On the far side of the Orion Arm were places like this, far from the galactic core, displaying isolated masses of nebulas and star systems separated among them. The distances involved are so enormous that these space areas were almost physically isolated from the galactic core, requiring very advanced faster-than-light engines to cross.
However, if you keep your attention for a while, you will see two tiny points of light moving across that empty area. Focusing a bit, you could distinguish that both points were, in fact, two ships. The rows of batteries armed with triple and dual guns, missile launcher cells, and antiaircraft guns clearly identified both ships as warships.
With a light gray painting pattern, the ships showed a strong resemblance to oceanic ships from old ages. On a distant blue planet, these ships had fought a long and bitter war and recently, a second one with a better ending. The ships, however, showed an obvious adaptation to the tridimensional environment, displaying the same armament under the waterline protecting both sides.
With an overall length of almost eight hundred meters, the fast battleship Kongou and the smaller heavy cruiser Choukai would be easily recognized by any sailor on Earth. Without any running lights on the hulls, both ships looked like crewless hulls abandoned due to some kind of disaster.
However, if one could walk around the ship, it would be a surprise to find so little space for a crew, just a few rooms with some elements to satisfy the basic needs of daily life. The only difference was a strongly armored citadel located in the most secure area of Kongou, protecting her most precious cargo.
The ships and the minds controlling them were far from being inactive, and her long-range sensors were having a field day cataloging the stars and gravity wells in this area. Being an artificial mind has its disadvantages, and as a way to fight boredom, the ships created and shared a virtual space just for them.
A few decades ago, the Supreme Flagship, the battleship Yamato, ordered all ships in the fleet to allocate a bit of their powerful cores to create anthropomorphic avatars for interacting with the world of man. When these avatars began their relationship with human beings, that little blue planet changed forever, and the consequences brought the ships to this time and place.
Inside this virtual world, two young women simulated a tea party, Japanese style, just for the sake of killing some time.
"Please, my friend, remind me again why we offered to map this bunch of nothing?", asked a girl with a long, blond ponytail and a very tight cocktail dress. As the elder, she was trying and failing to keep the other girl in good humor.
"Probably because we were almost exiled from Earth, Kongou-sama. Do I need to remind you that we created a new life form, interfering with the natural evolution under the Admiralty Code's eyes?", the younger girl said while she kept adjusting her big-framed glasses.
"Ahh! Yes, our little stunt with Gunzou-kun! It worked so well!", Kongou said. Like millions of times before, she made a routine check of the being inside the citadel.
"How is our little Gunzou, my always worried co-mum?", the giggling girl laughed, "I know you too well!"
With all the dignity possible, Kongou clarified, "According to my subroutines, especially those installed by those pain in the ass, Hyuga and Kotono, you must check your child regularly." The sudden increase in resources devoted to the check was obviously some kind of system error, the mental model reasoned.
The long-range sensors, connected directly to the cores where both entities resided, chose that precise moment to interrupt the small talk with a sudden warning. The girls showed the same expression as someone listening to a distant noise.
"A folding event?" Choukai said.
"Possibly, but the graviton readings are a bit different. The time lapse between the opening and exit points is quite short", Kongou pointed out.
"Perhaps a short-range FTL drive?", the younger one suggested.
"That would explain a few things. Maybe we should investigate?", the blonde said.
On board, a powerful humming was evidence of the main reactor increasing its output. Using an artificial element known as thanatonium, its degeneration created a small singularity so that the interestellar gases were transformed into high-energy plasma to feed the fold drives. All around the ship, two gyroscopic rings of light formed a sphere, displacing the ship from normal space to hyperspace. The ship defolded a bit closer to the last readings, and they waited.
Again, a new folding event began and ended, this time a mere light year away.
"Kongou, I've plotted the different events. It's clearly a navigation course. Whoever they are, they're surrounding the nebula", the mental model mentioned.
"A clear indication of weak or non-existent shields. We can navigate through the nebula and remain unscathed", the former flagship analytical's mind added.
"Shall we keep station, ma'am?" Choukai asked.
Always thinking about the safety of her passenger Kongou said, "yes, their present course will bring them to us. Let's refine our sensor readings. There is a slight lack of sinchronicity and dispersion among the events so we could have found a fleet, not just an isolated ship".
"Heavy cruisers like me are usually the scouts of the fleet. Should I go a bit further?", Choukai asked.
"I know it, but not this time. We don't know the technological level of these beings and it's an unnecessary risk. After all, we are separated from the main fleet from Earth by several kiloparsecs", Kongou explained. "Let's proceed slowly", she finally said.
"Kongou, it's really you? I don't recognize you", the young girl teased her.
"Maternal instincts, I suppose," the blonde admitted, and a lot of plugins from that pair she added for herself.
Meanwhile, in a different ship.
William Adama, commander of the old battlestar Galactica, was feeling like crap. Jumping every 33 minutes was producing severe stress on the crews and the ships. He was already expecting that one of the civilian ships suffered a problem in the navigational computers or, God forbid, a jump drive collapsed. If something like that happened, he knew he had only two choices: to abandon the affected ship or stay and fight.
The president of the Colonies in exile, Laura Roslin, showed too the combined consequences of lacking proper sleep, food, and a bath. "How long?", the red-haired woman asked.
"Twenty minutes and the clock is running," the navigation officer, Lt. Gaeta, said.
"Launch the Vipers in ten minutes", Adama ordered.
Approaching slowly to the central table under the roof console with the Dradis screens, another old officer, Colonel Saul Tigh, added, "We can't keep this up for long. We're making more and more mistakes every time. Very soon, somebody's going to screw up so badly that we're going to lose a launch tube, or worse."
"I know, but we need to keep going. Launch a couple of Raptors and see if we can find a safe place around the nebula. At least, we need to sleep."
"Launching Raptors," Saul said.
From one of the flying pods, two little ships, almost gunboat size, left the flight deck. After one kilometer, they disappeared in a flash of light.
Margaret "Racetrack" Edmonson considered herself a lucky woman. When the Raptor emerged from the jump, she fought against disorientation, but relaxed a bit when the space in front of her appeared wonderfully empty, with the nebula at her right.
"It seems everything is OK with the ship. The jump drive is cooling nicely and getting ready to recharge", the second crewman, callsign "Helo" said.
"Very good, let's start the Dradis scan, right?" the pilot added. She began to relax, while her operator called out worriedly, "Racetrack, two blips half a two light minutes, 20 degrees above the plane of the ecliptic in direction to the galactic core! They are advancing slowly, apparent size equivalent to a baseship!"
"Frack, Frack! Spool and charge the jump drive and get ready to jump back to Galactica! Racetrack screamed.
"Drive charged and ready at your order!" , "Helo" reported back.
"Try to get an IFF", Racetrack ordered while she got ready to get out of this place as fast as she could.
"No IFF, no communication, and the energy profile is completely wrong", Helo explained.
"Meaning?" Racetrack asked.
"The warbook cannot identify them", Helo added slowly, "the energy profile is different and very, very high. A dozen Mercurys can't make this shit, what the hell?", he asked with a worried voice.
"Ok, Helo, take pictures with the long range telescopes and let's get out of this cursed place while we can", Racetrack said.
"Racetrack, I am receiving and recording a communication, standard wireless frequency from the bogeys", Helo informed.
"Are the Cylons trying to communicate? There's a first time for everything, I suppose", the pilot said.
Fast Battleship Kongou.
"Choukai, can you detect the two little things from the fold?" Kongou asked.
"Yes, ma'am, they look like scout ships. I am hacking into the navigation computers, the analysis shows... Kongou!! They are human beings aboard these ships! How can it be possible?", Choukai said.
"It shouldn't be, according the old records mankind developed on Earth in the last iteration. I suppose a certain high being was feeling bored, perhaps?", the blonde mentioned.
"Should be begin a first contact?", Choukai asked.
"They are recharging the fold drive so we must start fast", Kongou said.
"Sending basic first contact package," Choukai announced.
Half expecting a weird answer, Kongou asked in a soft voice, "Choukai, my dear, where did you obtain that 'package'?
"Well, it seemed like a good idea in Star Trek", the brunette answered.
"Of course", Kongou said with resignation.
"Did you hack their computers?", Choukai asked.
"Yes, but the file format and operating system are quite primitive for our standards. I will need time to understand it. Ohh, it seems we scared them and they left. Can you detect the exit point, Choukai?" Kongou said.
"Yes, twenty million kilometers around the right corner of the nebula. Could we visit them and say hello?", Choukai urged.
"Why not? It has been a bit boring lately", Kongou agreed.
Battlestar Galactica, 30 seconds later.
Racetrack Raptor jumped close to the fleet, which was still expecting the next Cylon attack. Seconds later, the Raptor crew contacted the fleet: "Galactica Actual, can you copy? I need to speak to Actual right now; it's a bit urgent!! We found out two bogeys. I'm sending all the information to CIC!"
"Racetrack, Galactica Actual speaking, what is happening?"
"Sir, we found two ships, they sent a communication package but we went back to report. I don't know what they sent but it's on an isolated computer just in case", Racetrack explained.
"OK Racetrack, bring your bird back to the cage. We will speak later."
"Yes, sir".
A few minutes later, after the Raptor landed, the crew left the ship in the hangar and went directly to the CIC with the optical disks. In the CIC, a more worried and tired Commander William Adama was standing in front of two equally tired pilots. The old printers of Galactica had produced a couple of high-resolution pictures of the new ships, and to say that Adama was confused and baffled was obvious. Both old comrades had an exceptional expression on their faces. Who the hell could design ships like those?
"Water ships?" Adama asked.
"Don't ask me. I'm not drunk enough to explain this crap," his old friend said in a low voice.
"Well", Adama said, "engineers are crazy throughout the universe, I think".
"Saul, call Dr Baltar and let him analyze the data sent by these ships. Let's see if he is as smart as he said. Time to earn his keep."
The Dradis operator, Lieutenant Anastassia Dualla, or Dee, a young woman from Sagitarron, was living the perfect nightmare in front of her console. Junior officers like her enjoyed not being observed by their superiors, and right now, Adama and Tigh were closely watching the screen, waiting for the unknowns and the Cylons. Both officers played the old game of waiting for the enemy without anything to do. While they were standing there, two blips appeared on the screen.
"Two contacts, 400,000km in front of our bow, Commander," Dee recited, "they are decelerating and keeping station." Since the CIC was deeply buried inside Galactica for safety reasons, they didn't have anything like windows. The old telescopes were providing a good picture of the weird ships in front of them.
"They have windows," said a baffled Tigh, "Is that a command tower?"
"It seems so, but don't ask me why", Adama said tiredly. "Okay, let's stop the staring contest". "President Roslin, since first contact is a civilian matter, I defer to your orders. If the Cylons say 'hello', we will jump as fast as we can. Was I clear? Are you sure your little gadget is not going to infect my ship?"
Laura never was so tired in her entire life. Fighting against the civilians and the political shitstorm, the cylons and the military. "Commander", she explained, "the wireless module was physically removed so it's impossible that the code can jump to the Galactica computers. At least by means we know". The impressive abilities of the self-adapting software will be a nightmare for the men in front of her, and probably Adama will incinerate the computer with the foreign code just to be sure.
Laura Roslin has been analyzing the pictures and the communication package sent by the ships, and Baltar has been able to understand the nature of the data format. However, it was when the surprise arrived that things became interesting. The data contained, very well hidden, an executable code. This self-learning code removed Baltar from the keyboard and adapted itself to the computer.
The surprise on Baltar's face was priceless. When he finally could speak, he murmured, "It's impressive, really. How... is it working by itself?"
Besides the scientist, a worried Laura Roslin was trying to understand why Baltar was so surprised. "Dr. Baltar", she slowly said, "could you be so kind as to explain why you are babbling and drooling like a child in a candy store? Because I don't know if I should be surprised, happy or terrified."
Finally recovering his senses, Baltar explained, "Ma'am President, I don't know who or what created this... thing... but it's amazing! It's a self-adapting software... it was not designed for our hardware but it learned how to use it! Fascinating, it's fascinating," he continued, looking at the screen. Finally, he looked at Roslin and said:
"And yes, we have a basic translation matrix in this portable computer", Baltar finished. "You could talk to these people, but I don't know how complex a conversation can be."
Back to Galactica CIC.
Adama ordered the CIC communications officer, "Mr. Debin, open all hailing frequencies, and copy the written answer from the President's computer, okay?"
"Ma'am President, it's your game now", Adama said. Roslin typed three simple phrases: "We are the twelve colonies of Kobol", "We are running from an enemy fleet", "Who are you?" On the screen, the software seemed to recognize the meaning and produced a set of three separated sentences in their language, but the words were, of course, unintelligible.
Roslin showed the screen to the officer, and he began the tedious process of copying the words character by character.
Virtual Room, Battleship Kongou and Heavy Cruiser Choukai.
"Well, this is going to take a while," the blonde girl mentioned with a very bored voice.
"At least they're not firing on us," the brunette stated, considering what you found in the fleet computers. "It's really nice what our quantum rings can do even on isolated systems," Kongou said. The little rings of quantum code appeared around the computers' wiring in the fleet, reading the data flow and sending the data via quantum entanglement.
The information obtained was worrisome. The Cylon war, the religious tendencies aboard the fleet—bordering on fanaticism in her opinion—and how the older generations hated technology were a bit of a concern, considering she and her friend were the embodiment of everything these people hated and feared. Well, step by step, Choukai thought.
Both entities received at the same time the basic communication package from the Galactica. Show time, Kongou thought. But even with the translation matrix working fine, the process will take too long. It was several months ago since she had manifested her mental model. Now, with this Colonial, it surely was a good idea. The memories of how her physical body made men react were a bit funny, and surely she could use it for a first good impression.
Opening her communication arrays, Kongou sent a simple message in English: "Attention Battlestar Galactica, this is the Fast Battleship Kongou from the Earth Space Navy."
In the CIC, the translation required a few minutes, thanks to the colonial technophobia, especially for Adama, who was still expecting that a Cylon virus might jump to the old computers. When the message was finally translated, Roslin and Adama were completely flabbergasted.
"Earth... it's really the Thirteen Tribe?" Roslin asked in a low voice. Looking at her, with a concerned expression he answered, "It's too good to be true, Ma'am President." When the CIC crew heard about Earth's ships, the murmur was constant and increasing around the room.
This time, Adama asked his son, "Lee, your thoughts?" Thinking about what he was hearing, Lee said, "Commander, it's just a message in a different language. If they are from Earth, shouldn't they speak our language?" Adama put his old hands on the tactical table while considering Lee's insights. "They were separated by millennia, and human languages change through the decades," he finally said, "Lee, the clock is ticking, and the Cylons will arrive shortly. Let's see if they want to help us."
"Are you going to involve these people?", Roslin stated "this is not their war".
Adama looked at the analog clock on the wall. "Twelve minutes, Laura—we don't have more time." Taking the old wired phone, he spoke to the bigger ship, assuming it should be the battleship, "Battleship Kongou, this is Commander William Adama, speaking on behalf of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol. We are a refugee fleet, and we are expecting an enemy attack in minutes. Can you assist us in protecting our civilian ships?"
Battleship Kongou, bridge.
A blonde girl in her twenties was sitting in the only chair on the spartan bridge. Since she was the ship, it was a waste of processing power to replicate useless instrumentation. However, after a microsecond of careful consideration and the cylon issue, she replicated a reasonable copy of a modern space ship with a mixed crew. Accessing the communication array, she used the caprican language to speak directly to Galactica.
"Battlestar Galactica, we know about your war. Even if we can help you, we can't lead the cylons to Earth. We will take position between you and the cylons. I am sending jumping coordinates for your fleet. I know this requires a lot of trust from your people, but we must deal with the fact that they are following you. These coordinates are close to a highly ionized gas cloud near the nebula, and hopefully, it would interfere with the cylons' sensors. Please, keep station in that location and keep only passive sensors to avoid detection."
Not being one who likes to waste her time, Kongou sent the deployment orders to her companion. This time, the Dradis operators in the fleet reported how the new ships accelerated quickly through the refugee fleet.
Battlestar Galactica CIC
For the first time in this accursed month, Adama could feel a bit of hope. He ordered Gaeta to check the coordinates, but the young officer, sensing how low they were on time, suggested that a raptor jump to the coordinates provided by the Earth's battleship.
"Ma'am, in three minutes the Cylons will arrive. I don't think these little Earth ships can survive too long against baseships, but if they can, we could use the time to hide the fleet for a while."
"Are they going to sacrifice themselves for us?" Roslin asked.
Adama watched the tired woman and the crew in the CIC. "At least they have a trick up their sleeve, it seems so. We must honor their sacrifices, surviving and reaching Earth. So say we all."
"SO SAY WE ALL", every crewman repeated.
"Open a channel to the fleet, Debin," the officer nodded and spoke, "All ships ready to jump in ten seconds." With a flash of light, every ship, including Galactica, jumped away, except for a Raptor, so a recorded testimony could be offered to the Earth leaders about their commander's actions and destiny.
Battleship Kongou
"It seems we are almost alone, Choukai, except for our little witness," Kongou said to her partner in crime. "We only need to speak to these arrogant children."
"I don't think they will speak to us, Kongou. They are too pleased with their massacre so they felt they are the masters of the universe", opined Choukai.
"Maybe you're right, but I'm not going to risk him in a battle," Kongou declared. "At the first time they aim a missile against us, I'm going to blow their confidence to hell."
"You know, dear Kongou, even for a battleship you always were a bit aggressive", the girl with glasses commented.
"Flagship privileges, I suppose", Kongou said, laughing a bit.
Baseship 104
Around a central console, with channels of red fluid circulating, mimicking a circulatory system for the bioship, the humaniform cylons tried to understand how the beacons ceased the transmission.
"This shouldn't be happening!" a model number One screamed. "Even if they jump before the time, we should be able to detect them with the beacons!!"
"Curious, yes, but humans are unpredictable, John," said Number Two. "We will find a trail in their last position."
Still fuming, the One reached the same conclusion: "Right, jump, and we will see."
Last Fleet coordinates.
Both baseships jumped to the last known coordinates and began searching the space around them. Almost at the same time that they detected two unknown contacts, they received a transmission from the new ships.
"Hello, how are my little genocides feeling today? "