The return to the edge of the Kharak System had been a quiet one. Staff aboard all three command vessels of the fleet remained relatively quiet, what with the fact that, now, only six hundred thousand of the Kushan, plus the crews on board the Mothership, were all that remained of an entire civilization. It seemed all three sides had been personally hit by this, for when news reached both the Colonial and the UNSC fleets, many of which were still recovering after the Jump, there was an unspoken agreement.

The Empire that had struck Kharak, the Taiidan, would pay. They'd learned of them through the interrogation of the interred crew, namely from the Captain of the Frigate they'd seized. The man had not survived interrogation and nobody aboard either fleet dared make a comment about it. Damned if they didn't understand the feeling, though.

Sitting aboard the elected 'envoy' vessel of the three Fleets, where a meeting would take place, President Laura Roslin and Commander Adama had decided to represent the Colonials' interests at the table. The middle-aged, brown-haired woman sighed deeply, tapping her pen on the oak table set in the middle of what was once the Colonial One's old passenger deck.

Commander William Adama, though slightly older than Roslin in age, certainly looked more rough. Greying, short hair, glasses, dark eyes, a wrinkled face. The only thing not wrinkled on him was the dark-blue dress uniform of the Colonial Navy. On his collar were his rank pins, while his left shoulder had the Battlestar Group 75 emblem plastered on it, a relic of past times. Around them, other people from the Fleet moved about.

"Tell me, Bill…" The woman spoke, voice soft, "What do we do?"

"What can we do?" He inquired, looking at the delivered footage on a UNSC-standard tablet that had also been sent as a gift. The Taiidani warships had dropped warheads the likes of which the two hadn't seen before. What the captain on-board the Taiidani Frigate they'd seized had called 'an Atmospheric Deprivation Device'. A bomb specifically meant to ignite the atmosphere of the planet it was fired upon.

Horrifying…

He continued, "We misjumped and wound up in a gravitational anomaly that dragged the entire Fleet way off-course. Now, we wake up here…" and he sighed deeply. He looked out the window, upon the dark blue hue of the edge of the Kharak system, noting the UNSC's ships hovering close to the fleet, with the Mothership herself in the middle of the defensive cordon. "And now we have to fight for our survival from actual sentient beings, not just machines or the Infiltrators…"

"We have an entire fleet of evacuees behind us," The woman spoke, "What do we do, split our forces to keep them safe when we jump to scout ahead? Because we're not really gonna be able to take them to the world these people, these odd redevelopments of humans that the Kushan are, are planning on reclaiming. It's…"

"I know," He sighed, then looked back at the footage, "I know. The UNSC's saying the same. Their fleet's in rough shape after they got bombarded by their own enemy. They hit the same kind of strange gravity anomaly and wound up in the same kind of rip in space and time as us… Worst part is our astrogation charts are a mess."

"How come?" Laura asked, straightening up.

He shrugged, "I don't know. Nav said we aren't in any known part of the Galaxy," which caused the woman to pause. As he walked over to the window and peeked outside, he said, "None of the Star Clusters beyond that blue frakking mess out there are recognizable. I'd normally say the moment we get out of Kharak's gravity and onto any nearby gravity well, we'll find our way, but… I don't know. Something doesn't seem right."

"Maybe the UNSC and the Kushan can help," The woman replied as she stood up, walking over to the window. She then told him, "The latter have lived in this corner of the Galaxy for a while, after all. Even if it isn't their actual home and the former have highly-advanced technology," all while she looked out of the window, too, watching the UNSC's envoy craft slowly approach.

The Kushan Mothership's fighters escorted their own envoy craft, a small, angular, but recognizably Kushan craft, similar in shape and size to the 'Corvettes' that the Mothership was now deploying as an escort force to help the Fighter and Scout contingent in the protection of the colony vessel. The two allied vessels soon docked with the Colonial One.

When the airlocks cycled and decontamination procedures completed, six figures entered the transport. Three UNSC and three Kushan, to be specific. The UNSC's own was Admiral Nakano herself, going by the bright white uniform, short grey hair caught in a bun and almond eyes. She looked about as old as Adama, if not a little older with a few extra creases, but she maintained a friendly face. Even with burn scars on its side.

She had an escort of two armed and armored soldiers clad in dark uniforms with full face covers. Their blue visors glowed in the recessed LED lights and their rifles had thumbhole stocks and no visible iron sights or scopes, much to the Colonials' surprise. Similarly to them, the men escorting the Kushan representative were clad in light armors with opaque visors and carried what looked to be firearms, too.

The Kushan representative, however, much to everyone's surprise, was visibly human. Though he bore a dark-red uniform with a strange symbol on his shoulder, he was clearly human. Tan-skinned, with slicked-back black hair and a thick beard, as well as dark-brown eyes. The two members of the Colonial Fleet and their aides faced them now, with President Roslin offering a kind smile and stating, "Warm greetings to the UNSC and to the Kushan people. Welcome aboard the Colonial One. I'm President Laura Roslin and this is Commander William Adama."

"Madam President, Commander," The Admiral snapped a salute that Adama replied to in kind. She spoke, "We talked over com. I'm Admiral Nakano… Glad to be here. And glad to meet the Kushan…" as she turned to face the stunned representative. He scratched his cheek while his soldiers exchanged looks with the Admiral's guards.

He then sighed, bowed his head and said, "A pleasure indeed. I'm Fleet Intelligence. Commander Kareem of Kiith Kaalel. Apologies, but Fleet Command, Karan S'jet, could not be present. Her melding with the Mothership doesn't present much opportunity for her to freely move about," which caused the Colonials and Admiral to pause.

"Melding?" The Admiral raised a brow.

Kareem nodded, then calmly began to explain, "Research into Artificial Intelligence was too new and unstable for us to run the Mothership based on any form of multi-thread central processor like it. Karan thankfully developed the solution rather quickly. As a neuroscientist, she theorized and outright volunteered to test the Neural Network that currently runs the ship. She's Fleet Command because of that."

"... She's connected to your ship," Adama blinked, stunned.

"It's more safe to say she is the Ship," The man replied, then noticed his compatriots' fearful gazes. He stated, "I know. Not a lot of people liked the idea or thought it safe. It's the reason Karan volunteered to be the test subject and became Fleet Command," before looking out of one of the windows and pointing at it, "And without her, we'd still be stuck on Kharak, or in orbit, trying to find some fix."

"We understand," Laura spoke rather defensively, "It's just…"

The Admiral of the UNSC hummed, then said, "The idea of connecting a human brain directly to a warship is strange, but… I suppose we ain't different," before turning around and pushing aside some of her hair strands to reveal a triangle of steel connected to the base of her skull, much to the gasps of the Colonials. She turned around and said, "That's a Neural Lace."

"I think Karan would like to take a look at that, provided we ever get to Hiigara," The Kushan man spoke, "What does it do?"

"Depending on variant," The woman shrugged, then she explained, "Just about anything that a human brain needs. Basic models act as IFF systems for most UNSC personnel, so we don't mistakenly pop a round into one of our own," then she tilted her head to the ODSTs. She continued, "Mine's a CNI, Command Neural Interface. Gist of it is I really couldn't be commanding the Fleet without one of these in my noggin."

"So a more portable version of what Fleet Command has," Fleet Intel stated.

"Guess so," The Admiral chuckled, "You'd have to ask Charon or one of our scientists about it," then she paused and saw the stares from both Adama and Roslin. She told them, "Relax. NIs are completely safe," then looked at Kareem and asked, "What about you guys…? Did that interrogation yield anything more?"

"No," The man replied, though his expression grew visibly darker, "What we told you is all we know."

Nakano scoffed, then sighed, "So some Empire that rules over the entire Galaxy glassed your homes because you broke a treaty generations older than your current population, one you guys didn't even remember," and she shook her head, "And the price for that was an entire race…? An entire planet at the edge of the Galaxy?"

Adama spoke, "Certainly doesn't seem like a fair trade. Not after four thousand years. You'd've thought they'd forget about it," only to pause as he saw their Combat Patrols returning to the Galactica. A change of shifts. His thoughts returned to the Taiidani Empire as he murmured, "Must really like the power they wield over the entire Galaxy…"

"Pricks like that always do," Admiral Nakano shrugged, though she sounded a fair bit more aggressive, too. She asked, "Your peoples had time to read the Reports we sent each-other? I got through both of yours relatively quickly and I have to say, the similarities kind of hurt between the Kushan and Colonials…"

"We did," Laura spoke softly, "You have our condolences for the loss of your homeworlds, much like the Kushan."

"The only difference is we still got space to run to," The Admiral sighed deeply, "You guys lost your home planets to the Cylons and the Kushan, to the Taiidan," before she rubbed her jaw where there were burn marks and mumbled, "Fuckin' hell, man, does humanity ever catch a break? In any universe at all?"

"It does really seem like the universe has it out for us," Fleet Intelligence quipped, crossing his arms to his chest. He added, "Should we address that particular oversized animal, or not?" before seeing the momentary confusion in his newfound buddies' eyes, which was soon replaced by the realization. He told them, "There has to be something at work here."

"We'll figure it out as we go," Adama stated, "For now, we should probably be ready to leave this place."

FI Kareem nodded. He told them all, "We'll be sending coordinates to a distant asteroid field deep within a region of space near us called The Great Wastes. Thanks to deconstructing that enemy Frigate, we've got access to their Navicomputer and also know that's where the Taiidani fleet likely retreated to to make repairs. We'll retrieve as many resources as possible from the Asteroid field, then we'll strike the survivors. Wipe them out."

"Sounds good to me," Admiral Nakano replied with a professionalism masking her own seeming eagerness to destroy the enemy. She continued, "I've sent data on all ships under my command. We'll be taking point when the attack comes," then looked over at Adama and Roslin. She asked them, "You guys gonna need any form of upgrades?"

"I think we'll be alright," Adama nodded, "So… No paper to sign, no nothing?"

"We'll hash something out on the way," The Admiral stated, "Any extra second spent here is another the Taiidani get to repair, rearm and disappear," before she waved her security back to their shuttle. She looked at Adama and said, "I'll leave one of my cruisers and a few Frigates to keep the Civvie fleet safe when we jump in to deal with the enemy."

"It's much appreciated," Adama replied with a nod. Laura didn't question it, simply giving a nod of approval of her own. With that, the three sides shook hands with each-other and the Kushan and UNSC were left to depart for their own command vessels. The Commander looked at Laura and said to her, "Guess we have our answer."

Laura smiled, then told him, "Indeed…" then bid goodbye to the Admiral and Commander.

… The jump distance to the edge of the Great Wastes had been relatively short, to the point that, within a few minutes, the Fleets had reunited amidst the darkness of the void. A bright golden hue lay in the distance, the sight of what many would assume to be the center of the Galaxy. Nominally, it was usually supposed to be much tougher to see the Center of the Milky Way, but something about this place was completely off.

Admiral Nakano stared forward from aboard the Serene Mind, scratching her chin as her fleet remained the Vanguard for the allied cadre of vessels here. They presented to the battle scene twelve frigates divided evenly between Paris-classes, Charon-classes and Stalwarts, with the lattermost acting as the anti-missile and anti-fighter element, followed by seven Halberd-class Destroyers, one Phoenix-class support vessel and three Marathon-class heavies.

Not all ships were operating at one hundred percent. Several Frigates had taken heavy hits from the Covenant and one of their three Cruisers, the Arguing Semantics(a fairly ironic name, considering her captain's proclivities), had taken a glancing hit from a plasma torpedo to her stern. She was still flying, but she missed a few point-defense turrets and one of the hangar doors had been welded shut.

She sighed, watching the Kushan Mothership slowly deploying repair corvettes to try and help deal with the damage. Meanwhile, a large, about Frigate-sized vessel moved with the container-shaped resource collectors of the Kushan, yellow-and-blue vessels with teal lights. The vessel seemed to be some sort of mobile refinery that was there to ease the transfer and processing of gathered materiel. The sight of the Collectors getting to work was rather interesting, too, what with their strange energy-based collection methods slowly stripping the Asteroids…

"Admiral?" A younger voice called out, taking Eiko out of her momentary fugue. She turned her head, only to be met by the gaze of one of their navigation specialists. The Admiral gave a nod to him and waved to him to go on. He saluted and said, "We have a situation, ma'am. With Charon's help and multiple re-checks, we've… Determined something worrying."

She raised a brow and said, "Go on?"

"... We've found no common navigation markers, ma'am," The crewman replied. She blanked, eyes widening as she stared at him. He could see the woman mentally trying to rationalize what she'd just heard, but knew just how deep down the rabbit hole they were at this point. They weren't anywhere near home.

She hummed, "We that far out from Sol, son?"

He frowned, "I'm afraid it isn't just that…" before waiting to see if she wanted to hear. She nodded and showed him to go on again, which allowed him to say, "The few scientific instruments we have between ourselves and the Colonials, who are also from the Milky Way, have been processing this Data for a while. Nothing lines up, ma'am. No pulsars, the spectral lines of surrounding gases, radio and X-Ray emissions from the Galactic Center and even the apparent thickness of the Galactic disk are all wrong…"

"What could've caused this?" She asked, the gears turning in her head as panic slowly welled in her chest. There was no known physical processes that could alter a Galaxy in such a way just from one failed jump. And they couldn't have jumped time, because that was basically impossible unless some ancient alien gizmo got involved… Wait…

The Astrogation officer replied with half a mouth, "There are no known processes that could alter the Galaxy in as short a time-span as our emergency jump and arrival here, ma'am, even if millions of years have passed in-between…" all while waiting for the Admiral to realize something. When it hit, it was visible. The admiral turned pale as her uniform, to which the officer told her, "We're no longer in the Milky Way, ma'am. And we don't have the instruments to find a way home, not that we could undertake the trip as we are, anyway…"

"... Thank you for the briefing," She sighed deeply, then forced herself to calm down. Panicking now would lead to nothing but disaster, she thought. She then ordered, "Send a data package with all our findings to the Colonials and Kushan. Let them know… Set us to yellow alert and deploy a second Combat Air Patrol to reinforce the Interceptors and Vipers outside."

"Aye, ma'am," He saluted, "Should we disseminate the info throughout the Fleet?"

"Do it," She spoke, "Better not to keep anyone or anything in the dark. Dismissed," and she saluted back, then gazed outside, watching their own arrowhead-shaped silver streak-like fighters fly out to join the craft swarming around the Fleet as security. The Baselards, older Space Superiority Fighters marked as S-14s, carried two Archer missiles each on their undercarriage, plus 30mm gatling cannons in the nose, making them fairly deadly.

Longswords and a few prototype Sabres also flew with the squadrons of Baselards, with the Longswords carrying nuclear warheads for anti-ship duty. Although they'd be saved for more dangerous enemies, she thought to herself. They had a limited supply of fissile material aboard all ships, with each Frigate carrying about a dozen Harpoon nuclear missile silos.

Nevermind, then. They had a decent chunk of fissile material for now.

Alarms blared, causing her to turn about and hear, "Massive contact, incoming! Allied sensors report it as Mothership-sized!" from one of her sensor officers as she walked over to the Holo-Table and turned it on. Charon appeared beside her, arranging their cloak and waving their boney hand over the hologram. A single mark appeared, massive and slowly descending from above.

She ordered, "All ships to red alert. Charge MACs and be ready for a potential Hostile Contact," before she watched the holographic form of Karan appear beside her, causing her eyes to widen. The pale woman stared at the incoming vessel's mark on the map. The Admiral spoke, "Fleet Command… Hope your birds are ready to engage."

"We've deployed several assault Frigates in preparation," The woman stated. Her gaze locked onto Charon next as she spoke, "... A true Artificial Intelligence…? Incredible," in a whisper. She shook her head, however, then said, "We'll have to be ready. If this vessel turns out hostile, we may have a harrowing fight on our hands."

"We've already started charging weapons…" The woman spoke, then tapped a com button on the holotable and watched a second form appear, that of a connection from the Galactica, a sound synthesizer that moved each time the Commander would speak. She said, "Commander. Your fleet should have their drives spooled."

"They're ready to jump if this turns sour," The man replied, "And we're on Condition One," and the holographic display of their fleets' disposition ahead suddenly lit up with several new contacts. Starfighters deployed by the Carrier-class vessel. Radio chatter picked up from all fighter squadrons, with the Commander stating, "We've got birds out…"

"The vessel is coming into visual range," Charon spoke, their voice a myriad, neither male nor female, mixed and matched. The Admiral nodded, looked to Karan and watched her gently 'float' over to her side as they stared out of the window. They saw the swarming fighter craft and several of their Frigates turning about to meet the newcomers…

Outside, on board one of the Vipers, Lieutenant Kara Thrace, callsign 'Starbuck', gripped her controls tightly, scanning the void around them and stating, "I can't see frak yet…" as she banked gently to the right, joining up with UNSC Baselards and Kushan interceptors. A faint orange glow appeared overhead, forcing her tol ook up.

"Holy FRAK!" She barked as she barreled right, turning away with the fighters…

Though a strange-shaped vessel, what descended was not hostile for the moment. Shaped like an U with four barbs placed at the seeming bow of the ship, the vessel slowly descended toward the Joined Fleets. It was colored a strange, faded brown, with symbols etched in an alien language all over its body. It bore a strip at the bow, the very bottom of the 'U', which, according to sensors, was a weapon array.

As it descended and stopped in front of the fleets, standing between them and the resource collection job, it turned around, revealing the glowing orange internal area. It looked like a multi-layered harbor of some kind. Billboards and ads glowed in the middle of the orange, with various windows of the vessel having people visibly peering through them.

After a tense moment, Starbuck gently pulled up on her stick, blue eyes locked onto the vessel's internal as she murmured, "Frak me, that's a space mall," before banking to the left. She radioed, "Uh… Galactica? FleetCom? Admiral? How d'you guys wanna handle this?" as she watched Lee 'Apollo' Adama form up with her.

"Starbuck, Apollo, this is Galactica Actual," Commander Adama started, "Fleet Command's deploying an ambassador from the Mothership. Provide escort," to which the two Pilots replied with affirmatives. They saw the Ambassadorial shuttle depart from the right-side hangar bay of the Kushan vessel, then veered left and utilized their directional thrusters, flipping a near 180 degrees with their squadrons to form up with it.

"Vectors set. Hailing message broadcasting on all channels," The Ambassadorial crew called over the com, "Appreciate the escort, Viper wings," and the two pilots in charge of the Air Group of the Carrier cast glances back, watching as their comrades formed up in a wedge. A dozen or so fighters from all three sides were with them, too.

As the craft entered the magnetic field of the strange vessel, the Fighters gently peeled away to allow it to connect and/or board the Unknowns. Aboard the Serene Mind, meanwhile, the Admiral looked at Charon as they utilized their infiltration systems to try and get a 'look' within the unknown vessel. The flickering lines of code on the ambiguous intelligence's cape flickered with each attempt.

… Meanwhile, in the welcoming embrace of cyberspace, the AI itself sat, cross-legged and working its magic of infiltration into the systems of the strange ship ahead. Though the layers upon layers of alien code that stood before it danced in ways not yet seen before, the adaptive intrusion-counterintrusion mechanism in the AI's Core allowed it to focus on trying to break through.

As it poked the multitude of Firewalls on the ship ahead, it caught glimpses of their tongue, of their codes, of their people. For but a moment, it saw the might of a species that had lived in this Galaxy for millennia, building themselves up. It saw their trade deals and routes, it saw their beliefs. All of that data was simply shown to it.

It paused, suddenly blinded, as light exploded from the center of all this information, like a sun birthed by fusion, then the fission of the materials within. It glowed brightly, almost like the halo of an angel. The being, seemingly faceless, or with a face shrouded in a white silk shoal, stared at Charon and told it, "You are welcome to our knowledge, Unbound One… But…" the voice, that of a male, reverberating across the entire network, calm and strong… Until sadness suddenly took over, "Oh… A flicker-life, but a wink in the cosmic light… Even smaller than the normal. Your quest for knowledge is brave. May you and yours find what you seek…"

Then, the AI felt itself get kicked out of the Datastream. Charon audibly let out a gasp that caused Eiko to turn toward him with concern, asking, "You alright?!" with concern palpable in her voice. She leaned over the com, to which the AI nodded. He activated the com system to see what their friends would have to say at the very moment he saw the Kushan envoy return.

Then… That same voice boomed… "Greetings. We are the Bentusi."