studied. The Tylium reserves on the Baseship had been amongst the first to be fully restored at Oliver's request and the Admiral's orders. Kimi got the impression that the sooner that they left to find the Odyssey, the sooner the older Adama would stop worrying. She could only imagine the guilt of sending a ship full of near-strangers to die at the hands of an enemy that you had created.
Shaking that thought from her mind as her watch beeped at her, Kimi refocused on reality. "What's the status of the… what are we calling this? A repair?"
"If we are, it's one extremely twisted idea of a repair," Salvador, one of the crewmen from the Odyssey, replied as he typed a new set of code into the computers.
Translating the software started with changing Colonial binary coding into the system that the Tau'ri used then altering it to fit the Cylon technology. After figuring out what the system did and how it worked, they had to use a modified version of Gabi's virus to wipe out the Cylon code before replacing it with their own. They were, at Oliver's orders, removing everything Cylon from the ship to keep it from being hacked. It was an understandable precaution.
"I'd call it a lobotomy, personally," another technician added.
"More like a transplant," Doctor Baltar mumbled to himself.
"There you go," Kimi said with a smile at the joke. "What's the status of our patient?"
"You can't be serious!" Baltar exclaimed, a look of surprise and disgust on his face.
"We've managed to decode and replace nearly forty percent of the Cylon operating system," a woman replied from one of the nearly twenty terminals around the room.
"That about sums it up," one of the two males added with an exhausted sigh.
"If you need a break, feel free to take one," Kimi said from her own terminal.
"Not until we find the Odyssey," the man replied.
"Don't make me order you to take a nap," Kimi said as she turned to the man in question. "Because it'll be your body that receives the order."
"What is that supposed to mean?" the man asked.
"Athena saw fit to gift me with many talents," Kimi replied vaguely before moving towards the door. "I'll be back in a minute."
She walked through the door that separated the Hybrid from the CIC and took in the sight of the bustling workforce arrayed before her. Experts in every field imaginable were present and working hard. It was late into the fleet's night-cycle and still they kept working. Modifications were being made to nearly every system on the ship while repairs were being stalled by an alteration to the programming. One of the Odyssey's crew who had served on the Daedalus had the brilliant idea to rewrite the repair code to alter the Baseship and turn it into something they could use to better search for the Odyssey. By using a modified version of a technology the Wraith use, he was rewriting the part of the ship's programming that told it which shape to take when it regrew itself. That team in particular had moved out of the CIC and taken up shop in a lab nearby. They were also trying to program the ship to grow a bathroom since the Cylons had neglected to install one.
But, for now, Kimi needed to be in one room in particular. Making her way through the rush of people, both Tau'ri and Colonial, Kimi followed the flowing red locks of her Australian comrade. Falling in step nearly two yards behind Cassidy due to the crowd, Kimi arrived at Oliver's commandeered 'office' as Cassidy was beginning her report. Upon walking into the room, Kimi stood to attention and simply waited.
"We've begun modifications to the existing communications array to further the range, but we've found something rather promising that I want to exploit if we can power it," Cassidy said as she handed Oliver a tablet with a schematic pulled up on the screen. "When the Centurions, Skin-Jobs, and Raiders die, their minds are sent to the ship they launched from because they don't have the range to reach the Resurrection Ship on their own. To counter this, the Baseships are equipped with a subspace transmitter that serves as a relay. They die, go the ship, and then get broadcasted through subspace back to the nearest Resurrection Ship to be brought back. If we modify this with our own knowledge of subspace transmitters, we should be able to use it to contact the Odyssey."
"And the rest of the modifications? Will this affect them?" Oliver asked.
"In terms of power, yes. If we modify the subspace transmitter and manage to turn it into an actual subspace array, it'll draw more power than the ship's FTL drive is before the upgrades scheduled for it. To counter this, we would have to modify the power grid for the ship as a whole and that would take some time."
Oliver thought it over for a moment before finally nodding to himself. "Would it be possible to separate the subspace array from the ship's power grid then hook up a Naquadah Generator to power the system?"
"If we had one, yes," Cassidy replied.
It was then that Oliver turned to look at the woman sitting in a chair off to one side, and it was then that Kimi finally noticed that there were four people in this room, not three. "We have two Mark I Naquadah Generators and one Mark II that we brought over from the Odyssey to run tests on the Pegasus' FTL drive," the woman said. "Since it's the most advanced model in the fleet, we were wondering if more power in the coils would improve the range. That's where the Mark II came from. As for the Mark Is, we were using them to power the FTL drives on two of the civilian ships that had completely exhausted their Tylium stores before we found the mine. Because of this, we have three generators at our disposal that you can use as you see fit."
"I should be able to get it isolated and powered by a single Mark I in a few hours," Cassidy said with a nod and a smile on her lips.
"Good, because I want the Mark II hooked up to the FTL coils, but we'll need our resident nutcase back before that'll be possible. Dismissed," Oliver said while handing her back her tablet. Cassidy snapped off a salute that the Colonel returned before addressing Kimi. "Go ahead."
"Sir, Lieutenant Amani reports as ordered," Kimi said, her eyes never looking away from a spot on the wall directly opposite her. Normally such formalities went out the window with Oliver, but, in the spirit of fairness, he was treating everyone the same. If the Marines and Airmen from the Odyssey had to salute him, then so did his team.
"At ease," Oliver replied before motioning for her to continue.
**Iron-Rich Asteroid (Orbit)**
*Battlestar Galactica (Sick Bay)*
The pounding noise that magnets made when being used to scan a Human brain was enough to make a person go crazy. Sitting through three of them had been torture, but, finally, she was done. Doctor Cottle walked in with a small smile on his normally grim face and said, "You've got a computer chip in your head, but, other than that, you're as healthy as I'd expect a sleep-deprived soldier to be."
"I'm not a solider," Gabi replied as she sat up.
"You work with them, don't you?" Cottle asked to which Gabi nodded. "You take orders from them, don't you?"
"That doesn't make me one," Gabi argued with a distant look on her face.
"But you wish you were one," the good doctor observed.
"I used to," Gabi said.
"What changed?"
"Nothing… everything… if only I knew," she shrugged.
Cottle nodded in understanding. "I was the same way. In the end, I settled for saving their lives. The ones that make it back to me alive, that is. You've done something similar."
"Yeah," Gabi huffed. "I hacked the wrong computer and got pulled into a world that ended up being an intergalactic war effort. The sad part is, that taught me just about nothing about staying out of trouble."
"Still hacking computers?" Cottle asked with a knowing grin.
"Yes, but now I'm hacking alien computers and using the information to save a world that has no idea it's under attack."
"How does that work?" Cottle asked, taken aback by the very idea of not knowing you're at war.
"Our technology base is different from yours. Have you ever wondered why?" Gabi answered his question with one of her own. "We call it the Stargate…" she began.
**Dead Space (Colonial Fleet)**
*Battlestar Pegasus (Combat Information Center)*
The repairs to the CIC were nearly finished, but they were still days out from repairing the damage to the hull and the space frame would take weeks to be fully repaired. The only saving grace was that they were still FTL capable. If they didn't have that…
"Commander, I've got a message for you from one of the repair teams," Lee's Executive Officer, stolen from Galactica's own CIC, reported.
"What is it, D?" Lee asked as he turned to the woman in question.
"The damage caused to the area around the Tylium reserves was more extensive than we originally thought. Once the breach was sealed off and the room was repressurized, they found cracks in the Tylium tanks theirselves. The only reason Pegasus is still in one piece was the lack of fuel in the tanks."
"I never thought a lack of fuel would save us," Lee said with a shake of his head. "What's our status after the fuel was shipped over?"
"We're currently sitting below the level that would cause a leak, but if we take on more than a few dozen gallons more, the fluid levels will rise above the cracks in the tanks and spill everywhere. Until the tanks have been repaired, we should be moved to the bottom of the refueling list."
"How many jumps do we have left?"
"At current supply levels, we have six jumps remaining in the tanks."
"I'll send word to Galactica," Lee nodded solemnly. "Anything else?"
"The other teams report an otherwise smooth repair operation. We should have all of the hull breaches sealed up before the end of the next day-shift."
"And the armor?"
"That'll take a while to repair. The mining ships have handed off all of the refined Tylium ore to the refinery ships so the refueling effort is going well. The mining effort is another story. According to the Admiral's most recent update, they're being harassed by Raiders. The Cylons aren't mobilizing in force, not after we defeated that last fleet. If any Baseships do show up," D said forcefully when Lee moved to speak over her, "we'll be the first to know. Right now it's just a few Raiders taking advantage of the hash on the DRADIS and making hit-and-run strikes. With the modifications to the DRADIS system that Professor Naco made, the Admiral has deployed Raptors in strategic locations and is using the live feeds to monitor the situation. The Vipers are holding their own against such a minor Raider force and the mining operation is underway."
***Local Cluster (Sol System)***
**Earth (Surface)**
*Cheyanne Mountain Complex (Air Strip)*
"Why are we here?" Chino asked.
"Because we were ordered to be," Alcatraz replied as their plane set down with a bump they were all used to by now.
"But why here?" Chino stressed. "Of all the places in the world, why this mountain?"
"This is Cheyenne Mountain," Walsh began, his usual lecture tone applied in force. "The Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker was established during the Cold War. The bunker designed within was built to survive a thirty megaton nuclear explosion detonated within one nautical mile, one-point-two miles, or one-point-nine kilometers depending on which system of measurement you prefer. According to public record, the base is five-point-one acres of tunnels. Support services for this installation are provided by Air Force Space Command's 721st Mission Support Group. The main door into the facility weighs twenty-five tons."
"Use Wikipedia much?" Frasier asked.
"No," Walsh replied with a shrug. "I just read the report that they handed us before shipping us out here. The last part of which, I might add, held the history of the facility."
"What they're allowing us to know about the history of the facility," Kat corrected.
The back of the plane opened with a hiss of hydraulic pistons, and, as the ramp lowered, the ground crew moved up to the rear of the plane to start pulling the cargo out. As the two teams disembarked, massive crates were pulled out of the back of the jet and placed on wheel-less trollies. That only made it all the more surprising when the packages that must've contained enough food to feed a sizable army for a month simply rose an inch into the air before being pushed around as if they were weightless.
"We leave one freak show for another," Tyson mumbled to himself.
"At least this 'freak show' has an explanation serving as the proverbial light at the end of a very real tunnel," a new voice said from behind them. The assembled men and woman all turned, fell into line, and snapped off a crisp salute as a high ranking officer approached them with a stack of files and a computer tucked under one arm. "At ease, soldiers," the man said as he returned their salute and started handing out the files. "In the interest of speeding up this process, I've taken the liberty of signing your contracts for you," the man said while prompting them to open the files.
Alcatraz looked down at his own and noted a stunning lack of a signature on the paper. He looked up from the file to question this and found a pen being held out to him. "This may be a situation you're not used to, but don't presume you've lost your rights. For the sake of breaking the ice, I made a joke. These things happen. Get used to them, but know that there's a time and a place for everything. The first thing I need you all to do is sign these. They're you're basic, run of the mill nondisclosure agreements. Feel free to read them over if you're too paranoid to take my word for it. Any and all questions will be answered either in processing or at the end of the tour. This has officially begun processing. Any questions?"
"What's the Stargate Program?" Kat asked as she read the file faster than the rest of them.
"The thing you're agreeing not to disclose any information on," the man replied. "To anyone. Beyond that, you have to sign it before I can tell you anything else." Once the files were signed and handed back to the man, he laid them all flat in one hand then pressed a button that was strapped to his wrist. Alcatraz had assumed it was a watch, but that notion quickly disappeared… with the files… in a beam of light… "Your paperwork has been sent to the desk of our primary personnel office. By the time we get there, they'll have your papers filed. Before then, however, I need to take your biometrics. If you'll place your designated appendage on the scanner please," the man continued as if all of this was perfectly normal.
Alcatraz looked down at the offered tablet, questioned how a normal touch-screen could read his fingerprint, then decided that this place was anything but normal. Then he realized it wanted his palm print. "My palm isn't on record," Alcatraz informed the man before him.
"That's the whole point of the scanner," the man replied simply. "I don't just carry it around for the fun of it." Alcatraz shrugged and placed his hand on the scanner. Once it was done scanning his hand, the man flipped the computer around, now revealing the actual screen, and asked, "Pointer or thumb?"
"Pointer," Alcatraz replied.
The man circled Alcatraz's pointer finger on the scanned image and sent the new scan off to wherever they did their paperwork at. Once everyone was done being checked for their biometrics, the man finally started walking. "First things first," the man said as he led the way, "you'll need your ID badges. Do not, EVER, enter this base without that badge. If you attempt to, you will be detained, shot, or shot and then detained. While we walk, I'll give you the history brief. The State of Affairs brief will come from your new CO, or the General himself if the current situation has been resolved by the time your briefing begins. The first thing you need to know is that this facility houses the Stargate, an alien relic that allows near instantaneous travel between two 'Gates' as they're often called…"
***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***
**Dead Space (Location Unknown)**
*USS Odyssey (Engine Room)*
When they had first dropped out of hyperspace all those days ago to repair the dampeners, Sam had thought that the state of the crystal trays was bad. Looking at them now, she'd give anything to go back to only having one system that was badly damaged as opposed to a ship that, honestly, shouldn't still be functioning right now. She sighed when she heard the measured footsteps enter the room.
"I can't give you any good news," she said simply without looking up from her work.
"I figured as much," Colonel Davidson replied. "How are you holding up?"
"This ship is broken," Sam stated as fact. "The fact that we're alive is a miracle. Part of our repair crew was away on a humanitarian mission when the ship became inoperable. I'm running a team that's not at full strength that is, nevertheless, trying their best to repair a ship that needs raw materials and months in dry-dock to be fixed. I don't know what you're expecting from me, but you're not going to get much."
"That's not what I asked," Davidson said calmly.
"Well that's my answer," Sam shot back as she pushed the tray back into place and moved over to the terminal that controlled that system. She typed in a few commands and the tray began emitting a soft light before a few sparks shot out of the place in the wall. Despite what Davidson would've expected to be bad news, Sam actually looked pleased. "That solves that problem."
"Which problem?" Davidson asked.
"The subspace sensors are back online," she replied before pulling out another tray and getting to work on it.
"Marks, what our status?" Davidson asked into his radio.
"Sensors are back up and we've got a trace on the Ori. They dropped out of hyperspace in a nearby system. It looks like they were expecting us to go running towards the trinium deposit there," Marks replied.
"If this ship had mining capabilities, we probably would have," Davidson admitted. "Keep an eye on that ship, Major."
"Yes, sir."
"What system are you working on now?"
"The power distribution grid. If we send the bulk of the current through the wires that aren't fried, we can reduced the stress on the damaged systems, and, with a bit of luck, keep the whole ship powered. Right now, there's more than a third of the ship going without heat, light, gravity, and air."
"I thought you said that the life-support was fixed?" Davidson asked.
"This isn't a life-support problem, this is a power distribution problem," Sam countered.
"What about our comms?"
"I'm not working on them," Sam replied.
"Why not?" Davidson pressed.
"Because giving away our position to the Ori is a bad idea and you can't argue with that. Right now the Ori are one system over from us. If we tried to use the subspace grid to send a message to tell the Colonials to keep running, it'd most likely get us all killed!" Sam snapped.
"Is there no way of solving that problem?"
"Not without going onto the hull with a magical wand that I could wave around, make a wish, and use to summon up a new array. The comms system we use still utilize a satellite dish to focus the signal. That dish was torn off by the rate of our uncontrolled deceleration. The thing that takes a bomb and makes it a shaped charge has been removed. If we broadcast anything right now, it'll go everywhere and everyone will hear it. Without a focusing antennae or a satellite, both of which were torn off, using the communications grid is tantamount to suicide."
"So it's a question of materials," Davidson said with a sad nod. "If only Galactica was still here, we could borrow some of the fleet's."
"If they were here and the Ori found us, they'd be easier to kill than we would. It's best for them that they're not here, even if it means that we're screwed," Sam replied before blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "Remind me again why we wanted to go to that damned planet in the first place!"
"Because Doctor McKay said that there was technology there to help us fight the Ori."
"Figures this would be McKay's fault."
***Local Cluster (Sol System)***
**Earth (Surface)**
*Stargate Command (Corridor)*
"Commander on deck." The voice caught Landry off-guard. He'd never heard it before and he knew everyone under his command.
"At ease," Landry said with a wave of his hand at the assembled soldiers all standing at attention. "You must be the new bunch," Landry mused as he took in the men and woman that were being given a tour of the facility. "Give them the Alpha Briefing yet?" he asked their tour guide.
"I figured that Brandon would want that privilege," his favorite Gate technician replied with a mischievous smile.
"Well don't keep them waiting too long. They'll start to think this whole thing is a hoax," Landry said as he walked past them, and, as Walter fell in line beside him, the assembled troops fell in line behind him. "I assume you've already welcomed them, so let me be the second. Welcome to the Stargate Program," Landry said while looking at the trail of people behind him. "You're here because your respective countries nominated you as being amongst the best they had to offer. Your purpose is to learn what you need to stay alive before being assigned to the Alpha Fleet, but you'll learn more about that later. In the meantime, we'll give an idea of what's been going on for the past ten years."
Landry's next words were cut off by a flashing light coming from the watch on his wrist. Well, 'watch.' It had quite a few functions. "If you'll excuse me, I have pressing matters to attend to. Walter, be sure to show them the good stuff," Landry ordered before walking towards his office.
"I never did like her," a voice in the shadows said as Landry sat behind his desk.
When he noticed the classified report that had been sitting on his desk in the man's hand, he grunted in reply. "You never liked politicians, period," Landry countered as he pressed the button under his desk. "What have we got?" Landry asked once the jamming field was active and the doors were sealed by force fields.
"Something worth having Earth connected to," Colonel Andy replied as he stepped out of the corner of Landry's office that the members of his subdivision had taken the lamp out of to provide a dark enough corner of their all-black armor to hide them in and tossed the report back on his desk, the image of the Chinese ambassador to the IOA's mug shot on the front page. The rest of the report detailed the reasons Landry was holding her in his brig, but that was a topic for another time.
"I have more pressing matters to attend to than word games," Landry said firmly as he started shifting through the files on his desk. He had a lot of work to do.
"We found a planet in the Lucian Alliance database on Epsilon Beta that, quite explicitly, describes a planet protected from foreign invaders by a shield."
"We already have shielding technology," Landry dismissed.
"Not one we can employ on a planetary scale, General."
Landry looked up from the file in his hands and met the Colonel's eyes. "Planetary scale?" he asked, more than a little skeptical.
"A shield designed from the ground up to cover an entire planet. How they managed to survive long enough to develop a technology like that is…" Andy began.
"Irrelevant," Landry cut him off. "What do you need?"
"With Colonnello Viride missing, and Colonel Ry out on a mission, I'm following my standing orders which are to run all of our plans by you before going ahead with anything. That, and I wanted to check on the progress of the search?"
"It's going better today than it was yesterday. The Asgard have arrived and are actively searching the galaxy for the Odyssey, but now the Daedalus is reporting major structural faults that have to be fixed before they attempt a hyperspace trip, but can't be fixed without a dry-dock," Landry replied with an air of dissatisfaction. "Add to that the IOA's current antics and I'm about ready to make good on my promise to have them all shot. Proceed as you see fit, Colonel"
"We'd need a small army to take the planet, General."
"All you'll have is what you have. I don't have any forces that I can loan you without the IOA getting involved, and, if that happens, this will be put on the back burner until they deliberate the best course of action. Get the shield designs and drop them off at the Alpha Site. Standard operational procedure. Just credit the act of kindness to whatever race you're impersonating and keep searching. We'll find it eventually."
"That's Ryan's job, sir. My team just keeps Ba'al off our backs, but, given that the Zeta Initiative is missing more than half of its military members, I'm going to ask that you allow us to deploy with all the forces we have left."
"On my authority as the Commanding Officer of this facility and all of its affiliates, I hereby grant you the rank and power of a full-bird Colonel for the duration of our current emergency. Proceed as you see fit, Colonel," Landry said again with greater force.
"We'll get it done, sir," Andy replied before beaming out to his ship in orbit.
One of these days Landry would have to see what those things looked like. All he'd ever had access to were the initial schematics. Then, as planned, the Zeta Site went dark, all communication was cut, and the only time he ever had contact with the members of the most drastic initiative the Stargate Program had undertaken was when they showed up in person. It had taken them nearly seven months to produce the first ship. They went that long without reporting back to the planet they called home. That long without seeing their families. That long without being discovered by Ba'al, the Lucian Alliance, or the Ori. Now it had been years.