A Chance Encounter

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universes that I am about to mangle and mash together for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech and Battlestar Galactica characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold and Ronald D Moore respectively – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.

Authors Note: I am so sorry that I haven't updated this fic in two years. I really didn't mean to leave it alone so long but unfortunately it went and got itself stuck in the quagmire that is writers block, so I left it alone for awhile until it managed to break free on my last reread. So here we are a new chapter for you to enjoy as well better late than never as they say.

Chapter Three

Cloud Nine

Colonial Remnant Fleet

Ten Minutes Earlier

"Our Raptors have encountered aliens!"

President Laura Roslin's voice, ringing with shock, hung pregnant in the air of the small room where she and her challenger for the presidency of the Colonies – her own former chief scientific advisor Gaius Baltar – and their respective advisors and aides were standing after a call came in for her from the Galactica. Since she and Baltar had been preparing for another presidential debate – or rather she was preparing to take the scientist apart as while he was an undeniably brilliant man Baltar was not very experienced when it came to the cutthroat nature of governmental politics especially when there was an election on. She, however, was an old hand at this kind of thing having worked in politics most of her adult life – she had included him in the call out of courtesy. Plus, you never knew when his scientific expertise would come in handy.

"It certainly seems that way madam president," Admiral Adama's voice answered from the active comm unit on the desk. "The two ships encountered are definitely not Cylon. Not only is the configuration visible of optical scans completely different but whatever they're constructed from is almost completely impervious to Dradis. Something that to the best of our knowledge anyway no Cylon ship is. Also, why they scanned Racetrack's Raptor they didn't fire on her or make any attempt to stop our ships leaving when they could have easily shot them down since they appeared well within cannon to say nothing of missile range."

Silence answered those statements as everyone assembled in the room thought that over. It was an utterly incredible prospect that they had encountered another spacefaring race here and now. It was both exciting and terrifying as on one hand the aliens, whoever or whatever they were, could turn out to be as hostile to them as their former creations the Cylons were in the long run. Alternatively, they might be able to provide them with the sanctuary that they had been seeking for the last two years, ever since that terrible day when after forty years of silence the Cylons returned from the void. Returned and wiped out the vast majority of there race in mere hours.

"How can this be possible," Tory Foster asked at last from where she was standing beside Roslin, "I thought it was determined that aside from us and the Cylons there was no other sentient life in the galaxy."

Baltar rolled his eyes at that. Like most scientists he considered that sentiment to be the height of arrogance and stupidity. One born out of pointless religious claptrap. "That's a common misconception," he replied at last letting some of his annoyance for the sentiment show in his Aerilon-accented voice. "One that some among the Gemenese and Sagittarians would have us believe as fact, but it is not. According to all of our observations there are up to four hundred billion stars in the galaxy alone, many of which exhibit gravitational wobbles consistent with the presence of planetary systems. If only a fraction of those planets is in the habitable zone where liquid water can exist around their parent star, then… well there could be thousands or even millions of species out there and any number of them could be advanced enough for interstellar travel. Quite frankly it would be the height of arrogance to assume that ourselves and our wayward creations are the only sentient races out here amid the sea of stars."

"If life could be so common, wouldn't we have encountered some other race by now," Tory asked, honestly curious now as the Colonials had been capable of interstellar travel again for over a hundred years by this point in time.

"Not necessarily," Baltar answered, "as I said all our estimates indicate that there are four hundred billion stars in this galaxy, a galaxy that is over a hundred thousand light years across and over a thousand light years thick on the spiral arms and even thicker in the core. That is a staggeringly vast amount of space and even though we have been spacefaring race for over a hundred years and have searched the stars with all manner of telescopes for over a hundred and fifty years before the rediscovery of FTL technology, we have only managed to map a tiny portion of the galaxy barely a hundred light years around the star cluster that used to house our colonies. Compared to the vastness of the galaxy that is not a large amount of space explored at all."

"Well, when you put it that way," Tory commented with a frown realizing that the scientist – and serial womanizer – was right. In their entire history as a spacefaring civilization, they had only charted a very small faction of the galaxy. Thus, it was somewhat understandable – given the vastness of the galaxy – that they had yet to encounter another spacefaring civilization or indeed a planet bound one. As Baltar had said it was the height of arrogance to assume that they, and the Cylons, would be the only sentient spacefaring races in the galaxy.

"Doctor Baltar is right," Admiral Adama admitted, "the galaxy is vast and as a career spacer I can tell you that what we know is very little. Though I now have to wonder what the aliens want. Are we near their space or something now?"

"It has to be considered admiral," Baltar answered as like everyone else he nodded in agreement, during their long flight from the Cylons they had travelled farther into unknown space than any Colonials ever had thus it was feasible that they were entering or close to the region of space claimed by the unknown aliens, "it would fit with the report you just gave us of an unknown version of FTL travel and two warships of unknown design made from materials virtually impervious to dradis. Whoever, or whatever, they are they probably detected our Raptors surveying the planet and dispatched these two ships to investigate our presence. Though the fact that they did not simply destroy our ships indicates to me at least that they might not necessarily mean us any harm. In all probability they could be as curious about us as we are about them."

"I suppose that is logical," Roslin agreed. "What are your plans now admiral?"

"We still have a downed Raptor on the planet," Adama answered. "If there are any survivors of the crash then they won't survive long without help. I propose to take the Galactica to the planet and recover our people. As for the aliens... I don't know... I suppose we should try to talk to them especially if we're entering their territory but, to be honest madam president, I have absolutely no idea how we would even start to do that."

"Admiral if you look in the Galactica's database you should find a file marked contact protocol seventeen alpha one," Roslin replied, faintly remembering something from when President Adar had been elected to office the first time. She could see Baltar smiling and nodding as he recognised the file name, she was referring to having worked on an update for it, years ago when he had been a young graduate.

"I will get Dee and Gaeta to have a look but what is the file? The designation is faintly familiar, but I cannot remember why."

"It's something that was originally put together over a hundred years ago, just after the rediscovery of jump drives, before the original creation of the Cylons by Grayson Industries and before the unification of the colonies," Baltar explained. "It's a first contact data package. It was updated about fifteen years ago I know because I worked on it when I was a young graduate studying for my first doctorate."

"Are we sure that the aliens will be understand it," Tom Zarek asked.

"I don't see why they wouldn't," Baltar replied, "when it was created it was decided that the package should be based in mathematics, something any civilization would know if it's advanced to even industrial level to say nothing of having interstellar capabilities. Even if the aliens use something other than base ten math, they should understand it."

"Then we will try sending it," Adama answered, "however my priority must be to get our people back."

"Understandable so what do you propose admiral?" Roslin asked.

"I plan to take the Galactica to the system in question and rescue our people," Adama replied, "the Pegasus, Vigilance, Sentinel and Casandra will remain here to protect the fleet while we wait for Starbuck to return from her mission."

Roslin and the others exchanged a look especially as Admiral Adama named the other warships that were with the fleet. The latter three had appeared four months ago – about a month and a half after the Pegasus – and joined the fleet. The heavy cruiser and the pair of destroyers had apparently been chasing after the Pegasus planning to arrest Admiral Cain after they discovered the civilian ships she abandoned after stripping them for parts and conscripting anyone with useful skills into her crew leaving everyone else to die. To say the Vigilance's commander Ryan Mallory had been infuriated by that behaviour had been an understatement as he and the two destroyer commanders had taken the survivors aboard their ships and set off after Pegasus to make Cain pay.

Needless to say, there had been quite a bit of tension when they first caught up with the fleet. At least until it had been revealed that Cain had died, killed by an escaped human-form Cylon that had once been her lover. Since then, they had joined the fleet increasing their security considerably especially since all three had, like Pegasus, been top of the line ships. Just like most non-battlestars they hadn't yet had their systems upgraded with the compromised CNP program by the time the Cylons attacked.

"Very well admiral proceed," Roslin said at last making a decision in her position as president which she had the legislative authority to do. "Though do try to avoid starting a war while you're at it. We have enough on our plate with the Cylons we don't need aliens who might be technologically superior to us to join in on their side."

"I'll do my best madam president. I'll send a Raptor back with a report as soon as I can. Galactica actual out."

The radio link with the elderly battlestar closed down with a soft bleep as Adama broke contact. For a few moments nobody spoke, all lost in their own thoughts about this situation and what it could mean for the battered remains of there once great civilisation to speak. Finally, though Roslin spoke up.

"Well, this an interesting development," she commented, "should we wait to hear back from Admiral Adama or proceed into the debating room?"

"As much as I like a good debate, I would suggest Madam President that we wait," Baltar answered at last, "as it would be kind of awkward to be in the middle of our debate and have to stop when the Raptor comes back. If we wait, we avoid that embarrassment."

"It seems fair," Zarek agreed prompting Roslin to frown. She had been hoping to get the debate over with, so she could get back to the serious business of running what was left of the Colonial government but at the same time she could see where the two men were coming from. It would be awkward to say the least to interrupt a debate – which would certainly get quite heated as Colonial presidential candidate debates always did – to react to the developing situation and then pick up where they left off again afterwards.

"Very well gentlemen we will wait," she said before turning to her aide. "Tory please go out there and tell the debate moderator that an urgent situation has developed and that all parties have agreed to postpone the debate until the matter is resolved."

"Yes, madam president."

Combat Information Centre

Colonial Battlestar Galactica

That Same Time

Admiral William Adama smiled slightly as he put down the phone he had been using to speak to the president. As he had expected Roslin hadn't really put up any resistance to him going to rescue their people though she did want him to be very careful doing it. After all, if they were entering the territory of another spacefaring species – however incredible that sounded – the last thing they needed was to make a bad impression on the locals. Especially as their technology and capabilities were unknown,

"Dee," he said turning to look over at Lieutenant Anastasia Dualla, "bring up the file marked Contact Protocol Seventeen Alpha One and prepare the contents for broadcast on as many channels as possible. Mr Gaeta begin plotting an immediate jump to the coordinates where Racetrack encountered the unknown ships."

"Yes sir," both officers acknowledged and began setting to their tasks.

"I haven't heard that protocol mentioned since the academy," Colonel Saul Tigh commented, frowning slightly as he tried to remember what was in it, "I can't remember what it entails."

"I didn't remember until both the president and Baltar reminded me," Adama admitted with a slight knowing smile at his old friend. He knew what he had to say next was likely to throw Tigh through something of a loop. "It's a first contact protocol meant to allow the establishment of communications with another race."

He was not disappointed with his XO's reaction to that little factoid. Saul froze in place and gaped at him, grey eyes wide in shock. For a few moments Saul's lips moved but no sound came out of his mouth – prompting more than one person in the CIC to discreetly chuckle as it was so rare to see Saul Tigh speechless – until the stunned man overcame his shock. "The president really thinks we've encountered aliens," he said incredulously, "you're pulling my leg, aren't you? Aliens aren't real. They're just the stuff of science fiction surely."

"Apparently, they are real, and we've just stumbled across two alien warships, or they've stumbled across us. You could argue both."

"Well frack me."

Adama chuckled at that response a moment before Dee spoke up from her station. "Sir I have the contact protocol loaded and ready to transmit on command," she reported.

"Very well. Advise the Pegasus that they're in charge of protecting the fleet until we get back," Adama ordered knowing Lee would do whatever he had to do to protect the fleet while they were gone.

"Yes sir," Dee acknowledged relaying the command to Apollo on the Pegasus.

"Sir jump calculated," Gaeta reported, "hangar pods have retracted and all FTL drives have spun up normally."

"Sir Pegasus Actual has acknowledged and wishes us good luck and good hunting."

"Very well. Mr Gaeta commence jump sequence."

"Yes sir," Gaeta acknowledged before he carefully removed the jump drive key from its normal secure housing and slipped it into the final jump interlock and turned it forty degrees to the right. Immediately one of his displays lit up. "Key is in, jump clock is running, thirty seconds to jump."

Hearing that everyone in the multi-levelled CIC – from the armed marines guarding the doors, to ratings manning various consoles, to Admiral Adama himself – prepared themselves for the disorientation that always accompanied folding space-time and teleporting somewhere else in the galaxy. While they had all been through hundreds of jumps since the fall of the colonies the momentary queasiness and disorientation never got any easier to bare.

"Ten seconds to jump," Gaeta called out, "nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one. Jumping… now."

As he spoke Gaeta turned the jump key again engaging the two FTL engines buried deep within the Galactica's armoured heart. An ethereal thrum of power ran through the hull of the ship and for everyone reality seemed to distort and stretch into the distance in a strange way that nobody could ever fully describe. There was a tremendous feeling of tension in everyone as though the basic matter that made up their bodies was being put under some incalculable, intangible but at the same time very real strain. Before with breathtaking suddenness reality snapped back to normal as the hyperlight jump completed.

"Jumps complete all systems operational," Gaeta reported as he returned the key to the start position and extracted it before putting it back in its storage compartment. He then looked at his screens as the dradis display cleared as the last echo of the fold field dissipated. The planet the Raptors had been sent to survey appeared immediately as did two very faint, fainter than anything ever should be on a capital grade dradis array, contacts in orbit. "Dradis contact. Two ships in orbit."

"Are they the same ones Racetrack encountered," Adama asked even as he looked up at the dradis screen over the chart table, frowning in concern when he saw how faint the two yellow dots – signalling unknown contacts – were. While they, like the rest of the ship, were old the dradis system on the Galactica was a lot more powerful than anything that could be mounted on a Raptor. Thus, they should have gotten much clearer and stronger readings than this. He had to wonder what in the name of the gods those ships were made out of that dradis could barely even detect it. Even then he was willing to bet that the aliens were only being detected because they weren't using any form of electronic countermeasures.

Gaeta scowled as he entered repeated commands into his station, trying to improve the quality of the scan image. "I cannot tell sir the dradis return is too faint," he replied after a moment, frustration clear to hear in his voice. After a second more contacts appeared on his screen, these smaller but much easier to see. "New contacts two small craft coming up from the planet. From there size I would say they're shuttle craft of some type possibly similar to our Raptors though considerably larger. They're on course for the larger of the two ships."

"They've picked up our people," Tigh commented knowingly, the aliens had obviously sent some of their people down to the crashed Raptor and taken any survivors from the wreckage. Survivors who they were now returning to their ship for the gods only knew what kind of treatment. Vivisection if pre-fall science fiction was anything to go buy not that he thought aliens would be that brutal, callous, or cold. Not in real life anyway.

"Obviously," Adama agreed with a frown. He had hoped that they would get here in time to send people down to retrieve Hotdog, Knight, and any other survivors from the crashed Raptor before the aliens could. The fact that they hadn't… well that was going to make things problematic especially as the need to avoid potentially starting a war that would wipe out what was left of the human race severely curtailed his options.

"So now what," Tigh asked a moment before the lights and monitors began flickering. "What the frack?"

"We're being scanned by the largest of the two unknown ships," Gaeta reported, "the amount of energy behind the scan is phenomenal, equivalent to several dozen of our largest reactors on full output. It's creating a sympathetic EMP in our systems somehow." Abruptly the flickered stopped and everything returned to normal. "Scan has stopped."

"Damage," Tigh asked looking over at the officer manning the damage control station.

"Minimal," the officer reported after a moment, listening to a report on a headset. "Minor damage to the more exposed electronics and sensor arrays. Range finders are down, damage control crews are on their way."

A simple scan did that to us, Adama thought with an inward shiver. If the alien's sensors could cause a sympathetic EMP reaction in their systems, systems that were supposed to be hardened against such things given how freely the Cylons used things like nukes, then he didn't want to see what the alien weapons – whatever they were – would do to them should this go wrong. He had a horrible feeling that if it came to blows the Galactica's greater size and mass would not save her.

"Dee begin transmitting the contact package to the aliens," he ordered, mentally crossing his fingers not to mention silently praying – as hard as that was to believe for someone who generally did not believe in the gods – to the Lords of Kobol that nothing went wrong here.

"Yes sir."

As Dee began carrying out his instructions Adama and Tigh exchanged a look of mutual concern. The effect of the scan upon there ship had shown them just how dangerously powerful these aliens, as still as hard as it was to believe, were in comparison to them. The fact that it had knocked some systems, including the range finders for their guns, offline was very worrying as even the defensive guns relied on the range finders to know when to set the shells to explode creating a defensive flak barrier. With them offline until damage control could fix whatever had burned out or otherwise failed due to the scan, they were quite literally defenceless.

"Sir we're receiving a signal from the lead alien ship," Dee reported after a few moments of silence, sounding surprised and confused as she had only just sent the aliens there first contact package, which naturally included language files and a guide to Colonial standard grammar. There was no way the aliens could have translated it so fast. Unless they're AI like the Cylons or have AI with them, she thought with an inward shiver. "Sir they're addressing us in our own language."

"Impossible they can't have translated the package so soon," Tigh exclaimed.

"Not by any means we know anyway," Adama agreed even as he, unknowingly like Lieutenant Dualla began to wonder if the aliens were AI or used AI in some way. "But it through on the speakers Dee let's hear what it is they have to say."

"Yes sir."

For another few moments nothing more happened, beyond Dualla fiddling with her controls as the alien signal was incredibly powerful – whatever power source they had to have on that ship it blew anything the Colonials had ever built away – and she was having to carefully step it down so to speak to avoid the signal overloading their systems. When she was satisfied that she had something that was going to work and wouldn't fry the speakers or blow out their eardrums from the volume or something else like that, she put the transmission on the speakers as instructed.

The overhead speakers crackled and then began emitting a noticeable humming sound from the sheer amount of power that had to be behind the transmission. Then a female voice, speaking Colonial standard but with the most appalling accent anyone had ever heard, spoke.

"Unknown vessel," the voice said, "this is the United Earth Starship Sirona. We mean you no harm and are currently engaged in a search and rescue operation for your downed craft. Please respond. Repeat. Unknown vessel this is the United Earth Starship Sirona. We mean you no harm and are currently engaged in a search and rescue operation for your downed craft. Please respond."

Shock swept through the whole of the CIC, everyone regardless of their rank and station, staring at the overhead speakers and the dradis screens in shock and amazement as the mystery female repeated herself once again. The aliens weren't strictly speaking at all aliens at all, but humans just like them. As amazing as it was, they had found the Thirteenth Tribe of Man.

The moment everyone comprehended that the CIC spontaneously exploded into cheers and celebration at the realization that their long ordeal at the hands of the Cylons could be about to end. For a few moments Adama and Tigh let the CIC crew celebrate then the latter brought everyone back to order with a few sharp, barked commands. Once everyone had settled down, though everyone was still smiling, Adama turned to Dee.

"Put me on with them," he ordered.

"Yes sir," Dualla acknowledged and entered a few commands. After a moment a light next to the phone on the chart table came on showing that the comm link with the Sirona was active. Adama carefully picked it up and spoke into it.

"This is Admiral William Adama commanding officer of the Colonial Battlestar Galactica calling the Sirona. Did you say you are from Earth?"

Authors Notes: Well, another chapter bites the dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. Once again, I am deeply sorry for the long wait, I really hate it when perfectly good ideas get stuck in writers block. Now before anyone says I am making the Robotech side too powerful I will say that things are actually a lot more equal than they would first appear. The advantages Robotech warships have come purely from the fact that they are literally swimming in power compared to anything in the Colonial or Cylon fleets – which is why the sensor scan from the Sirona caused some minor damage on the Galactica - but in other areas things are far more equal. For example, Colonial materials science is comparable given that their ships can soak up double digit megaton nuclear hits and sustain only small amounts of damage and Colonial sublight engines are actually considerably more advanced than the ion fusion engines used on the Earth ships. It will become clear later on just how much more equal the two groups are in certain areas. Hopefully that reassures you all that this isn't going to be a curb stomp as it won't be – the Cylons are more dangerous to Earth than you realise.

Hopefully the next chapter of this story won't be quite so long in coming. Until next time.