"He will play eight notes, to banish the silence and then two more to signal the host to begin. A question. The music, forgotten, will be remembered. To Rejoice, in the shallow place in the stream. The strings shall sound once more. The drums will beat in time again, the Sun will chase The Calm once more and the King will become a commander. From person to person the tale will spread. He returns with Ragnarok God is Gracious, he comes when an Echo remains.
The Book of Sisko
Foamy dull water crashed against bleak rocks and sand. From within the multipurpose wheeled vehicle, Lee could almost imagine that he could hear birds overhead but as the vehicle creaked to a stop, he was greeted only by silence. Though enough wildlife had survived to perform the tasks necessary to continue the ecosystem, it had been a near thing. Birds were few and far between. The plant life that had been found further inland clawed desperately for life, only to wither and die after too short a season. Lee was fairly sure he could learn to hate this world if he tried, for it's harsh cruelty, yet even in those wiry, spindly trees, those dried defeated grasses and that bleak sky overhead, he felt something resonate. An unspoken promise to honor the billions of years of life born before, with it's return once again. He nodded to the driver and crunched towards the figure seated on a pile of rubble.
"Chief." He said as he approached. "Chief are you alright? You weren't answering comms. Your team was worried, we're not even sure to survey here for..." He broke off as Tyrol looked at him with haunted eyes.
"The shadow on the rock behind." He told Lee, "I think it was me."
Lee stood confused for a moment, and then sighing he picked his way through the rubble, to the other side of the rock Tyrol leaned against. He recognized from history books, and his own training, the sight of a nuclear shadow.
"Gods..." He whispered out of habit. "Galen... I don't even know..."
"We knew there was a Holocaust." Tyrol told him, "The Defiant could tell us that much, and we remembered enough to know the 13th tribe was Cylon, and built its own machines that turned on them, we knew... but the lines of these ruins... I still know them, I knew to come here..." He shook himself in a shudder. "It's my own grave, Major. I'm literally sitting at my own grave. My original self. My real
.. self?" He shook his head. "I'd have been what, thirty? Copied into this form, and then living to be over a thousand?" He looked at Adama. "What if the reason we can't remember all that time is because we're just copies of the copies..."
"Yeah..." Lee felt horrible interrupting the man's ruminations, but the direction Tyrol was heading was not one he was going to come back from any time soon, and Lee had the sinking feeling that he was not adequately trained to preside over an existential crisis. "Look, Galen, we have a problem upstairs."
Galen looked up with something that looked dangerously like hope, and suddenly Lee realized that the man didn't seem particularly eager to be alone with his thoughts. "Yeah." He said at Galen's look. "So Doctor Baltar was heading up the survey of the Mars base.. and it.. looks like it wasn't entirely abandoned after all..."
"What?" Tyrol hauled himself to his feet, "How? The only ones who could have resurrected were us, the technology was in our ship, and we took it with us?"
"Well." Lee said gesturing towards the vehicle, "You know how Racetrack lost it when she found the remains of that centurion? What Tigh pointed out, that freaked her out more?"
"That it wasn't so alarming that we'd found one, it was concerning that we hadn't found more." Tyrol replied as they approached the truck.
"Well, we have an idea of where they might have gone... after here..." Lee said. He settled into the car. "And it looks like somehow Gaius got himself stuck in some kind of pod that sent him to meet them where they went next. Kara is trying to track it's trajectory but it's moving FTL with technology unlike anything we've ever seen."
"Warp drive?" Tyrol asked, perplexed, "It doesn't seem like we'd even begun to develop anything like that, but if we had, and Baltar has somehow been caught in a ship leaving at warp.. I don't know if we could even pursue him. I'm afraid Baltar is the man who best understands the deflector screen technology." He looked at Apollo. "Lee if the Centurions from Earth have warp drive, they must have deflector screens themselves, and as I understand it, they are the basis of Federation shield technology."
"If they discover the twelve colonies, and decide to attack them, we may not stand much of a chance, particularly in our current state."
"There is the mutual defense clause." Tyrol pointed out, "We put it in the treaty to prevent rogue factions of your Cylons from attacking the colonies, it should apply to Cylons from the 13th tribe, we signed it too."
"We have no idea what these new Centurions might be capable of." Lee answered, "But you do understand the general principles of the subspace technology we've been experimenting with, right? You lead the modifications to our FTL drive." Tyrol nodded slowly, "With Baltar out on his little joyride, you're our best hope of dealing with our other problem."
"Other problem?" Tyrol was confused, "Gaeta was only ever working on the subspace transmitter, not the warp drive."
"Well.. that's the other problem ." Lee explained as the vehicle turned around the bend in the beach to reveal the parked transport, the growing number of prefab structures beside it, and the half dozen or so raptors and vipers arrayed around it. "It seems that we are recieving a message."
. *. *.
"We've made several attempts to hail Earth, with no response." Captain Kirk sat in the conference room of the Monroe. located aft of the bridge, the ramains of several replicated platters of food were still being picked over by several in attendance, as most had been living off of what they could hunt or gather, or what Romulan prison guards had allowed them. Fortunately for them, a replicator had been included and those familiar with the technology had taken orders.Lieutenant Yar had commented that the layout of the room was surprisingly similar to that of the Enterprise D, Save for the lack of ship models on the wall, which featured instead, a large display map of Federation space. . Kirk presided at one end, with Lara, La'an, Octavia, Raven, Ro,William, Bellamy and Mogh seated around the table. Lieutenants Yar and Castille sat beside him. Kirk had invited Ro to sit at the opposite head of the table.
"So there is no Federation." Mogh observed slowly. "There are those among my people who would find this appealing."
"There don't appear to be any Klingons, either." Yar pointed out. Mogh nodded.
"Are we alright being here?" Octavia asked, she looked around warily, and gestured at the streaking stars, "Shouldn't someone be flying the ship?"
"Commander Saavik has the con, with some help from Captain Ro's people, and Commander Marcus has engineering well in hand." Kirk told her, nodding at Ro. He looked at Lara.
"This vessel was launched on what your people call a 'stardate' over a million years ago." Lara stated. "While a million years, is significant for many of the cultures represented here, my people, the Voth have over 20 million years of recorded history, and fragmented records dating back much further." She looked at Mogh. "We have never recorded encounters with your species, nor most of those recorded in this vessel's database."
"Specifically the humanoid ones." Kirk clarified. He gestured to Castille, who rose and moved to the display of federation space as of the Monroe's launch. "We emerged in the vicinity of the Rigel system, and the news isn't good. Based on what Lara had said about a doomsday weapon, we did some scans of the area and found a number of totally destroyed systems."
He let that sink in.
"Now when I was Captain of the Enterprise, we encountered a device responsible for such destruction, in this region of space, capable of destroying and consuming whole planets to fuel it's engine.We were able to stop it, just barely, and only with the detonation of another starship's anti matter powered warp core." He tapped a key on the table before him and the two screens on either end of the table lit up with a graphic of star constellations with a swath marked out. "This is the path of the device recorded by my ship. " He tapped another key and and a much longer swath appeared. " Comparing the time of destruction and using optical telescopes, we can confirm that it did not continue entirely along it's course. Earth is still there."
"So you didn't stop it..." Castille stated "But someone or something did." Kirk nodded. "Could it have been the Hirogen? They are the ones who found the others."
"But they brought us all the way to their hunting world." Raven pointed out, "That seems like a long ways to go, but Lara said the Hirogen are all over her side of the galaxy."
"You think an expedition just stumbled across your ship, while you slept?" Yar asked, "The odds of that happening are astronomical."
"Let's get back to that." Kirk interceded, "suffice it to say that we have reason to believe the Hirogen don't have the presence in the Alpha Quadrant, that they do in the Delta Quadrant, so we are proceeding cautiously... " He sat back, and continued "... on a parabolic course to Earth, in order to accommodate both Captain Ro's request to survey her homeworld, and determine the existence of a stable wormhole located there in our universe, as well Raven's concerns about the star system we know as the Centauri star system."
"It seems in your universe, it's a trinary star system with a binary pair." Raven clarified, "But here, it's a binary system orbiting a black hole. As I understand it, the gravitational lensing would interact negatively with your warp drive." She looked at Bellamy, "It's also in the general direction that Clarke went."
"You're a very quick study." Castille observed. "Astronavigation, and warp field physics? " He glanced at Lieutenant Yar, and then at Captain Kirk, who cleared his throat.
"That's part of why we are here." Kirk said. "We are a number of different groups, with different capabilities and sensibilities. We'll need to decide how, " He looked around the room, his gaze acknowledging Ro, Octavia, and Mogh, and pausing longer on William, "or if, we can work together."
"I'll wear a uniform, if it gets me some clean clothes." Octavia said dryly. "Sign me up."
"We will ensure that you all have access to the replicators, for food and clothing, and that suitable quarters are provided, but first things, first." He rose. "Who are we?" He made his way around the room, as he spoke. "As you all know, I was once a starship captain. I retired. I was invited to attend a launching ceremony, but there was an emergency." He looked out at the stars. "I was listed as missing in action, presumed dead, but I found myself... in a place beyond death." He considered how to explain further, and then decided not to. "While I was there, I was approached by another Starfleet Captain, and a mutual acquaintance. They offered me a way out, and a way to save a great grand daughter I never knew I had." He turned. "I found myself here." He gestured around them, "On the U.S.S. Monroe. A starship equipped with an experimental transwarp drive, loar during it's trial runs."
"What, they just abandoned it, a million years ago?" William crossed his arms as Kirk walked behind him. "I thought your people didn't exist in this universe, Kirk."
"It was transported into the Nexus." Kirk explained. He stood in front of the map of the Federation, besides Castille, "and it didn't originate from this universe."
"It came from mine." Ro spoke up. Kirk nodded for her to continue. "We were able to scan for quantum resonance signatures, myself, Saavik, and Commander Marcus are from the same universe as this ship, as is Lieutenant Yar, and the survivors of Khitomer and Narendra III."
"But somehow I am from here." Castille said, earning surprise from many around the table. "It seems that the Enterprise C that I served on, exchanged places with the Enterprise C from another."
"So you're not all from the same time... or universe?" Octavia asked, she glanced around. "Does this sound crazy to anyone else?"
"Darling, I only found out I was a robot when I was yanked from the virtual simulation that I thought was my real life." Drawled William, "And then after helping your people lead a mutiny I spent the next year being chased by dinosaurs with ray guns. At this point nothing sounds crazy."
"Several decades after I was lost in the nexus, " Kirk explained, "The Romulans began a series of sneak attacks on Klingon colonies. They hit Narendra 3 and then Khitomer." His eyes narrowed as Castille explained further.
"My ship, the Enterprise C, received the distress call from Narendra 3 and tried to intervene. We were outmatched and outgunned. We took heavy damage and massive casualties. The weapons fire was so intense we triggered a subspace anomaly that sent us forward in time and apparently to a parallel universe."
"In my timeline we were at war with the Klingons." Yar explained, "We detected the Enterprise C when it emerged from the anomaly and helped the survivors make repairs. A member of our crew was able to sense a disruption in the timeline and convinced Captain Picard to send the Enterprise C back through the anomaly, to finish the battle, believing that this act would avert decades of war."
"And so it did." Mogh observed, "A Federation starship engaging in battle against four Romulan warbirds was an act of both courage and honor. More so, were it to become general knowledge that not only did your crew fight once, but twice."
"I can confirm that you succeeded in restoring the timeline, at least as I knew it." Ro spoke up. "I served on the USS Enterprise D under Captain Picard as well, Lieutenant. Your alternate self was spoken highly of, by members of the crew that knew her and our chief of security, Worf was the first Klingon in Starfleet."
"Worf?" Mogh breathed, "My son lives?"
. *. *.
"Can anybody hear me?" Gaius pounded on the heavy door "Can any body help?" A female marine slumped against the other side holding a pad against her side as she gritted in pain, trying to secure it.
"Doc, no one can hear us." She gasped. Accross from her were the damaged remains of a Cylon Centurion. The damn thing had stabbed her when she shoved a grenade under it's armor. While likely responsible for saving both her life and Baltar's, "Some kind of blast shield went down but I think this was some sort of control center."
"Well that's just fracking great." The panicked scientist turned without acknowledging her words, "And I can't hear a bloody thing, now thanks to that awful ringing, I'm deaf." He looked down at the Marine. "Cree, is it? You're wounded." He moved to squat down beside her and there was a clattering as he nearly stepped on the battered robot's sword. Cree put the closest hand on it, while the other held pressure on her wound. A field medkit with only a few small supplies lay open beside her.
"Sharp!" She exaggerated the word with her lips, but winced at speaking loudly. "Very Sharp."
Baltar carefully inspected the sword. before placing it carefully to one side.
"Yes I'd certainly say so..." He said to her, a bit too loudly. Carefully he examined her wound. "It pierced your body armor easily downward, grazing your lower abdomen. A bit higher, it might have hit your intestines or your kidney." He secured the pad carefully with adhesive, then frowned. Securing it properly would require most of her supplies and she would likely need the bandage refreshed. He briefly considered retrieving his own kit from the thigh pocket of his own flight suit, but decided to preserve it for later. He shook his head at the ringing. He offered instead an adhesive patch for the tear in her suit, as he knew he has half a dozen. "Keep pressure on the wound, but keep that handy too, in case the air pressure in here starts to drop." Stooping forward he brought her helmet to her, discarded when she had sank to the floor. His, miraculously undamaged, sat in the floor on the other side of the small room, where he had left it when he had begun to study the console. Before the screaming and shooting had begun.
"It seems quite unlikely our friend here, will be getting up any time soon." Baltar told Cree, the Cylon's torso, was scattered towards the damaged controlls. "While it's armor might have repelled just about anything your men threw at it, it focused the the explosion of your grenade as well."
He picked up the front half of the cranial unit, the back half having been blown accross the room. It's front face plate was narrower than those he had become used to seeing, it's mouth drawn down into a hideous metal scream, and dual eyes glaring. Cree shifted forward to grab something that has fallen under the battered console. A massive weapon, easily carried by the seven foot robot. As she had chased the monstrosity into the control room she'd managed to stab her combat knife down between it's hand and the gun, likely saving Baltar's life. Having shoved the grenade under it's armor and hoping the scientist cowering under the console had enough cover, she had only barely evaded it's swinging turn as it dropped the gun but drew it's sword. It had begun to lung toward her when.
Baltar examined the weapon with both hands. "Some sort of directed energy cannon." He glanced carefully at the muzzle. and with careful attention to the trigger, down the barrel. "Ah, likely a plasma projectile of some sort."
"Careful Doc, I don't see a safety on that thing.' Cree warned. Baltar carefully placed the weapon down and looked at her.
"It seems my hearing is beginning to return." He told her.
"Doc there was a crash and a rumbling after the grenade went off." Cree told him. "You were down there screaming, I don't know if you heard it, and I felt a lurch, like the whole room pitched backwards." Baltar pressed his lips.
"Well that is concerning." He admitted. "Before someone unleashed that monster, I was just reporting over the wireless that I thought this might be a ship, not just a base."
"We're on a ship? You think that thing managed to activate it?" Cree nodded to the centurion. Baltar frowned. "Could we be moving?"
"It's possible." He admitted. "If their grav fields are as far beyond our technology as their weapons appear to be, we may not even be aware of acceleration. When we arrived at the facility, it seemed able to deduce that we were humanoid and activated environmental systems that were likely dormant for centuries."
"Why would these robots need air in the first place?" Cree asked. Baltar slid his hands along the counter on the other side of the room, beneath an undamaged screen. He found a catch and a drawer slid out with a key board.
"Ah. Perhaps a secondary control station. If I can intuit enough about their interface, perhaps I can reroute some of systems." He said hopefully. He stepped over to the ruins of the main console and fished around on the floor under it, retrieving a plastic sheet with a diagram. Then he turned to Cree, "Well as a matter of fact I don't think the centurions built this facility." He gestured with the flimsy, "The doorways in this section are actually a bit low for them don't you think? There seemed to be differing eras of construction evident. No, I'd wager this was designed by the humanoid Cylons of the 13th tribe and that after, when they constructed their centurions sometime later..."
"...It changed hands." Cree replied, "But does that mean that originally this ship was built by humans?"
"I rather doubt that." Baltar replied, "As we know that the thirteenth tribe also consisted of Cylons, that resembled humans." He looked around the room thoughtfully.
"The humans from the federation suggested that humanity first evolved on Earth." Cree said cautiously. Baltar nodded.
"Yes, so they claimed, but they recommended a deeper study of Earth, due to the massive ecological devastation, and the amount of time that has likely transpired." Baltar replied, "Rather convenient, from a scientific standpoint, it will be far simpler to rule out evolution on Kobol, than to prove it took place on Earth, unfortunately there are a number of species that most certainly DID evolve on the 12 colonies, and no doubt Kobol, that take exception to concept of great creators."
"So was this ship built by the 13th tribe?" Cree asked, as a marine, in a potentially hostile situation she really wasn't interested so much in the history of life in the universe, as her own immediate future, and therefore the enemy that has nearly ended that future. "Or is it even older than that." She looked around her. 'How does it still even function?"
Baltar pointed to the Cylon.
"Evidently, it's been either restored, or at the very least, maintained."
.*.*.
"Does everyone know everyone in your federation, or is it smaller than it sounds." Octavia asked.
"He was on a mission, when the Enterprise was abducted by a sporocystian life form on the far side of the galaxy." Ro explained. "I was... somewhat detached from service, with a group called the Maquis. Captain Picard was assembling a convoy of other alpha quadrant ships, to begin the journey home when one of the ships attacked us, hoping to use an unstable wormhole to return to our side of the galaxy."
"Why did they attack you, if you were all trying to go home." William asked suspiciously.
"The wormhole lead to our past." Ro explained, "The Federation has rules against interfering with the timeline. We tried to stop them but were pulled in ourselves, in the attempt. Many of my crew died trying to keep our ship out of the hands of the Romulans."
"Tasha survived years of imprisonment without revealing her knowledge of future events." Castille touched Yar's arm, as he acknowledged Ro with a nod of respect.
"Forgive me if I don't understand the mechanics of time travel." William stated, "But doesn't it seem like blowing up your ship and killing these Romulans is just as likely to affect the timeline as anything else?"
"we're not here to speculate on the mechanics of time travel." Kirk announced, "Our focus has to be on the present here and now. Captain Ro, And the survivors of her crew are helping us maintain this ship." He looked at Ro, "which I hope they can continue to do." Ro nodded.
"Our more... colorful.. Maquis were transferred off ship just prior to the events that brought us here." Ro replied, " With all due respect Captain, with my ship gone, my rank in Starfleet is lieutenant commander, and everyone who came with me, was serving at least, as a crewman in starfleet. We had to make some concessions when we found ourselves on the far side of the galaxy. We are even farther from home now and this ship is all that we know of home."
After a moment Kirk nodded. He looked at Octavia.
"Now your people." He said, "are originally from the Earth's 22nd century."
"More or less." Raven replied for her, "We were originally born in orbit around Earth, from surviving space stations that banded together. Bellamy and Octavia were part of a group of 100 children sent to the ground to see if the earth was habitable again. When they got there, they realized there was a civilization of survivors from the nuclear Armageddon."
"We called the grounders." Bellamy stared, "They attacked us at first, they thought were were their enemies. We later learned that there were different tribes lead by a Commander."
"The Commander was the second version of artificial intelligence program meant to maximize human potential and lead humanity out of the danger caused by the first." Raven explained.
"That always turns out well." William griped. Kirk spoke up as well.
"I'm afraid I'm forced to agree." He said, "As with sentient beings, relying too much on a central authority to solve all your problems seems prone to corruption." He paused, "Ideology, or mechanical."
"Well unfortunately we also woke up the first artificial intelligence." Bellamy stated. Raven continued her briefing
"Thousands of people were implanted with Mind drives controlled by this entity including myself. We managed to trigger the shutdown code but found that the AI had a larger objective. A second wave of devastation was about to be triggered by the meltdown of several massive nuclear reactors."
"Primfaya" Octavia said into the silence. Bellamy cleared his throat.
"Octavia managed to unify warring factions and lead them into a bunker for seven years."
"Seven years in a bunker?" Yar was aghast, "How did you keep everyone from killing each other?"
"How did you even decide who got into the bunker?" Castille asked. Octavia's expression turned dark.
"I killed anyone who disagreed." She said. Castille blinked.
"Impressive." Mogh observed. William sat back and nodded.
"Bellamy and I managed to return with a small group to what was left of the ark in space for those 7 years. " Raven continued, "and during Primfaya, debris settled on the bunker trapping Octavia's people within. That was when Elegius IV arrived."
. *. *.
Tyrol followed Lee into CIC. Cronus stood at
the command and control center itself, presiding over the large information table where a number of transparent charts were scattered.
"Chief Tyrol." She said as she noticed their entrance, just the man we were looking for, but Major Adama, there's another situation unfolding." She beckoned them over, adjusting the transparencies. Lee peered down at the large ring shaped structure. "This is a ring shaped structure, that Mr. Gaeta is currently investigating, located off the plane of the ecliptic."
"That's... old..." Tyrol commented as he examined the image. "Radiation scoring on top of micrometeorite strikes?"
"Given it's location, and evident removal from severe exposure to those elements, we'd put it's age as easily the oldest man-made object ever discovered." Cronus replied. "We believe it was towed here, to preserve it, but samples of the hull and the scoring, suggest it was in orbit around Earth for a comparatively brief period of it's life." She handed him a flimsy stacked to one side. "We found these marks inside the airlock." "Monty 3 Harper"read the colonial translation, underneath the English script. "Gaeta thinks the ring was part of a larger structure once, and hosted considerable population, but that afterwards it was briefly inhabited by a much smaller group. They either left or died, and the whole aft section showed signs of out of control algae growth, stemming from some sort of hydroponics facility. At some point, this.. returning party.. cleaned up, collected parts, deactivated life support systems and put this on course to exit planetary space."
"Sounds like an act of love." Lee said, studying the ring. "Like they put it to rest." Cronus nodded. "Maybe this thing was called Harper station." Cronus looked at him cynically
"Children in the 12 colonies have been carving this into trees since the days of Kobol, I think it's more likely 'Harper' was a person, but Gaeta felt the same way. He developed an instant affinity for the place, he's requested permission to try to access it's computer systems." She held a page up, that Lee saw was inventory. "I'm having archives translate every inch of this before we turn anything on over there. We were able to recover a number of printed journals and government documents that appear to have belonged to the colony living on board. We've only just begun to go through them."
"Commander, I'm sure I don't have to tell you..." Tyrol said, "But If you try to recover anything from their systems, you'll want to make sure it is an isolated network and that any transmitters are disabled." Cronus nodded agreement.
"My orders, exactly, Chief." She said, "And unfortunately, I am also restricting access, by any Cylons to the ring, as well as the facility in the fourth planet. If there was some kind of activation code buried inside you, to wake you up, or in Lieutenant Valerie to act as a sleeper agent, I think we are all better safe than sorry. Colonel Tigh will be joining the Earth, expedition, Major. We've pulled him from the so-called 'Mars project'."
"What exactly happened down there?" Tyrol asked. Cronus pointed to another flimsy, a schematic of an underground structure.
"You were aware that in it's original pass, the Defiant detected structures on the fourth planet, which we flagged for investigation. Raptor surveys identified the sort of garbage you would expect with initial exploration of an uninhabitable world. some probes, some shreds of cloth that might once have been flags, the planet doesn't have a breathable atmosphere, but it's got wind, and dust and radiation. We surveyed the largest structure, fully intact, and indeed, still functional, so we sent a team in, to secure it. Colonel Tigh brought Doctor Baltar along so we wouldn't much up any of the technology, but it wasn't quite abandoned." She pointed up at one of the monitors and Lee saw a live feed from what looked like a storage room with half a dozen heavily armed marines inside. At the center was a partially disassembled Cylon Centurion. "Those bastards were in some kind of standby mode. Even with thirty Marines, three of them managed to kill eleven of my men, Doctor Baltar and three others were trapped in what we thought was a control center, but turned out to be a ship." She tapped the large transparency at the center of the table. Something like a rocket, with an outboard nacelle attached like a spoiler. "It travels with an FTL engine, similar in principle, but as far as we can tell, different from the technology used by the federation. We barely got a bead on it, before it left the situation. Lieutenant Thrace to her credit, scrambled raptors in pursuit and the last relay message we received requested a rendezvous with one of our heavies for refueling."
"It's following a fairly straight line chief." Lee pointed to a star chart with a marked vector on it. "She's jumping head of it now to track it, but there's nothing charted in that direction for dozens of light years. They've made 26 jumps in the last 14 hours."
"29" Cronus corrected. "We're having to do it in shifts now, hence the need for a heavy. She's also requesting permission to send a scout ahead to the system, but it's well beyond the safety line for jumping."
"Could the Galactica make it, with the experimental warp drive?" Tyrol asked.
"You tell me." Cronus said, "You all managed to get us here, but it wasn't exactly a smooth ride, and then there's the matter of leaving Earth undefended."
"We've got the ground installation up and running and basic orbital defense systems in place." Lee said, "It'll be days. before the station is fully constructed, weeks before it goes live."
"And our reinforcements won't arrive for months." Cronus finished. "We can't mount a full expedition for him, and leave all this unprotected, we're only just beginning to understand what it is, but," She put up a hand, "Doctor Baltar is a major security risk. He knows our defense systems in and out, and we can't afford to let him fall into enemy hands."
. *. *.
"Elegius IV?" Kirk asked, he looked at Bellamy, "The patch on your jacket says Elegius III."
"Yes, well, when I was downloading the Flame, I was able to open the remaining mission files. Elegius I, was an automated exploration mission that charted a nearby system and tested experimental new engines." Raven explained, "It was landed on an asteroid to form the basis of a mining colony. Elegius II was supposed to be a colony but when they arrived it was discovered that the radiation was too extreme for humans."
"The hosts weren't programmed to act autonomously." William spoke up, "They were on simple scripts. When the crew members sent to the installation tried to return, the hosts decided they posed a threat to the remaining crew in stasis and wouldn't let them return, but because they didn't have a solution for the radiation, they wouldn't wake the crew up either. Earth wasn't going to be able build a ship and launch it fast enough to catch them, so they didn't bother. The ship just coasted off into the unknown."
"Elegius IV was a prison ship." Bellamy elaborated. "There was a riot at their mining facility and the ship was damaged. It returned to Earth 100 years late, with it's crew in cold sleep. They woke up."
"Bellamy got them to rescue us, and then some of them turned on us." Octavia replied, bitterness in her voice. "I went to war with them, but Clarke managed to get the Flame into the last nightblood. I swore allegiance to the new Commander."
"In the course of our battle, we destroyed the last liveable valley on the planet." Octavia said. "We went up to the Elegius IV to wait in cryosleep for the Earth to restore itself, but it didn't."
"We woke up in the Elegius star system, our friend Monty had cracked the security codes with a course to a system that Elegius III had been sent to colonize." Raven told them, "But when we arrived on the surface we found that the mind drive technology was being perverted, to grant immortality to a few, using the bodies of their subjects."
"Barbaric." Lara whispered. Bellamy nodded.
"We agreed, " He said, "And we put a stop to it, but it cost us some good people."
"And we unleashed something terrible." Octavia stated, "A former commander, contained in the Flame, got loose in the Elegius IV computer systems."
"Once we got everything a little more under control, we discovered a network of alien gateways connecting several worlds, Earth among them." Raven continued. "But they were controlled by a doomsday..." She glanced at Bellamy, "...faction from Earth's past. They had escaped the nuclear apocalypse using the anomaly and had discovered the remains of a highly advanced civilization. They had encountered a sort of test left by the civilization that created the gateways, and they failed the test. Their entire civilization wiped out."
"Over a test?" Yar was aghast.
"A no win scenario." Castille murmured. The others looked at him. "Why take the test?" He asked, "Why subject yourself to another civilization's judgement at all?"
"That was the first test failed." Bellamy said aloud Raven and Octavia turned to him, "The test of understanding. The Shepherd thought it was the last war. He thought we HAD to fight it." Bellamy looked at them. "He was wrong."
"Well so, he started the test." Raven continued, "And met the Judge sent by the alien, and then right in the middle of having our entire species judged, our friend Clark showed up and shot him."
Even Kirk stared at that.
"Raven saved the day." Octavia said.
"Octavia saved the day." Raven corrected, "I went in, and got the Judge to reconsider, but Octavia managed to convince our people, and Shepherd's, to lay down their arms. That's what sold the aliens. They let all of humanity ascend, except those of us who declined. We decided to go back to keep Clark company, because the Aliens wouldn't accept her."
"You gave up ascension to a higher plane of existence in order to be with your friend?" La'as spoke up for the first time. The three nodded.
"Now that is impressive." He declared.
"It was fortunate for me too that they did.' Bellamy explained, "I was wounded in the fighting and placed in cryo sleep and the aliens didn't consider humans in cryosleep for ascension." He looked at Octavia, "They came back for me."
"In order to pull it off, Raven rebuilt and accepted the flame of the commander." Octavia explained, "That's why she was able to understand everything about the ship so quickly. She was already the smartest person among us and the flame just makes her smarter I guess."
"It maximizes observation and processing of information." Raven explained. "But I reprogrammed some safeguards into it so that I retain myself."
"She downloaded the programming from a mindscan done by the disciples." Bellamy explained, "But she had to use the Elegius IV sick bay to install it, And that was when we intercepted a transmission from Elegius III."
"Why must your people give your ships the same name." La'as asked, "Is there some great cultural significance to the names 'Enterprise' and 'Elegius'?"
"Elegius was a space exploration organization." Raven explained, "The initial missions were launched before the cryo sleep technology was developed, so
their first ship was a one way automated survey mission, meant to establish an interstellar base. The second ship had a crew meant for the habitat, but was largely operated by robots, the third was a colony ship and the fourth was a prisoner transport/ Mining vessel."
"After several failures, the only reason anyone really wanted to fund another trip was for the hydrozine they found." Octavia declared."Elegius III was launched almost 200 years before we arrived in the system but we discovered that using the portal to Earth was creating a time dilation in the Elegius system that was growing. "
"Elegius lII was under attack by the original AI." Raven explained, "It was on the far side of Elegius system and as a colony ship, it had tens of thousands of embryos for future colonies. When the alien sent us back they took away our ability to have children. Clark wanted to restart the human race all over again and none of us wanted to see all those potential people die, even if the living crew had been ascended." Octavia picked up the tale.
"But the Elegius IV was damaged in the original prisoner uprising and the time dilation was getting much worse, weeks were passing between visits soon it would be months and then years before we could reach the III. We brought everyone back to Sanctum from Earth, but before we left we sent a message to Elegius II, the robot ship."
. *. *.
"After they wiped out their masters they inherited this facility." Cree said sourly. She made an effort to rise, grunting. Baltar glanced over as he laid the flimsy down beside the keyboard.
"Our Cylon consultants were kind enough to provide an updated translation of their iconography." He told the Marine as she leaned curiously around his shoulder, "I suspect even the fact that there are such labels on this device, supports my theory about it's intended operators."
"The Centurion had hands, Doc." Cree pointed out, "Like the old ones, from the first war." She looked at Baltar, "Don't the new ones have claws?" Baltar nodded.
"The early Cylons designed by Greystone were designed to operate human technology, the 13th tribe must have done much the same, but for whatever reason, perhaps their cylons never decided to alter their design." Baltar was thoughtful as he worked, "they're evident abilities to network and connect directly to technology provide some advantages in terms of access but carry some vulnerabilities if we were to introduce a virus of our own into their systems." he gestured at the controls, "The continued use of external appendages for access might be more than traditional, they may continue to do so to maintain a sort of firewall against intrusion."
"wouldn't that suggest they still have an enemy?" Cree asked, Baltar nodded.
"It's possible there were survivors from the original 13th colony's humanoid faction." Baltar theorized, "or it's possible that upon defeating there progenitors, these Cylons found division amongst themselves just as ours did and there are different factions." The screen before him at last lit up with an operating system, which he studied.
"It's also possible they encountered aliens." Cree observed. Baltar paused. "supposedly there were aliens in the Federation. The ship that intervened in the attack on the colonies was supposed to have non-human species aboard and the commander did give us the briefing about the seraphim. She called them aliens." Her voice was almost conspiratorial now. " Some people even say the Lords of Kobol themselves may not have been human."
"Well that's what we're out here to uncover, isn't it. " Baltar told her, with an effort to hide his impatience. "Such a wonderful voyage of discovery so far."
Suddenly the room lurched. Baltar heard a vibrating sound around them. Cree looked suddenly wary.
"I suspect we have stopped." Baltar observed. Cree nodded.
"When I was on the Scorpius I heard that sound." She said. "We'd lost power, we were falling into Caprica's atmosphere, and then suddenly that noise." She looked at Baltar, "The Federation called it a Tractor beam."
.*.*.
"How did this machine mind get to your colony ship in the first place?" Mogh asked.
"Ultimately, the same way we did. Elegius II." Bellamy explained.
"It recieved a transmission, before the first nuclear apocalypse from Earth." Raven clarified. "An upload of a complex virtual environment, dozens of AI programs, and the mind scans of thousands of people."
"Including me." William explained." One minute I think I'm in a simulated theme park in the 'real' world, the next I'm on a spaceship being told the real world was never real, and neither was I."
"Including A.L.I.E." Bellamy stressed. "Somehow she had infected the system used to send the upload. In time, she was able to affect the Elegius II, but she couldn't control the hosts. She could however, retransmit herself to the Elegius III."
"Elegius III was much bigger than the prison ship, and even more so than the robot ship." Raven explained, "As a colony ship, there were originally over 1200 crew total, eight interplanetary craft, machine shops, hydroponics farms, and in addition to over 30,000 human embryos, it had zoological samples from earth. Birds, fish, dogs, lions," Bellamy looked at Octavia, "Monkeys..."
"One of the crew members was experimenting with whether he could download instructions to chimpanzees, using a mind drive." Octavia said quietly. "That was a mistake. She used the Chimpanzee to send a signal to the other mind drives."
"So the colony ship had been fighting a mutiny, in a time dialation field, for hundreds of years... relatively speaking, until the crew suddenly ascended due to your actions." Kirk summarized, "but the robot ship was still outside the time dialation field." Raven nodded. "You had the robot ship travel to the Elegius system and you intercepted it." Raven nodded.
"It arrived in the system almost immediately after we sent the signal, relative to our time, but years had passed outside the system." Raven told him. "With fully functional engines, we were able to slingshot through the system and overtake Elegius III in a matter of days. We sent the Elegius IV back to Sanctum.
"Then at some point, you woke up the people in the simulation, and downloaded them into these hosts?" Raven nodded.
"More or less." She confirmed. Kirk eyed her, "We upgraded the Elegius II hosts with the more advanced AIs."
"Clarke was able to take the Elegius III with the help of the original Elegius II hosts" Bellamy explained, "but when the dust settled we discovered A.L.I.E. had transferred back to the IV, and discovered the coordinates to Sanctuary and the alien homeworld."
"We couldn't let her get away again, even with the time dialation. " Raven explained. "And after we left, we found out she had set up a backdoor control system into Elegius III from Elegius IV.""
"That was when they downloaded us into hosts." William clarified. "A whole archive of human minds, but A handful of us were still active in the now empty simulation, wondering where all the townsfolk went."
"We stopped A.L.I.E. and re-took Elegius IV, but III was already too far out of the system, and out of the time dialation field. We were never going to catch up before we died of old age. All we could do was go into cryo sleep and trust Clarke and our friends to survive."
"Did she make it?" Kirk asked. Bellamy nodded.
"She sent us a message that they had landed safely on a habitable enough world." He paused. "She was... much older. The message was thousands of years old. The hosts had helped them build a settlement, raise children, they were living together in peace. She was happy."
The table was silent.
"That was about when the space lizards arrived." William said drolly.
.*.*.
Kara Thrace shook her head as the world returned to normal. Immediately alarms blared. "Frack!" She shouted as she saw shapes moving in space. "Helo, look alive, we've got company."
"I see 'em." He answered, "Scopes are on auto-record and FTL is spinning. 14 contacts, warbook can't ID them, silhouettes unknown!""
"I've never seen anything like them." Kara replied, "They've got the Doc's ship in some kind of light beam."
"Some kind of focused gravitational effect." Helo declared, "The ships only about half the size of the Galactica, but it's got a reasonable sized cavity, must be a docking bay."
"It's buddies are turning towards us." Starbuck warned.
"You think we should ask for our people back?" Helo asked, "Maybe this is all some kind of mis-"
Starbuck saw a flash and she jerked the raptor to the side hard enough that Helo heard his chair creak as he was thrown backwards into it. The cockpit flashed with whatever they had tried to hit them with.
"Trigger return jump coordinates!" She shouted.
"Frack was that their gravity beam?" Helo asked.
"Nope." Starbuck replied, and suddenly the world twisted again. He was barely able to orient himself as reality snapped back to size, but still he heard her strained voice "Search team, bug out, execute scatter jumps back to Galactica, now, now, now!"
"You think those things will track us?" Helo asked, as his Dradis console showed the four other raptors waiting in support begin to wink out, "Sending them all on randomized vectors back to Earth is gonna burn a lot of fuel."
"Is the drive spinning?" Thrace demanded."
"Still hot, no reds." Helo replied, "But the emergency jump back put a couple systems in caution status, if we jump again, we could cause a malfunction. Running systems check and damage control now."
"Disengage DRADIS too." Kara decided. "If those things try to follow us, we're flashing a sign."
"If it's anywhere near us, it'll pick up the FTL drive." Helo said as he ran through the cool down procedures. "And we won't KNOW it's near us, unless it's in visual range."
Kara checked the clock. A little over a minute had elapsed since they had arrived, but her heart was pounding.
"Well that's why we didn't follow in a straight line." She replied, "Hopefully we were able to jump outside their scanning range, but just in case, we'll execute jump Kappa, and take our chances with a malfunction, stand by for jump."
"Checks complete, " Helo told her. "We found out where they were taking them, that looked like an asteroid facility of some kind."
"We're coming back." Kara promised, "We can't leave our people in enemy hands, and firing at us is not the act of a friend. We'll come back with reinforcements, just as soon as we make sure they can't track us back to Earth."
Assuming they don't already know that's where we came from, and assuming they don't learn that from our people." She thought as the world twisted once again.
.*.*.
"So. Captain." Octavia sauntered up to Kirk, where he was seated in the crew lounge at a bar. Behind him, a bartender straight out of the old west was standing with a Bajoran from Ro's crew deciphering the replicator crew. "You gonna get me out of these clothes and into something more.. formal?"
He turned to her bemused.
"Ms. Blake, don't you think I'm a bit too old, to be flirting with, like that?" She took the stool next to him but leaned over the bar to retrieve a bottle from underneath.
"Maybe I like a little seasoning." She told him. She arched up to collect a glass.. Kirk sighed, amused and studied his glass. "You don't look that much older though."
"Somehow I was able to come back as a younger man." Kirk replied, "So I feel obliged to say, that despite being quite an attractive young lady, my great granddaughter is older than you."
"Well I spent a couple decades in cryo sleep between Earth and Sanctum." Octavia pointed out, "and if that whole briefing is to be believed I might be almost a million. How long have you been in this universe, a year? Two? Does that make you a toddler?" Kirk chuckled.
"I take your point." He answered, "But I am old enough to see that it's best not to rush into things, in times of crisis."
She feigned disappointment and set a glass down. Kirk noticed the bottle.
"Fine." She said, "I guess I'll join up to soothe my broken heart."
"Ah... I wouldn't.. drink that." He slid the Klingon blood wine away from her and replaced it with the Saurian brandy he had poured himself. Gesturing the bar tender over, he handed him the bottle and said "Fourth shelf."
Obediently the host moved the bottle to the shelves behind the bar, which carried.labels from top to bottom reading
"Reserved" "Replicated" "Exotic" and finally "Humans, Consult Sickbay." Kirk turned to Octavia.
"The Monroe was pretty well stocked, but we are doing a bit of organizing while we get everyone up to speed." He explained. Octavia nodded.
"Raven said most of the decks are sealed, and this is the only open lounge." Octavia replied. "She figured out the replicator in our quarters though."
"For now." Kirk clarified. "We can conserve power, that way, manage any wanderers and, ultimately, inventory what was left behind by the crew." He turned back to his drink. "So tell me, what's this all about wanting a uniform."
Octavia was suddenly shy, and Kirk noticed. He set his glass down.
'I thought you might be serious." He said. She nodded. "You're a bit old to be a cadet, why the sudden interest?" Octavia took an appreciative gulp of her drink and said,
"Maybe I'm running out of things to fight." Kirk waited. "And disasters to run from." She sighed exasperated. "I don't know, why do people join anything?" Kirk put a hand on her shoulder.
"Well I know why I joined Starfleet." He said. She met his gaze. "Like most others, I wanted to explore the galaxy seek out new life, to go boldly." She was listening with rapt attention, but he also noticed the flush of the brandy beginning to work. "More than that though, I wanted to command." He read the flush correctly, she was moved, but she took a breath and nodded. His hand was still on her shoulder, and he gazed into her eyes. "I've heard enough about what you've been through, Octavia, you're tough as nails." He chucked her chin and she moved it irritably, and his voice softened, "but you've had to be..."
"Savage." She said raising her chin.
"Tragic.' He corrected. "I don't think you've had a chance to become the leader you want to be. Someday, maybe I'll be able to tell you a little bit about Tarsus IV." He met her gaze and an understanding passed between them.
"I've put a lot of that behind me." She said quietly, "But the ghosts are noisy at night." She sighed. "Someone I really came to admire, served in the military, an organization known on Earth as Navy Seals." She played with her glass. "She always haf training to fall back on, knowledge, like Raven, but the certainty that comes from belonging to something bigger. I've had a glimpse of that a few times, I think." She looked at Kirk, "And I know you're about to say 'Starfleet isn't a military'. William was just pointing out the obvious when you told people they'd need to make decisions."
"William is really not a joiner." Kirk noted. "He's got a darkness with him." He sipped his own drink. "Served him well on the planet I suppose but up here, on this ship, we'll have to work together." He looked at Octavia candidly.
"I've noticed you, these past few weeks. Your friends respect you, they care for you, they follow you. That's good material for a starfleet officer."
She watched him intently now, and he let the other shoe drop
"But there will have to be rules." She nodded. "You'll want to break them, I know, but if this is really going to mean something to you, yourself going to have to learn to work with them at first. All good officers know when to bend them, or even to break them, where the intent of the rule isn't met by the letter of it, but that knowing..." He looked sternly at her, "That's discipline, that's experience, you understand?" She nodded. He nodded back. He took his glass from the bar and he handed her, hers.
"Then it won't be 'crewman' for you." He said, "It will be cadet, and if you make it through training, it'll be a field commission as ensign. I've got Commander Saavik working with Lieutenants Yar and Ro on a curriculum. Starship operations, Field exploration, everything you need to start." He raised his glass to her. She raised hers but paused.
"I'm not the first to ask?" She asked. Kirk chuckled.
"Not the first." He said, "But the one I was waiting for. You heard what Mogh said in the briefing?"
"There is no Federation here?' she asked, Kirk nodded.
"He was wrong." Kirk said, "The principles of the federation, live in, in this ship. On this ship, starfleet lives."
"Did Bellamy or Raven come to you?" Octavia asked. Kirk nodded.
"She'll be working with Commander Marcus in engineering." He told Raven, "And with Saavik, as science officer, with La'an. Bellamy hasn't asked to join starfleet, but he's got a background in security so, he'll likely be training with Yar, in security, along with Mogh, William and a few others."
"You're putting William in security?" She toasted him, "You are bold."
"It's safer to keep an eye on him.' Kirk pointed out, and she nodded. He continues,
"Lara, is... something like an environmental biologist, but she's got medical training and we could use the help in Sickbay. La'as will most likely go where she goes, but he's a natural explorer, and he's seen a lot. Then there's William's people." He refilled his glass, and her's. "We've got a crew of 56. 6 starfleet officers, and about a dozen more that can operate a ship designed for minimum crew of over twice that."
"The hosts don't really sleep " Octavia interjected, and then considered how useful that actually was at present. "So at least we have a full time bar tender." She glanced at the bartender closely inspecting a cocktail strainer. The host looked startled when it lit up and started moving.
"Yes well... we are a crew of many eras." Kirk said diplomatically, "Octavia." He said drawing her attention, he raised his glass. "I came back from the dead, to save my great grand daughter. on the way I discovered you. You came back from eternity to be with your friend, and you found starfleet." He tapped her glass, "Together, we'll discover what you can really be." He clinked her glass. "Boldly."
"Boldly " She repeated. They drank. Kirk turned back to the bar.
"I really wish I hadn't started this conversation by flirting with you."
"Still got it." Kirk said, staring straight ahead.
.*.*.
Baltar stood shivering in the dark, evidently the Cylons cared little for the comfort of the humans, beyond their basic needs. Two Centurions flanked him, and he could see dimly that he was in a large chamber with a high dais. Baltar felt himself shoved to his knees with unyielding mechanical strength. Lighting began to increase and as he struggled to make out what he was seeing he realized there was something of a throne upon the high dias, upon which was draped the skin of what looked like a fearsome lizard race. The chair turned and Baltar found himself facing a shimmering metallic avatar of death clad in a red robe. dual eyes glittered with a strobing red light beneath the draped lizard hide.
"Grovel, human, for you have been given the honor of aiding the Cylon Empire." It ordered in an oily voice, "Your kind were thought to be eliminated. It will be your honor to aid us in completing that task."
So I know that was a lot of exposition, I originally wrote a trio of interludes but they would have had to come after the first arc, which seems like way too long to explain to any of The 100 fans, why Bellamy was still around and how many of them ended up where they were.. likewise, they were all going to have to swap stories and get up to speed if they were going to work together. the BSG arc is really the part driving things forward. There should be three more installments before I resume Delta Trek.