A Chance Encounter V2

Disclaimer: I do not own most of the characters, and definitely not the universes as things would be seriously different if I did, that I am about to mangle around and mash together for my own amusement. Sadly, all Robotech and Battlestar Galactica concepts and characters remain the property of Harmony Gold and Ronald D Moore 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.

Chapter Two

Colonial Raptor 221

Several Minutes Earlier

Lieutenant Margaret 'Racetrack' Edmondson was bored. She and the electronic warfare officer Lieutenant Hamish 'Skulls' McCall had been assigned to orbital watch alongside Raptor 301 while six other Raptors had been assigned to further investigate the planet that they had inadvertently stumbled across due to a navigational error on their original mission to accompany Starbuck and a few other Raptors back to Caprica to rescue some survivors of the Cylon attack. While most of the Raptors had descended down into the atmosphere – some to gather atmospheric samples the others to the surface to gather soil and water samples - two of them had remained here in orbit to watch for any unexpected, unpleasant surprises like say a Cylon basestar showing up.

Despite knowing her job was important it was still a very boring one.

She was brought out of her boredom when the ECO station abruptly came alive with warnings. "Whoa," she heard Skulls say as he suddenly began scanning his screens looking for whatever it was that was triggering the alert.

"What we got Skulls?" she asked, suddenly fully alert and mentally scolding herself for complaining about suddenly being bored.

"There's some kind of gravitational disturbance forming nearby," Skulls replied, frowning in confusion a moment before a jolt ran through the Raptor, "that was a gravitational distortion wave, we're now picking up a disturbance forming the space-time continuum. It's similar to the space fold field put out by one of our FTL drives but way more powerful and drawn out. If it's a jump it's like nothing I've ever seen, it's certainly not Colonial or Cylon."

For a second Racetrack was stunned into silence. "Are you saying it's alien?" she asked as another gravitational wave rattled the Raptor. What kind of FLT event creates gravitational disturbances like this, she thought as she checked her screens and was relieved to see that the navigational system was automatically compensating and keeping the ship stable and in its assigned position in orbit; she had been worried that the gravitational distortion waves would push them out of position.

"I don't know what else it could be," Skulls replied.

Racetrack frowned and was about to ask how that could be. The Colonial Astrophysical Institute had been searching the stars for nearly two hundred years, listening, and looking for any sign that there was life beyond the quadruple star system that housed – had housed – the Twelve Colonies. In all that time they had found nothing, no sign that there was anyone else out there beyond themselves and the Cylons – which had led to some of the more religiously inclined among their people especially the Gemenese and Sagittarian's to proclaim that the Lords of Kobol had meant the universe for them alone – apparently until now. However, before she could open her mouth to speak the words a third gravitational wave rocked the Raptor a moment before a brilliant flash of light outside nearly blinded her.

When she could see again what they could see outside the cockpit windows was astonishing. Where there had been open space and nebula dust two glowing spheres of energy, that for all the world looked like whirling balls of golden frosted glass, had appeared. A dark shape was forming in the centre of each sphere, skeletal and indistinct at first but rapidly solidifying as if the alien – as impossible as that seemed – starships were somehow reintegrating into normal space. It was the complete opposite of a normal jump. Suddenly with a gyroscopic blue flash the sphere's dissipated.

Leaving two alien starships floating there in space.

They were very strange looking ships. Each was vaguely cylindrical with two outboard sponsons running from about halfway along their length to the rear of each ship. Each was constructed of a strange dark blue metal and frankly looked like something that belonged beneath the surface of the oceans of Caprica, Picon or Aquaria not out here in the void of interstellar space. It was immediately obvious that both vessels were warships as even from here she could see a number of large turrets on both ships – and something about the look of those barrels told her that whatever came out of them was completely different to the kinetic kill or high explosive rounds that came out of Colonial warship cannons – as well as the close circular recesses of torpedo or missile tubes in the bows. From this angle she could see a number of other ports, as well as smaller dome-shaped turrets along the hulls indicating just how incredibly heavily armed they were for their size even by Colonial standards.

"Frack me," she breathed still stunned by the fact that she was face to face with not one but two alien warships, something that until now had only existed in books and as the staple of cheap cable science fiction shows and movies. Mentally she shook herself, getting past the shock and focusing on the issue at hand. "Skulls are we getting anything off those ships?"

"We're getting some readings but not many of them," Skulls replied, "whatever it is they're made from its almost completely impervious to dradis, we can tell that they are there and that the hull is metallic but that's all. Thermal scan is picking up some emissions from their engines and we are picking up residual ions though the dispersal pattern is completely different to anything we've ever seen."

"So, we know next to nothing," Racetrack said a moment before the light and instruments momentarily flickered, even the artificial gravity failing for a heartbeat making her feel like her heart had momentarily jumped into her throat. "What the frack?"

"We're being scanned by the larger ship," Skulls explained "there's a fracking ton of power behind the scan far more than anything I have ever seen before, the EM impact is momentarily disrupting our systems."

"Okay I've had enough of this. Send a message to all the other Raptors to bug out and return to the fleet. It's time to let the old man and the president decide what to do about this."

"On it."

While Skulls set about wirelessing the other Raptors and telling them to return to orbit Racetrack began preparing the Raptor to jump. Spinning up the FTL drive and bringing up the preprogramed jump back to the fleet and loading it into the navigational computer. All the while she kept a wary eye on the alien warships, prepared to take evasive action if they did anything funny. So far, the alien ships had done nothing, well beyond scan them, to indicate that their intent was aggression, but she wasn't about to take any chances. After all the Lords only knew how an alien mind would think or feel.

"Frack," Skulls cursed.

"What is it?"

"It's Hotdog and Knight. There Raptors engines are miss firing and they've lost power to their FTL drive. They're not going to be able to make orbit."

"Frack how many aboard?"

"Including Hotdog and Knight six. Two agriculture specialists and four marines. Frack their engine problems are getting worse, they're losing thrust and falling back towards the surface."

"Frack. Alright tell them to land as best they can on the surface the Old Man will have to send someone back for them," Racetrack replied knowing from experience that Admiral Adama would not leave some of their people behind and would come back for them – even if that meant jumping the Galactica or the Pegasus into orbit and possibly confronting alien warships whose weapons and capabilities were a dangerous unknown.

"Right," Skulls acknowledged before relaying to the troubled Raptor. Then he noticed that the other Raptors were entering orbit. "All Raptors information Racetrack. Synchronising jump clocks."

"Jump clocks synchronised," Racetrack confirmed, "jump in five… four… three… two… one… jumping."

As she finished speaking, she turned the key on the jump drive. Immediately the feeling of tension that accompanied a jump gripped all of them and the world seemed to stretch and twist before snapping back into focus with a brilliant flash of light. Through the viewports the nebula and the planet they'd discovered by accident had vanished replaced by the familiar sight of the fleet.

Within moments the wireless came to life. "Raptor 221, Galactica," came the voice of one of the newer comm techs attached to the Galactica. A tech who had come from the handful of new ships that had appeared near the fleet two months ago centred on the heavy cruiser Cerberus, which had been accompanied by a marine assault ship – which had been transporting a full battalion of marines and all their equipment to an exercise when the Cylons attacked – a hospital ship, and several transports packed with civilians. "Your back early is there a problem?"

"Yeah, Galactica there is. Can I speak to the old man?" Racetrack replied. A moment later Admiral Adama came on the line.

"Raptor 221 this is Galactica actual. What's going on Racetrack?" the admiral asked, concern in his voice. Racetrack swallowed, mentally steeled herself and then said the words that, though she didn't know it yet, would go down in Colonial history.

"Sir we have a problem."

Raptor 331

That Same Time

Lieutenant Brendan 'Hotdog' Costanza was sweating as he fought to bring his ailing Raptor into an emergency landing. It wasn't easy the engines were now barely functioning – and making the most gods awful noise – and as such they were falling like a brick. It had all started so well; they had been ascending back into orbit after Racetrack suddenly scrubbed the mission for some reason – which had been a serious annoyance as he had been looking forward to breathing some fresh air for once after a year and a half of breathing recycled air on the Galactica – when the engines had emitted a series of dull thuds followed by a loud bang. Within seconds his instruments had come alive with warnings, the FTL drive stopped working and engine thrust levels began dropping rapidly as did their supply of fuel indicating that whatever had happen it had caused serious damage to the fuel feed system, resulting in them losing precious tylium from the lines.

Outside the clouds gave way to the mostly snow and ice-covered surface of this planet. Idly he noted that this place would not be the best place to call home, even though there were some somewhat temperate areas near the equator which would be tolerable, given how cold it was. Though if he knew the Old Man this planet would at most have been a pitstop – somewhere to stock up on whatever edible foods they could find not to mention additional supplies of fresh water to take the load off the increasingly overstressed water recycling systems on the battlestars – before they resumed their search for Earth and the Thirteenth Tribe of Man. That's what would have happened if Admiral Adama got his way but with the politics of the presidential election going on everything could change.

Right now, though the thoughts of the politicking going on back in the fleet were the last thing on his mind. Instead, he focused on levelling the Raptor's descent and reducing their speed, a crash was inevitable and there was nothing he could do to prevent that. What he could do was try to make sure they survived the impact and be able to survive long enough for rescue parties from the Galactica, Pegasus or the Cerberus to reach them.

"Hotdog I've rerouted as much of our remaining tylium as I can to the landing thrusters," Lieutenant Peter 'Knight' Hansen said from the ECO station. "It should be enough to slow us down for an at least partially controlled landing."

"Thanks Knight," Hotdog replied as he managed, just, to get the still falling Raptor back onto a level flightpath. He could feel the muscles in his arms burning from the exertion of fighting controls that were not only feeling very heavy – indicating that whatever had damaged their engines had likely damaged their hydraulics as well, so their power assist was gone – and slow to respond to his commands. "Okay I've got us level, everyone brace yourselves back there we'll hit the surface in less than a minute."

From behind Hotdog heard the marines and scientists bracing themselves for the inevitable impact. With only two or three hundred feet left to go he fired the landing thrusters. For a few seconds the thrusters continued to fire slowing the Raptor down until the fuel flow to the thrusters died away completely instantly shutting them down.

Now only meters above the ground the Raptor slammed down hard, before – riding on its residual forward momentum – skidding along throwing up huge fans of snow and frozen dirt. The heat generated by the friction melting the snow creating a thin film of water that the crashing craft aquaplaned along until it abruptly came to a cliff. For a moment the Raptor was airborne again – then it dropped several meters down onto a rugged surface of a glacier…

…and lay still it's systems dead the crew within unconscious or dead.

Starboard Hangar Sponson

UES Sirona

Orbit, A Short Time Later

Dressed in a full suit of the newly developed CVR-3 body armour and holding one of the new FAL-2 Laser Carbines Major Daniel O'Neill watched patiently as one of the two Predator-class medium assault landers docked aboard the Sirona was loaded ready for departure to the icy world below. They had already loaded a single squad of Spartan destroids aboard, he doubted they would need their firepower but experience during the war with the Zentraedi had shown it was better to be safe than sorry, and now the mixed squad of marines, medics, and combat engineers that he would be leading down to the planet were filing aboard.

While he waited for the team, he would be leading to board he thought about their mission. It was a simple search and retrieval mission, something he had done several times since the Sirona and the rest of Pathfinder Group Four had folded out of Sol, though one with some higher stakes than what he had gotten used to. He couldn't help but wonder what was so special about the small craft that had crashed on the surface, well beyond the fact that the people aboard it was apparently human. Human's whose origins were unknown to them as they didn't come from Earth, and they were still a very long way from the outer edge of Tirolian space.

"Major," his second in command Captain Deaton said from behind him, prompting him to turn to look at him a question on his face. "Everyone is aboard and the pilot reports ready to launch. We just need to get aboard ourselves."

"Very well," Daniel replied, "has there been any more news from the bridge about the alien craft?"

"Yes sir. The craft has crashed onto the surface of a large glacier," Deaton replied, "sensors show that there are still lift signs from the craft however they are weak. The survivors of the impact are likely badly hurt, given how cold it is down there it won't be long before hypothermia sets in. To make matters more interesting our sensors have detected a cold front moving towards the area, scans show strong winds, and the clouds are thick with either snow or freezing rain."

"Damn it. How long until the cold front arrives?"

"At its current speed it will be over the glacier within at most two hours, we can't be more precise than that the air mass is too unstable."

"Damn. Then we're going to have to hurry," Daniel answered before heading aboard the transport himself. Given the approaching stormfront this was going to be a very tricky operation though – as long as they managed to rescue the survivors beforehand – they could if needs be stay in the dropship until the storm passed over then return here with them to the Sirona.

"Yes sir," Deaton agreed as he followed his superior officer aboard the dropship. As soon as he was aboard, he hit the control to close and seal the hatch. "Hatch closed and secure sir."

"Excellent captain. Pilot request departure clearance then take us out," Daniel ordered.

"Aye sir," the painfully young - but then since the Rain of Death young people had had to grow up fast, they no longer had the luxury of bumming around as carefree teenagers any longer, not with the world so damaged and so much still needing to be done to both repair the damage inflicted by Dolza's forces but to hopefully prevent the planet suffering such a catastrophe again - pilot replied from the cockpit.

After a few moments they heard the engines start up and felt a slight jolt, much like what a lift made as it started moving, as the dropship lifted off the deck. Seconds later they were in open space heading for the surface of the planet – a planet that the ship had now moved into orbit of. Watching the feed from the external cameras Daniel didn't doubt that the Sirona would be running comprehensive scans of the planet. Surveying the surface as part of their mission directives, though the icy world did not look to be very promising in colonisation terms. Still, he knew Captain Harrison would be determined to be thorough, especially as it seemed like another group of apparent humans was also interested in this glorified ice cube for some reason.

Hopefully the survivors of the crashed ship would be able to tell them why they were interested in this planet.

The dropship began vibrating as they started to encounter the uppermost layer of the planet's atmosphere. The view of the planet quickly disappeared in a haze of orange plasma flames as they descended. The plasma sheath didn't last very long as they soon encountered thicker air. The view of the planet reappeared and Daniel – like everyone in the troop compartment – was treated to a beautiful – in the way such things were – high altitude view of the surface. It was breath taking as the slow relentless grinding action of glaciers against the rock had created a network of high rocky peaks and wide u-shaped valleys. Most of which were dominated by the pale white-blue masses of the great rivers of ice, but a few were ice free and showed either pale grey rocks or the seasonal artic grassland known as tundra. Dotted across the tundra were cold-looking lakes – some of which had to be massive if they could see them clearly from so high up – and the silver ribbon of fast-moving rivers.

All in all, the planet gave the impression of a place that was midst of an ice age. An ice age that probably would never truly end given how the light of the systems star was heavily diffused by drifting nebula gas and dust before it even reached the atmosphere, let alone the surface. The view changed slightly as they dropped lower and angled towards the glacier where the alien craft had come to rest.

Within what felt like a few seconds, but was really a minute or two, they came upon the crash site. The alien craft was surprisingly small, not that much bigger than one of the still prototype Beta veritech fighters and had weathered the impact with the ice fairly well, though it was clearly banged up and the engines at the back were emitting ominous black smoke as well as some sparks. One of the engines could be seen to actually have a hole the size of a battloids fist in the side from which the worst of the smoke was billowing. Though as they closed, they could see the smoke and sparks were diminishing as whatever was burning inside the engine modules was consumed. Well, that or some internal firefighting system was gaining the upper hand.

A sudden jolt accompanied by a whoosh of retro-thrusters told the entire ground team that the dropship was entering the final phase of landing. "Major, I'm putting us down as close to the wrecked ship as I can," the pilot called back. "We've also just received a revised ETA on the cold front."

"And?" Daniel asked.

"It looks like we're going to have a bit more time than we thought," the pilot answered, "the front has slowed down considerably as its begun to enter the mountains. It now won't reach us for at least three hours."

"That will help a bit," Daniel commented as a jolt ran through the ship as they set down. Note to self; have a word with the starboard sponson deck chief to check the shock absorbers on this Predator's landing legs, he thought a moment before the light over the hatch changed colour going from red to green indicating that they could now disembark. He snapped to his duty. "All right everyone I shouldn't have to say this, but I know how some of you, numbskulls think thus I want everyone to keep your guard up and watch where you put your feet. The surface of a glacier can seem solid but can easily mask a crevasse and you really don't want to fall down one of those. Everyone hear me?" Having grown up in Alaska, at a small homestead a few hours outside of Anchorage, he was well aware of the dangers that came with glaciers, the giant rivers of frozen water looked beautiful but like any river their beauty could hide terrible danger.

"Sir yes sir," the other marines chorused in unison.

"Then let's go."

Without any further ado Daniel stood up and led the way off the dropship. Thankfully the fact that all of them were wearing armour with environmental protection underneath – not to mention sealable helmets – prevented all of them from feeling the blast of cold air that slammed into them the moment they left the air-conditioned comfort of the dropship's interior. As they stepped out onto the snow-covered surface of the glacier Daniel was pleased to note that the pilot had been true to his word… they were literally only a few meters from the wreck and were also facing it.

Still being cautious he waited to approach till their supporting squad of Gladiator destroids disembarked from their own hatch and moved to create a perimeter around the crashed vessel. There dual beam cannons, 80mm particle gunpods and chest missile launchers trained cautiously on the crashed vessel, almost as though they were expecting something nasty to jump out at any minute. Daniel didn't doubt that the marines inside the destroids were thoroughly scanning the downed craft with their sensors.

A moment his helmet comm came to life. "Major we've completed our scan of the craft," Lieutenant Walker reported from the lead Gladiator. "There are no active power sources aboard the craft. It's leaking heat through numerous microfractures in the hull. The engines are rapidly cooling though there is evidence that at least one of them was badly misfiring if not outright on fire as it came down."

"I think the smoke is a dead giveaway to that lieutenant," Daniel replied, "any sign of fire aboard? And are there any remaining life signs."

"No sign of fire sir. We are picking up five active life signs. Though they all appear to be unconscious and sir we can confirm that the life signs are human. There is a gull-wing style door on the port side. Though scans show it is very badly warped by the impact forces, it probably won't open."

"Then let's not take a chance and waste time trying to open it. Those people inside need our help and are certain to need transport to the medical bay on the Sirona. Laser it."

"Yes sir."

Daniel watched as the lead Gladiator – distinct from its fellows by a bright blue shoulder pauldron – changed its position before one of its two shoulder-mounted laser cannons moved and targeted the gullwing door. For a moment more nothing happened then the muzzle of the cannon glowed a second before a bright whitish-blue beam of supercharged, highly compressed photons burst into existence. Due to its nature as a light speed weapon by the time Daniel's brain had finished processing what his eyes were telling him and revealing the existence of it the beam had already reached and began cutting through the door. The alien alloy of the door offering only the briefest of resistance to the cutting beam.

In seconds the beam vanished and, with an organic fluidity that would have seemed impossible to anyone not familiar with robotechnology, the lieutenant's battloid moved forward, grabbed the collapsing hatch in one massive mechanical hand and throwing it away into the distance where it disappeared into a crevasse.

"Hatch open sir," Peters reported.

Daniel nodded and carefully lead the way into the crashed ship. To say it was something of a wreck would have been an understatement as there were broken cables and bits of shattered internal bracing everywhere. The craft had two compartments, in the front compartment two people in tan flight suits – that didn't look that much different from the suits that veritech fighter pilots wore – lay slumped over the controls. The aft compartment had four bodies sprawled around, two wore what looked like a civilian version of the flight suits while the other two wore black more armoured versions. Something told him that by the look of them they were marines.

It was obvious that it was one of the two scientists who'd been killed on impact as a broken girder pierced his chest in a manner that made it look like some bizarre ballista bolt. From its positioning the girder had completely destroyed vital organs killing him nearly instantly. Daniel couldn't help but wince at the sight. Nasty, he thought before gesturing for the field medics to begin checking the survivors.

He stood back and waited while they went about their work.

"Major all the survivors are in reasonable condition," the senior field medic reported after a few minutes of checking them over with portable scanners, "all have some broken bones and I wouldn't be surprised if the pilot and co-pilot have some nasty whiplash injuries."

"Is it safe to move them?"

"It is. In fact, we should get them all back to the Sirona as soon as possible so the broken bones and soft tissue injuries can be repaired."

"Alright begin moving them. Once we've got them on the dropship, we'll recover the body of the casualty."

"Yes sir."

"Lieutenant Marks once they've got the pilot and co-pilot out see if you can find if this thing has a black box. Recover it if you can."

"Yes sir."

Bridge

UES Sirona

Twenty Minutes Later

"Sir the dropship reports all survivors and the casualty have been recovered. Combat engineers have also been able to recover the crashed ships data recorders."

"Understood. What about the craft itself can they recover it?" Captain John Harrison asked from his command station.

"Negative sir. To quote Lieutenant Anderson the spaceframe is twisted to glory and back plus the keel is badly compromised. If they try to move it the whole thing will just break apart."

"I see very well instruct the dropship to return immediately," John ordered after a moment of silent cursing in both Welsh and English. He had been hoping that they would recover the ship and its unusual fold drive for analysis, but the universe had apparently had other ideas. Still saving the crew was a good place to start learning about the fold system as even if they didn't know how it worked, they could certainly help them contact whatever government they were part of. A government that they could trade with.

"Aye sir," communications acknowledged before relaying the return command to the landed dropship. "Dropship one acknowledges the order they're lifting off now. ETA five minutes and thirty-six seconds."

John nodded and turned to ask Tylen about the status of their scans of the planet when abruptly proximity alarms went off at multiple consoles around the bridge. Simultaneously there was a brilliant flash of light from outside. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Sir another ship just appeared twenty thousand kilometres away on bearing of zero one four by zero, three two," sensors reported immediately, "it appears to have used the same type of space folding as the smaller ships did but far more intense. The vessel is considerably larger, probably the mothership for the smaller ships we encountered earlier."

"How large," Tylen asked from the first officer's station.

"Sensors confirm that the vessel is fourteen hundred and thirty-eight metres long and is heavily armed with multiple batteries of high calibre projectile cannons, twelve nuclear missile launchers and hundreds of smaller point defence batteries," sensors reported, "hull appears to be an enhanced titanium-carbon steel composite similar to the material we used on our first-generation ships though slightly more refined."

"Decent protection against kinetic weapons," Tylen noted, "though it won't stand up to our guns for very long."

John nodded in agreement remembering seeing the ease with which the particle beams and lasers from the Zentraedi ships had cut through their first-generation ships like a swarm of locusts in a wheat field. Though hopefully he wouldn't have to subject the newly arrived ship to the same kind of treatment. "Show me the ship," he ordered.

"Yes sir."

Immediately an image of the ship appeared on one of his command station monitors. The first thought that occurred to him was that it looked like a giant ribbed crocodile with a vaguely wedge-shaped forward hull and two side hulls attached to a rectangular central section by four thick but short arms that were in an almost crocodilian positioning on the hull. Four pod like engines were affixed to the aft of the vessel. Along one flank of the pods – which kind of reminded him of the hangar sponsons on his own ship – was what was likely a name though written in a language that looked like some variant of Greek.

A moment later though he could understand as the language changed as the computer automatically translated it into modern English. He was right that the word was indeed a name, presumably the name of the ship…

… and that name was Galactica.

Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the dust. Expect a somewhat tense first meeting in the next chapter which I will hopefully have ready soon as I have a very good idea what I actually want to happen in the chapter. Until next time stay safe everyone.