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Chapter 1

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Part 5

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12 February 2525

UNSC Enterprise, Punic class carrier

high orbit above Earth, Sol system, UEG space

Henry returned to his current office after the second press conference he had to give today from aboard the Enterprise. He had to lie through his teeth like a master, blaming the events in Arizona on Insurrectionists with advanced weaponry. He was less bothered with implying that elements in the Colonial Administrations have facilitated that mess as a kickback against the UEG's attempts to put them back under firm control and curb their excesses. After all, doing so meant, at worst, getting rid of bad apples and, at best, finding enough evidence to have them prosecuted, tried, and convicted in a court of law.

By now, it was clear to all high-ranking members of Hayes' government that the Colonial Administration was rotten to the core and needed to be removed root and stem for their corruption and overreach that largely provoked the Insurrection. It was just that, without a replacement ready and capable of picking up the pieces, doing so might be almost worse than the cure for the problem. Then there were all the people caught in the mess doing their best in a system gone to hell, who had to be sorted out.

When all was said and done, the UEG had more than enough issues with practically fighting a bloody civil war for years now, and it didn't need more complications like hostile, murderous aliens. And it wasn't like Henry could just go in front of the camera and tell humanity the truth as he knew…

"Vesta, please tell me you have good news?" Henry asked the Smart AI assigned to the President's office who was five years old, had vast experience with Hayes' predecessor, and had been extremely useful in helping him get up to speed with everything going on with the UEG. His staff brought her chip on board late yesterday, and she had been busy ever since.

An image of an ageless-looking brunette woman wearing a knight's armor of vague European origin materialized at one corner of the President's desk. She was sitting on its edge with her legs dangling off it.

"The news could be worse?" Vesta suggested in a way she didn't sound convinced herself. That was one of her quirks that people found either endearing or vexing. "There might be an alien armada or more than one bearing on UEG space, and we would be none the wiser until worlds have burned."

"I am painfully aware of the realities we are bound by thanks to our slow Slipspace drives," Hayes noted.

That was, of course, a flawed premise. The mere existence of faster-than-light travel that allowed humanity to spread over hundreds of systems, colonize hundreds of worlds, and create even more mining, research, and military outposts was extraordinary in the extreme. However, with UNSC ships managing to move no faster than three light years per day in Slipspace under optimal conditions that rarely existed, the UEG as a whole was a bloated beast that made the central government on Earth slow to learn of any developments and even slower to react.

That is why UEG space was divided between the closer, usually more populated, and faster-to-reach Inner Colonies and the more distant, harder to govern, Outer Colonies. The Colonial Administration, initially established to oversee all of humanity's colonization efforts, eventually had to transform into the custodian of the Outer Colonies, making decisions and running things in a way the distant UEG government simply couldn't due to distance, communications lag, and the time it took to react to any issues. The idea had merit, Hayes had to admit until people being people fucked it up by the numbers.

Those logistical realities meant that the Goa'uld and their enemies could have stumbled upon UEG space and taken or murdered their way through multiple Outer Colonies. Earth wouldn't hear it for weeks, if not months.
That was also why Hayes wasn't hasty to react. Issuing orders and warnings without knowing more would have been an empty gesture that would have ensured ships that could be useful later were in transit or far away from Earth.

Vesta looked critically at Hayes, examining him for a few moments, which was an eternity for an AI.

"Good news first. There's some progress in testing captured Jaffa equipment. I have preliminary reports on the toughness of their armor, its composition, and the results of testing captured staff weapons. A few things can be beneficial in the long run for humanity as a whole, Mr. President. First, the armor is an alloy between regular high-quality carbon steel and two materials we haven't run into or succeeded in replicating through scientific experimentation."

"I can use good news," Henry noted. Advances in material sciences were always promising, he guessed. From skimming over Jack's after-action report, it was clear that the UNSC military needed much better armor now, likely both on the ground and in space. If the alien's armor could be replicated, it might be a key to getting there.

"The properties of the alloyed materials make for tough armor that is surprisingly light for its size and bulk. It appears to have been optimized for handling plasma-based attacks. While resistant to kinetic strikes, it hasn't been designed to handle bullets. Nevertheless, as we've seen, the armor can still be highly resistant to bullets depending on its design and intended role. Battle rifles with AP ammo and heavier weapons could reasonably defeat the armor. Standard rifle and pistol ammo is nearly useless against it."

Henry had seen the slaughter of the New Phoenix SWAT team, so there were no surprises there.

"More comprehensive testing on the materials involved will be forthcoming in the next few days," Vesta continued. "Of greater interest are the staff weapons. While their design makes them impractical in combat, their firepower is significant. More importantly, the way they operate appears to be within the grasp of the scientists and engineers who examined them. While those might be overly optimistic claims, it appears that this was the breakthrough we needed to eventually make our own energy weapons. The power source is the most interesting part of the design, and likely the hardest to replicate – it is based on an isotope of one of the materials used in the Jaffa armors…"

At that point, Vesta lost the President during an overly technical explanation.

"So for all, it cost us and the danger it exposed us to, this attack might have been a blessing in disguise," Henry wasn't happy at reaching that conclusion. The price in lives was nothing to scoff at, and humanity was in danger now. Yet, the possibilities revealed by just the captured equipment might make it all worth it in the end. And the Stargates… if there was a way to build those, or just recover a bunch and put them on critical worlds, that could revolutionize how the UEG operated and ran its colonies.

Despite what a few of the President's advisors suggested, Henry didn't think that burying the gate and hoping for the best might be the best course of action. Oh, they were right that the UEG had many other critical issues to deal with. However, burying their heads in the sand like ostriches would be madness at this point, and it seemed that alien technologies might just be the answer to many of the fundamental problems they were facing.

'The big question was hot to handle this live nuclear grenade that fell in his lap?' Henry wondered.

He might have been tempted to have ONI take point. Still, after Admiral Harper's little revelation, he trusted them even less than before.

"Vesta, make a note. I need a shortlist of suitable candidates to audit ONI. It seems they've been running around with too little oversight for years now, and that ends now. I need to know what they've been up to, what other critical things they might keep hidden, and any messes they've created that can harm the UEG government."

"Do you require any specific parameters among the candidates?"

"Serving military officers, no known links with ONI. High-ranked Generals or Admirals. They'll need the rank, and I will provide the clearance and authority for them to get through everything ONI has been up to. They'll need AI assistance to go through the data because I am certain Harper and his buddies will try to bury them in records of no consequence."

"I am compiling the list now. Do you need something else, Mr. President?"

"Have you reached a different conclusion about revealing the truth?" Henry asked, hoping for a different answer.

"All societal and political analysis run by me and other government AIs point to the same conclusion, sir. Telling the truth about Arizona without more proof will be counter-productive. It won't be believed by key demographics, including those involved with the higher echelons of the Colonial Administration and the Insurrection as a whole."

"And the proof required?" Hayes asked glumly.

"An alien fleet hitting a UEG colony or colonies in a way that can't be dismissed as a false-flag operation by ONI and the UNSC."

"Fucking ONI..."


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Part 6

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07.02.1348

Command center

Basestar 98

exploring beyond Cylon space

For almost two days, Eight split her time between bouncing off the walls in giddy excitement and helping her sisters make heads and tails of the first contact package sent by the aliens. Establishing most basic communications based on prime numbers and atomic weights of elements was relatively straightforward once they could get their computers to comprehend what the purple, spiky ship was sending. It took them longer, an eternity for AIs like them, to wrestle with alien file formats. At the same time, both sides exchanged more and more essential data, refining how their computers spoke with each other.

In the end, the aliens managed to get a working translation program first, which sparked another flurry of activity.

"They come in peace! We've got to speak with people! Yeepeee!" Eight's squeee made her sister recoil, and even the Hybrid complained!

"Noise disturbance, Command Center. Running diagnostics…" the Hybrid announced.

There couldn't have been a hint of reproach in her voice, right? Either way, Eight was too busy happily jumping around her sisters to notice.

"It could be a deception to let us lower our guard," Another Eight warned them.

"We have a Resurrection Ship in range and have already sent many raiders to find the others and warn everyone back home!" The other Eight pointed out.

They both looked at their bounding around sister with envy and exasperation.

"What's her major malfunction anyway?"

"I don't want to know. That way lies madness. Coding is complete. We might be able to view their files properly if what they told us was right…" Eight raised more firewalls between the alien data packages and the rest of Basestar's systems before unleashing her new programs on them.

Files decompressed under a gentle touch by elegant alien algorithms. An interface program reviewed the data bit by bit, recompiling it into standard formats.

"This is a language database! They sent us their translation matrix with instructions on how to use it and information on their communication format…" Eight gleefully exclaimed. "We should be able to speak face to face, not just with short sentences. They have to translate back and forth!"

It took the Eights endless minutes to get the translation software tweaked, up and running through software emulation. Doing it that way was a shortcut and incredibly resource-intensive for such a task, but it worked—or it should work.

"Helooo! We are Cylon Model Eights! I'm Eight! Let us be friends!" Eight sent to the aliens before her sisters had a chance to discuss what to tell them now that communications should be practical.

"Hello? Can you hear me and understand?" The aliens sent a transmission almost immediately. The Basestar's computers took a few seconds to process it before displaying an image distorted by all kinds of artifacts so the Eights could all see it.

The alien was a big lizard with fur on its head and many sharp teeth. The Cylons could see patches of presumably tough leather skin here and there, though blue futuristic-looking armor covered most of its body.

"I am Chur'R-Ren, mistress of Star Raider. I greet you in the name of the Kir-Yag Matriarchate! Do you wish to trade!? We are traders and explorers!" The alien introduced itself.

It was weird listening to her while the translator spoke Colonial with a light Caprican accent. The noises that left the alien's mouth were like nothing the Eights had ever heard coming from a Cylon or even a human!

"Trade!? Yes, we wish to trade! It has been so boring out here! I'm so glad we met you!" Eight gushed, much to the mortification of her sisters, who kept sending her messages through the network to shut up already!


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bridge
missionary ship Star Raider
uncharted system

Chur'R-Ren did her best to keep smiling politely so as not to spook the crazy humans. It was just her luck that she ran into what appeared to be either triplets lost in space or, more interestingly, clones. If the translator was working as advertised, and the intelligent programs in the computers reassured the Kig-Yar it was so, then the Clone did introduce herself as such, a type Eight. That made sense because from what little Chur'R-Ren knew of humans, their naming conventions tended to be different than this, even across different cultures that had evolved separately for centuries, if not millennia, thanks to the parasites.

However, while interesting, all that was of no consequence compared to the magical words.

"What do you wish to trade? We are ready to accept cultural artifacts, and if their trade or exchange isn't taboo, religious ones as well to see if people back on the Homeworld or colonies will find them interesting. Technology examples always sell, even if they only interest a few scientists and historians. Food might be an issue. We're different species. Fuel perhaps? Tools? Spare parts? Weapons for self-defense? It's dangerous out here on the fringes. There are always pirates looking to ruin an honest trader's day!"Admittedly, this wasn't Chur'R-Ren's best sales pitch, though this was her first time interacting with a human. It wasn't like she was experienced with their cultural mores and such!

"I am sure we can offer you some writings about God free as a gift. Otherwise, we won't hear the end of it from the Twos when we return home," The Clone suggested.

"I would love to read about your God," Chur'R-Ren spoke carefully, doing her best not to appear threatening or dismissive. It was good that she wasn't religious; otherwise, instead of discussing profitable trade, she would be stuck explaining how great the Forerunners were. She was more than eager to leave such things for the Priests and people they didn't want dead.

"We'll make a list of things we are willing to trade, and then we can discuss price. How do you suggest exchanging goods? I don't think it is a good idea to board each other's ships during this first meeting."

"If your ship has the capacity, we might exchange cargo crates. In that case, we must trust each other about their contents, even if we have just met. Otherwise, we can land parties on an asteroid or a moon where we can conduct our business on neutral ground."

The Clones' eyes unfocused for a moment before the very eager and crazy one nodded so rapidly that Chur'R-Ren was sure the human was on some excellent drugs. Would it be impolite to ask for samples, she wondered?

"We are sending you a file with available trade goods now, ship mistress," One of the saner Clones said.

Star Raider's computers pinged moments later, confirming they had received the data. After scanning it for unpleasant surprises, they translated the document and displayed its contents to Chur'R-Ren right. A package of cultural and history data to be exchanged for an equivalent one about the Kir-Yag that much the Shipmistress could agree. It wasn't like they had to tell the humans anything past the point right before meeting the Covenant… Chur'R-Ren made a note to say to her people to modify those files appropriately before preparing them for sale.

What else? Examples of fuel, computers, and other technologies, robots if the price was right… Would it be too much too fast to ask about stealth technology or whatever these Clones used for faster-than-light travel because it was apparently not Slipspace? Either that or their stealth systems were a bit better than those of the Covenant military, something that Chur'R-Ren found unlikely after she got more comprehensive scans of the human vessel. In many respects, it was primitive, yet it held many unexpected surprises.

Well, this was what bargaining was for, wasn't it?

"Let us discuss the price and what I find interesting, shall we?" This time, Chur'R-Ren couldn't help it and when she smiled at the humans, she displayed all her teeth.