Chapter 2

Location: Battlestar Galactica

Date: September 23, 2021

Time 2100 Lima

"What do you mean she disappeared?" Commander William Adama roared at his XO, Colonel Tigh.

"Just what I said Bill, Caprica Control said her Raptor didn't show up at the time we recorded her jump. She never made it to Caprica. Her transponder isn't broadcasting near any of the Colonies, and no other units have reported seeing her or her Raptor. She's just…gone," Saul responded calmly.

"There's not a chance that she jumped into Cylon territory?" Adama asked sitting down heavily.

"It's possible, but highly doubtful. I spoke with the Mr. Gaeta about the possibility, but he says that it would take several long range jumps to get anywhere near Cylon Territory."

"So where is my daughter?"

"We're working on it Bill, the word is out and the fleet's mobilized a search, if she's out there we'll find her."

"In the meantime," Adama looked up, "Ground all of Galactica's Raptors until the Fleet conducts a maintenance review."

"Already done, Chief Tyrol's tearing his first bird apart as we speak."

"Have Boomer and Helo ready to conduct flight tests for each Raptor," Adama ordered, "They're our best Raptor crew, if something's wrong they'll see it."

"Roger that Bill."

Location: Stargate Command, Earth

Time: 0930 Lima

General Jack O'Neill stood groggily next to his subordinate, General Hank Landry who seemed to be far too energized for it being so early in the morning. He'd been on a routine visit to the SGC to check up on what was going on with the galaxy. But now he was being forced into meeting some crashed pilot that had given some pilots a real scare and splattered her ship across the countryside. The briefing from Colonel East, the CO of the Alpha Site had said that she had dramatically changed her attitude towards them once she heard the word 'Earth' and had asked, no demanded really, to go to Earth.

"Hey Jack," the always giddy Dr. Jackson said as he walked into the gate room as the chevrons started activating.

"Hey Daniel."

"Haven't had coffee?"

"No…you know how I need a good cup of joe. It's torture to keep me from my morning coffee in my...old age. Even if it's to meet some woman who wants to see Earth."

"Well Jack you have to understand this woman, as you call her, had known about Earth before we told her we were from Earth."

"And this is significant how?" O'Neill asked as the gate activated.

"Well…I don't know, let's ask."

The classic whoosh noise and the event horizon formed as a great leap of water flew from the gate and was just as quickly pulled back in. Immediately the iris closed, more for formality seeing as the General was present and it was protocol to get the iris closed as soon as any offworld activation connected.

"Receiving Alpha Site IDC sir," the technician said into the mic.

"Open it up Chief," Landry ordered calmly.

"Yes sir, opening iris."

"You gonna be there for Walter's sendoff Jack?" Landry asked.

"Of course," O'Neill responded, "Hard to believe he's retiring already."

"Sure is," Daniel said in agreement.

"He's never even had a parking spot," Jack quipped quickly before the iris opened.

Just like that the iris opened and revealed the watery illusion the event horizon gave off. It was truly mystifying really, if it didn't shut down every thirty eight minutes O'Neill would just sit there and stare at it. But seeing as the damned thing tended to be a huge sink hole for the program's enormous funding.

As O'Neill began to zone out in his own head a single soldier walked right through the gate with his M4A1 in hand and stepped off to the side to allow a wheelchair holding a single young woman in the dark green of an Air Force jumpsuit with her right arm in a sling and her hands bandaged up tightly. Her hair was a light brown with that she'd apparently tied in a ponytail to keep it out of the way. She was sitting in the wheelchair pushed by a single medic, so it hard to get a good gauge of her height, but despite the jumpsuit it was clear she took care of her body and was thin and petite. Her face was very attractive, even with some minor cuts on her cheeks. But it was also clear that she had never traveled by Stargate before so when she was through she began panting at the experience she had just gone endured, and probably the state of her injuries made it a bit worse.

"You alright ma'am?" the medic asked courteously, receiving a firm nod as the young woman righted herself as not to regain some measure of composure, knowing this was a big moment.

"Wait, this isn't Earth, we just left!" she said, looking around and realizing that something was all-too familiar, "what are you trying to pull?"

"Oh no you're on Earth, it's just that we operate our Stargates underground and try to keep a similar lay out to our offworld facilities," Daniel said, trying to calm her down before she got too upset, "Hello, I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson, it's a pleasure to meet you Miss Adama."

Daniel held out his hand to the Kelsey and received a firm handshake, "It's Lieutenant Adama, I haven't been called 'miss' since before I joined the Colonial Fleet."

"Oh sorry, um…welcome to Stargate Command, and by extension, welcome to Earth."

Kelsey looked up at the concrete ceiling and breathed the air deeply, as if savoring the moment, "No one back home is going to believe this."

"Oh they'll believe you alright," O'Neill said, stepping forward, "Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill, CO of Homeworld Defense."

"A pleasure sir."

Kelsey saluted him smartly knowing a General of any Colony, including the thirteenth, deserved her respect and merited a salute. And she also wanted to try and make as good an impression as she possibly could. After all, this was the first time in ten thousand years that a Caprican had been face to face with their Earth cousins. O'Neill's lip curled into a crooked smile, and returned the salute.

"Major General Hank Landry, and don't feel the need to salute Lieutenant, I'm not really one for formality," Landry said, stepping forward to shake her hand.

"Well, I'd like you to join us in our briefing room for some chit chat, along with coffee," O'Neill offered.

"Oh some coffee would be nice sir," Kelsey grinned, having been introduced to the beverage back at the Alpha Site, and took quite a liking to it, much to the chagrin of the base doctors.

"See? Even she knows the value of a good cup of coffee," O'Neill said to Daniel as they filed out of the room.

It took a bit of convincing for the medic to prevent her from walking herself up the stairs on her own. So they took the elevator to the right level where she was wheeled into the conference room overlooking the gate room. On the way there she was moved past numerous Security Forces personnel in full combat gear. Long gone were the days when their security personnel were just glorified MP's with M9's. The military had upgraded, now each guard had on an IHPS Helmet, an SPCS vest, and was holding an M4A1 and a Zat or a taser on their thigh and an M17 pistol their chest. It was a sudden and dramatic change, but O'Neill knew why: The Space Force was the new young service, and its leadership was marking its territory. The same old assortment of personnel was also present, but nowadays, Stargate Command fell under the jurisdiction of the United States Space Force, no members of the public, and most members of Congress had a clue about it. Everyone was wearing multicam combat fatigues, no more of their old duty uniforms like their button-up dress or garrison uniforms, this was another product of how recently Space Force's highest levels had taken over the SGC, and they were working hard at trying to "make the SGC theirs". This sort of political wrangling at the top where O'Neill and Landry were had them deciding to begin their holding patterns for retirement, preparing their future replacements for command handover. But none of this was evident to Kelsey as she was helped into a seat where Daniel, Landry, and O'Neill sat down and started bombarding her with questions, after sharing a good cup of Brazilian coffee. Which Kelsey was oh so appreciative of, and O'Neill immediately got into a better mood, now having had his coffee.

"So, tell me, how did you know about Earth?" Daniel started.

"Are you kidding? Every child in the Colonies is taught about Earth!" she replied, "It's in the Sacred Scrolls."

"I'm sorry the what?"

"Our religious texts," she replied, trying to point them in the right direction. But the blank and confused looks on their faces convinced her that she would have to really dig into her memory to try and remind them of their own heritage, "Okay umm…let's see if I can recall all of this…so according to the Sacred Scrolls several thousand years ago, don't ask me for an exact number, on a planet called Kobol humanity lived together in paradise with the Gods. There were thirteen tribes: Caprica, Gemenon, Picon, Aquaria, Sagittaron, Libran, Virgon, Scorpia, Tauron, Canceron, Aerilon, and your tribe."

"Those names, they sound like slight deviations of the twelve signs of the Zodiac," Jackson mumbled to himself.

"Oh, so you're familiar with the names themselves?" Kelsey said hopefully.

"Yes, kind of, to us they're constellations in the sky. We associate each constellation with a symbol and with that we associate character traits."

"It makes sense…I remember a phrase saying something about Earth being able to see its sister tribes in their night sky," Kelsey responded, "Character traits…some people associate those things I guess."

"Well recently, we discovered a thirteenth Zodiac, Ophiuchus. The Snake Bearer, or Healer as some others have put it. We only recently discovered it was a part of the Zodiac due a phenomena generated by Earth's axial precession."

"I don't understand," Kelsey said.

"Oh, I was just trying to throw a name out there, hoping you knew what it meant."

"I'm sorry, I'm no scholar, you'd have to talk to a priest or one of the Quorum. I've never been all that religious. But I do remember a few things from grade school, so I'm sorry sirs, you'll have to bear with me."

"You're doing fine, Lieutenant," Landry gave her a warm smile and a nod of encouragement, being fairly impressed with how well this young woman was handling herself despite her obvious injuries and rattled state.

"Please, continue," Daniel urged her politely to continue.

"All thirteen tribes lived together a great disaster threatened Kobol and all who lived there. So…the thirteen tribes left. The twelve I named went on to form what has since become the Twelve Colonies of Man, and the thirteenth went out on its own path, and eventually settled on a planet called Earth."

"Interesting story, but might we be so bold as to start poking little holes in it?" O'Neill started.

"I'm no priest, so you won't offend me sir," Kelsey replied determinedly.

"Good, our planet has had enough trouble with religious zealots, both indigenous and alien," O'Neill replied.

"Alien?" Kelsey swallowed surprised, "You've fought aliens?"

"And psychotic robots," O'Neill responded happily, "And kicked their asses time and time again."

"These robots…what was their name?" she asked, hoping that they had fought the Cylons and beaten them soundly so that perhaps they might have something in common.

"Well…we called them Replicators. They were kinda like little bugs with no clue as to the existence of birth control, we had to exterminate once, well…more than once."

"Did you create them?" Kelsey asked, more curious than anything.

"Oh Hell no! We honestly have no idea where they came from, at least the Milky Way ones. The Pegasus buggers were a completely different animal altogether…wait…why?" O'Neill asked, drawing attention to the young pilot.

"Well…we've had our own troubles with artificial intelligence in the past."

"Haven't we all?" O'Neill chuckled, getting an odd look from Jackson who tapped his pen on his notebook, like he had something he wanted to say, who knew what O'Neill was talking about, "Don't start with that again…"

"So back to the topic of your knowledge of Earth," Jackson stared, putting the conversation back on track, "You said that this thirteenth tribe settled on a planet called Earth after leaving a place called Kobol?"

"That's right, 'life here began out there', that's what the Scrolls say anyway. And the 'out there' is Kobol as the Sacred Scrolls tell us, which to many translates to Kobol being the birthplace of Humanity."

Daniel looked at O'Neill and let out a heavy sigh, "Lieutenant, I think that what I'm about to tell you will possibly disprove some major points about what your religion has told you. We have archeological evidence that shows Earth as the birthplace of Humanity. We have carbon dating proving our earliest ancestors evolved on Earth more than two hundred thousand years ago. You said that your own people were said to have left this planet Kobol about five thousand years ago?"

Kelsey nodded, unable to formulate any words at all as she struggled to comprehend what they were telling her.

"I think that your people started on Kobol because they were brought from Earth and left after some sort of tragedy forced them to leave, but if I had to guess this supposed thirteenth tribe didn't go to Earth, they returned to Earth. And as for your side of the equation I can theorize that they were sourced elsewhere as well, but they themselves began developing as truly developed civilizations on Kobol itself, hence your religious texts' belief of life beginning on Kobol. Genetically your people may not have gotten their start on Kobol, but I'm willing to bet that your culture did."

Kelsey just stared out at them, unable to speak, barely able to breathe. What she was hearing was a very rude shock; if she had been a devout worshiper of the Lords of Kobol she would be yelling her lungs out at them screaming all sorts of accusations such as blasphemy and heresy. But she wasn't raised to think with her heart, that's what her head was for. She was smart enough to deduce the facts that were painful to hear but possibly true from all of what Dr. Jackson was saying. Kelsey had to hand it to him, he'd been very careful about being as gentle with her as he could have been. And to her credit she'd taken this response very quietly and quite professionally. Still, she had no clue as to what she was even supposed to do now. This was way outside her pay grade. Her day had started out as a frustrating milk run as her first mission. But instead, she had seen the death of her ECO, been forced to eject from her Raptor, and was now in the care of the long-lost thirteenth colony. But now these people from Earth were telling her that all she knew and believed, what every single one of Colonies believed, was probably wrong, or at least taken out of context or misinterpreted.

"I…I honestly don't know what to say. Listen I'm no religious zealot, I won't bounce off the walls screaming blasphemy. And there are very, very few, among my people who will make a problem about it on religious grounds. Still, if you go to the Colonies, and you tell them what you told me, it could very perceivably rock our society to the core, but not irreversibly. We're a tough group, we survived worse. The Colonies won't descend into madness and chaos or anything, religion is very low on people's priorities these days. In fact many would be willing to accept this if you presented them with the physical evidence. There will be some riots and protests in the streets, the Quorum will be in an uproar for…who knows how long, but above all you'll be seen as wrong and blown off really, the odd one out talking trash so to speak. People are set in their ways, and it'll take time for many to adjust. And to be honest I'm gonna guess the government might get a little pushy with you, not on religious grounds per se, but on political and economic grounds with religion paid some lip service to as a political tool."

"Well that's why we told you first. While you don't necessarily speak for your government or your people, you can still give an insight to what they'll say and how they'll react."

"I'm some kind of test subject," she replied turning to face them, shrugging in understanding and agreement with the theory behind it.

"In a manner of speaking yes," O'Neill said with a careful nod.

"But uh…what do I do now?" Kelsey sighed, suddenly very tired as she mentally recovered from that very touchy subject, "I'm not exactly able to reach out to a diplomatic mission or government presence for guidance, in case you can't tell I am very…very lost."

"It's alright, here follow these guys. They'll take you to your quarters for the time being and you can get some sleep," Jackson calmly spoke to her, "We'll work on a plan for getting you home later."

"Thank you, but…one last thing. The ship that crashed, I wasn't alone in it. I had an Electronics Control Officer aboard, my number two, he was killed before I jumped and didn't eject. What's the status on his remains? Have they been recovered?"

"We…found what we could. His remains are being held in cold storage at the planet where you crashed," Landry answered.

"I have a favor to ask, can I request a Colonial flag be made for accompaniment with the method of transport for his remains? Eyeball, my ECO's callsign, always had a folded-up banner in his flight suit as a good luck charm. If you found that on him it might help you to recreate it, and my flight suit gear should also have an image of it somewhere. Also, I want to inspect his remains, and I want them respected, until we get home."

"We'll see to it," Daniel agreed, and the two generals silently nodded as well, before Kelsey nodded that was ready to get some rest.

"Thank you," Kelsey said as she nodded that she was ready to go and the guards and her medical escort led her out and when the door closed Daniel stood up.

"Well Jack, looks like we've got quite the situation on our hands," Jackson said, plopping down next to him and Landry.

"So, what action do we take?" Landry asked.

"Well we can't keep her here, she doesn't belong here, this isn't her home. We have to at least help her find her home system," Jackson pleaded.

"Then what Daniel? Risk offending more people and going to war again?!" O'Neill sarcastically yelled back.

"What if we didn't contact them until we knew more about their politics, their culture, and their history? The more we learn about them the easier it will be for us to avoid any conflict," Daniel said.

"And how will you do that Daniel? It's not like I can just give you one of our Battlecruisers just to hold these folks under a microscope. We don't have very many of them."

"Jack you just completed a new batch of them, and these even bigger ships you're building are nearly done. Gone are the days of two or three ships being all we have," Daniel replied.

"We still only have a handful of ships, with very few Battleships nearing completion. The first of our next batch will only be launching in late November, and it'll take until next March for them to be fully operational. But the biggest problem is putting a fully trained crew on the damned things."

"Well…what about that new scout ship that Sam has Area 51 going through pre-production? Could that do the job?" Daniel asked.

"The X-306?" Landry grumbled, "There are two prototypes flying right now."

"With a dozen more ordered. It has the ability to scan Colonial space, listen in on their TV, or radios, or whatever it is they use for communication and to do it while being totally unseen," Daniel said quickly, getting odd looks from the two generals, "Yeah, Sam talked to me about it when she visited last. So, can she come and give us a rundown?"

"Uh…you'd have to talk to Carter about that, she is at Area 51 right now, the Hammond's been in for refit, so we might be able to have her come up here and give us a run down on the X-306's capability," O'Neill said.

"I'm sure she'd enjoy that," Landry chuckled, remembering how much Colonel Carter liked showing off her latest and greatest inventions, discoveries, and doohickeys.

"I'll have her come on down later in the week and give her a breakdown of the situation," O'Neill agreed, "Now, what to do about our wayward guest."

Kelsey had barely made it to the room she had been assigned to without showing that she probably could've used another dose of painkiller to deal with the assortment of injuries plaguing her. The pair of security personnel escorting her seemed to be more concerned about her health than her triggering a security breach. But she'd made it nonetheless, and with the help of a medical assistant collapsed onto the soft bed covers very happy to be on something soft. The room wasn't so bad, it was certainly better than any hospital bed or quarantine cell. In fact, it was more of a nice recovery room than anything, with some medical equipment present along with a TV on the wall. There was a blue carpeted floor with concrete walls that had a few pictures and paintings of what appeared to be atmospheric fighters and bombers used by these Earthers. Each of them had a certain predatory allure to them, as any fighter or bomber truly had when it was designed by a true master of the trade. She had her own bathroom, complete with a shower, head, and sink with some very hospital-like features for ease of use being present. It was clear to her that they meant to keep her here for the recovery phase of her stay, with some consideration taken to comfort.

As she laid there, right arm across her chest she began to daydream, and instantly, her thoughts drifted to home. And the first face she saw was that of her father, it was for him she'd joined the service after Zak died and Lee had cut himself off from their dad. She had seen the effect it all had on their father, and she wanted to help with every fiber of her being. So, she had dropped out of school where she'd been on the fast track to landing a pretty high-profile role in a new romantic comedy series back on Caprica she'd been auditioning for almost four months, making it onto the director's short-list. However, something happened, Zak died. Then Kelsey enlisted and joined the academy, set on following her father's footsteps, and finishing Zak's footsteps, and become an Adama. She wanted to see her father look at her with pride, and now…she just might be the cause of either the greatest moment in the history of the Colonies, or be the root of their darkest days. And then her mind began to trace what had happened to make her believe that this wasn't the blessing that it appeared.

What if they decide to not let me go home? What if they take me home and things go wrong? What about the Cylons?

Her mind grasped that thought. What about the Cylons? What if this wasn't real at all? What if I'm not on Earth? I could be strapped to steel table with mind probes manipulating what I see and what I feel! I could be a tool the Cylons are using to glean information from me by making me reveal all I know about the Colonies and the Fleet. Her mind dissected these possibilities, remembering what her father had told her about the experiments he had seen with his own eyes at the war's end so many years ago. It was possible, the Cylons weren't stupid and they had proved their technological superiority in the war many times. And she'd not exactly been in a position to resist capture when she had ejected from her Raptor, so they could have easily controlled when she came to.

Kelsey also remembered the way they had blown her whole belief in the Lords apart. Could that be a clue as to some psychological experiment to undermine the Colonies from the inside out? Her mind was rampant with 'what ifs' that plagued her mind with the unbearable circumstances of what she was playing out. If this was some Cylon trick she had to stay quiet and not let herself be tempted into revealing anything about the Fleet or the Colonies, and stay alive. But if this was Earth, she couldn't say too much about the Colonies that could be used against her people in the event of war. So, she came to one conclusion, she had to keep her mouth shut and play along. At the same time, she knew that she had to get healthy again, it was never a good thing to be laid up the way she was, restricted to a wheelchair due to shrapnel injuries. So, that meant the young Colonial was beholden to her own body's rate of healing, and that of Earth's own generosity, if this was Earth at all.