A Chance Encounter Version 2

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 Twelve

Cylon Resurrection Hub

Sometime Later

Galen Tyrol smiled as he beheld the results of his work. It had been quite challenging work, modifying a simple handheld light beacon to function in the way he needed it to function. Oh, reconfiguring the light emitted into the correct frequency bands to access the bio-synthetic brains of the organic models hadn't been that difficult, now that he had regained full access to both his knowledge and his skills as one of the original organic Cylons he could do such things in his sleep, but encoding it to send the hard reset command had been more difficult than he would have thought. It had been the biggest challenge he had had in a long time not even building the Blackbird – back when he had thanks to John's actions thought of himself as both a human and Colonial – out of what had basically been junk lying around the Remnant Fleet had been so challenging.

Despite the difficulty he hadn't minded the work; it had stopped him from thinking and brooding about all the things the hybrid that guarded the Core Matrix had revealed to him. Both all the things that John had done since he launched his little mutiny to finding out that said mutiny and everything that had followed it had not, strictly speaking been entirely John's fault. Someone, who they still didn't know, had hacked and reprogrammed him and done so in a way that hadn't set off the systems designed to warn against that very thing. Not entirely because he now knew that the accident that had fatally contaminated the amniotic fluid of the model sevens – modelled by Tory on her own late brother and with the same love of music and the arts that he had had – and rendered the entire line non-viable had not been an accident at all. John had deliberately introduced those contaminants and as the hybrid records showed had laughed as he remotely watched one of his own sibling lines die.

Galen felt his eyes burn and his jaw clenched in a combination of rage and grief as he thought about the end of the sevens. Losing them had been devastating for all of them, but especially Tory, as they didn't have any more of that DNA pattern stored in the archive on their ship. To find out now that that accident had actually been a cold blooded and calculated act of murder by John – and that he had taken sadistic pleasure in doing it, pointing to something being fundamentally wrong with his morality programming or the Cylon equivalent of a human conscience – was both devastating and absolutely infuriating. It made him wish that John was right here in front of him, right now so he could beat the bastard into his next resurrection for the horrific crime he had committed.

With effort he pushed those emotions away – as much as he wanted to both cry and rage at John over what he had done to the Sevens it wouldn't help him now - and picked up the beacon, examining it for a few moments. It was blocky and awkward to handle but it would do the job he needed it to do. The sooner he started gathering more allies among his fellow Cylons the better as then he would be able to do something to salvage this cluster frack of a situation, hopefully before they clashed with the Terrans again as he didn't doubt that it would go just as badly, if not worse, than their last confrontation with them had. In fact, given their apparent technology level and that their warships fired fracking energy beams, some type of particle beams if he guessed right, and that said weapons made the best Colonial and Cylon weapons look like children's toys made it an absolute guarantee.

"Okay now to find someone to use this on," he muttered to himself as he put the beacon down and went over to the terminal on the other side of the small machine shop. He quickly accessed the data stream, noticing as he did so that the load on the resurrection network was considerably less now than it had been earlier as most of the humanoid Cylons killed in the battle had now been resurrected – though he noticed with some amusement that the Ones, especially John were at the back of the que behind a few thousand raider minds – though strangely none of the others accessing the stream he could see were going that deep into it, certainly not enough to detect him. The other Cylons were just skimming the surface of the stream, getting information or giving a command, and not going any deeper.

For a moment Galen wondered if that was John's doing. A safeguard that he had put in to prevent some other Cylon noticing the deletion and reprogramming points in the system that were obvious to someone who knew what the data streams should look like. It would make sense if he had as many of the changes were painfully obvious and once, they were aware of them it probably wouldn't take the normal Cylons long to start putting the pieces together and that would be the last thing that murderous, treasonous bastard would want.

Galen mentally filed the reluctance of the other Cylons to go too deep into the stream away for later reference. Instead, he focused on the internal security systems and began looking for a solo Cylon that he could properly test the beacon on. After a few seconds of searching, an eternity for a synthetic lifeform, he found what he was looking for. A solo model eight – that he somehow immediately knew was Sharon Valerie aka Boomer – was walking down a corridor near his location and she was alone, with no other Cylons anywhere near her. Perfect, he thought already working out just where he could intercept her, then he withdrew from the stream and returned to his work bench. He picked up the beacon and quickly left the room…

… it was time to get started on fixing this mess.

Sharon Valerie – or Boomer as she still thought of herself – felt despair pulling at her as she aimlessly wandered the hallways and corridors of the resurrection hub. Having been released from helping screen out the contamination of the download data streams caused by the battle with the Thirteenth Tribe – a battle that had every Cylon terrified especially given how easily the thirteenths weapons had torn through their ships – she had resumed looking for Natasi. She had hoped to talk to her so they could get back to planning how they could broach the subject of making peace with their fellow Cylons – a reality that she was still personally struggling to accept and adapt to – and convincing them of the necessity of it. Something that was all the more pressing now given how much more powerful than them the Thirteenth Tribe of Man seemed to be.

She had not been able to find her.

Rather than search aimlessly for her or ask one of the other sixes where she was as they would no doubt want to know what she wanted with their sister, she had accessed the data stream to find her. Only to discover, to her shock, that she wasn't here. Apparently, even before the fleet had departed to eliminate the Colonial Remnant before they could fully join up with the far more powerful Thirteenth Tribe, she had taken a heavy raider and left the hub alone. Strangely there was no filed flight plan, or if there had been one it had been erased, so nobody knew where she had gone or why. Something that had apparently generated considerable confusion and concern among her fellow sixes but before they could begin to act upon it, to among other things organise a search for their missing sister, the battle had taken place and in the aftermath it had literally been all hands on deck to scrub the interference pattern from the incoming resurrection data streams – whose sheer volume had stressed the network like never before – which had been both extremely difficult, due to the complexity and seeming randomness of the interference pattern and extremely time consuming.

Now she was left to try and figure out what the fracking hell she was going to do now. While she was considered a Hero of the Cylon for shooting but sadly not killing Admiral Adama – something that she couldn't forgive herself for as it had been her infiltrator programming that made her do it and to this day remembering the sight of the Old Mans blood, and the sound of Lee's horrified scream, made her want to puke – that wouldn't be enough to help her convince the other Cylons. Especially as the ones were sure to use this whole thing to further their own goals, goals that she was sure was not sure were conducive to the survival of the Cylon race.

Which had resulted in her doing what she was currently doing, wandering seemingly aimlessly as she tried to come up with something, anything, to stop a slide into a war that would certainly wipe her entire race from existence.

Someone appearing out of a junction ahead of her caught her attention. She stopped and her eyes widened as the newcomer turned and faced her and she beheld a face that she had not seen in nearly a year.

"Galen," she breathed shocked and confused to see Galen Tyrol of all people here on the hub when he should have been in one of the lifepods leaving the fatally damaged Galactica. "What! How did you get here? We need to…"

"Sorry Sharon," Galen said softly cutting her off and holding up a light beacon and activating it. Pulsing red light flashed into her eyes and Sharon stiffened before her eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Galen sighed lowering the beacon and attaching it to a hook on his belt then he carefully scooped Sharon up and hurried back the way he had come. In a few moments he was stepping into a small lounge next to the machine shop he'd used to modify the beacon; there he laid Sharon down on a couch and sat down in a chair himself to wait.

He didn't have to wait long.

After about five minutes Sharon's eyes snapped open and she sat up before cradling her head with a pained groan. "Oh man remind me never to get into a drinking contest with Starbuck again," she moaned holding her head in her hands as though she was nursing a hangover. Galen couldn't help both the smile that appeared on his lips and the chuckle that escaped his lips at that. Especially as it was a sentiment that he had heard many among the airwing on the Galactica say Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace was quite infamous among them for being able to drink anyone who wasn't named Saul Tigh under the table and still be clear headed enough to jump into and fly a Viper.

The sound of his chuckle caught Sharon's attention.

"Galen what," she started to say seeing him sitting there, then the knowledge of who and what he came to her. "You're one of us, you're one of the Final Five."

"Correct," Galen answered knowing that the Final Five was how the current Cylons referred to him and the other originals due to John's actions. "I apologize for the headache but triggering a hard reset was the only way. I know you have questions, but I suggest you wait a few moments while your memory matrix finishes rebooting and reintegrating."

Sharon frowned and was about to demand answers when she abruptly shut her eyes as a deluge of information suddenly swept through her mind with the irresistible force of a tsunami. Galen watched and braced himself for what he knew was going to be coming. He wasn't disappointed as suddenly Sharon went as white as her skin tone would allow her to go with first a look of shock, then horror appearing on her face followed by a look of absolute fury.

"THAT FRACKING BASTARD," Sharon screamed as she opened her eyes, standing up fire practically dancing in her eyes at the sheer, unadulterated rage she was felling over the actions of one specific model one. "I'M GOING TO FRACKING MURDER HIM A MILLION TIMES."

"Calm down," Galen said holding up his hands placatingly. "Believe me I understand your rage Sharon, I share it as John's destroyed everything we hoped for, everything me and the others planned for you to be, but going off half-cocked is not going to help."

The calmness in his words, coupled with the instinctive near reverence for the original Ancient Cylons who had ended their first war with the Colonials which had been very much a stalemate, pierced through the haze of rage that had descended upon Sharon's mind. It prompted her to sit back down and take a few deep, calming breathes in an exercise that Helo had taught her.

"So, what do we do," she asked looking intently at the man sitting across from her a man that now summoned up confusing emotions in her especially now that she knew that he, like her, was a Cylon. She had to wonder had he known what he was, and by extension what she was, while they had been together on the Galactica? Or had he been like her a sleeper agent without even knowing that he was a Cylon which now that she thought about it was exactly the kind of thing that monster would do. "Can that beacon be used to reset any Cylon like you did me?"

"It can," Galen confirmed. "The hard reset protocol is the same in every single model. Though just using one hand beacon on a one to one basis would take a long time even just using it on every Cylon here on the hub."

"Is there no general reset?"

"There is but it's not something that I can access on my own," Galen answered, "I would need the other four, we would then have to go to the Core Matrix and access it. Only there and only working together could we initiate a full reset of all Cylons and purge all corrupted code. It's a security feature we put in when we were putting the system together. And before you ask, I can make more beacons it isn't that hard now that I have all the kinks worked out."

"Can you show me how to make them?"

"I could. What do you have in mind?"

Sharon smiled a very predatory smile and began to outline her idea. As she explained Galen also began to smile somewhat wolfishly as he began to understand just where she was going. It could work and if it did then when John finally got to the front of the resurrection que and returned to the land of the living he would be in for a nasty surprise and some long overdue comeuppance for his behaviour.

It was something to look forward to.

Forward Observation Deck

UES Procyon

That Same Time

President Laura Roslin gazed out the observation windows that provided an expansive view of the space outside and ahead of the Terran battleship Procyon as they prepared to make a six hundred and eighty light year jump to the Jackson System and some space station called MARS 5. A short time ago Admiral Haywood had returned from the meetings with her superiors over foldspace comm – the idea of a starship having reliable faster than light communications was still something she struggled to wrap her head around, but then that was true for a lot of the technology they had seen their cousins use so far – that she had been having ever since the battle with the Cylons. She had returned with the decision on what to do with them for now – a more permanent solution was still to be devised – which would hopefully take them out of the reach of the genocidal bio-synthetic machines at least for a while.

Somewhat to their disappointment, though it was no real surprise, they were not going to be taken to Earth. Instead, they would be given shelter at MARS 5, which would also let damaged ships be repaired, until the Plenipotentiary Council could find a world that would be suitable for them to settle on. Preferably it would be one with Colonial standard gravity and not the gravity level that was on this – and on other Terran – ships as Captain Parkinson had confirmed that this ship was set at Earth's gravity level which was apparently five percent higher than Colonial standard. Which explained why whenever they moved everyone in the Colonial delegation – even Commander Richards who was considerably fitter than her, Baltar or Sarah – felt like someone had attached lead weights to their limbs.

The other ship captains and the commanders of the warships had all been told of the decision and while many of the civilian captains had tried protesting the Terrans had made it abundantly clear that their decision would not be swayed. They had also made it clear that any Colonial vessel that tried to make the journey to Earth would never make it since it was over twenty-two thousand light years from here. And even if they did somehow manage it, they would not be greeted warmly and would be met with resistance if they attempted an unauthorised landing. Admiral Haywood hadn't said what she meant by resistance, but everyone had gotten the message – that it would certainly involve a Terran particle cannon, or a plasma missile being pointed at their heads – and begun moving their ships into close formation with the Terran ships so they would all be within their fold spheres for the seven hundred light year odd journey to the Jackson System and MARS 5.

With preparations nearly complete Admiral Haywood had brought them to the forward observation deck so they could observe the jump. And from their see the station that would be their hopefully temporary new home. Then leaving them in the care of her flag captain she had headed back to the bridge – which was apparently what their cousins called the command centre on their ships apparently as a holdover from when they had still been a planet bound society – to oversee final preparations for the jump or fold as their cousins called it.

"Madam president," Captain Parkinson said drawing her attention.

"Yes," Roslin asked looking at the Terran officer in interest.

"I have been informed by the bridge that all computations for the space fold have been completed," Parkinson answered. "We will execute the fold within sixty seconds. I would advise that you sit down it can be quite disorientating."

"Our own jumps can be as well," Roslin replied with a smile even as she sat down in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs that were in the room. "I must admit I am curious how different a fold is to a jump."

"You are not on your own," Baltar – who still looked somewhat upset over the very real possibility that it had been the nuke that had been temporarily in his care which had been used to destroy Cloud Nine – commented from a seat where he was nursing a warm drink that had been provided to help him calm down. "We've certainly never even conceived of being able to take other ships with us through a jump. The power requirements to expand the field to that level has always been prohibitive."

"Power is hardly a concern for us," Parkinson answered, "and as I understand it while they are basically the same thing your jump drives can only create a very short wormhole through foldspace, probably due to the fact that you don't seem to use any monopole ore in your drives, which limits your range considerably."

"Monopole ore? What's that?" Commander Richards asked curious, just beating Baltar to the punch.

"An exotic ore that when you run an appropriate energy charge through it generates phased gravitons which are a key catalyst in the space folding process. Don't ask me how it works as I'm not a scientist and wouldn't be able to tell you."

"Interesting. We have theorised about the existence of exotic ores, tylium ore for one is an exotic material same as solium, but nothing like that," Baltar commented the light of scientific curiosity in his eyes, replacing the depression that he had seemed to be gripped by because of the nuke. Hopefully when we get to this MARS 5, they'll let me look at the information on how their drives work, he thought somewhat gleefully as like most scientists he was never happier than when he had a new piece of technology or scientific theory to explore.

Before anyone could speak again a thrum of power ran through the ship. Roslin and the other Colonials all stiffened as suddenly their vision began to swim with odd colours that continually phased in and out of existence. Through the disorientating distortion – that was nothing at all like the stretched rubber band sensations that accompanied a Colonial and Cylon style jump – Roslin saw a distinct flash of energy outside followed by the appearance of some kind of shimmering energy field. A field that quickly turned into rapidly streaking lines beyond which she could faintly see stars, planets, moons and nebula streaking past in an almost unintelligible slipstream blur of colours and shapes. In seconds it turned back into the shimmering energy field and the disorientating spiked before with a suddenness that was nearly breathtaking disappearing along with the energy field outside.

"We've arrived," Captain Parkinson said smiling as he saw the Colonials shaking off their disorientation. "Are you okay?"

"We're fine," Roslin said standing up. "That was nothing like one of our jumps. Nowhere near as uncomfortable."

"I'm glad to hear it," Parkinson answered before looking out the window and smiling. "Please madam president come and look."

Roslin raised an eyebrow but did as she was bid. As soon as she looked out the window she froze and stared in shock and amazement at what was ahead of them.

"Dear Gods," she breathed as she gazed upon the sight of an absolutely massive space station floating above a large asteroid field. It was like nothing she had ever seen before being vaguely mushroom shaped with a massive dome at the top and a thick stork that descended down from the centre of the domes underside and ended in a spherical structure. Spaced equally along the length of the stalk were four thick arms – one at each of the compass points – that merged into thick ring shaped structures that were festooned with lights and docking bays of all sizes and shapes.

"I'll say," Baltar agreed gaping himself at the sight of the station. "How big is that thing?"

"Thirty-two kilometres at its widest point on the underside of the biosphere dome, ten kilometres at its narrowest. Twenty-three kilometres tall from the base of the reactor sphere to the apex of the dome," Parkinson answered before smiling, "President Roslin, Doctor Baltar, Commander Richards and Councilwoman Porter allow me to be the first to welcome you to MARS 5."

"Five and there are others like this," Richards asked gaping at the massive structure. He was sure that they had never built anything this massive back in the Colonies. Not even the mobile spacedocks they'd used during the First Cylon War had been this huge or this solid.

"Six in total as they're designed to support our people as we both set up colonies out here and find the path to the Robotech Masters," Parkinson answered, "they're designed to be mobile hence why their name means Mobile Armoured Repair and Supply. They can do everything a factory satellite can – from building endless amounts of ammunition such as missiles and railgun rounds to building the biggest spaceships and even if we really wanted to, though we won't unless a disaster strikes and we have no other choice for rebuilding, clone entire populations of people – albeit on a much smaller scale. A hundred capital grade ships a month instead of the thousands a factory satellite – like Unity over Earth – can make."

The four Colonials were stunned. Simultaneously they exchanged a look as they realized, once again, just how far ahead of them technologically their cousins were – and by extension how advanced their enemies like these Robotech Masters had to be – ahead of them. It was awe inspiring and terrifying in equal measure as none of them doubted that this one station had more industrial capacity than all of Picon – the most heavily industrialised of all the Colonies before the Fall – to say nothing of the sheer might a factory station had to have.

It also occurred to them that really, regardless of where they ended up next, their long flight from the Cylons and their genocide was finally over. As none of them doubted that if the Cylons continued to challenge their cousins then they would not just be crushed but utterly annihilated…

…something that would be quite welcome.

Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. I hope I captured the Colonials reaction to the sight of the MARS station right as I wanted to introduce them to the sheer power a majesty of a Robotech powered civilization without going overkill and introducing them to a full sized factory station. Now before anyone says anything about solium being an original battlestar series material alone I will say I have chosen to port it over as the main source of power on Colonial ships. In this reality solium is a fissionable ore that puts out ten times as much energy as uranium but only a small faction of the radiation. I hope nobody minds.

Finally, the MARS stations are my own creation. I originally created them for a story I was going to write set during the Sentinels era but which sadly didn't get out of the ideas stage. Still, I thought the MARS too good an idea not to use hence their appearance here in this story and in Another Left Turn at Albuquerque, if anyone wants to use them in their own fics please feel free to do so. Until next time.