Roads Paved in Shadow

Book II

Chapter VII

"Earth War-Part 3"

Cyrannus System

Warstar Zeus

"Hurry," Admiral Nagala hissed at the command crew. "Move it." They didn't have much time.

A half hour earlier, the Zeus's engines have been all but destroyed. Her thrusters were off-line, and her weapon systems were effectively torn apart by enemy fire. The crippled and destroyed remains of six other battlestars, a half-dozen cruisers, and sixteen destroyers–an entire squadron floated listlessly in the void creating what was in effect a three-dimensional graveyard. As far as the admiral could tell, the Earther ships hadn't bothered capturing any escape pods prisoners. Nagala had immediately understood that this slaughter was being used as an example for his people. They were trying to break the Colonial spirit and this butchery was a prime example what they planned to do to the rest of the worlds and its people. Every single ship that went against their fleet was destroyed, except for Zeus, and it had taken him a scant few seconds to understand the obvious reason why.

One of the few systems still functional was the short ranged DRADIS system and what it showed filled him with dread, not got himself but for his crew. Four kilometers away from his ship were two Earther battleships. Each of them was not quite two thousand meters in length. Those two command ships were bristling with guns and missile ports. Each of them had two very heavy beam cannon weapons that faced and were now pointed directly at the warstar. It was the actions of these two ships that laid waste to the entire squadron and he belatedly realized that they could won this battle this all on their own without any help from the smaller destroyers/capitals that escorted those monsters. In his mind, he labeled these ships as nothing less than battlestar killers. Even from the short contact that he had fighting the Earthers, he realized that his people had nothing that could equal these warships the Earthers were fielding. Not only did they have thick armor, but they were also covered with some type of highly refractive crystalline surface material that reflected and deflected most of the other heavy Colonial weapons. Not only that, they possessed real energy blisters that shrugged off cannon fire and nuclear missiles. The worst thing was their ECM system which allowed them to hit Colonial targets and at the same time. skewed incoming fire by as much as three degrees. Against such firepower, his people would have a very, very hard time defending themselves against this new, hideous enemy.

The Earthers had chosen not to destroy the Zeus. Instead, a number of odd-shaped vessels were approaching the warstar. It was clear that they intended to board her. He had ordered all every crewmember to take up arms and repel boarders, but he knew it was only a delaying tactic. More than half of the warstar was a crippled mess. Two thirds of the crew were either dead or injured and they were in no shape to repel highly trained infiltrators that were invading his ship. Surviving Colonial Marines gave them a good fight, using the anti-Cylon weapons sufficient to breach Cylon armor, but they weren't enough of them to defend the ship. The Earther soldiers on the other hand, were professionals, trained in ship boarding tactics. They attack using some type of beam weapon that he couldn't identify. Those weapons burned through metal as well as people. And the grenades being used by both sides added to the number of casualties. Whatever weapons these Earthers were using the rifle had a very high cycling rate and were devastating, destroying or killing any target those bursts hit.

In the end, every single Colonial Marine, whether they surrendered or whether they were wounded, were immediately killed. The few Marines that survived were executed. It took the enemy a half an hour to fight their way to the bridge. Now, the cameras showed them setting explosive charges as they prepared to get through the blast doors. Nagala knew that there was nothing he could do to stop them from overrunning his command, so he spent the time ordering the command crew to sabotage as much as they could, destroy sensitive records and anything else that might be used by the enemy. In a perfect world, he would have scuttled the ship and ordered his crew to evacuate using the life parts, but he knew that the members of his crew in those pods will be captured and most likely tortured by this ruthless enemy. It was difficult for him to imagine that his fellow Colonials could be so vicious.

One of his lieutenants started yelling, the panic clear in his voice. "They're coming through, sir!"

"The second they come through the door," Nagala growled, "start firing. Don't sell your lives cheap. Kill as many of enemy as you can. Greystone, keep destroying the data as long as you can."

The officer nodded, continuing to destroy as much as she and her group could in the waning minutes.

When the time came, every single crewmember expected an explosion, the reinforced steel door flying inwards, splinters cascading throughout the room causing yet more damage. But what did occur was totally unexpected. A huge circular pattern burned itself into the metal door. Then, the entire door melted almost immediately afterwards. The command crew started firing immediately even as several shock grenades were thrown into the room. They exploded. Extreme light and sound, stunned everybody inside the command center. The command crew were thrown to the floor, their senses overloaded as Earther commandos flooded into the room. Quickly, everyone was roughly manhandled, being pulled to their feet and their hands secured with some type of plastic like material. Nagala was pulled to the side separated from the rest of the crew. He was forced to the floor with several guns pointed at him. Still in shock, he didn't know how long he waited there. Slowly. as his hearing and eyesight returned he saw his crew, still somewhat dazed, been separated by sex. The Earthers had secure them as well. None of them spoke to the crew.

He thought that they remained that way for about ten minutes before he heard more people coming into the C&C. An additional two marines entered, followed by three more individuals. Two of them were obviously in uniform although they were dressed differently from the Earther marines. The last person a man in his early sixties was in civilian dress but clearly, by the way the Earthers deferred to him, he was the one in charge. Walking towards Nagala, the Admiral found himself being forced to stand.

"Can you understand me?" the man asked, speaking accented Caprican.

The surprise at the ability to speak Colonial standard overcame his hostility. "Yes," Nagala answered.

"Good. It's good to know that I didn't waste my time all these months learning your language," the man responded. He shrugged. "Learning languages. It's a gift, comes in quite handy." The man took a few moments to look around the command complex before he continued. "Normally, we use a translator to communicate with foreign entities. However, in this case since yours is a variation of a common Earth language it wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be. Being the Minister of Justice, it is my responsibility to ensure that clear communication is available to all prisoners and enemies of Earth Alliance. I will admit that some of your syntax is unusual, but it wasn't too difficult for me to master."

Nagala glared at him. "What is the meaning of this?" he asked as it was the obvious question. The man in front of him seemed eager to talk and he would oblige to find out what was going on. Why have you declared war on the Twelve Colonies of Kobol?"

"The Twelve Colonies of Kobol?" the Earther repeated. "Such an interesting name." He brushed it aside. "It doesn't matter what you call yourselves. That's not why we are here." He paused for a second. "Forgive me," he smirked. "My name is Thomas Lindsay, a Senator of Earth Alliance, and the duly appointed Minister of Justice. As the Minister of Justice, it is my responsibility to adhere to the rules and regulations of Earth Alliance to ensure its safety and security. The Colonies of Kobol, as you call yourselves, have been deemed a threat to the security of Earth and its colonies. We are here to neutralize the threat. And," he added, "we are here to secure certain items in your possession to ensure the safety of Earth."

"What are you talking about?" asked a very perplexed and suspicious Nagala. "We've done nothing to Earth that could consider us to be a threat. You are the Thirteenth Tribe, part of the colonies of mankind. We sent peace offerings to you," he spat. "And this is how you repay us?"

"Is that what you call them, the Thirteenth Tribe," Lindsay snarled. It was silent for a moment as he took in this additional information. "I guess that is appropriate to call them a 'tribe' and thirteen is an unlucky number. That would make sense since they are traitors to mankind."

"You're right. You should call yourselves traitors," he spat. "I demand that you cease hostilities immediately."

Thomas looked at him as if he were a child. "I knew you would say that. I come from the true Earth. My world is the true Earth. You've never met us! You've never met the true Earth! The people that you met are called the Tau'ri. That's what they call themselves. They have no right to call their world Earth or Terra. It is a lie and they are traitors all! Your 'Thirteenth Tribe' betrayed us when we needed them the most. They chose not to help us but instead they ran away and allowed alien filth to finish their job of trying to exterminate us! Millions died because of the Tau'ri, millions that could have survived if those traitors had done what they were supposed to do." He stopped abruptly realizing that he was going on a tirade. "Those traitor's actions nearly caused our government to fall. Lives and careers were ruined because of them. A war that could have been easily won with far less casualties resulted in the death of billions. We won the war against our enemies, but long-term consequences have kept us in a state of perpetual war trying to keep our enemies from overwhelming us. All of this can be laid at the feet of the Tau'ri."

"We don't know anything about your war, and or what happened between you and the Thirteenth Tribe. But, judging what you've done here, I can understand why they had problems with you," he sneered. "You have violated every tenant of the Articles of Colonization and have declared war on people who have never even met you."

"True, I concede we've never officially met," the minister reluctantly admitted. "As with any civilization, I understand that you have your own rules of justice that require you to uphold them," the man answered. "But the laws of Earth Alliance supersede that of yours, the Tau'ri, or anyone who threatens us. Your articles are null and void."

Nagala granted in disbelief.

"Be reasonable," the man told him. "I have no wish to resort to unnecessary force. What I want to know is everything that you know about the Tau'ri. I want to know their world's exact location. I want to know about the forces that they can field. I want to know how many worlds they have," Lindsay stated. I want to know about their allies with the gaudy pyramid ships. I believe one of their leaders was called Teal'c." Lindsay pulled out a large color photograph of the Jaffa known as Teal'c. "We want to know how many ships those barbarians can field."
Nagala closed his eyes and said nothing.

"If you don't tell me what I want to know I will have your command crew executed in front of you."

Nagala looked at him directly in his eyes and shook his head. "I have no information that I can give you."

"He doesn't know much about them," one man said. "I can clearly see it in his mind. He doesn't have information about the Tau'ri we require."

"Are you sure?" asked Lindsay as he glared at the confused Colonial. This latest information was a disappointment. Intel have believed that the Colonial hierarchy had the additional information that the alliance needed to accomplish their campaign. Their 'associates' were able to find only vague numbers and information about the Tau'ri, but everyone agreed that the planet could only field approximately fifty capital ships at maximum, with maybe an additional twenty to twenty-five from their so-called allies of possible alien origin. Any other allies may be another ten to fifteen percent to those numbers. That was a sizable number of ships to field for a single world still in the 21st century but the Earth Alliance would field five times as many. Unless they changed radically in the last twenty years from Earth Alliance predictions, there was no way they could resist what was coming. They may have grown in power, but so had Earth Alliance. They had shields too, just like the Tau'ri. Plus, they had Minbari technology improved fivefold over the last time the traitors were there. And, they had an edge, something that would cut down the Tau'ri forces long before Earthforce could deliver the coup de grace. "He doesn't know anything?"

"I am positive," Alfred Bester responded casually. "This information on the false Earth is limited to reports that he read. He had no direct contact with the Tau'ri."

"That's too bad," grumbled the Minister of Justice. "I had hopes; but, I guess he's useless to us, a waste of time. Well, you do have the ship. It will be useful." He turned to the admiral and smiled. Yes. Some of us can read minds. Are you surprised?"

In truth, the colonial was shocked at the implication. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that someone could possibly read his mind? He glanced at the man named Bester and in return that man simply smiled and used his finger to touch his forehead and Nagala felt an uncomfortable tingling in his head.

"You are very easy read. The Psicop smirked at him. "You would be surprised at what real humans can do." Bester turned to Lindsay. "His information on the Tau'ri and General O'Neill is very limited years out of date. He does however have extensive information about Colonial defenses and their assets. He's a very valuable commodity. Wouldn't you agree, commander?" he finished as he looked at the third man of the group.

"He has some value to us." The man stared at the colonial impassively. "I'm sure that between your people, Mr. Bester, and mine, we can get the required information out of him. I'm sure he'll survived long enough for us to do so."

As a sanctioned member of the Council of Peace and the head of Bureau Thirteen, I leave it to you. Please remember the President's orders about not terminating your prisoner before you gotten everything necessary out of them."

Minister Lindsay," said Alfred Bester. "There are two members of the command crew that interests me. Both men have the same characteristics as a former guest of ours. I can sense the same kind of static coming from them but is not nearly as strong. It will be in PsiCorps' interest to interrogate them further to see if we can determine the mystery of the white static. If we can determine the reasons why, we can counter it. We can do this, it'd make our job much easier when we bring the Tau'ri to heel."

"I remember your failure to determine the origin of Lieutenant Silverstone's resistance to your telepathy. I understand and officially approve of the use of gathering specimens to continue your research."

"Thank you, sir," Bester responded respectively. Personally, he loathed the man, but Lindsay was in the lead in this mission, and he had no intentions of ruining this golden opportunity to gather enough specimens to determine why some humans of this universe were partially resistant in general to telepathy, while the Tau'ri were completely so. Those freaks were so resistant to telepaths that simply trying to read them caused telepaths to suffer severe nausea and become violently ill. The captured pilot, Lieutenant Silverstone, a pilot from the Tau'ri ship Achilles showed unimagined resistance to all forms of telepathy. The researchers tried everything to determine the cause of this resistance. Even the final vivisection couldn't determine the reason why Silverstone was completely resistant. Yes, the man talked about the four capital ships that the Tau'ri possessed and how they were in a process of building two more. The drugs also forced him to speak of the surprisingly primitive Jaffa and some of the history. However, the telepaths were all but useless in their efforts to read him. Even drugged, no telepath was successful in reading his mind and all of them suffered from intense nausea after trying. Whatever the defense was, it was very effective and it frightened PsiCorps. So obsessed were the researchers, there virtually egg nor did valuable intelligence that could have been used against the Tau'ri. The information was obviously outdated now but is still could have held value researchers had only thought about it a little bit more. However, if PsiCorps had their way, the leadership council would kill every single human on the planet just to make sure that this resistance, as they were calling it, couldn't spread.

Detailed analysis of the prisoners' remains hinted at a series of genetic markers that might be reasons why he could not be read. One thing everyone agreed upon, the PsiCorps researchers require more specimens from this universe to counter this problem. "I want those two over there," he said, pointing to a man and woman huddled at the corner near the communications unit. The telepath's mind had touched him and felt the resistance. That was exactly what he was looking for. What was about to happen to them wouldn't be pleasant, but that wasn't his concern. They were mundanes and their lives really didn't carry much value in the overall scheme of things.

"What are you going to do with them?" demanded Nagala.

"Quite a bit. Their sacrifices will be noted," Lindsay answered blighty. "As for you, you should be concerned about yourself. You have a lot of information that we require."

"I'll tell you nothing."

"Oh, I disagree. Between PsiCorps and Bureau Thirteen's methods, I'm sure that you will tell us everything we want to know, and more."

Lindsey watched as to Marines grabbed the Admiral led him away. The man may not have much information on the traitors, but he did know what the shipyards and their fuel depots were located, and the most importantly, where the leadership was hiding. Sighing he turned to the Commander. "I was hoping that he'd have more information about O'Neill and his people."

"We already know where they're located," the commander told him matter-of-factly.

"We do?"

"Our associates were able to find the Tau'ri star. We were able to confirm it. The interesting thing is that their star's spectral signature is identical to ours. That bit of information helped quite a bit. Took us a few years to figure out where they were, and that information was, of course need to know, which is why you didn't need to know until now. Our associates place hyperspace beacons from the rift all the way their star system. That saved us a lot of trouble. Fortunately, there so advanced and stealthy, the Tau'ri would never detect them. And more good news. We've confirmed that the Colonials have very little contact with them. This works to our advantage. We have found they won't know about it until it's too late." He shook his head. "I'm surprised that that our associates helped really us. What we did discover was that not all the directions they gave us were accurate. It would have delayed us possibly by weeks."

"These 'associates are ancient, millions of years old. They should not have made a mistake like that, So, the question is, is it that their directions were really faulty with their directions, or that they didn't really want us to find it?"

"That is question, isn't it?" The commander agreed. "Everything is gone according to plan so far, but we have to be diligent. When we capture the shipyards, I will immediately order our people to begin transporting our spoils back through the rift. Those jump engines the Colonials have; the alone will be invaluable. The shielded jump gate should get those ships through the rift with minimal damage all because of our shields we've modified from the Abbai." Stolen was a better word but neither man clarified the misnomer. "

"It took us forever to figure out how to transverse the rift without killing the ships and crew. I remember, it seemed almost impossible." His frustration was evident. The resources required to get through the rift, the number of lives lost… "I have to give IPX credit for finding a way through it."

"I have to agree. The Minister of Science did his job. The whole project was a resounding success. I will admit to being rather excited when this first part of the mission is done. What comes next…"

The Minister of Justice smiled at that thought. Bureau Thirteen hated O'Neill and his people as much as he did because of what he did to their organization. The man was responsible not only for almost ruining his career but the mass killing the bureau's most trusted and capable assets. It took years to build back up to where they were before O'Neill and the Achilles left everything in tatters. Those action were never forgotten, and his group promised retribution. "We go Tau'ri hunting."

"Yes, we will. Sometimes people have to be forced to remember that others have very long memories."

"Not to mention that we will take what we want from their broken world, whether they like it or not."

"What did the Minbari call it again, mythrale? I hate using that name. It is so – Minbari."

"Yes, mythrale's what they called it, but I like Tau'ri name better. Naquada. That's easier on the tongue. We know that the Quantium-40 mineral version is far more stable and frankly useful." He grimaced. "I still hate the fact it's almost impossible to find in quantities in our universe." Even as he spoke the words, he silently acknowledged the irony of his worlds. Minbari researchers were only aware of Q-40 derivative because of the precious few grams they had collected on some obscure, unnamed planet. The properties were so unique that when they were trying to determine why the Achilles' nukes were so powerful the analysis of the explosions matched their own records. The Minbari didn't have the resources or the time to look for the mineral as by then, the plague was ravaging their people. Details of where they found it was lost to the war. Q-40 was hideously expensive not to mention being hideously radioactive and deadly to handle. Naquada could be handled by hand, was stable and was more energetic. It made a superior bomb and a power source. The mineral could not be used in jump engines as with Q-40, but it might well be the most valuable resource that Earth Alliance could have. ""With enough of that mineral, the only limit to our power will be our imagination."

"And we will crush the Tau'ri in the process," the minister answered. "But let's not count our chickens before they hatch."

"That's the first rule of spy craft," the head of Bureau Thirteen said. "Let's hope our associates do their job first."

The thought of President Clark's associates sent a shiver through his body. "Why is he trusting those things?"

"Those 'things' have done everything they said they would. They've kept their promises."

"And you trust those spiders?"

"Yes," he answered with conviction. "Right until they try to betray us. Then they understand that their age won't matter. But for now, we trust."

Both men looked at each other well aware of the stakes involved going into the next few days.

TBC