Chapter 4
Location: Stargate Command
Date: November 29, 2021
Time: 1500
"Okay…I think we've got it," Dr. Jackson whispered to himself as he looked at the computer screen before him.
"What?" Kelsey asked, from her spot in a seat in the corner. She'd basically given up on trying to actively search for planets and star systems that could have been home to the Colonies she was just so burnt out. Now, she was idly flipping through a National Geographic magazine with her feet on the table.
It had been nearly a month of searching through the Ancient Database that Jackson had downloaded from Atlantis. He'd been teaching Kelsey about the Ancients with varying degrees of success, and this was certainly something Kelsey was absorbing like a sponge so she could report back to her superiors. The young lieutenant had been given selective access to certain things and people, being allowed up into the light of day to get some fresh air from time to time, usually a handful of times a week, but always away from the civilian population and always under guard and escorted. However, things had been getting harder with Kelsey being more and more depressed and irritated, basically she was getting home sick. Mostly she was worrying about her father and brother, and what they might have been thinking about her and her fate. But for the first time since she'd arrived she had great hope for returning home to her family.
"Look, here, I just found a reference to a planet the Ancients, the gate builders I spoke of earlier, established roughly a hundred thousand years ago they referred to as one of several sanctuaries from a massive plague that was destroying their civilization."
"The one you said that drove them out to colonize a different galaxy right?"
"Correct. The database we have says that they brought humans from worlds that were yet to be afflicted with this plague to safeguard and develop them so they could reseed life in the galaxy when the Ancients left. It says a small population of Ancient specialists stayed in the Milky Way to help develop these sanctuary worlds. But by the time of the Wraith War the Ancients were desperate, so they reached out to their old sanctuary worlds in the Milky Way hoping to draw upon the human populations as reinforcements. However only one survived up until then. The Ancients began to build them up, hoping to use this old sanctuary world as a source of reinforcements."
"So you're saying the Lords of Kobol were these…Ancients, and they wanted to use us humans as their emergency army?" Kelsey asked, genuinely curious now.
"Well that's what I'm able to gather from this, but there's no record that your people even got to the point of being able to help, it was like a lot of other Ancient projects, too little too late. But it was obviously populated and advanced enough the Ancients who didn't remain on Earth after returning from Pegasus chose to go there to pursue further technological innovation. But then this world apparently suffered from…sort of catastrophe, the records just go blank," Daniel explained, referring to the Asgard computer core's historical records.
"I get the picture, but what does this mean?" Kelsey said leaning over Daniel's shoulder to look down at the computer screen.
"The symbols on the Stargate each correspond to sounds, and the sounds for this one sound as follows: Asallon Kobol. Does that sound familiar?"
"Kobol…" Kelsey whispered, savoring the name, smiling as she said it.
"You said that your people left Kobol in ships. What sort of hyperdrives do your people utilize?" Daniel asked, zooming out the star chart.
"You know I won't tell you that," she replied.
"It's to figure out how far they could have traveled. If you tell me that they had primitive FTL tech then we can assume that they have a limited range of travel and I can narrow down the possibilities," Jackson responded trying to coax more and more information from her in an attempt to gain more information.
"Alright, we believe that their FTL's were very much like ours, if they used FTL's at all. There's two schools of thought really, as far as I can recall: one is that they used relatively short-ranged FTL's like ours with five to fifteen light years of range per jump or they were non-FTL ships with either a cryogenic system for the passengers and crew or the ships were generational, as in they stayed aboard for many and I mean many years, perhaps centuries."
"Now that narrows it down," Daniel nodded, as he was typing he talked over his shoulder, "see it's not that hard to share."
"We're looking for a star cluster that is in close proximity to Kobol," Kelsey laid out for him.
"Well we're in luck, only one star cluster is even remotely near Kobol. So here we are, and we're in luck, we've even got a gate address," Daniel grinned, zooming in on a cluster of several small main sequence stars.
"You found it?" Kelsey asked, when she heard Daniel say that he'd got it.
"I think so…only one way to find out."
Dr. Jackson stood up and walked straight towards the door and with a mostly healed up Lt. Adama limping behind him slightly he made his way straight to the Control Room where General Landry was sure to be.
"Sergeant, where's the General?" Jackson asked as soon as he got into the control room.
"He's in his office Doctor."
"Thanks," and with that Jackson hurriedly bounded up the stairs two at a time with Kelsey struggling to keep up.
He's more frakking excited than I am, and it's my homeworld, he thought to herself.
"Ah Doctor Jackson, I hope you bring good news," Landry said as he looked up from his desk filled with paperwork.
"Yes, we do," Daniel said as he looked back to see that Kelsey was just walking in behind him, "It turns out that we've been looking in the wrong place sir," General Landry gave Daniel a really confused look at that, "We've been looking for the records in more recent archaeology, but it turns out we had to look much further into the past."
"And?"
"We found it, it was among the last of the colonies the Ancients created millions of years ago and then tried to use as an off-site source of troops and war material, but failed. The world's name is Asallon Kobol."
"The name Kelsey's people believe they are from?"
"Yes sir," Kelsey responded, still not very comfortable with what they'd told her about Earth being the birthplace of humanity. But she was steadily leaning towards that being the truth. That many National Geographics and the entire history of this galaxy couldn't possibly be a Cylon Mind Probe. They weren't that imaginative.
"So, we did a quick our search, and we saw this star cluster not very far away," Jackson pointed again, this time to a group of stars circled in red marker that was believed to be what she had called the Cyrannus System, "And it has a Stargate, but it's an address we dialed about a decade ago, no connection. So we'll have to go by ship."
"Lieutenant Adama," Landry called, "Does this look like your home system?"
"Yes sir it does," she replied confidently, "It's the right types of stars and the right number of planets."
"Very well, the Hammond is wrapping up its post-refit trials in orbit with the U-306 ready for you at Area 51. I'll give SG-1 the mission briefing and make arrangements."
"Wait," Kelsey spoke up, "Why don't you just use your Stargate and go there now, we might have actually unearthed our gate in the last few years."
"Because we have no idea what will happen. We need to be sure that we won't cause mass mayhem in the middle of a museum and have your military treat us like rebels."
"You might be thinking that that's weird but it happens more often than you'd think," Daniel whispered.
Kelsey nodded in understanding, "But can I at least go with them? It is my home and my people after all, and I haven't seen them in...a long time."
"Of course."
- Three Days Later -
Location: Cyrannus System aboard USS George Hammond
Time: 1300 Lima
"Scout zero one you are clear for hyperspace window," the voice of the air traffic controller aboard the Hammond said as the sleek scout vessel containing all of SG-1 and an excited Kelsey Adama, streaked away from the larger Battlecruiser.
"Copy Hammond, opening hyperspace window," Mitchell responded, "buckle up folks."
"Okay, all systems are in the green, we're good to go Cam," Carter said from the control station next to Colonel Mitchell.
"Let's see what this thing's got under the hood," he grinned as he pressed in the right series of commands.
Kelsey was sitting in the back of the cockpit, where everyone was sitting or standing. The area was relatively large and roomy, there were five different seats for someone to be at the controls of a single system such as communications, weapons, or piloting the thing. Kelsey had never been aboard one of the Earth ships before, and when she'd come on this mission she'd gone through a sensory nightmare when she was beamed up onto one these Earthers' warships, a Battlecruiser as they'd called it. At this point she was convinced Earth was flexing at her people through her, trying to goad the Colonial government into treating Earth with respect deserving of an equal by having her see the true might of Earth's technological superiority. And she'd learned to accept that, although she still had her preconceived notions.
So needless to say, this wasn't the last thing about that ship that she had been shocked to see. There were too many windows aboard the ship, perfect targets that could end up being the death of the small ship she was on. She felt extremely cramped aboard the Hammond too, on Battlestars the ceilings were high to keep the crew from going nutty from claustrophobia. But aboard this Earth ship every bit of space was used to its fullest potential. Security was far more heavily enforced for her while aboard, seeing as she was a stranger to the ship and the Earthers didn't want any of their 'superior' technology to be copied and potentially used against them. Still, from what she'd seen there was a whole slew of items of interest like their hyperdrive that was far more strategically efficient than the FTL's her people had and the beaming technology which had all sorts of military and civil applications.
But somehow she'd kept her sanity aboard the cramped vessel and now here she was, stuck in an even smaller ship bound for home.
"Here we go. In three two one," and with the single press of a button a purple cloud of light ripped into existence and they and their small ship dove into it.
"Okay, we're going to be coming in ten seconds," Carter said, and a countdown timer appeared on the HUD in the window.
Kelsey began getting restless, this was it, she was almost home. She eyed the timer as it wound its way to zero and then everyone in the ship flinched in terror when they emerged from hyperspace barely a hundred meters away from the nose of a massive gray ship.
"Oh frak!" Kelsey yelled as everyone else jumped into action, Mitchell expertly pulled up, barely avoiding crashing into a battery of cannons mounted on the ship's back and then quickly activated the ship's cloaking device before they were spotted.
"Whoa, that was close."
"Indeed," Teal'c replied as he looked out in an analytic viewing of the vessel they were now staring at.
"Kelsey…is that…" Daniel asked, trailing off.
"That my friends…is a Battlestar."
Kelsey reveled in the awe that the Battlestar seemed to have on her friends. She'd been the same way when she had first seen a Battlestar in person. It was an unforgettable experience to say the least.
"It's massive, must be fourteen hundred meters long at least," Carter whispered.
"Teal'c, you ever seen anything like it before?" Mitchell asked.
"I have never seen a vessel like this before," Teal'c responded tactfully.
"It's twice as large as any Ha'tak class ship I've ever seen, and it could tear one apart with all those guns too," Vala observed.
"Wait a second, Colonel, you see that flight pod?" Kelsey stepped forward and pointed towards the very familiar shape of the port pod where the vessel's name was written in great big steel letters, "Could you get closer?"
"Yeah…I sure hope this thing's cloak works."
"Cloak?" Kelsey asked, trying to confirm what her ears were telling her.
"We can turn invisible, it helps to keep those very big guns from turning us into space dust," Vala whispered.
"So that's why she hasn't launched her alert Vipers," Kelsey realized, noticing hardly any CAP presence at all, just a formation of four Mk VII's circling above the ship right below them.
"Why are we whispering?" Mitchell added.
"I don't know, seemed appropriate at the time," Vala responded.
Mitchell groaned and gently brought them closer to the large pod. It too was bristling with weaponry, smaller, yet still large secondary guns were holding still aiming into the deep black of space that harbored the small scout ship. But Kelsey began to get extremely excited as they examined the large name plate on the hanger pod.
"The Galactica," she breathed, tears starting to form in her eyes.
"What? The name of the giant scary ship is Galactica, so what?" Vala asked.
"It's just not any Battlestar, it's my Battlestar, it's my father's Battlestar!" she said, smiling wider than she did when she first got her wings.
"We chose this location for a reason," Carter told her, and she and Cam looked over at her, and she realized why.
"I suppose I couldn't ask you guys to…to make contact now?" Kelsey asked hopefully, "The last time my father thought he lost a child, my brother, he was almost impossible to reconcile. I really want him to know I'm alive."
"That was the plan," Mitchell said, "We did a scan prior to this. We knew of this ship's significance to you."
"It was?" Vala asked.
"Yeah, why do you think we took as much time as we did?" Daniel rolled his eyes at Vala.
"You wanted to get off to a good start huh?" Kelsey smiled, acknowledging the somewhat clinical take on the reasoning but appreciated the sentiment anyway.
"I can get you Galactica's frequency."
"Well let's make contact, Carter, hail them."
Location: Battlestar Galactica CIC
"DRADIS Contact! DRADIS Contact! Distance, four-two-zero meters, nine-five degrees, Karom one two zero," Felix Gaeta yelled out as soon as a single blip appeared on the large scanner above the heads of Commander Adama and Colonel Tigh as they were talking with a few civilian engineers on the progress of the disarmament of Galactica's main battery of forward heavy cannons.
"Action Stations! Set Condition-One throughout the ship!" Adama ordered, "Mr. Gaeta identify."
"I'm not reading any IFF from the contact, unknown configuration. The vessel is a bit larger than a Raptor."
"Order the CAP to get a visual," Tigh ordered, stepping to the plotting table, "How the frak did they get that close?"
"Galactica this is Starlight, on intercept with the bogey," the radio called out.
"Starlight this is actual," Adama said, grabbing the phone, "Hold your fire, do not fire unless fired upon."
"Copy actual."
Adama and the entire staff waited as the contact paralleled the Galactica on her starboard side, and then matched speed, as if it was supposed to be there. The CAP of four Mk. VII Vipers closed rapidly on the contact. Those guns were of no use if this vessel was hostile. But it was literally in the crosshairs of the Galactica's main point defense guns. Whatever it was could have easily gone without being seen if it had wanted to remain anonymous, because obviously they had been able to get this close without being seen. It would stand to reason they had wanted to be seen and identified because they weren't exhibiting any outwardly hostile action. The Vipers were going to be ready for that, passing over the still intact main battery of heavy cannons and banked in from above and behind, two falling in behind the contact and the others pulling into formation.
"Commander," Dee said over the quiet over, "I'm getting a signal from the bogey, it's coming over the broadband," she listened to it intently, making sure she was hearing what she was hearing.
"Put it on speakers," Adama ordered.
Dee nodded, hesitating a slight moment before she tapped in the control to pipe the transmission into the CIC speakers for all to hear.
"Attention Colonial Battlestar Galactica, this is Scout Zero-One attached to the Earth Defense Ship George Hammond, please respond over," came the scratchy voice of a man speaking calmly over the channel. Instantly every single person in the CIC stopped what they were doing and just stared out at the speakers. Not even one of them could believe it.
"What the frak?" Tigh breathed, not believing his ears.
"Dee, put me through," Adama ordered calmly. He took the phone into his hand and breathed calmly, if what he was hearing was an Earth vessel, being flown by an Earther pilot, he was going to be the first Colonial to speak with their long lost cousins in over five thousand years, "This is the Commander of the Colonial Battlestar Galactica responding to your hail, over."
A moment of calm quiet reigned over the CIC, everyone holding their breath, waiting for the response.
"Copy that Galactica we hear you, Commander Adama I presume?" the voice said again, with quite a bit confidence etched into his voice.
Now Adama and the entire bridge crew became very suspicious. How'd they know his name?
"How do you know my name?" Adama hissed, suspicion draining from every word.
"Well a little birdy we found told us you were in Command of this big ass ship. Requesting permission to land in your starboard hanger."
Adama looked to Tigh who just had a look of awe on his face as well as one of pure calculating suspicion.
"They don't mean…" Saul asked.
"Galactica, Starlight, I have a visual of the bogey, it doesn't look like any ship I've ever seen. It's got wings, four big frakking engines it's also quite well armed for something only a little bit bigger than a Raptor."
"Copy Starlight, keep the bogey in your sights," Dee responded.
"Mr. Gaeta, I want every Marine on this ship to get their asses to the starboard hanger deck full combat gear, Dee alert the crew, we're having guests," Adama ordered, then picked up the phone, "Scout Zero-One, you are authorized for landing in the starboard hanger. Dee guide them in."
"Yes sir."
"Copy Galactica, we're on approach," the man responded, and the contact on the DRADIS began zooming towards the rear of the ship to make its approach.
"Gods damn, that thing's fast," Starlight called over the radio as the ship passed over her formation.
Adama put up the phone and called Saul to come with him. The Marines at the entrance followed him and the XO like well trained dogs and started marching with weapons ready, their faces holding stern faces of anticipation at what they were about to experience. It didn't take long before the ship was buzzing with activity, cheers of joy were heard echoing throughout the ship as the comms spread the news that an Earth ship had made contact and was coming aboard. Marines were charging their way towards the starboard side of the ship and some were tasked to keep unnecessary crewmen from flooding the deck, trying to get a glimpse of these people from Earth.
"You ready to make history my old friend?" Adama asked as he walked down the stairs onto the bustling deck that was crawling with Marines who were taking up defensive positions on the catwalks, behind crates and Vipers and those not inside were stacked up into squads just outside the hanger doors, ready to flood in and take care of business. Chief Tyrol was on a rampage, both embarrassed at the condition of his deck due to his recent crusade against inadequate maintenance leaving projects strewn everywhere, and outraged at the presence of the Marines who were getting in the way of his crew getting the deck clear for this historic moment.
"Come on people! Get your shit together, we're about to make history here! And I don't want the first thing these Earthers to see of our ship to be a shithole!" Tyrol bellowed at his bustling crew. Vipers and Raptors were being towed to their storage points wherever there was room, tools were being shoved into closets, parts were tossed into buckets and hidden away to be found and sorted out later and uniforms were straightened out and rank emblems were given one last spit shine.
Dozens of pilots were beginning to crowd the area, and still others were slipping in. Not even the Marines could keep them out.
"Where are we Chief?" Adama asked as soon as he got up to his Chief of the Deck.
"They're landing now, although they must have one Hell of a pilot because I haven't heard it touch down.
As that happened the red light symbolizing that the lift was coming down started going off. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. But the officers had the sense to start forcing their charges into blocks.
"Come on, look sharp, dress and cover!" Colonel Tigh yelled as the doors opened up and revealed the sleek form of the U-306 Scout Ship, "Attention on deck!"
The entire crew was hustled into place in large blocks organized by occupation. The Marines were forced into blocks but kept alert, even at attention. The multicolored deck crew were thankfully well disciplined enough to look good, the pilots were all together, and the entire deck looked presentable. The officers stood rigidly at attention as the normal handling crew were startled and dumbfound at what they saw.
It wasn't landed, not by Colonial standards. It was hovering silently above the ground, which seemed to confuse the deck crew who were charged with towing it in. But the ship instead started creeping in with a frazzled crewmen directing it forward. The craft was a dark gray, with a tinted black cockpit. It was impressively-smooth-skinned for such a craft, being about fifty percent larger than a Raptor. It wasn't that tall, its hull being roughly a meter taller than a Raptor. Its wings had folded in on itself making it thinner and able to fit into the lift. The crew gasped as it spun around, bringing its nose away from them and then settled to the ground.
"Here we go," Adama whispered.
A single mechanical hiss from the Earth ship broke the silence, and a door-like dark gray hatch opened gently and lowered itself. Every single Colonial present had their eyes locked on the entrance waiting to get their first look at their long lost cousins. And they got it in the form of a pair of people in multicam uniforms. They weren't wearing any helmets, just a pair of patrol caps, allowing them to see a man with short brown hair carrying a compact box-like submachine gun with a type of bird in silver on his collar. The woman was a blonde with her hair tied in a ponytail, she was identically equipped and armed. A set of patches of a red, white, and blue flag along with a white and gray patch of an odd symbol was on each arm. The two stepped forward, revealing a trio of identically dressed individuals, one was a man with brown and glasses, another was a black-haired woman, and the last was a big dark-skinned man with a golden symbol on his forehead.
Commander Adama stepped forward and received a salute from the two who got out first as they stood on the edge of their ramp. And as always right beside him was Colonel Tigh.
"Permission to come aboard sir," the man said holding the salute.
Adama returned the salute, "Permission granted."
The two of them dropped the salutes and the man extended a hand, "Colonel Cameron Mitchell, United States Space Force."
"Welcome aboard."
"Colonel Samantha Carter, United States Space Force, Commanding Officer of the Earth Defense Ship George Hammond."
"Welcome Colonel, I'm Commander William Adama, commanding officer of the Battlestar Galactica. This is my XO, Colonel Tigh."
"Nice to meet, ya, oh that's Doctor Jackson, Vala, and Teal'c. My team," Colonel Mitchell responded, pointing to each person in turn.
"How did you find us?" Adama asked, wanting to get right to the point.
"Well truthfully you found us," Carter replied, "One of your ships crashed at one of our offworld bases, and we rescued a survivor who helped us find you."
"What?" Adama asked, absolutely shocked at what he was hearing.
The entire deck crew began whispering, hearing the word, "ship" and "survivor" meant something very important to them, especially the waiting Captain Lee Adama, standing next Kara Thrace in the block of pilots.
"We have her with us, she's the one who told us that you were in command, and also where to land in your hanger, but that's a different story," Mitchell said, "She's been itching to return."
At that the Earthers parted, allowing everyone in the hanger including Commander and Captain Adama to see the figure of their long-lost pilot. She wasn't wearing her old uniform, rather a simple green set of coveralls, but when Commander Adama saw his daughter he knew it immediately, and as she stepped towards him he took hesitant steps towards her.
"Kelsey…" the old man whispered, as he brushed his hands across her cheeks. Her eyes began watering as she leaned into her father's touch and placed her hand over his and then finally just gave in and flung herself into her father's grasp.
"Dad…I've missed you."
"Thank you," Adama said, and broke from his daughter to face the two younger Colonels, thank you for bringing my daughter home," with that he grabbed the two of them and embraced them in a powerful hug, neither was expecting.
The entire deck broke into cheers and applause as the crew finally had its pilot returned to it. Lee rushed towards his sister who saw him and ran to hug her brother as the crew rushed forward to welcome their comrade home, and greet their cousins, now reunited. The Adamas embraced in the loving arms of family, both blood and adopted. Kara suddenly grabbed Kesley from behind, making Kelsey squeak a bit before turning around, recognizing her friend and hugged her now with a strength that threatened to damage the healing shoulder wound. The officers, pilots, Marines, and crewmen crowded around their Earth cousins, shaking their hands, giving warm hugs, and celebrated.
Chief Tyrol and several pilots and crew ran their hands over the smooth pristine hull of the U-306 and gazed at the unique craft sitting before them. Not even Saul Tigh broke from the party and brought order to the chaos.
All Colonel Mitchell could think was one simple thought.
Best first contact ever.
However, the group was soon reminded of a more solemn duty. Only half of the return of Colonial personnel had been completed. There was one more pilot who had yet to return home.
"Where's…where is Lieutenant Drew?" Adama now asked.
"He didn't make it," Kelsey sighed, "He's with their ship."
"We'll return to repatriate your fallen pilot when you're ready," Mitchell informed him.
"Colonel Tigh, make the preparations," Commander Adama ordered with a sigh.
"Yes sir."
"Colonel Mitchell, if you'd be so kind. Please return our last pilot," Adama requested.