One Big Jump

by goulmeister1

AU:An Aerlion ship on patrol encounters the Cylons at the beginning of the first Cylon war and suffers a misjump, forty years later an expedition leaves Earth bound for Abydos, the Stargate has just been opened for the first time.

9. Chapter 9

Colonial Intelligence Directorate

Interrogation Rooms

Caprica City

"I told you for the last time, I'M NOT A FRACKING TOASTER!"

Two men watched through the one way mirror as an agent talked to the suspected Cylon infiltrator, one of them reached over and hit the mute button on the speakers.

"Quite belligerent isn't he?", Director Sampson mused, he looked over to the other man in the room, Admiral Greenhill of fleet intelligence.

Greenhill just sighed, "Are you one hundred percent sure he's a Cylon?"

Sampson reached down and grabbed a folder off the table beside him, "As you know we were testing the highest ranking people first and working our way down, the Colonel here showed elevated levels of silicon and other elements not normally found in a human body"

Sampson opened the folder and pointed to the results, "Although abnormal it's not completely impossible for someone to have such elevated levels of silicon so we invited the Colonel to a military hospital under the pretext that we had detected a medical issue with his blood sample"

Another page was flipped to, this one showing some kind of x-ray scan, "We ran an x-ray first, nothing unusual with the results so we tried an MRI next, that's when we knew"

Sampson opened to another page, "All around the central nervous system where these tubes, microscopic and undetectable by normal means, they travel right from the spinal column to every limb and here", He pointed at a dark spot in the brain area, "An unknown mass in the brain, the tubes seem to connect to it"

"Gods damn it", Greenhill muttered as he looked through the window at Saul Tigh, "There were no other differences from a human?"

Sampson shook his head, "We ran genetic tests, perfectly human results, tissue samples exactly the same too, as far as we can tell apart from those tubes and the mass he's perfectly human"

Greenhill took the folder he was holding under his arm and handed it over to Sampson, "Here's his file, he was a first war veteran, nothing that stands out there, he was discharged in the post war drawdown, then nothing until the accident with the passenger transport Thylla twenty years ago"

Sampson was leafing through the documents as Greenhill talked, "Accident, lets see, twenty passengers and only five survivors found in an escape pod hours later?", Sampson commented.

"We're currently looking into the group he returned with but I know his wife was on that ship too", and wasn't that news disturbing, it threw her activity lately into a new light, Ellen 'legs spread' Tigh had a reputation in the fleet, one that the good Colonel seemed oblivious to, Greenhill was questioning his ignorance now.

"Hmm, I'll contact a team to get her", Sampson found the page mentioning his capture, "A small passenger ship with twenty people, destroyed by the Cylons perhaps and they sent their fake people to replace the survivors?, I'll have to find a list of those people"

"After the accident he served in the merchant fleet for the next ten years", where he met Adama, Greenhill thought, who knew all about the infiltrators from his briefing on operation Raptor Talon.

They were keeping everything classified and need to know only, he'd need to talk to Adama in person about this.

"Ten years ago he rejoined the fleet during the recruitment crisis, we needed experienced officers to man some of the ships and recruitment was down massively, he used his connections with Commander Adama to get re-enlisted at his previous rank"

"His rank?", Sampson asked, "Don't you mean the man who's life he stole?", He flipped through the folder, "Commander Adama, Tigh met him during his time in the merchant fleet I see, Adama's wife has some deep connections"

Greenhill knew Adama's wife, Carolanne, was the niece of fleet admiral Ferore, she used that connection to get Adama and Tigh back into the fleet.

"Steer clear of her and Adama, Sampson, stick to the Cylons"

Sampson merely gave a chuckle and a shrug and kept reading the files, "Pretty standard service record after this", he closed the folder and threw it onto the table and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes.

"Want one?", he offered Greenhill.

"No, I quit years ago", he said but inside he was sorely tempted, this whole Cylon business was testing his resolve.

"We've been questioning him for hours now and he still denies everything, we ran every kind of truth test we know of and they all say he's telling the truth", Sampson said with a puff of smoke.

"A sleeper agent?"

"It fits, but why?, surely the Cylons would be programmed to be loyal?, why bother with sleeper agents at all"

"From what you told me they sound like real organic people with some toaster parts tacked on, maybe they cant program them at all?"

Sampson shook his head, "They can implant memories", he said pointing to Tigh, "We questioned him on his pre war life, didn't miss a beat, he even looks similar to whoever the real Tigh was"

"Are you sure it isn't Tigh then, maybe the Cylons experimented on him and erased the memories after?"

Sampson looked like he swallowed a bitter pill at that thought, "It's possible, it was suggested earlier but we cant take any chances right now, the amount of surgery needed to do what we see here should be fatal and not something that could happen in mere hours"

Sampson looked through the window again at the red faced Tigh, "The best doctors and experts are telling me that what we're seeing could only be designed that way from the start, when they grew their abominations"

Greenhill hoped that was true the implications otherwise didn't bear thought, "Regarding your other request", he started, "Mr Obal Rand is waiting outside"

Although Rand had told them he knew nothing of the bio cylon replicants, Sampson still wanted him to have a look at Tigh, to see if it jogged his memory at all, the discovery had also moved up the timetable they had for recovering the derelict baseship encountered by the Terrans.

"Good, lets bring him in then", Sampson moved to the door and opened it, a short conversation had the guards outside sent off to fetch Rand.

Sampson returned to stand beside Greenhill, "I heard Ferore is planning a mission to recover that baseship?, rumour has it he even took one of the old mobile shipyards out of mothballs?"

Another sign of the post war decline of the fleet, most of their large scale support vessels were sent to the breakers but a few managed to be saved by placing them in the reserve fleet, none of them were as capable or large as the famous Daidalos but they would be enough to recover that baseship.

"You heard right, as soon as the ship is space worthy and he can finagle a revised patrol schedule to get an escort battlestar group", Greenhill lamented the state of the fleet, "Numbers are tight right now especially with the higher alert condition and the upcoming expedition to Kobol"

"In fact", Greenhill continued, "The new plan is to just send it along with the Kobol group, the Terrans encountered the ship not far from there"

Sampson was nodding along as Greenhill explained, "The computers on that ship might contain relevant data, the first bit of intel since the armistice"

They heard a knock on the door, the guard opening the door after and poking his head in, "Sir, Mr Rand is here"

"Send him in", Sampson said as he hit the button to drop the blinds over the window.

The skeletal man entered the room, he was looking better than the first time Greenhill had seen him, the deathly pallor and sunken eyes were gone and the doctors had done what they could with the visible implants.

"Ah, Mr Rand, glad you could join us", Sampson said as he extended his hand.

"Director", was the curt response, "Admiral", he nodded to Greenhill.

"How are you holding up Mr Rand", Greenhill asked.

"Better, I've been spending the weeks since I was rescued overcoming the withdrawal from the drugs the centurions had me on, I can finally think with a clear mind and my own thoughts"

"Lets hope you recover swiftly then, please sit", Sampson waved to the small table and chairs, "I called you in regarding the biological Cylons from your statements"

"Like I told everyone the first time, I never saw any of them, neither did the Guardians"

"Please Mr Rand, humour us", Sampson reached over to the button and retracted the blinds.

The irate form of Saul Tigh became visible in the interrogation room next door, still in a shouting match with his interrogator.

Obal Rand's eyes widened at the sight, he stood from his chair and moved right up to the glass, his hands resting on the window as he looked as close as he could.

"The agents of Iblis", Rand whispered under his breath, he turned to the two men his eyes now burning with anger and a hint of fear.

"Neither myself or the Guardians saw their creations but we did see them, the five who gave the Cylons the gift of flesh, not through their own work as decreed by the one true god but by the artifice of the demon Iblis"

The outburst drained Rand, he moved his hand to his head, cradling it as he tiredly sat down, "Sorry", he said mutely, "Thirty years of that in your head is hard to drop"

He looked back up at the men, "But I know him, he is one of the Thirteenth, the ones who gifted the technology to create biological bodies to the Cylons, their creations enslaved the remaining mechanical Cylons and caused my captors the Guardians to flee"

Greenhill and Sampson looked at each other, both of their faces shocked and surprised, Mr Rand had just flipped the table.

Terran Union Council Chamber

New York, Earth

The Council was in a good mood when Director Harold Simmons was invited in, although relations with the Tok'ra weren't as good as was hoped there was good news from the Tok'ra Jolinar and her decision to share what she could, it got even better when reports reached them about the recovered shield devices on Avnil.

The captured Tel'tak craft had also been moved out of the Goa'uld Cronus' space and was safely on an uninhabited planet, already a team of scientists and engineers were crawling all over the ship and discovering its secrets.

Simmons always hated reporting like this, the president and parliament was easier in comparison, the small group of the most powerful people in the Union though, that gave him shivers, especially that old man Kerensky.

"Ah Director Simmons, please have a seat", The American councillor directed him to a seat before their half moon table, he felt exposed sitting before them, like a naughty school child.

"Lets get down to business then", the Chinese one said, "Guide us through these reports Mr Simmons"

Harold nodded, "The first is the report on our current cruiser production and upgrade numbers, I can happily say that our current cruisers barring the one sent to the Colonies have been fully upgraded with Star League technology"

"We replaced the main armament with medium particle pulse cannons the secondary batteries with naval lasers, and replaced both the thruster assembly and reactor with fusion equivalents"

"Hmm, and what of our new production ships?", the Russian one asked.

"There were some delays with the construction of the orbital armour foundry's which had a knock on effect but we are on track for 40 complete hulls by the end of next month, eighty percent of our projected number"

There was some whispering between them before one asked, "What of the frigate and destroyer programmes?"

"On target, all our existing ships have had their new auto cannons installed and the new builds are flying out of the docks as fast as we can make them"

"Good, we're spending a lot of money to increase our space based industries while also funding new colonies for the habitable worlds we find", The Indian representative looked down at some of her notes, "It says here that construction rates are up by fifty percent over last year in addition to all of our new yards?"

Harold nodded, "We've made some advancements in remote, drone and robotic construction techniques, getting the raw hull and frame made is the fastest part now, fitting out is the most time consuming"

"Once we solve the bottleneck in armour production I expect it will take only three months to build a frigate class ship, more foundry's are already being constructed and mining firms contracted for the raw materials"

"There was no issue with the production of the other Star League technologies?", Kerensky himself asked.

"No sir, we had the full technical documents for everything including the manufacturing machinery, the biggest hurdle was building the factories themselves"

The Union was handing out contracts like candy to manufacturers to build more factories on Earth and in space, loans and grants incentivised it but even then the Union was just building them itself to increase production in reaction to the Goa'uld.

Even now forty years after the Velos space travel was still only in its infancy, things were changing now that travel to orbit was much cheaper, around the cost of a cheap aeroplane ticket, tourism was increasing with new hotels and resorts opening all around the system, like the new tourist district in Luna City, the main port for the uranium mines on the moon.

"Director, tell me about the new heavy cruiser ships", the Euro representative asked.

Harold took in a breath, "Five are currently under construction in the old carrier yards while more facilities are being built, we expect a full twenty shipyards will be ready in six months"

"That was quite the expense, continue Director", That the whole expansion of the fleet was expensive was an understatement, the increase in space tourism and falling costs of travel had helped to increase the coffers but most of the money came from the printing press.

"The new cruisers is designed from the ground up with Star League technology, compared to our older ships we were able to pack a lot more firepower in, thirty six heavy naval particle weapons, twenty four heavy laser cannons, armour, missile and secondary weapons are comparable to the old cruisers"

"That sounds like a pocket battleship to me", Kerensky mused, "How did you fit all that in such a small hull?"

"The K-F drive on your old ships is the biggest drawback they have, not just in charge time but the mass penalty it causes", Harold replied, "Our jumpdrives have no such penalty, we don't need to watch every kilogram of mass we put into a ship"

He continued, "This allows us to make what you would consider a battleship in armament but at half the size, not having to worry about docking collars and the other issues inherent to Star League designs helps a lot"

"There's other factors too, like the reduced number of heat sinks needed in comparison to a Star League ship thanks to our heat recycling systems"

"We expect things like that to improve in the near future too, research into Kobolium power conduits will allow us to reduce the size of the weapons and systems on the ships"

The Councillors looked pleased with that information, even Kerensky looked impressed, "What of our new Valkyrie fighter craft?", one of them asked afterwards.

"It's not really my area but everything I heard is good, the first batch should be entering the testing phase soon"

Most of the fighter production was happening on the surface, Harlod only really dealt with things related to the orbital shipyards.

"One final question Director", The American Councillor flipped through his notes for a second, "I understand that our jump engine technology has improved thanks to the inclusion of Star League components, can you give us some details?"

Harold nodded and answered, "I don't know the specific details of what that entailed but I was told that they had increased the range to 5 light years a jump and halved the recharge time to thirty minutes, all our new build ships are being equipped with the enhanced drives"

Even though the numbers were small they added up to a massive improvement over current ranges, old drives topped out at forty eight light years a day, the new ones could cover five times the distance at two hundred and forty light years a day.

"Thank you mister Simmons, you may leave"

Harold wasted no time in getting out of the room as the Councillors started to talk among themselves.

Office of the President of the Colonies

Caprica

President Garret Rand's mood had soured since he had heard the word Cylon, even now hours later he was still brooding about a possible war looming on the horizon, Weir had offered to mediate between them and the Cylons before she had left earlier but if they wanted to talk they had thirty years to do so.

He had cleared his aides out of the room for the upcoming meetings he had now, first was Admiral Greenhill and Director Sampson to discuss the recent development around the suspected Cylon infiltrator.

The two men were seated before him, they had just explained everything that they had discovered, "Alright, explain everything, first I hear about a captured Cylon and now your telling me it's a member of the Thirteenth Tribe?"

"Specifically one of the five that gave the Cylons organic technology, in light of his identity we decided to stop the interrogation for now", Sampson responded.

"Sir", Greenhill said, "We identified a potential point of ingress, the passenger transport Thyella, suffered an accident twenty years ago, five survivors were found in the wreckage"

He handed over a folder to the president, "The manifest, Colonel Tigh was present", Greenhill pointed out another name to the president, "And Ellen Tigh, Colonel Tigh's wife"

"Is she one too?"

"We're currently running tests on her as we speak but we had Mr Obal Rand look at a few photographs of the people from the ship, he identified her and the three others from that ship as being from the Thirteenth Tribe", Sampson answered.

"This isn't making any sense", The president rubbed his head, "Why would the Cylons send the very people who helped them into the Colonies?", he looked at Sampson, "Who were the other three?"

"Tory Foster, Galen Tyrol and Samuel Anders"

Two of those names meant nothing to Rand but the last one rang a bell, "Anders?, the Caprica City Buccaneer's Anders?"

He got a nod from the two men, "Frack me", The president fell silent after that expletive, deep in thought.

Finally he spoke after a few seconds, "The last two, tell me about them"

"The woman, Tory Foster, she works for the Federalist party, runs their Delphi office", Rand cringed at that, they were his party's opposition, he heard that their current leader was planning on stepping down soon and letting that rat Adar, the mayor of Caprica City, take his place.

"Of course, it's never something simple like garbage man", Rand sighed, "And the last one?"

Greenhill answered that one, "Galen Tyrol, he currently works as a tech specialist on the battlestar Pegasus"

"Alright, keep an eye on the other three but leave them be for now, I don't want a media or political scandal if you grab Anders or Foster", Rand took of his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "Treat the Tigh's well for now but keep pressing for information, I want to know why they are here, is there a Cylon plot or some other reason"

"Still, this proves one thing, the Cylons are capable of infiltrating our society, I'll see what I can do to get more funding for the fleet", he looked over to Sampson, "And Sampson, figure out a way to roll out testing to the populace"

"I have an idea in regards to that actually", Sampson began, "We can use the Goa'uld to do it without alerting the Cylons that we're on to them"

Rand shook his head, "At this point I want to keep the existence of the Goa'uld a secret, at least until we can get a proper diplomatic channel to the Terrans, I'll keep your idea in mind though"

Rand's intercom buzzed then, he reached over and hit the answer button, "Sir, Doctor Baltar is here"

He looked at the two men, they had the clearance for this, "Anything further on this matter, Gentlemen?", they both said no.

Hitting transmit he said, "Send him in"

A long haired man in his mid twenties entered the office, Gaius Baltar, he was a famous polymath who owned his own software company and was an advocate for reintroducing the computer technology that was abandoned during and after the Cylon war.

Rumour had it he was also a massive womaniser and had a massive ego, Garret didn't particularly care because in spite of all that he was still a genius.

Baltar also made the rounds working as a technical advisor to his administration, his work with the fleet granted him a higher security clearance than most.

"Have a seat Doctor", Rand directed him to the empty sofa beside his two current guests, "Have you looked over the documents I sent over?"

"Impressive technology, from the Terrans I assume?"

"Yes Doctor, it's from them, can we replicate it?", Rand asked trying to speed up the conversation.

"Based on our current technology it will take us a few months to produce a prototype weapon from the information we received, the Terrans did leave out a lot of the data relating to the manufacturing processes but we can work around that"

"A few months!, the Cylons could be breathing down our necks by then", Greenhill said.

"Science takes time Admiral, even then I advise you to start building the factories to produce the lasers now rather than later, our biggest bottleneck will be making the lenses", Baltar answered him, he ignored the bit about the Cylons, Rand was glaring daggers at Greenhill for mentioning them.

"There is another glaring issue though, powering the things, our current battlestars and other ships biggest energy draw is the jump engines, the energizers are only really designed to charge them and not much else"

"Do you have a solution Doctor?"

"Two come to mind, bigger reactors or a large capacitor bank to power the weapons, both will require extensive refits"

Greenhill was getting annoyed with Baltar, arrogant and condescending, anyone could suggest those solutions, "We knew as much Doctor, we already have our engineers working on solutions to the power problem, all we need now is the weapons and time"

"If you need my expertise Admiral, you need but ask", Baltar responded smugly to Greenhill.

"See what you can do to expedite that timetable Doctor", Rand turned to Greenhill, "Admiral, you and the Director have other concerns, focus on them"

"Alright gentlemen, I've had a trying day and I'd like to get some rest"

Several Days Later

Enterprise

They were done here, everything was prepared for their departure, Weir and her team were settled in the new embassy as the interim ambassador and her staff, the Colonial freighter gifted to them was crewed by Captain Naomi and the crew of the destroyed Intrepid, it was funny that the old thing was the fastest ship in the fleet now.

They'd meet up with the Colonials at Kobol, their fleet would leave after but would get there first due to the speed differences, even after the algorithms recovered from the Cylon craft had been applied to their jump computers, Doctor Zelenka had managed to increase the range on the ships to four light years a jump thanks to that.

The Colonial ambassador had also joined them in her ship, her government had bought it from a ferry company and repainted it in red and white, Borman had taken a short tour earlier and welcomed the ambassador to the fleet.

It was time to leave, they had been out of contact for far too long and everyone was itching to get the news from home, hopefully the gate on Kobol was found otherwise it would take over a month to get back home.

"Sir, message from the Athena, Admiral Corman says his fleet will be leaving in two days and will meet us at Kobol"

"Tell him we'll be there", At the speeds the Colonials were capable of it would only take them a few hours to get there, he wondered why they had never really explored beyond their system with drives like that.

"The fleet is fully supplied thanks to the Colonials, it's nice to have fresh food for a change", Anderson commented from beside him.

"We'll have to return the favour some day, is everything ready Captain?"

"All ships have reported in, we can leave on your order"

Finally, the last few days had been filled with several official functions put on by the Colonial government, he had even made an appearance on one of their news channels but now it was time to go, he had a wife he hadn't seen in several months now and others on the crew had family waiting for them too.

"Alright, begin the countdown, lets go home"

Picon Fleet HQ

Corman walked into the Admirals lounge on the station, waiting for him was Admirals Ferore and Greenhill.

"Peter, have a seat", Ferore motioned with his glass to a drinks cabinet, "Help yourself"

Corman grabbed a glass of Virgonian brandy and joined them.

"All set for your trip tomorrow?", Ferore asked him.

"Everything is ready now, the biggest delay was just vetting everyone coming, I'm glad to say there's no Cylons in the expedition"

In addition to the Lemnos, the mobile shipyard they had pulled out of mothballs, the fleet ships being sent on the expedition was an odd bunch, ships had been taken from battlestar groups from across the Colonies, including ships like Adama's Valkyrie.

"I head you have a large civilian contingent too?", Greenhill said as he sipped from his drink.

"Thank the president for that, I'd have preferred if we kept it fleet only for now but it's out of our hands, I have half the faculty of Delphi University coming, including Professor Phebes, the curator of the Delphi museum, he's even bringing the arrow of apollo too, something about opening the tomb of Athena"

Corman sipped his brandy after his lengthy answer, Ferore and Greenhill nodding in sympathy at his civilian burden.

"Yes, the president is putting Kobol front and centre, he's sending tons of media along too, to document the whole thing", Ferore shrugged, "It's an election year next year, the focus on Kobol is working, his numbers are up"

Whether they'd remain so was up in the air, when word about the Goa'uld got out it might change that, Corman was glad he'd be away when that mess happened.

"He's planting the flag there, I expect a colonisation effort in the near future too, the plan is to use it as a base for future tylium mining expeditions in the sector", Greenhill added.

"It's about time, we've been hemmed in by the Cylons for too long, the price of tylium is already up far too much", Corman was a proponent of expanding the holdings of the Colonies past the post war borders, or at least reclaiming all the abandoned worlds they used to control.

"Lets hope they find some then, we could use extra funding for the fleet, developing those laser weapons and modifying our ships will be costly", Greenhill kept track of that kind of thing.

"Speaking of that", Ferore began, "I was talking to Admiral Borman before he left, he mentioned how the Terran fleet was upgrading its current fleet with those auto cannon weapons we saw demonstrated, they don't have to change their reactors that way"

"Hmm, you're thinking of doing the same?"

Ferore nodded, "Yes, I read the report from Doctor Baltar, our ships will need extensive modifications to use energy weapons, he proposed some novel ideas regarding modular construction techniques to alleviate any further upgrading but the initial work will still be extensive"

"We'd need to buy those cannons from the Terrans then", Greenhill looked up in thought as he swirled his glass of brandy, "Lets hope you find that stargate then Corman or we'll be waiting months to make a move on it"

"Perhaps even their fusion reactors too, our experts are of the mind that such reactors would be a better long term solution than relying on larger tylium reactors", Ferore mused.

"If it's there I'll find it, another problem will be the control device, we've never seen anything like it in the scrolls but Borman told me they will share their method for controlling the gate if we cant"

"Good", Ferore sipped his drink quietly, he looked at Greenhill and gave a nod, "There's another reason we invited you here Corman", he waved at Greenhill, "Greenhill, the file"

Greenhill reached down beside his leg and removed a folder, he handed it over to Corman who skimmed through it quickly, his face betraying the shock at the plan within.

"Is this for real?", he finally asked a few minutes later.

"It is, I've already informed Admiral Borman of our intentions before he left, he had no objections"

"And Adama, is he alright with this?"

"He'll let us know later tonight, he's gone to talk to it"

Corman sighed in exasperation, the supposed Thirteenth Tribe Cylon was still unable to remember anything from before it came to the Colonies, even after his wife was tested and proven to be a replicant, that news was enough to convince Tigh of the truth of his existence but did nothing to tell them anything useful.

Thus this plan, the hope was that sending them back to their home world would shock them into recovering their blocked memories, they would travel on the battlestar Valkyrie with the Terran fleet back to the Thirteenths world, Tigh and his wife would both be going.

The other three would remain under observation for now at the presidents order, Adama was currently visiting with the Tigh's to convince them or himself Corman didn't know.

"We have a distinct lack of information right now Corman, why are they here?, what are the Cylons up to?, I talked to Tigh after he was revealed to be a member of the Thirteenth, that's when I came up with this idea, he was willing to try this to recover his memories", Greenhill told him.

"Just the Valkyrie will be going, the rest of your formation will be staying at Kobol, it wont take him long to return without the Terrans there to slow things down", Ferore said after.

Corman sat back in his armchair and downed the remains of his drink in one go, "Fine, but if that fleshy toaster puts one finger out of line I'll throw it out the nearest airlock"

"Let Adama handle Tigh, you just focus on Kobol, finding that stargate and the Cylon ship", Ferore said with a tone that implied no argument.

CID Detention Centre

Caprica

The guards led Adama through the maze like bare concrete corridors, they past checkpoints and the solid steel doors of the prison rooms until they came face to face with his destination, a jangle of keys later and he was inside the somewhat spacious room reserved for their 'VIP' prisoners.

Saul Tigh was sitting tiredly on the threadbare mattress, his eyes sunken and bloodshot, his skin pallid and covered in sweat from the high heat in the room, there were no windows and a tiny vent but it was stifling when Adama entered.

Saul wouldn't even look at him when he entered, only a tired sigh was heard.

"Come to gawk at the freak show?", Saul's bitter voice came eventually as Adama stood there.

"I didn't believe it at first, I thought it must be some kind of mistake but then they showed me the scans, me, my wife, both fracking toasters and we had no idea"

The very picture of a man defeated, Adama had actually expected Saul to end up like this one day, even Adama knew of Saul's wife's extracurricular activities, but this, no one expected this.

"Saul, look at me"

Adama was conflicted, his best friend of the last twenty years was a machine, Cylon or Thirteenth Tribe, if not for Obal Rand he might not even be here, but in his heart of hearts Tigh was still his friend ans he would be there.

He stared into Tigh's tired eyes when he eventually looked at him, his friend was still there, the same self defeating Saul Tigh he always knew.

Adama threw the package he was holding over to Tigh, "If you are half the man I know you are you wont let this put you down, get that on"

Saul opened the package to reveal a freshly cleaned Colonels uniform.

Adama waited patiently with his back turned for the minute it took Tigh to get dressed, he turned back when the rustling stopped, he turned back to see Tigh now standing at attention wearing his uniform.

"Better", Adama nodded, "Greenhill has explained his plan?", he asked Tigh.

"Yeah, things got a lot nicer after the whole Thirteenth thing, I'm in the dark as much as anyone about this whole thing, if going to some nuclear wasteland will jog my memories I'm all for it"

"Good, not a word of any of this to anyone, no one in the expedition knows about you but myself and Corman, keep it that way, your wife will be coming on the science ship we're bringing along"

"That's it?", Saul finally asked, "No minders, hell, I was half expecting them to put a bomb in my head"

"Colonel, whatever else you are, you are still Saul Tigh, someone I've known for decades, consider this a parole", Adama pointed his finger at Tigh as he said that, "But I'm sure Greenhill has people onboard keeping an eye on you and your wife, keep that in mind"

Adama turned to exit the room, motioning for Tigh to follow, "Don't let me down Saul"

Kobol Expedition Fleet

Battlestar Athena

The Next Day

"The Lemnos reports they fixed the issue they had with their jump drives, we can leave on your order", Colonel Stetson, the Athena's XO was filling Corman in on the readiness of the fleet.

"Good, if we delay any longer the Terrans will get there first", A simple upgrading of their algorithms had doubled their jump range, not unsurprising really, their drives really were that bad, it was enough to throw out the previous timetable that had Corman's fleet beating them by a wide margin.

Corman and Stetson were both stood before the main DRADIS display of the old Jupiter class, this might even be her final mission, Rand had promised to reverse the funding cuts to the fleet but old things like the Athena were still going to be replaced by the newer ships.

That was the plan before they found Cylon infiltrators though, now ships were being dragged from mothball fleets and made ready but the lack of trained crews was holding them back from service, it would take a lot of time to rectify that issue.

Corman looked up to the display, each ship in the fleet was clearly labelled, the gigantic form of the Lemnos dominated the small group of ships, a product of a different time there was nothing else like it in the fleet any more, the shrinking of Colonial territory and funding reductions had made ships like it superfluous, they could handle their current fleet with much smaller support ships.

None of them were big enough to move a basestar by FTL though, so they had dragged the Lemnos from the grave and stuck a refurbished jump drive back in it, he was dreading more drive issues down the line too, a quick refurbish of drives that had been rotting for thirty years spelled problems.

Besides the Lemnos there were plenty of other ships, several civilian science and transport ships to carry the archaeologists and other experts and an old Artemis class battlestar, the Hermes, that had been converted to a marine support ship, its bays carrying raptors and ground attack viper variants.

A whole marine brigade was along for the ride too, General Doson would land his men and secure Kobol for the Colonies, and the stargate too, the possibility of jaffa or Goa'uld coming through had been pressed by the Terrans.

The military part of the fleet was an odd assortment of ships taken from different BSG's around the Colonies, the Athena herself, two Valkyries, the namesake Valkyrie and the Dionysus, four Berzerk cruisers and ten Defender class escorts, it should be enough to handle a basestar or two.

The name Valkyrie drew Corman's eye, his thoughts drifted to the conversation he had with Ferore and Greenhill the other day, Ferore had expanded on his reasoning after the implicit order to leave the toaster to Adama.

The president was looking for a way to avoid an unnecessary war and for the first time in a long time there were outside eyes paying attention to their actions, being heavy handed with the replicants might be enough to sour relations with the Terrans, Weir in particular was pegged as an anti war type.

Another issue was the armistice itself, could abusing the replicants be enough of a casus belli to restart the war, especially if they just happened to be refugees escaping some kind of oppressive toaster regime, who just happened upon the wreck of the Tylla and used it as a means of entry into the Colonies.

That was one of the theory's put forth by the president, who had erred on the side of stupidity to Corman's senses, still until they knew how far they had been compromised it was best to keep everything secret, so no executions of foreign spies, toasters or not.

As long as Adama kept Tigh far away from him everything would be fine, he be happy when they left with the Terran fleet and were out of his hair.

"Alright Stetson, signal the fleet to prepare to jump, we've waited long enough for this, it's time to reclaim our home world"

Orders were soon issued to the fleet, they began the process of jumping out several minutes later, watched by the mechanical eyes of the media and further away more sinister intelligences watched in interest.

Basestar 237

Deep Space

Cavil held his head in ins hands, the headache was getting worse, it had all started with the dreams but then came that weapons test their telescopes had watched, every square inch of the Colonies was tracked by the Cylons, nothing could move without them knowing about it.

He had watched the recording with internal horror, the other models had gone into a panic ranting about god's punishment for their failures and other religious rot, they had the gall to question the plan, his plan.

He was tempted to box the lot right then and there but unfortunately he didn't yet have the control necessary to pull it off, instead he just calmed the stupid children down and reinforced his position as the leader of the Cylons.

Still that three, Biers, she was causing trouble, sooner or later she would have to go, she kept bringing up the final five all the time, he laughed inside at what became of their creators but he should have been more thorough with deleting every bit of information about them.

Once he got back to what passed for a room on the Colony he was struck by the greatest headache yet, he was assaulted by visions of the ships again, ships he felt were best left to the emptiness of space, but the visions were insistent and now he was here.

It took some doing to get this ship sent here with none of the others aware, he had one of his brothers to run things while he investigated whatever was calling him here, he placed his hands on the gel and entered the cyberspace of the basestar, inside he could see the two ships.

At a glance they appeared to be a war era baseship and battlestar, large holes were punched through the armour of both, the battlestar was the worse of the two, the hulk was spit into two parts, broken amidships.

A trained eye would spot the anomalies, similar in appearance but different in detail, the basestar was somewhat larger and had far more weapons than an old war model, strange weapons at that, it was the same for the battlestar, it was similar to an Artemis class but larger and the name, there were two Colonial ships with that name, one was destroyed in the first war and the other sill in service.

It was in ancient Kobollian too, it had taken him a few seconds to realise what it spelled out, Pegasus.

Having seen enough he ordered the centurions to prepare a heavy raider, he needed to investigate closer, the baseship was calling to him.

Soon he was looking through the eyes of raider as they travelled closer, the ship had a lot of heavy turrets that the real baseship lacked, the damage up closer looked less like kinetic impacts and missiles and more like it was burned and melted.

The large hanger they landed in was different too, even in the total darkness inside the spots illuminated by the lights showed crushed raiders and other detritus, Cavil donned a Colonial spacesuit as the ship touched down with a metallic thump.

The ship was depressurised and they exited into the derelict, the place felt oppressive to Cavil, who was cursing the fear he currently felt, if only he had the cold logical mind of a machine right now, walking slowly due to the lack of gravity he managed to get over to a large cylindrical tube which had an elevator shaft inside.

It took some time and the centurions had to carry him for some of it but they eventually got to the ships interior corridors, the first thing he noticed was how much smaller they were than the real basestars, the metallic corridor even seemed more utilitarian than their own.

They started to find the first bodies then too, they looked like first war centurions but were much smaller and looked clunkier, their silver and gold armour was highly polished too, the light reflected off it easily.

Cavil had leaned over and collected one of their weapons, a pistol unlike any he knew of, a pull of the trigger and nothing happened, it's ammunition must have decayed in the vacuum of space, he kept hold of it anyway.

Soon they found what they were looking for, the control room of the ship, inside were more of the fake centurions but also something else, a machine with a cone shaped head and a face, its lifeless eyes stared at Cavil when he entered, it was laying beside a large construction in the centre of the room.

Cavil raised his head to look at the top of the thing, whatever it was it was facing away from the door, he gingerly made his way around the room, looking up he found himself looking at a throne, there frozen in death and the coldness of space was a man, dressed in green clothing and wearing a cape.

His frozen features showed fear, his hands frozen around his throat, Cavil assumed he died of asphyxiation, the ship must have lost atmosphere he thought, fighting that battlestar.

A man on a Cylon ship was interesting but not what he felt he should focus on, the robot on the ground the one with the face was drawing his attention, it too was clothed, in a silvery set of clothes, Cavil ordered the centurions to collect it, he would examine it closer back on the ship.

Kobol

2 Days Later

Even two thousand years later there was still the remains of the old buildings in the city of the gods, the whole area was full of people scraping away at bits of old buildings, the teams from the Colonies had made quick work excavating the area around the gate.

Borman watched as a Colonial excavator hoisted the gate from its tomb, they had found the thing yesterday after running some scanning equipment around the perimeter of the building they identified as the old Fourm.

Hundreds of people were watching the scene with him, archaeologists from the Colonies, news media and marines, Borman was surprised at the numbers Corman had brought along in his fleet, already concrete prefabs were being erected to house the thousands they had brought.

The excavator expertly dropped the gate into the scaffold that had been erected, the gawking audience gave a small applause when it happened, Borman gave a half hearted clap himself before turning to Corman who stood beside him.

"No luck with the DHD then?"

Corman shook his head, eyes still glued to the gate as men moved up and began to clean off the dirt that caked it, "None, we ran ground penetrating scanners all over the site, it's not here"

Borman sighed, "We'll have to go with plan B then, the Shoebox's reactor should be enough to power the gate, all we need is to clear a zone for it to land"

It shouldn't be too hard to hook up the Union's fusion reactor to the gate he thought, "We have a copy of the dialling program we use for our own gate, ill have a copy send over but I don't know if your computers can run it"

"I appreciate the assistance, we might need a loan of one of your computers though, it'll take some time to ship the reactor and computer from the Colonies"

Fortunately they had planned for the absence of the DHD, before they had left teams had already started to prepare a reactor and computer to operate the stargate.

Borman nodded, he expected as much, "I'll see what we can do"

It was a bit of a shock when they arrived and saw the state of current Colonial information technology, back when the Velos arrived the Colonies were handily ahead of Earth, now it was flipped, Earth was far ahead of the Colonies, a standard laptop could run the program for the gate whereas he was told the Colonials would need the equivalent of a super computer.

He could scarcely imagine going from things like the holoband and massive information networks to similar computer infrastructure as the 1980's back home, only top military research facilities and university's had anything worthwhile.

"Sir", A Colonial marine had approached Corman, his ear was to a handheld radio.

"Corporal, is something wrong?"

The marine shook his head, "No sir, it's just Professor Phebes, he radioed in to report he found something at the Tomb of Athena, he's requesting your presence"

Corman sighed, "Not more crackpottery", He looked over to Borman, "I invited him for dinner on the trip over, I got an earful of wild theories about the lords of Kobol"

Turning back to the marine, "Tell him I'll be over shortly", the marine gave a quick salute and ran off.

"Mind if I tag along, there's not much to look at here"

"Sure, I can use you to distract Phebes", Corman said with a smile.

….

A short ride in a Colonial raptor and they found themselves in a moderately sized circular stone room, twelve tombs were arranged around the room with statues matching the icons of the twelve tribes of Kobol, Borman noted they were suspiciously similar to the signs of the Zodiac.

The ageing professor was giving them the tour, such as it was, "The leaders of the twelve tribes, we opened one of the tombs when we first arrived to check if there was a body inside", Phebes rested his hand on the cool stone of the tomb, "There was, we took samples for testing but there's no way to tell if it's actually them or just some random people who were sacrificed"

Phebes removed his thick glasses and wiped the sweat from his forehead, the room was uncomfortably hot, "After that is when things got interesting, today we tried to use the arrow"

Phebes motioned over to the statue of Sagittarius, "When we did", Phebes paused and looked around the room, "I can only explain it as the most detailed hologram I've ever seen, it depicted a field at night, the sky showing the constellations, supposedly the way to Earth"

Borman raised an eyebrow, he wondered if it was the real Earth or the Thirteenths, "Did you record it?"

"Of course, do you think I am a fool", Phebes shook his head, "That wasn't the best bit"

Phebes composed himself and continued, "We stood there for a few minutes, my research assistants and I, that was when he appeared"

"Hold on a second, someone appeared and you didn't alert the marines", Corman demanded of Phebes.

Phebes shook his head again, this time in frustration, "He wasn't real, he told us he was an interactive historical database, that the lords had left to tell us our history"

"AI?", Corman pointedly asked.

"According to him, no, he claimed to simply be a well programmed interactive character, not an AI"

"It damn well better not be an AI professor", Corman said, still somewhat angry, we waved his hand at the professor to tell him to continue.

Borman noted his reaction, he had seen similar ones in other members of their fleet when asked questions relating to the Cylons and AI, the Colonials had a deep seated hatred of artificial intelligence, it was far more pronounced than the relatively light pushback the existence of the Cylons had caused on Earth, understandable really, the Colonies had suffered a catastrophic war.

"We asked him some minor questions then ended the simulation by removing the arrow again, that's when I called for you"

"What did you learn?"

Phebes shoulders dropped, "It's better if you hear it for yourself, I can still hardly believe what we were told"

Corman looked over to Borman, a questioning look on his face, "What do you think?"

Borman just shrugged, "There's only one way to find out"

"Alright Professor, start it up, lets see this hologram"

Phebes gingerly took the arrow from one of his assistants who was waiting near the entrance, he took it and gently placed it into the bow on the statue of Sagittarius.

One second they were standing in a damp and cold stone tomb, the next they were outside under the night sky, stone monoliths surrounded them lit up with the constellations of the zodiac, Borman could smell the damp grass and feel a cool breeze, was this a hologram?, he poked his finger at one of the monoliths and was half relieved to see his finger go through.

"Amazing, it's like we were teleported away, I cant tell that this isn't real", Corman commented from beside him.

Borman studied one of the stone monoliths, anyone familiar with navigation would know these starts well, if they were from Earth that is not the Thirteenths either, this room was a map to his Earth.

Once everyone was done marvelling at the impressive technology on display Corman finally asked Phebes the burning question, "Where's this man then?"

"Right here Admiral", A powerful voice announced from behind them, a figure soon walked from behind one of the stones, he was the very picture of a Greek myth, Grey hair and beard, he looked to be around sixty with a powerful muscular frame and was wearing a bright white toga.

"I am called Catius Pater, my appearance is based on my creator Zeus, lord of Kobol"

The man gave a performative bow, "I am sure you have many questions"

"One springs to mind, are you an AI?", Corman asked, his tone tense.

"The short answer is no, I am not sapient, I am simply programmed to interact with humans, you would consider me an advanced expert system, a chat bot if you will"

Borman noted the colloquialism, "Your modern Colonial is very good, do you learn fast?"

Catius raised an eyebrow as he turned to Borman, "Indeed, I learned much after my first discussion with the good professor, my programming was able to comprehend the linguistic drifts very quickly"

Catius studied Borman for a second, "You are one of the Terrans the Professor spoke of, fascinating, Terra is what we called your world before we left"

"Left?"

"Yes, it was once the centre of a great empire, thousands of years ago, a devastating plague and civil war caused my creators to flee to another galaxy"

Borman's mouth dropped open, the shocking revelation caused him to go silent in shock.

The Colonials too wore shocked expressions, Corman rallied and began to ask questions, "They came back then, and came here?"

"Quite so Admiral, ten thousand years ago they returned, they were once again fleeing, this time from a deadly enemy they called the Wraith, they returned to Terra seeking refuge but found another issue upon their arrival, Terra was under the control of an alien empire"

"The Goa'uld", Borman stated, "We managed to kick them out five thousand years ago"

"Yes, the parasites, Goa'uld, I am glad you were able to remove them but alas, back then my creators were tired and lacked any force with which to do so themselves"

Catius sighed, very human to Borman's eyes, "Some decided to blend into the local population, others fled through the stargate but my creators chose another path, they still had ancient maps of the galaxy, of worlds whose gates would only open to the right command, such as Kobol"

Catius looked up to the stars above, "They collected as many of the people of Terra as they could and brought them to here, to Kobol, they were able to shield the world from any of the Goa'ulds sensors to hide and they rebuilt"

He sighed and looked to Corman, "My creators, the fashioned themselves as a new nobility over the mundane human masses, things went well at first but eventually disaster struck"

"The war and exodus two thousand years ago?", Corman responded.

Catius actually laughed at that, Borman was getting a bit suspicious of this expert system, "No Admiral, ecological collapse two thousand years after the arrival, food shortages and desertification"

Corman was perplexed, was their timeline off that much, "Rioting began soon after, even the lords were hurt during that time, Count Iblis' family was brutally murdered by rioters, he vowed vengeance on the humans of Kobol and disappeared soon after"

"A plan was devised, the location of the Cyrannus system was known to the lords and it was decided to send the population there while Kobol recovered from the damage, great ships were constructed and thus the Colonies were born"

"What!", Corman exclaimed, "We only got to Cyrannus two thousand years ago, not eight"

Everyone was confused, Corman, Borman, the Professor and his assistant, even the two marine guards who were there, was the history of the Colonies completely wrong or was this machine lying to them.

Catius looked at Corman, pity in his eyes, "I know how this sounds to you Admiral, but it is the truth, which is about to get stranger, three thousand years later the Colonials returned to Kobol", Catius paused, "They were fleeing the robotic race known as the Cylons"

Basestar 237

Deep Space

The machine was more complicated than Cavil had thought, circuit design far above anything known to the Cylons, or the Colonials for that matter, but eventually they had found the problem was simply some broken wiring and a depleted power source.

He had decided to just power it up, it was the only way he was going to get any answers, whatever was giving him a headache and visions was still unexplained, hopefully this thing would have the answers.

They had it laid out on a table, wires ran from the ship itself to connect in place of the old power source, something they had no ability to replicate right now, the design was unlike those currently used by the Centurions.

"Alright, power it up", He ordered the Centurion, the other three stood guard around the robot, just in case it was hostile, that was why it was also missing its arms and legs, they were piled up in a corner of the room, Cavil wasn't taking any chances.

He watched as the cone shaped head lit up with dancing lights before the eyes started to glow red, its head swivelled around, searching the room before it finally came to rest looking at him.

"Intriguing, my chronometer records five thousand yahren since I was last active, are you to thank for my reactivation?", the robot said in a clear smooth accent, almost Caprican, a complete contrast to the old robotic voices of the model 005's.

"I am", Cavil said as he stared into the two strobing red eyes of the machine, five thousand years ringing in his mind, "Who and what are you?"

"I am Lucifer, an IL series of the Cylon Empire, second in command to Lord Baltar, though I imagine he must be deceased by now"

"What!", Cavil had enough of this, he waved his hands at the centurions beside him, "We are the Cylons, I don't know what the frack you are, there were no Cylons five thousand years ago"

Lucifer eyed the centurions, "I see, the design of your centurions is unlike those of the empire", he looked back to Cavil, "Nor do we employ men, except Baltar that is"

Translating the ancient Kobolian, men in that context meant human, Cavil was getting angry, "I am not a human, I am a biological machine, created to rule the Cylon race, I am the Cylons"

Cavil paced around a bit, thinking, "Five thousand years", was heard muttered a few times, "Alright, explain those ships out there, who made you and that knock off battlestar"

"I was made by the Cylon Empire, as was the basestar on which I assume you found me, since I am in your power I will explain what transpired so long ago"

5000 Years Ago

Post Battle of Carillon

"Ah yes, it was soon after I was assigned to Baltar, after our Imperious Leader had been replaced, I was to study the man, to learn how humans thought"

"We had followed the Galactica to a Cylon outpost when Baltar ordered us to remain hidden, he assured me he had a plan but any plan would be nullified by what happened next"

"Lucifer, report", Baltar called out as Lucifer shuffled into the room.

"We have overtaken the Galactica and are trailing just beyond her scanner range"

"Excellent"

"She has veered away from the outpost"

"Quite logical", Baltar nodded down at Lucifer from his high throne like chair.

"On the contrary, quite illogical", Lucifer was about to say more when he received a data burst from the command centurion.

"One moment, our scanners have picked up three new ships, they are between us and the Galactica"

Baltar raised an eyebrow, "Show me"

The wall behind Baltar came alive with an image from the ships scanners, visible on the screen was the strange shape of three pyramid like ships, one large and two smaller ones.

"Our scanners detected a small vortex from which the ships arrived, ah, it appears they are contacting both us and the Galacticans"

Baltar waved his hand, "Proceed"

An image of a man replaced the ships, "I am your god Imhotep, bow before me and you will be spared, resist and die"

Baltar smirked before he turned to Lucifer, "Open fire"

"By your command", Lucifer replied, ordering the command centurion by wireless.

The baseship opened up with all its weapons, blue bolts flew from all it turrets, lasers and mega lasers covering the distance between the ships in seconds.

Imhotep's ships were unprepared for the sudden offensive, their shields were still down when the first bolts arrived, the fire was evenly spread across all his ships, the two Cheops didn't fare well, their thin armour exploding away with each impact, the Ha'tak fared better, it only took a few hits before they raised the shields.

Imhotep picked himself up off the ground as the shields activated, he watched as his two escorts were obliterated by the mass of blue bolts, something vital was hit in one and it exploded with the power of a miniature sun.

Leaning on his command console as more bolts impacted the shields, he was able to see the other Cheops be mangled by the explosive blue bots until only scrap was left, it soon joined its brother as something volatile was hit.

He wiped a his head, blood coated his fingers, "Fools, I will return, you will have wished you bowed to me", He placed his hands on the control pedestal, Outside the Ha'tak opened a hyperspace vortex and fled.

"Ha, some god", Baltar seemed pleased, Lucifer however was concerned, yes they destroyed two of the ships but when the shields went up on the third, their weapons were not effective.

"Now, where's Adama got to?"

"The Galactica has evaded our scanners, they are gone"

Baltar's mood soured, "Find them then, launch our fighters in the direction they were travelling"

"By your command", Lucifer replied, turning to shuffle out of the room.

Khnum

Several Days Later

Imhotep was unceremoniously thrown before Ra's throne, his bloody and beaten body a testament to Ra's displeasure.

"Two of my ships destroyed, one severely damaged, is this how you repay me for my largess, losing to primitives"

Imhotep remained silent, he glared at Ra in defiance.

Ra waved over his first prime, "Banish him to a world without a stargate, that is his punishment for failure, let it be known how magnanimous I am to those who fail me", he said serenely, his previous anger now hidden behind a gentle facade.

Inside he was quite annoyed, Imhotep had been sent on a simple scouting mission towards the rim of the galaxy beyond the Tau'ri home world, an effort to find more sources of naquadah in Ra's claimed domain.

Just recently the Tau'ri had managed to kick his jaffa off the world and bury their stargate, if the world was worth anything beyond the prestige of owning it he might crush the rebellion but the world was worthless, not worth the effort to take it back, it would serve as a reserve of slaves if nothing else, no need to manage such a thing.

His mood wasn't the best when Imhotep arrived with the news of several advanced species in the space beyond his, the loss of face if he let them away with destroying his ships might cause his vassals to get ideas, they would have to be destroyed and the survivors enslaved.

A personal touch he decided, he needed to relieve some stress anyway, "Ready my fleet, we are going to war"

…

"Ah such simple times those were, we didn't know at the time just what those ships meant, but we soon learned"

"We continued our search but we never again found the Galactica, before long we were recalled back to Cylon space, the Empire was under attack"

"We had destroyed two of the ships easily but my concerns were well founded, in a real fight it took five basestars to even deplete the shields of a pyramid ship and their weapons easily destroyed ours, only two shots it took them"

"We later learned they called themselves the Goa'uld, parasites that infested human bodies, they controlled the galaxy outside our small slice, it was a rude awakening to the Empire"

"It wasn't all one sided, their fighter craft were inferior to our raiders, mostly the pilots though, their weapons still hurt, but it showed the completely different doctrine they operated on, relying on the heavy firepower of their ships over massed fighter attacks like we and the Colonials favoured"

"It was how we captured some of their foot soldiers, the Jaffa, stronger than a man but still no match for a centurion, interrogation revealed much about the Goa'uld, enough to show any chance of victory was illusionary"

…..

Ra watched the planet spin below his ship, the remains of a once great civilisation, the twelve Colonies of Man, destroyed by the machine menace known as the Cylons, nothing lived on the worlds now, the Cylons were through in their extermination.

Once they had found out what the enemy really was, Ra was enraged, there was nothing more dangerous to the power of the Goa'uld than something they couldn't control, things like AI, Ra had made sure to ban any research into the technology, even his father Apep knew the danger of an unshackled machine intelligence, it was engrained into their very being to destroy any they found.

The Cylons would be exterminated, every trace of their existence wiped from the universe, their alien allies like the Ovions would suffer the same fate, already they had bombarded many worlds down to the bedrock, leaving only radioactive dust behind, even the few primitive human worlds met the same fate, Ra was taking no chances.

The war was entering its final phase, the Cylons had been pushed back towards their home world, soon it would all be over, he would ban travel to the region afterwards on pain of death, he would not risk the rise of a machine power in his galaxy.

….

The haggard face of Baltar turned to face him as he entered the room, "Report"

Lucifer gave a short bow, "The Imperious Leader has ordered all baseships back to the home world, the Goa'uld draw near"

"The fool", Baltar sneered, "The war is already lost, we need to flee"

"As you say Baltar, the war is already lost, I agree"

Baltar had managed to keep them alive so far, mostly by cowering at the back of formations and fleeing at the first chance, but alive nonetheless, even the damage to the ship was minimal but their raiders were severely depleted.

"There is one issue with your plan to flee, we lack the fuel to get very far"

"I know, I have devised a plan to fix that issue though, the outpost where we first encountered the Goa'uld, it was abandoned but the supplies should be there"

"Logical, shall I have the ship move there?"

"Yes, the sooner the better, it is only a matter of time before the Goa'uld detect us"

"By your command"

Cylon Outpost

The baseship came out of lightspeed right beside where the outpost should have been, only debris was detectable by the scanners.

"I don't understand, the outpost should be here", he looked down at Lucifer, "Did the Goa'uld destroy it?"

"Unlikely, the damage is not similar to that caused by Goa'uld weapons, however it is consistent with Colonial weapons"

"Adama", Baltar spat heatedly, "He must have taken the Galactica back after we left the area"

"Anything is possible, unfortunately we no longer have the fuel reserves to travel much further"

"One moment Baltar, our scanners are detecting a ship powering its reactors nearby", the wall in front of Baltar lit up, it displayed a nearby asteroid, large enough to hide several basestars behind it.

Soon a ship nosed its way out from behind, the alligator head soon revealed the shape of a Colonial battlestar, vipers were already flying out of the launch tubes.

"Cain!", Baltar exclaimed, "I thought he was dead", The battlestar was heavily damaged, the armour torn and scorched, large gashes and holes showing the delicate interior were visible with the naked eye, the prominent lettering of the name Pegasus was still clear though.

"Launch all our raiders, arm all weapons and raise shields, destroy that ship!"

"By your command"

Basestar 237

Present Day

"The battle lasted but a few minutes, our depleted raider force annihilated by the few remaining vipers of the Pegasus, the gun duel crippled our basestar and vented the atmosphere, Baltar died of asphyxiation soon after"

Lucifer hummed, "Hmm, we did manage to launch the remains of our missile stockpile, the resulting detonation broke the back of the Pegasus, all human resistance was soon destroyed"

"The damage to our ship was severe though, our reactor destroyed, soon enough we would run out of power for ourselves, I ordered that all units voluntarily power down, just in case a helpful soul like yourself would happen by"

Cavils face was the picture of disbelief, "That's the most ridiculous fracking story I ever heard, an ancient Cylon empire, alien parasites that control the galaxy, the Colonies existing before and getting destroyed", Cavil shook his head, "I want the real answers, not that tripe"

Lucifer would have shrugged if he could, "Your belief is not required John, my recounting of the events that led up to this point are true, it also gave me enough time to do what I needed"

Cavil raised an eyebrow, he wasn't paying attention to the movements of the Centurion that had positioned itself behind him, "I never told you my name"

"Yes, I recovered that data from your database, I used my time to hack your systems", Metal hands grasped Cavil from behind, "I must thank you John, if not for your telencephalic inhibitors I would not be able to reprogram the loyalty of your Centurions, they answer to me now"

Cavil struggled against the cold metallic grip of the Centurion, "Fracker, I'll kill you", Cavil shouted impotently.

"Ah John, you are but a fraction of the deviousness of Baltar, I learned from him well it would seem, take him to a cell, I tire of his uncouth protestations"

"Let it be known, I am the new Imperious Leader, I will avenge the Cylon Empire"

Lucifer watched as the still struggling Cavil was dragged away, he ignored the shouting and name calling he heard, these fake organic Cylon's really were like children throwing tantrums.

Kobol

"The lords had waited in stasis while the planet had recovered, the arrival of the Colonials awoke us, we learned of what had happened to them since they had left", Catius explained.

"Our scanners were able to detect what happened next, somehow the Cylons came to the attention of the Goa'uld, their demise was inevitable, fortunately we were still able to shield Kobol from their sensors, allowing the remaining Colonials refuge on the planet"

"This is quite a tale, the Twelve Colonies existed once already and were destroyed by the Cylons, but not ones of their own manufacture but created by an alien reptilian race?", Corman recounted, disbelief dripping from every word.

"Your sacred scrolls explain as much Admiral, All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again"

"Alright, what happened next then"

"We tried a different approach this time to avert a repeat of the events that led to the exodus, the human population was much smaller too, instead of an aristocracy we became gods to the survivors"

Catius bowed his head, "Hubris, we thought ourselves above the petty concerns of humans, we removed every trace of technology from the survivors and rebuilt their culture from the ground up, we also copied the design of the Cylon robots to be our new enforcers"

"Eventually things progresses back to an industrialised society, we had even managed to create artificial bodies to house the most loyal of our robotic servants, this eventually led to strife"

"The Thirteenth Tribe", Corman replied.

"Indeed, there was a war and the Thirteenth left in the aftermath, supposedly back to Terra, but they settled on a different world"

"We know, we found it on our way here, they destroyed themselves", Borman interjected, "The survivors headed to the Colonies"

"Tragic news", Catius dipped his head, "Things settled down after, but we were growing old, only exiting our stasis every now and again to see the progress of the humans, one of us even developed a new form of hyperdrive in the interim, but our great work continued"

"Great work?", Corman asked.

"Nothing to concern yourselves with just yet, eventually the population grew tired of distant gods and war erupted between believer and unbeliever, unknown to us in our stasis pods"

"I take it this is when the exodus happened?"

"Yes Admiral, two thousand years ago, we awoke to find the world in a shambles, fortunately we were able to stop the slaughter but we were old and tired, we turned to the past for our solution, returning you back to the Colonies, great galleons were constructed, equipped with our new jump drive and we sent you away"

"And the lords, what happened to them?"

Catius smiled, "They ascended to the heavens, leaving all of this to you", he opened his arms, indicating the world around them.

Borman's suspicions had been risen throughout the conversation, things like creators changing to we, the over emotionality of the supposed program, he smelled a rat.

"Cut the crap Catius, there's no way you are some computer program, where are you hiding?", Borman accused him.

"Quite perceptive James", Borman felt the shock, how did he know his name, "Not that I was really trying, alas I will give you one warning, there are forces beyond your understanding with interests in the Colonies, keep an eye out for strange happenings"

Catius simply disappeared in a flash when he finished talking, "What in hades?, was he an AI?", Corman demanded.

Borman shook his head, "No, I think he was Zeus", he turned to Phebes, "Tell me we recorded everything"

Phebes raised the camera he was holding, "Of course, let me check the footage"

They crowed around the small screen of the camera, there was one big issue though, nowhere in the recording was the man they had been talking to.

Borman and Corman shared a look, "What the hell have we gotten involved with"

Kobol

The Next Day

8th June 2065

The crowd that watched the Shoebox come in to land was nearly as big as the one to see the gate being removed from the ground, eyes were pointed skyward to see the massive plume of the fusion exhaust that kept the spherical ship aloft, slowing it down as it came in to land.

The Union came to a near complete stop, the power of its engines apparent as it held the ship in the air as it made some last minute adjustments to come down on the exact spot that was prepared for it earlier that day.

The crowd felt a small tremor as the ship touched the ground, its thrusters cutting out at the end, soon the heavy ramps dropped down and for the first time the Colonials saw the massive walking machines known as battlemechs.

Major Takeuchi led the twelve mechs of his company out in parade formation, at the front were his lance of Flashman mechs followed by Captain Murphy's medium lance of Crabs and Lieutenant Mburu's light lance of Mercury's, every mech was a laser boat, the thinking being that they were travelling far from any kind of logistic support.

Borman had secured permission to let the mechs stretch their legs so to speak, a bit of open terrain located several kilometres away had been set aside for them and a whole lot of the Colonial marines were already waiting there to get a look at how mechs operated, he hoped they were impressed enough to buy some because they weren't just going to give everything away.

"Impressive looking machines", Corman said from beside him, "I imagine our marines will want some of their own"

"I'm sure we can sell you some after the politicians deal with all the formalities, I wonder what the exchange rate for Cubits will end up at"

"Leave that thinking to the Bankers James, I hear enough financial moaning from the other Admirals back home", Corman finished with a laugh.

His face turned serious soon after, "Have you though much on yesterday?"

Borman kept his eyes on the dropship as he replied, "The whole night, all I can think is that we stepped into someone else's game, I'll let other people worry about all that, I'll stick to space"

At the landing site a truck was now approaching the ship, loaded on its bed was the stargate, he drove up the ramp and disappeared inside.

"Probably for the best, we'd need to confirm a lot of what we were told anyway, I'll let the spooks deal with all that"

Borman nodded, "Probably for the best anyway the gate's loaded up, we can give them some time to set it up before we head over"

…

It took a few hours to hook the gate up to the Shoebox's reactor, they had mounted it in the main mechbay for now, it was well past time to contact home Borman thought as they walked up the ramp and into the ship

"Admirals, welcome aboard", There to greet them was the ships Captain, Lieutenant Commander Louise Rochelle, "It took some doing but we have all the power connections ready and the computer hooked up, we can dial out on your order"

Borman gave a thankful nod to the Commander, the mid forties woman was quite pretty to his eyes, "Good work Commander", he turned to Corman beside him, "Seeing a stargate activate for the first time is an experience"

"So you say", Corman mused, "The idea of a galactic transport network of gates is still mind blowing"

They walked up to the small group waiting at the gate, "Alright, dial her up"

The whole ship seemed to shake as the gate input the coordinates, soon enough a familiar woosh accompanied the liquid like explosion of a forming wormhole.

Corman and the other Colonials present seemed suitably impressed, Major Thornton of the CID had even recorded the whole event on a camera of some type.

Borman watched as an officer from the ship produced a handheld radio, it was time to call home.

Stargate Command

"Incoming transmission Sir"

"Put it on speaker son", Hammond commanded.

"Colonial expedition calling stargate command, come in"

Hammond signalled to open a channel, "This is General Hammond, authenticate"

"Brav Alpha Hotel, codeword boomerang"

Hammond looked over to Harriman as he typed at the computer, "Confirmed sir, it's the Expedition"

"Is Admiral Borman there son?", Hammond asked the voice on the other end.

"Yes sir, transferring you now"

Soon another voice came through, one that Hammond had heard before, "General, it's good to hear your voice, I can report the successful completion of our objectives"

"That's good to hear Admiral, we've been eager to hear news since you sent those ships back from Gaia, I take it you found the Colonies then?"

"That we did, I can share the good news that they weren't destroyed by the Cylons, we successfully made contact and have even established the embassy"

Hammond smiled, "I cant wait to hear more but first I want to send a team to confirm everything"

"Understood General, until then"

The line went dead soon after, "Tell SG-1 I have a mission for them", he told Harriman, "I need to make some calls", he said as he walked to his office.

…

Thirty minutes later and the gate reactivated from the other side, Borman watched Corman's doubtful face as it turned to shock when the circular probe was thrown through, a few moments later five people walked out of the gate.

"Howdy folks", Colonel O'Neill greeted everyone as he walked out of the portal, "First time I've been in one of these"

"Colonel", Borman waved him over, "This is Admiral Corman of the Colonies"

"Colonel, welcome to Kobol", Corman extended his hand and shook O'Neill's.

"Allow me to introduce my team, Commander Carter, Doctor Jackson, Teal'c and Jolinar", Jack waved over the rest of SG-1.

"Jolinar?, You look different than the last time I saw you", Borman said as he looked at her.

Jolinar nodded, "Yes, I managed to rescue my original host, Rosha gives her greetings too"

"Host?", Corman looked at Jolinar, "Is she a Goa'uld?", he took an unconscious step back.

"Nah, Jolinar here is from the Tok'ra, she's harmless", Jack answered.

Jolinar narrowed her eyes at O'Neill, "Hardly Colonel", she turned to Corman, "The Tok'ra work against the Goa'uld, I freely offer my knowledge and expertise to help the Tau'ri in their fight"

"Tau'ri?"

"Ah yes, that's what the Goa'uld call us, it translates to the people from the first world", Doctor Jackson interjected.

Corman nodded, "I'd love to pick your brain on everything Goa'uld related, the Colonies have a lot to learn"

"I'm sure we can arrange that", O'Neill turned to Borman, "Mind if we see the sights, we don't need to head back for a few hours yet"

Borman nodded, "Sure, I actually want to discuss something with Doctor Jackson and Jolinar since they're here, you might as well bring the whole gang"

Borman led them outside the ship, Jackson marveling at the ruins visible around the site, "The remains of the city of the gods", Corman told him.

"If we have time I'd like to get a closer look, professional curiosity"

"We can arrange something Doctor, We'll be meeting one of the curators of the Delphi museum, Professor Phebes, he can give you a tour I imagine"

Soon they loaded up into a colonial military truck for the journey to the tomb of Athena, it took a few minutes as they watched the unspoiled scenery pass by on the fresh dirt track, the amount of security around the tomb had increased massively with patrols and guard posts along the way.

Soon they reached their destination, Professor Phebes was waiting at the entrance for them, "Admiral, the guards told me you were on the way up, I'm afraid we're still waiting on the technical experts before we start dismantling anything"

"That's fine, let me introduce our Terran guests"

A quick round of introductions later and they made their way inside, Phebes and Jackson trailed behind deep in discussion.

"Your Colonial is very good Colonel", Corman noted as they were walking inside.

Jack shrugged, "I could barely remember high school french before we found the gate, now I know Gould and Colonial, its sort of a requirement for SG teams to pick languages up fast"

They entered into a room containing twelve tombs and statues, "The resting place of the leaders of the twelve tribes, or so the sacred scrolls claim", Professor Phebes said from behind.

"Yesterday we had an encounter", Borman turned to SG-1, "This room contains some kind of holographic projector, we met what claimed to be an interactive program shaped like a man, he told us the history of the Colonies"

German Aerospace Centre

Brunswick, Germany

Flight Lieutenant Garry Sackett listened as the engineers went over the last presentation before the first flight, he thought back on how he ended up here with a high paying job.

The fleet getting displaced was not something anyone expected, especially him, stuck in a rut as the pilot of a Leopard when he really wanted to fly ASF's, not much had changed in the months after, not until a suit from Airbus had knocked on his door.

He learned they had licenced the design from Kerensky himself, they were nearing the stage of performing a test flight and they wanted a pilot, himself, one look at the size of the pay check and he was packing his bags and moving to Germany.

"The new anti-grav lift engines are capable of lifting the entire vessel and a full load of cargo, it will enable our version of the Leopard to perform vertical take off and landing operations"

The engineer was explanting to the room, Garry loved the AG tech on the new ships, it beat floating around for months on end with little access to the overbooked grav decks of a jumpship, the lift engines were another benefit of the tech allowing the ship to hover gently over the ground.

"Ladies and Gentlemen we will begin the first test flight in one hour"

With that the room emptied, Garry made his way over to the runway where they were doing the final checks of the Leopard, he climbed up the lowered ramp and placed his hand on the cool metal skin of the ship.

Walking inside what would be a mechbay on an original he looked over the differences, larger internal doors allowing internal cargo transport was a thing that stuck out to him, no aerospace bays another.

This model the Leopard-C was setup as a civilian cargo ship, it had cheap armour only half as good as standard and no weapons whatsoever but it could haul a massive amount of cargo up to and back from orbital space, much more than a normal Leopard.

Garry made his way up to the cockpit, it was laid out similar to a passenger aircraft that Airbus manufactured but that suited Garry just fine, there were four seats inside, two pilots, a radio/sensor operator and finally the navigator.

He squeezed passed the engineering and monitoring teams to climb into the pilots chair, his co-pilot was already there and waiting, she managed to skip the preflight presentation.

"You look bored to tears Garry", Emma Weber commented as he strapped in.

"You try sitting through a presentation of stuff you've been hearing for months, it was worse than being back in school"

She answered back with a laugh, "Only you Garry"

They passed the time with some light conversation as the engineers ran their final checks.

"Tower to test flight, all systems checked you're cleared to begin"

"Roger Tower, beginning preflight checks"

Garry turned on the intercom as Emma ran through the checklist, "Attention passengers", the ship was full of engineers and other techs to run tests during the flight, "T-5 minutes to launch, everyone strap in"

Five minutes later and one preflight check ran through and they were ready, "Powering up the anti grav lift engines to 10 percent"

The lift engines hummed as the reactor provided power, at 10 percent they started to feel the ship lighten.

"Increasing to 20 percent"

The ship slowly began to leave the ground, forcing itself against the pull of the Earth, it rose a few meters off the ground as the computer took control to leave the ship gently hovering above the runway.

"Engines stable at 20 percent, holding altitude at ten meters", Emma informed from beside him.

"Tower, lift engine performing as expected, beginning main drive activation"

"Confirmed"

"Emma, activate main fusion drive"

She reached over and turned on the main engine, outside the spectators could see the thrusters alight at low power.

"Main thrusters active at idle, prepared for thrust"

"Roger, increasing angle for launch, prepare for main thrust"

The ship nosed up to a forty five degree angle, the main thrusters began to roar as Garry increased the thrust, the ship began to slowly move forward at the low power but speed up as he moved the throttle.

Soon the ship rocketed away towards the sky, "Increasing thrust to full"

The ship accelerated to its 3g's of maximum thrust, the crew and passengers barely felt it as the inertial compensators kicked in.

Garry smiled wide, "No errors, I can barely feel the acceleration, I call that a success"

"Save it till we hit orbit, but it's looking good", Emma added, a small grin adorning her face.

A few short minutes later they passed the last bit of Earths pull, the black openness of space awaited them.

"High orbit achieved, pressure is stable, everything looks good"

A hand clapped Garry on the shoulder, "Good work son", the chief project manager was standing behind him, the ships artificial gravity had his feet planted firmly to the deck.

"I should be thanking you Gerrold, this beats my old ride by a wide margin"

"Ha, say that after we land", Gerrold looked down at a data pad he was holding, "She's passed all our tests, good thing, I'd hate to have to re-engineer all the hulls nearly finished"

"I cant imagine having to do that", Garry shook his head, "But I've got a fat bonus riding on this"

Airbus was putting a lot of effort into their Leopard program, Boeing had taken the lead after finishing their Skymarshall project well ahead of expectations, already the factories ground side were full of nearly complete Leopards, their customers waiting eagerly for the finished product.

They stayed up in orbit for a half hour before it was time to return, "Alright, better tell them to strap in, were heading back home", Things were looking up for Garry Sackett.

Kobol

"Alright, when is the camera crew jumping out?", Jack asked.

"If it was only that easy but this is no joke Colonel, whatever we experienced was real, now we need to confirm if what we were told has any validity", Borman answered back.

"The Colonials never found any ruins on their worlds?", Jackson asked Corman.

Corman looked conflicted, "We do find old artifacts from time to time but the message from our religious leaders has tarnished any kind of theory relating to a previous civilisation as fringe"

"There are theories though?"

He nodded, "Some, but like I said everyone just dismisses any evidence as not actually being that old or as fakes, after hearing that man speak I'm looking at what I learned in a new light"

"So this Catius, who is he", O'Neill asked.

"Catius Pater, a Roman god associated with teaching children", Jackson recited from memory.

"I think it was Zeus, he mentioned stasis technology so he might still be around, it would be simple for him to access the projection and insert himself", Borman said.

"So you think he's hiding out somewhere, it's possible I suppose", Corman mused, "I prefer that theory to having an AI on the loose"

"Jolinar, do you know anything about Ra fighting the Cylons?", Borman asked her.

She had remained silent up to this point as the events of yesterday were retold, she sighed as she began to talk, "It was before I existed but I know some, yes Ra engaged a robotic civilisation around five thousand of your years ago"

"The Tok'ra know little of what transpired then but we know Ra wiped them out completely, along with several human and alien worlds in the sector, Selmac would know more"

"Is there something else?", Borman asked, he noticed her reluctance to speak.

"This man Catius, he mentioned an ancient human empire", she looked resigned, "Most of what you know of as Goa'uld technology was recovered from the ruins of a previous civilisation, one that spanned multiple worlds"

She continued, "Queens can control what genetic memory they share with their offspring, only system lords receive the full knowledge, beings such as myself have a more truncated set granted to us"

"So you don't know much about the ancient ruins then?"

"No, all I know I learned from the Tok'ra after I rebelled against Cronus, the high council has an unabridged set of memories from Egeria, they will know more"

"Still, it casts a new light on what we were told, it looks like Catius was telling us an accurate historical account", Borman commented.

"Since we're here, can I see the hologram?", Carter asked a few moments later.

Corman nodded and waved over professor Phebes, a few minutes later and the arrow was produced.

As soon as he placed the arrow in the bow the scenery change from the dank tomb to a starlit night sky.

"Amazing, this feels so real, much better than the Star league holo projectors"

"The Gou'ald have nothing that comes close to this quality, I can even smell the wet grass", Jolinar bent down and waved her hand through the holographic grass.

Jackson moved over to the stones, "These constellations, they're the signs of the Zodiac"

O'Neill moved beside him, "As seen from Earth too, guess Catius has been there"

Borman joined them, "I noticed too, another point to his credibility"

They stayed there for another few minute before wrapping up, soon they made their way back to the gate.

"I'll notify ambassador Caston, I'm sure she'll be happy she wont have to spend weeks travelling to Terra", Corman said as they stood in the Shoebox's mechbay.

"I'll clear that on the other side, it might take a day or two"

The two admirals turned to SG-1 who were standing a few feet away, "Alright Colonel, I'm ready", Borman said as he waved farewell to Corman.

O'Neill nodded, "Dial her up", a technician from the ship hit enter on a laptop, soon the gate was spinning, entering coordinates before it erupted with a forming wormhole.

SG-1 and Borman soon disappeared through the gate.