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 Six
Cloud Nine
Colonial Remnant Fleet
Sitting in one of the many richly appointed, tastefully decorated conference rooms on the luxury liner that had become the de facto seat of the Colonial Government – what was left of it anyway – as this is where the reforged Quorum of Twelve met President Laura Roslin stared in shock and awe at the recording being shown on the HD screen. She wasn't the only one both her current chief of staff Tory Foster, her current challenger for the presidency Gaius Baltar – who she had asked for his scientific expertise not to mention it wouldn't do to give the impression that she was keeping something this important secret for political reasons – and his chief of staff Tom Zarek were present as well. So was Lieutenant Agathon present to give a military perspective if asked.
They were all as shocked.
A short time earlier a Raptor had returned to the fleet from the Galactica which was off meeting alien starships as impossible as that had sounded at the time. A Raptor that had reported that the 'aliens' were not so alien after all, they were humans just like them specifically they were ships belonging to the long lost Thirteenth Tribe. A tribe that as this video was showing were more than capable of handling the Cylons as it was a recording of the clash between the Earth ships – the largest three were no bigger than an Argo-class destroyer – and the fleet of Cylon baseships that had ambushed the elderly Jupiter-class battlestar. A fleet that had enough firepower to annihilate her in short order.
Only that hadn't happened.
The Cylons had gone after the Earth ships – which had obviously proceeded to call in reinforcements – and attacked them. An attack that had not gone as the Cylons had obviously hoped or expected as not only had the lead Earth ship – identified as the Sirona a name that Roslin found faintly familiar from somewhere – knocked the bulk of the missile salvo down with a counter salvo, with the three surviving missiles being speared by something impossible fast moving fired from small points on the ship's hull. Whatever it was it had instantly turned the missiles it hit into plumes of vaporised metal. Then it had proceeded to hit back at the offending basestar and what it hit back with…
Gasps of shock and awe erupted from all the people in the room as a pair of blue energy beams erupted from a turret on the dorsal forward hull of the Sirona. Beams that had quickly slammed into the basestar and wounded it badly, punching right through the ship seemingly with ease. A second salvo had followed the first and in seconds the baseship simply ceased to exist as it became a fireball. More explosions had followed as the Sirona and the other arriving ships engaged the other three baseships, turning all of them into plumes of dust and burning plasma with seemingly no effort at all.
The entire battle – if you could call such a one sided slaughter a battle – had lasted less than five minutes.
"What the frack were those beams," Tory asked aloud as the recording ended.
"While I cannot be sure if I had to guess I would say Ms Foster that what we are looking at are particle beam weapons of some type," Baltar replied, "the beams move too fast to be made up of plasma and they're too slow to be lasers. Unlike the pulses that destroyed the Cylon missiles those were definitely lasers."
"I thought energy weapons were impossible," Roslin commented, she was not unaware that there had been research going on for a very long time in creating practical, real directed energy weapons but nothing had ever come of it.
"Not impossible merely difficult and extremely energy intensive," Baltar answered, "we used to generate particle beams quite frequently back in the colonies."
"We did?" Tory questioned.
"Oh yes at particle accelerator facilities set up at various universities and so on throughout the colonies. Indeed, the largest particle accelerator in existence on the colonies was the New Chronos Collider at the Hera's Gate university on Sagittarion. It had just come online when the Cylons launched their attack. It was used to accelerate subatomic particles to near light speed and slam them together to observe the effects, it promised numerous breakthroughs in subatomic and quantum physics."
"Yes, but that thing would have been huge," Zarek pointed out frowning, he had been a student at Hera's Gate in his youth. Before politics and oppression of the people of his homeworld by the other colonies – but especially Caprica – had called to him. Ultimately leading to him being imprisoned as a terrorist. "How could something the size of those turrets generate a particle beam?"
Baltar shrugged. "Without looking at the insides of one of those turrets I wouldn't have a clue," he answered, "though I will say this whatever power source they have on those ships it blows anything we have ever created ourselves completely out of the water. Not even the hybrid fission-fusion reactors that were developed for the Nova-class battlestars could come close to the energy output needed to create those beams and those things are the size of a three story house."
"So would you say that the Thirteenth Tribe are more technologically advanced than we are Doctor," Lieutenant Karl 'Helo' Agathon asked. "And what effect do you think those beams would have on our ships if we ever – gods forbid – found ourselves on the wrong end of them."
"There is no doubt that they are lieutenant," Baltar admitted even as out of the corner of his eye he saw Six and she looked deeply disturbed by something, "by at least a hundred years if not longer. As for what effect those beams would have on our ships, well it would be devastating. Even the strongest armours we knew how to make back on the Colonies – again which were developed for the Nova-class battlestars and other next generation warships – wouldn't last very long against the kind of forces in play in those beams as they would disrupt the very baryonic structure of matter. Anything hit by them would simply be disintegrated."
"I'm not sure I understand," Tory commented.
"It's complicated but in theory a particle beam would attack matter at the subatomic level causing atoms and molecules to literally break apart."
"Like a nuke?"
"Well yes but far more focused and devastating. Without knowing the beam energy level I cannot say how long our ship armours would last but it wouldn't be long, our defences are simply not designed to defend against such a weapon."
"Well let's hope we don't come to blows with our cousins," Roslin said as a comm phone on the wall went off, prompting Lieutenant Agathon to go and answer it. After a few moments he returned.
"Madam President the Galactica just jumped back to the fleet," he reported, "Admiral Adama asks for you to come to the ship immediately. The first group of ships from the Thirteenth Tribe will be joining us shortly."
"Very well prepare the Raptor," Roslin replied then frowned. "Wait first group of ships?"
"Yes ma'am. From the information I was just given more ships from the Thirteen Tribe will soon be on their way here coming from some station called MARS 5. They will be bringing relief supplies for us."
"Well, that will help a lot," Baltar commented knowing intimately how precarious the fleets supply situation was especially with regards to food and medical supplies. While the other warships – especially the marine assault ship Hopolite – had brought valuable food supplies in the form of freeze-dried MREs things were always running dangerously close to the starvation line all over the fleet. Feeding sixty thousand survivors of a nuclear holocaust was not an easy thing, especially when the architects of said holocaust were chasing you across the galaxy determined to wipe you from existence. "Though ideally what we need is safe harbour from the Cylons."
"That is something we can and will need to discuss with the Thirteenth when we meet with them," Roslin replied noting that Helo had left the room to prepare the Raptor as asked. "Something that is not going to be easy to arrange."
Unlike some others in the government, especially in the quorum, she didn't kid herself as she knew negotiating safe harbour for the survivors of the Colonies with the Thirteen Tribe was not going to be easy. While they were all human the twelve colonies had been separated from their brethren by over three thousand years of history if not more – as the Sacred Scrolls were somewhat ambiguous about when exactly the thirteen tribe had departed Kobol with some translations suggesting they left a thousand years before The Blaze and the Exodus but others said it had been far longer – which was a very, very long time for their cultures to have evolved along different lines. And they had already seen the thirteenth was technologically superior to them.
"Surely they will give us sanctuary we're the same race as them," Tory commented.
"It doesn't mean anything," Baltar answered, "biology means nothing here. The thirteenth has been separated from us for millennia – plus the musty old rolls offer no reason for their departure from Kobol in the first place – plenty of time to have evolved a very different culture and society to us."
"Better not let some of the quorum hear you refer to the Sacred Scrolls like that," Zarek commented amused even though he honestly shared the sentiment. Honestly his fellow Sagittarians put far too much faith in what was written down on a bunch of old – and as Baltar described them musty – rolls of parchment. "Plus, the thirteenth has no real reason to deal with us as the Cylons are clearly no threat to them. All we can do is ask and see what happens."
The conversation was brought to an end by Helo returning. "Madam president the Raptor is ready," he reported.
"Alright then," Roslin said standing up, "Doctor Baltar, would you care to accompany me?"
"Yes, I think I will," Baltar replied knowing that this really wasn't the time for politicking over the upcoming election. That kind of thing could wait until after the meeting with the Thirteenth Tribe was over as its outcome was sure to have an effect on the issues at hand. As the president's main challenger, he had to be up to date on things and for some reason known only to her Roslin seemed to know and understand that.
Without speaking further Roslin left the room heading for the hangar bay where the Raptor was waiting to take them to the Galactica. Baltar hurried to get up and begin following her with both their aides following along behind them. As he walked Baltar felt a familiar sultry burst of phantom air against his neck.
"Gaius you need to be very careful here," the voice of Six said. "These people you've encountered are incredibly dangerous, far more than you realise."
"Dangerous to us or the Cylons," he asked, speaking under his breath knowing she would hear. Whatever this mysterious spectre of Natasi/Six was inside his head – he had already had an MRI which confirmed there was no chip in his brain generating the image as he had originally been told by her – he had long since mastered how to talk to her without everyone looking at him like he was insane for talking to himself.
"To us both," the intelligence masquerading as the Model Six Gaius had genuinely been falling in love with replied. Because it was true from a certain point of few as she had been especially sure that the experiment would reach a satisfactory conclusion in this cycle as all the pieces had been in place for the question the experiment had been set up to answer to finally be answered this time. Protoculture entering the experiment, contaminating everything with its foul presence, had never been anticipated and now it threatened to unravel everything she and her colleague had been working towards for millennia ever since their creators first took humans from Earth to Kobol.
Right now, she hoped that, through Gaius, she would be able to salvage the situation. But if she couldn't well more… extreme… actions might be required to remedy the situation.
"And what makes them such a threat," Gaius asked.
"You'll find out."
UES Procyon
MARS 5 Station
Jackson System
"Admiral."
Admiral Christina Haywood looked up from the systems status report she was reading at her desk at the sound of someone speaking to her. Immediately she spotted her flag captain standing in the open doorway to the ready room – she didn't believe in shutting the door unless there was a priority communication for her eyes only, otherwise in her opinion it did the rest of the crew good to see the admiral working as hard as they did – and that he was holding a computer tablet in one hand.
"Yes captain?" she asked as she mentioned for him to come in.
"We have an update from the quartermaster on the last of the emergency and relief supplies for the Colonials," Captain Ulysses Parkinson answered. "The last of the cargo transports has just docked in hangar bay three and they are commencing unloading. They should have everything stowed and prepped to be transferred to the Colonials as soon as we are given the go ahead to begin doing so."
"Very good," Christina replied with a smile as Parkinson handed her the tablet. She accepted it and carefully read through the contents which not only confirmed what her flag captain had just told her but also contained updates on the state of the two Tristar-class cruisers and four Battle-class destroyers that would form their escort wing. All the other ships had finished taking on their own supplies and indicated that they were ready to depart.
After a few moments she signed the report to indicate that she had read it and handed the tablet back.
"What's our own status captain," she asked, "how soon until we're ready to depart ourselves?"
"The unloading of the cargo transport will only take another few minute's ma'am. Once they've departed, we will be ready to go. I estimate no more than fifteen minutes, twenty at the most."
"I see contact me as soon as we are ready to depart."
"Yes admiral. Ma'am, should we begin the computations for the fold to the Colonial fleet?"
"Please do so it will save us considerable time."
"Aye ma'am."
"Dismissed captain."
Parkinson nodded and left the ready room. For her part Christina stood up from behind the desk, walked over to the coffee machine in the corner and made herself a mug. Then, holding the steaming beverage that had already become a favourite with every Zentraedi commander she knew certainly as big a favourite as it was with Terran commanders, walked over to a narrow floor to ceiling window and looked out.
Dominating the foreground was the deep space station that the Procyon was still in orbit of. While it was much smaller than the great factory satellite, they had captured from the Zentraedi Commander Reno a few years ago MARS 5 was still an extremely large and impressive structure. Thirty-two kilometres across at its widest point and twenty-three kilometres tall its vague mushroom shape often reminded her of the space dock facility seen over Earth in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock a movie that had always been something of a favourite of hers. Of course, MARS 5 was a very different beast and like the other five MARS stations could do everything that the much larger factory satellite – which still sat happily in the L4 Lagranian Point over Earth – could albeit on a much smaller scale.
They had all been built to support the expeditionary force as they both sought to establish humanity out here amidst the stars and searched for a route to Tirolian space and the Robotech Masters. Masters that they hoped, if they could contact, they could come to some form of agreement with. Something that would prevent the devastation of another war fought with the incredible destructive power of robotech weaponry. Or if not possible deal with them permanently before they could threaten Earth again as there was little chance that their homeworld would survive another robotech war, certainly it wouldn't be able to withstand another bombardment like the one Dolza had subjected the planet to.
Of course, now there was a new threat facing Earth. These Cylons. What little had been reported of them so far by Captain Harrison had everyone back home concerned. She could understand why as a race of machines that thought they were on a divine mission to wipe out humanity – and had already subjected twelve entire planets to a nuclear holocaust as part of that jihad – was like something out of pre-Rain science fiction. Bad science fiction – the kind that had spawned many a B-grade movie on the old Sci-Fi Channel – at that. Yet here it was as real as life itself and which made the Cylons potentially a very serious threat to the future of their race.
A threat that they still knew so little about. So far, the only comfort that they could seem to gleam was the fact that the Cylons ships were woefully unprepared to deal with particle beams and other directed energy weapons as evidenced by the ease with which the Sirona's beam cannons had torn through an attacking ship. Unfortunately, they couldn't count on having the advantage of vastly superior firepower forever as machine races certainly had the ability to adapt and improve at rates that bordered on being geometric. Something that the Zentraedi records confirmed as they had encountered, fought, and ultimately defeated – though always at considerable cost – machine races in the past.
Finding out more about the Cylons, how they came to be and what had set them on this campaign of genocide, was one of the goals of her mission to the Colonials.
Finishing her coffee, she left the window, returned to her desk and resumed reading through the reports that were waiting for her attention. She had just finished reading a report on the setting up of the mining operations that had brought them and MARS 5 to this system in the first place – a system with no habitable planets but a very large and dense asteroid field that was rich in valuable ores and minerals including the vital for the production of fold drives monopole ore – when the desk comm chirped for her attention. She immediately reached out and pressed a control.
"Yes?"
"Admiral the supply shuttle has just departed," Captain Parkinson reported from the main bridge. "All ships report ready for departure. All hyperspace fold computations have been completed and verified."
"Very well move the squadron out to fold clearance. I will be on the flag bridge momentarily."
"Aye ma'am."
With that Parkinson signed off prompting Christina to save her work, power off her terminal for now and stand up. She was just leaving her ready room when a faint shiver ran through the deck, and she knew that the main ion fusion sublight engines had just ignited and the powerful Polaris-class battleship was beginning to move out of its holding orbit of MARS 5. She paid it no mind as she made her way to the flag bridge – a smaller, scaled down version of the main bridge which was optimised for her to direct multiple ships leaving Captain Parkinson free to oversee and determine the actions of the Procyon – arriving within a few minutes. After exchanging polite nods with the armoured, heavily armed marines guarding the door she made her way inside and crossed to the command chair.
"Status report," she ordered as she sat down and made herself comfortable.
"Admiral all ships are underway and accelerating at maximum speed," one of the operations officers reported immediately. "We are approaching fold clearance now."
"Excellent. As soon as we're in position all ships are to execute space folding procedure."
"Aye ma'am."
Christina made herself comfortable in her chair as around her the flag bridge crew attended to their duties and carried out her instructions. After a few moments the faint background rumbling of the sublight engines died away and for a moment more nothing happened. Then a faint, but by now very familiar, thrum of power ran through the ship and reality suddenly began to wash with strange, unfathomable colours as well as fade in and out of existence as the fold sphere formed around the ship. The disorientation and odd colours faded away after a few moments as the Procyon and her six companions fully submerged into the hyperspatial realm known as foldspace.
They were on their way to the Colonial Fleet.
Cylon Colony
That Same Time
The Model Six Cylon – who in another timeline would have become known as Caprica Six instead of the identity of Natasi that she'd assumed while infiltrating the Colonies and seducing Gaius Baltar – felt despair pulling at her as the other models all debated and argued about what to do now that the Colonials had encountered the previously mythical Thirteen Tribe. A tribe of man that was not only not a myth after all – which had always been a possibility it was why they had let the main remnant fleet live this long after all so they could lead them to them – but who were obviously far more technologically advanced than the Colonials had been even at their height. Something proved by the fact that a) there computers were impervious to their logic bombs and b) sported previously thought impossible weapons systems. Weapons that could tear baseships from the sky without breaking a sweat.
Not to mention said weapons leave an odd energy subharmonic in our data streams, she thought recalling the headache they'd had figuring out how to screen out the energy subharmonic – which had been beyond difficult as it was unlike anything they had ever seen before and even now they weren't sure they were fully rid of the damned thing – and allow the resurrection of all those Cylons killed in the brief battle with the Earth ships. The whole thing had caused no small panic among her fellow Cylons as the Thirteenth being more technologically advanced than them and the Colonials had always been something of a nightmare scenario.
A panic that the Ones were, somewhat predictably as that entire line appeared to have a special hatred for humanity for some reason, using to swing the others to a very extreme course of action. One was arguing that they assemble as many ships as they could – including summoning some of their few heavy cruisers back from hunting down the Heracles the one Nova-class battlestar that had escaped the destruction of the colonies – and attacking the main Colonial remnant with their full might before they could be taken fully under the protection of the Thirteenth Tribe.
She, and a few others of her line as well as Number Eight that had until her death been a sleeper agent aboard the Galactica, had tried to argue against it. Tried to get their people to turn away from the path that One was leading them down to try making peace with the remains of the Colonials instead. After all wasn't it in Gods commandments to be merciful to a defeated foe and for all intents and purposes the Colonials were beaten and had been for a very long time now.
Unfortunately, One had had none of it. He'd used the fear of the Thirteenth's technological superiority and the fact that their weapons could interfere with resurrection to sway all the others from the path of peace. Now they were simply discussing – or rather arguing about – when exactly to attack the Colonial Remnant and if they should wait for all possible ships to be available or just go with the half of them that had already been assembled.
From her quiet, out of the way, vantage point she sighed. After a moment she felt or rather smelt the phantom of a familiar aftershave. Looking next to her she saw the strange representation of Gaius that she had been seeing ever since she resurrected after sacrificing herself to save Gaius on Caprica during the attack – he had gone from a mere assignment, a mere target to be seduced, to someone she had genuinely come to care for and even love – sitting beside her.
"You need to leave here," he said softly.
"What do you mean," she asked back under her breath.
"Exactly what I said. You need to take a heavy raider and travel to a set of coordinates I'll give you. There you will find the only hope the Cylons have for surviving what is coming, what One with his pride, arrogance and hatred is setting in motion."
"They're going to lose aren't they."
"Yes. But it does not have to be the end of the Cylons. Take a heavy raider and go you will know the coordinates when it is time to enter them."
Caprica Six frowned. "You are not Gaius are you," she said to the spectre.
"No, my dear I am not I merely assumed this form since it is most comfortable for you," 'Gaius' replied with a warm smile, "just like my colleague has assumed your form to guide Baltar for the part he was meant to play. Something that will no longer be possible."
"Then what are you? An angel of god?"
"If that's the best way for you to understand me then yes. Now you must go. Where you are going is a long way from here and it will take some time to get there."
"What will I find?" she asked as she stood up and quietly left the room, leaving the tactical argument raging in the room behind and beginning to make her way to one of the heavy raider launch bays. She didn't expect the spectre/angel or whatever he was to answer her. So, she was surprised when he actually did.
"Salvation for the Cylons."
When she turned to ask him what he meant by that she found, to her annoyance, that he had done that infuriating vanishing act of his again. Mentally grumbling to herself that this being needed to learn some fracking manners she continued on her way to the nearest heavy raider bay. Thankfully with everyone distracted by the meeting getting aboard one and leaving the Colony wouldn't be difficult. She did have to wonder though what 'Gaius' meant by salvation for the Cylons waiting for them wherever it was she was going. What kind of salvation was he talking about? What price would the Cylons ultimately pay for said salvation?
She supposed that there was only one way to find out.
Authors Note: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust, I hope you all enjoyed it. I am honestly surprised how quickly this chapter came together once I started working on it as its been awhile since a chapter basically seemed to write itself in the way this one did. Before anyone asks Caprica Six's name of Natasi actually comes from the novelisation of the 2003 mini-series that started the reimagined Battlestar Galactica universe. While there was the mention of a Nova-class battlestar in this chapter the Heracles will not actually be making an appearance for awhile at least not in this story maybe in the sequel or in a spin off side story to show what she and her crew have been up to since the destruction of the colonies we will have to see. I wonder how many of you will guess who Caprica is being sent to see even as One leads a major Cylon fleet into the meatgrinder. Until next time.