Colonial One, Press Conference
Day 178 Since the Fall
The press conference on board Colonial One went on for over two hours. Commander Belzen was shelled with questions about the main fleet, Avalon, and the survivors on Picon. The Harvesters were not mentioned since Admiral Adama didn't want to scare the people of the fleet with a new enemy potentially worse than the Cylons. Although Commander Belzen didn't like the press he answered every question they asked.
After the conference, all fleet Battlestar Commanding and Executive officers were ordered to meet on Galactica to discuss future plans.
Battlestar Galactica
Wardroom
"Since Admiral Adama did not approve of my plan for a direct assault on the Cylon Colony, I made a new one. Even if we draw the Cylon fleet out of the colony it's still too powerful for all five of our Battlestars. However, instead of targeting the colony right now, we should target their fleet itself," Commander Belzen said.
"If what you say is true Commander, that there's fifty baseships out there, how do you possibly imagine us attacking fifty baseships with only five battlestars?" Commander Tigh asked.
"This plan is also risky, but not impossible," Admiral Adama said, "do you have anymore ideas Commander?"
"Yes. We can avoid the Cylon fleet as best we can until we reach the main fleet or Avalon. However the Cylons will follow us, there's no doubt about that. And when they arrive in force with the Colony ship and fifty baseships it will be a bloody battle; especially if they round up the remaining Cylon ships from the Cyrannus system. In which case any defense will be much harder. The defense grid around Avalon is still not one hundred percent ready. All resources are being diverted to the creation of new cities for survivors to live in and even repairs on Sanctuary have been slowed. However, we must slow down the Cylons before we head to Avalon. At least destroy half of their current ships before we do anything else," Commander Belzen replied.
"From your reports Commander, Admiral Stryker has more than enough ships and personnel to stop any kind of attack, but right now we need focus on our current situation. How do you plan to destroy the enemy fleet, with fifty baseships in it?" Admiral Adama asked.
"What about raiding attacks?" Commander Lee Adama interjected.
"Raiding attacks?" Commander Belzen asked.
"You mentioned that your forces destroyed several cylon ships with guerrilla style attacks," Commander Lee Adama said.
"We did, but it's not a perfect option here. The Cylons have been keeping a majority of their fleet together in groups on patrol duties. And after they lost their Resurrection ship and its escorts they won't risk a group small enough for us to attack like before. However, I have a plan that might work to our advantage with their new strategy of grouping their baseships together. It would be incredibly difficult, but it will work and we can move the civilians out of the combat zone afterward," Commander Belzen said.
"Alright Commander, we're listening," Admiral Adama said.
"Our long range scouts discovered what we believe to be a black hole, judging from it's strong gravity field that our scouts barely managed to escape. We can lure a large Cylon patrol fleet into the black hole," Commander Belzen said.
"Luring enemy forces into a black hole? If our ships detected the difference in standard cosmic gravity field then there's no chance they won't detect it as well and jump right out," Commander Tigh said.
"Hmm they probably would since the Cylons have better FTL and dradis systems. However, we can fool their sensors at least for a few moments; long enough to lure them in. They will no doubt fanatically want to destroy our fleet when they see five battlestars, and especially three Mercury class battlestars, in an apparently exposed position. It will be a very tempting target so they will jump directly to us. But they won't be jumping to the real us; they will be jumping to decoys," Commander Belzen said.
"Care to explain Commander?" Admiral Adama asked.
"Yes Admiral; we will take twenty Raptors all rigged to fly automatically without pilots on board with operators on a command ship near the gravity well, but at a safe distance from the black hole. Once they get into position we will transmit false signals, lots of them, to make it appear like our Battlestars and other ships are there. The Cylons will think it's our fleet and if we get lucky they will be naive and jump in. However, once we launch decoys from raptors, they will be also added to raptors, we will self-destruct all twenty raptors. The explosions will not be big, but if we put one nuke on one of the raptors it will completely mess with their sensors for a short time. They will jump in, and then they will be trapped," Commander Belzen said.
"And why do you think this will work?" Commander Lee Adama asked.
"I don't know for sure that it will, but what other options we have? A direct assault is not an option and with good reason; we would lose all our ships before we could destroy the colony. A direct assault on their fleet - well we may destroy 12 to 18 baseships at best, but in the end all our ships would be destroyed as well and then the Cylons will have no problem destroying the rest of the fleet. Running from them will only delay our problems and it will add them as a new problem to our main fleet and Avalon. If we can cut down even one third or half of their fleet, it will help our chances exponentially," Commander Belzen said.
"Well Commander, then we will do as you say. You will have twenty raptors prepared, how long will we need to get to the vicinity of the black hole?" Admiral Adama asked.
"Two days, since it is behind us sir," Commander Belzen said.
"And what is the plan for the rest of the fleet while we enact this operation?" Admiral Adama asked.
"Vanguard will stay near the black hole so that operators can control the raptors, the signal will probably be distorted but I hope they will succeed. One other Battlestar, the Valkyrie, will lure the cylons in and then if they take the bait jump to the location of the fleet far behind the black hole in a safe position. The rest of the fleet will be a safe distance away while we complete the operation. Once we confirm the Cylons have jumped near the black hole and are trapped we will then jump the fleet out," Commander Belzen said.
"Your chances of success?" Admiral Adama asked.
"I will not lie Admiral, no more than fifty percent. However, we must try. There is no other option," Commander Belzen said.
"Alright, then I approve the mission to go ahead," Commander Adama said.
Copernicus Colony – Battlestar Prometheus, Flag Suite
"Enter," Rear Admiral Jonathan Turner said.
Admiral Turner was well into his thirties, having served on many ships and in many battles. His last mission before the fall was Operation Outreach to find the thirteenth colony, and use the exploration data to find a habitable planet on the way there in order to establish a colony outside the Cryannus system. He was now the highest ranking military officer in the small fleet that protected the Copernicus colony. The Copernicus defense force consisted of two Nova class Battlestars Nova and Prometheus (flagship), Mercury class Battlestar Eternal and Valkyrie class Battlestar Celestial. There were also several gunstars and support ships, as well as the old battlestar from the first cylon war Battlestar Ares.
The doors opened and General John Connors walked in.
"We just received news from our scouts. Another fleet of Cylon ships have been spotted in the sector. Twenty baseships, a resurrection ship, and one large ship of unknown class that must be the flagship of the group," General Connors said.
"Hmm, it didn't take them long to send a new fleet after us," Admiral Turner replied.
"Shall we proceed as last time sir?" General Connors asked.
"No, we will not rush. Especially when we don't know anything about this new ship. I will speak with Sheba, since she's a Cylon, maybe she knows something about this new ship. I doubt our tactics will work like before. If they start to move too close to this system then we will act, but not before," Admiral Turner said.
"And what about those rumors sir? We know that Galactica survived. She's somewhere in the Promar sector, and there's also a second much larger group of colonial ships that survived elsewhere," General Connors said.
"We can not send ships out right now in search of those groups. Once we deal with this new threat then perhaps we can, but for now we need all of our ships here. Is that all General?" Admiral Turner asked.
"Yes, sir," General Connors said, saluting and then leaving the flag suite.
Day 180 Since the Fall
Battlestar Vanguard C.I.C.
"Jump completed," the helm officer said, "stabilizing the ship now."
The ship was still shaking even though they were a safe distance from the black hole; the gravity field was so powerful its effects could be felt from a great distance away.
"Compensating sir, we are at a safe distance, but we can't do anything more about the effects of the gravity on the ship even at this extreme range," the helm officer said.
"Never mind, we won't stay for long here," Commander Belzen said shortly.
Watching his XO Belzen ordered the Raptors to be deployed.
"All Raptors deployed, they are jumping into position now," Colonel Shelly Magene said.
"Sir, we have confirmation that all ships jumped safely. We are the only one left, and the Valkyrie reported that they found a Cylon fleet of ships heading towards the Raptors," the communications officer said.
"Good, let's hope Valkyrie can jump away without any problems; there are a lot of distortions out there causing our systems problems," Commander Belzen said.
Baseship 110 Command room
"We got them, they're directly in front of us," one of the number fours said.
"Hmm, something is not right, why is the signal so distorted?" Charlie Doral, leader of the assault group that consisted of twelve baseships, asked.
"There is a nebula in the vicinity. Our raiders that we sent forward haven't returned yet. I suggest we jump in and attack the colonials before they can escape again," a number four said.
"I'm not so sure, these distortions affecting our systems could be from a nebula, but it could also be from a black hole," a number two said looking at the number four.
"Our scouts didn't report any black hole in this sector. We would know if there was one," the number four said confidently.
Charlie was not an experienced Commander, so he didn't know for sure if he should continue or wait, but before he could react the only number three in the room yelled out, "we have more contacts jumping in; the rest of the fleet has arrived, including the hub and colony. And we are being hailed."
Charlie nodded to the number three, and then started speaking, "John, our sensors show colonials in front of us, but we can't be sure if they are really there, there's a lot of distortion messing with our systems which I believe is from a black hole."
"Black hole? Our charts don't show any black hole here," John Cavil said.
"Yes I know, but we can't be sure of the source of the distortions affecting our systems, and I don't want to risk our ships if a black hole is really out there," Charlie said.
"I don't want excuses. Send your ships in and destroy the colonial ships, if they escape again I will kill you myself, do you understand?" John said threateningly.
"Yes John," Charlie replied and John abruptly cut the transmission.
After the transmission ended, Charlie turned to the others.
"So, what do we do now?" Charlie asked.
"We do what John told us, we must catch those colonial ships; all ships are to jump in and attack the colonials," the number three said simply.
Colonial Decoy Raptor Force and Battlestar Vanguard at a remote/safe distance away
It's now or never Commander Belzen thought to himself when suddenly twelve red icons appeared on dradis near the location of the raptors. Decoys were fired from all the raptors to show dradis signatures of three battlestars and the raptors self destructed to remove any doubt that the decoys were anything but the real thing.
"Sir, the cylons have taken the bait, they jumped in with twelve baseships," the dradis officer said.
"Good, now it's getting interesting," Commander Belzen said with a smile.
Baseship 110 was one of the first baseships to jump to the coordinates, immediately it started shaking, and even though the ship was not too close to the black hole it was close enough to be caught in the gravity field.
Baseship 110 Command Room
"Report!" Charlie said.
"As we predicted it is a black hole," a number two said.
"Frak, get us out of here, f..." before he can say more, two of the ships near his baseship exploded, the gravity force was so strong that it moved one of the baseships directly into the path of another that just jumped in. Both ships collided with each other and exploded, the debris hitting a third baseship and taking another one with them.
"Get us out of here," Charlie yelled as the black hole started sucking in and destroying the entire Cylon fleet.
"We can't move, we jumped too close in front of the coordinates where we thought the colonial ships were but there's nothing; this was a trap," a number four said.
"A trap, frak, pull all energy to the FTL engines," Charlie said.
"You don't understand, we can not move, it's pulling us toward the black hole we can't do anything!" the lone number three said in panic.
"Damn you John Cavil, damn you Adama," Charlie said furiously.
It took only thirty minutes before all the remaining ships were within the event horizon; one after another, they were smashed to pieces and they simply disappeared.
"Valkyrie is safe, and twelve Cylon baseships were smashed by the black hole," the dradis officer said.
"Good work. Commence jump to the fleet's location," Commander Belzen said.
Moments later the Vanguard disappeared.
Cylon Colony
"No word from Charlie and his fleet, we lost contact after he jumped," Aaron Doral said.
"What the hell is going on?" John Cavil asked.
"It would be best to send heavy raider to search for his fleet, we can't risk sending anymore baseships," Leoben Conoy said.
"Yes, yes send the raider, I want answers. The last thing your brother said before his fleet jumped was that he had a lead on the colonial fleet, and he was moving to engage. And if I recall he also mentioned a black hole..." John Cavil said trailing off in realization of what could've happened.
"Is it possible that he and his fleet jumped too close to the black hole?" Simon O'Neill asked.
"I doubt he would be so stupid; their ship sensors would warn him of the danger," Aaron Doral replied.
"However it happened, we just lost contact with twelve of our ships. I want answers, what the frak happened out there!" John Cavil said.
"The heavy raider just launched, and it jumped away," one of the sixes said.
"Good, inform me when the raider returns," John said as he left the room.
Vanguard C.I.C.
"Jump completed sir," the dradis officer said, "we are at the fleet's coordinates."
"Sir, incoming message from Galactica. Admiral Adama wants to speak with you," the communications officer said.
"Very well, put him on the line," Commander Belzen said as he took hold of a communications headset.
"It is done admiral, we managed to lure in twelve baseships to the black hole with no survivors, and I doubt they will resurrect: there was way too much distortion out there," Commander Belzen said into the headset.
"Good. What is your next plan Commander, do you want to lure more of the cylon ships into traps, or do we head home?" Admiral Adama asked.
"I believe this is your call Admiral, but I think it is best that we go back with best possible speed. Though I would suggest we plan an attack on the colony before we get too far. It won't take long for the Cylons to realize what happened to their fleet, and we also don't want to be nearby when they find out," Commander Belzen said.
"Alright then, we are going back. How long do you think we would need to arrive at Avalon?" Admiral Adama asked.
"Hard to say sir, I don't know anything about this sector of space. We calculate that if we go in a straight line then about eight months at the best possible speed," Commander Belzen said.
"Some of the ships can't keep up with the others, Commander," Admiral Adama said.
"Then we resettle everyone on ships incapable of going at the needed speed to other ships and self-destruct those that can't keep up with us or dock them onto the battlestars, or even repair their engines if necessary. We can not have delays. We need to put as much distance between us and the Cylons as fast as possible and arrive at Avalon or meet the fleet as soon as we can from here," Commander Belzen said.
"Well if there are no other options, then that is what we will do, Adama out," Admiral Adama said.
After a few more minutes, all ships jump again disappearing in bright flashes. Vanguard and Chimera were the last to jump, and soon both of them disappeared together leaving no trace of the colonial fleet.
Some time later...
Cylon Colony
"The Raider returned, he didn't find Charlie's fleet," Simon O'Neill said while reading recent reports, "there's no sign of our ships or the colonial fleet, however, the trail ends near a black hole, class two."
"Your assumptions?" John Cavil asked.
After a few minutes of silence he asked again, "Anyone? I want a theory."
"The colonial forces lured Charlie's fleet into a black hole," D'Anna Biers said.
"And how did you conclude that?" Cavil asked.
"There's no battle wreckage, ours or colonial. However there is some small debris near the event horizon of the black hole, we cannot analyze it, not unless we want to jeopardize our ships. If you ask me, the colonials lured our fleet too close, and they ended up trapped inside the gravity field of the black hole," D'Anna Biers replied.
"Even if that is right, a black hole wouldn't tear our ships apart so fast, except if they jumped directly onto the event horizon. There would be more debris and it's well known that around a black hole that time is slower - time dilation," John Cavil said.
"Hmm, that works only for class three, four and higher of black holes. Class two is a small but very aggressive black hole, it's stronger than a larger one, which is a paradox. Smaller black holes do not have a large gravity field, but near the center it's aggressive and it pulls much faster than a larger one; for larger ones it would take days, years, or even centuries to get trapped from the outer part to the mid section, or her mouth if you want call it that," D'Anna explained.
"How the hell do you know so much about black holes?" John Cavil asked.
"I think that's not important, what is important is why Charlie jumped so close. Sensors on his ship must have malfunctioned, or were jammed by the colonials somehow, or they would have sensed a gravity disturbance on their sensors," D'Anna concluded.
"To cut this chat short, we lost twelve ships because your stupid brother jumped directly into a black hole believing there was a colonial fleet there. And if this was a colonial trap, it worked perfectly," John Cavil said sarcastically, glaring at Aaron Doral.
"Don't look at me, brother, you gave Charlie command of the fleet," Aaron Doral said disdainfully.
"Yes I did, it was my mistake. That mistake will not happen again," John Cavil said.
It was the first time John Cavil admitted to a mistake, his own mistake, not made by others. However nobody had the guts to smile or say something about it. Losing twelve ships was a major blow, and if this wasn't bad enough there was a second problem for the Cylons to deal with. A rebellion, within their own ranks. Some human cylons didn't approve of John's plan from the start, and now they were actively working to put a stop to the war and John's plans. Even as he tried to find out exactly which Cylons the rebels were, he had thus failed so far. He had his suspicions of the leaders though.
"Can we track Galactica's fleet?" John Cavil asked.
"I am afraid not, they are not on their standard course. And we haven't heard anything yet from our spies with the fleet. We lost them, but I believe they have changed their course of direction, only where to and which direction of space I am not sure," Leoben said.
"Hmm, a pure disaster. We should send a ship behind the black hole, something tells me if they want to hide their trail they would go in that direction, towards the Terminus sector," Cavil said.
"Are you sure, it would not be best to return to the Cyrannus system?" Aaron Doral asked.
"Yes that's my plan, I want to visit my dear brothers. Three battlestars, two of which were supposed to be in our hands and one destroyed, came to the aid of Galactica. My brothers will have lots of questions to answer. Set course to Cyrannus, and send one ship toward the Terminus sector. If the ship finds the trail of Galactica, then we will send a detachment of twenty baseships to intercept them and destroy them once for all," John Cavil said, getting up and walking out of the room.
As he walked out of the room, he said quietly to himself, "Morons, I am surrounded by morons."
Avalon system – Avalon Colony
Governer Miral Shkan sat in his office in the tallest, and really the only building of its size that was completed in the city. The town had quickly grown into a city; changing its name three times so far and now it had been renamed Calgaris – named for a province on Caprica that once had a town with the same name. But after Caprica was destroyed, it was believed that at least one name of the cities or provinces from Caprica should be used on Avalon to raise moral. Commander Salveng, current commander of the Battlestar Sword, entered the room.
"Commander," Governer Miral Shkan said shortly, gesturing for him to sit down in one of the chairs. After the Commander sat down Governer Miral Shkan started talking about why he had called the Commander to his office, "As you know, Commander Krasner ordered all ships into Grey mode believing that the threat of those harvesters is real; I was interested in hearing your own opinion."
"Sir, I do not know for what purpose you sent for me, but I must agree with Commander Krasner's orders. We cannot afford to draw the attention of those drones, not at this time. And I support his decision," Commander Salveng said.
"That is all I wanted to hear, but I need you and your ship for a mission," Governor Miral Shkan said.
"What kind of mission?" Commander Salveng asked.
"You will scout around with the Sword. We need to know what is around us, Commander Krasner is keeping us all blind. Without knowing what is around us we can not know what we have to deal with," Governor Miral Shkan said.
"Is this the Commander's order?" Commander Salveng asked.
"It is my order, and I expect you to follow it," Governor Miral Shkan said.
"Sir, I follow orders only from Commander Krasner, he is after all responsible for all military units here. You on the other hand can give your orders only to the civilians, and those of the military that Commander Krasner allows," Commander Salveng said.
"I already spoke with Krasner, and he agreed, he didn't like it but he agreed to the mission. If you don't believe me, do you want to speak with Krasner?" Governor Miral Shkan asked glaring at Commander Salveng.
"No of course not, I believe you governor," Commander Salveng said quickly, not wanting to take the case up with Commander Krasner if he had already approved the mission. Commander Salveng was a young man in his mid twenties. He had been the Commander of the Battlestar Sword for a month, while the old commander was replaced and settled onto the surface to coordinate with surface constructions. Commander Krasner believed that a military officer would do it better then some engineer or civilian constructor. Prior to that, he had been the executive officer on the Sword since the beginning of the mission long before the Cylons attacked. Young and inexperienced, Salveng didn't know to see if the words from the Governor were true or not, and since the Governor offered him the chance to ask the Commander for confirmation of the mission then he believed the mission must have been approved.
Governor Shkan didn't have bad intentions, but since the time when a higher level of security was added there had been no exploration or scout missions allowed. Nobody actually knew what lay within and around the Avalon system, and that was the simply scary to many people like Governor Miral Shkan. A beacon in the dark, as the Governor had said many times. And his choice to send a battlestar instead of a gunstar was simple: in case the Sword found some trouble it would have much more chance of escape to report back than a gunstar.
"That will be all, here is a list of coordinates for nearby systems that you will visit. Under no circumstances are you to jump within the system where Sanctuary was or any of its surrounding systems. And you will try to stay out of sight of the harvesters in case you run into them. If you must, put your entire ship into black mode and act as debris, but do not engage them except if you have no choice but to defend yourself. Is that understood?" Governor Miral Shkan said looking piercingly into Commander Salveng's eyes.
"Yes Governor," Commander Salveng said.
After that, the Commander left the room. In normal times, a Governor had access to military assets and could use them in dangerous situations or to hunt pirates, smugglers, and criminals. But this war was not like normal times. And using the only battlestar available to the colony for this mission was damn risky, but it had to be done. Commander Krasner would find out about this, and would be furious, but someone had to do it. If he didn't have the balls to do it, and follows every order Admiral Stryker says, then I will, Governer Miral Shkan thought to himself. Admiral Stryker is light years away from here, with a large fleet of military and civilians and is well protected, what does he know?
After Commander Salveng returned to his ship he ordered the Sword to jump to the first coordinates; to a system that was code named D81 Coronet. It was a binary star system with two stars orbiting each other. One yellow star, and a small white dwarf star. Orbiting the stars were fourteen planetary bodies, six of which were solid planets and the rest were simply gas giants. There were also dozens of moons and large asteroid belts on the edges of the system. It was an ideal place to start exploring. However, Commander's Salveng's mission was not to explore every single cosmic object in the system, merely the solid planets and moons that could possibly support life or be terraformed to support life.
It didn't take long before Commander Kranser realized that a ship from the defense fleet was missing. He rushed toward the planet to confront the Governor.
"Come in," Governor Miral Shkan said.
The doors opened and Commander Krasner entered the room calmly, the look on his face showing how furious he was despite his calm actions.
"Tell me governor, can you explain why one of my ships has been diverted and why it jumped away? Why you ordered Commander Salveng to jump away with our only battlestar?" Commander Krasner asked fuming with barely contained anger.
"Exploration, Commander, for exploration," Governor Miral Shkan said quietly.
"Are you mad?! What part of Admiral Stryker's order is not clear? Do you even know what kind of danger is threatening us governor, do you?" Commander Krasner asked slamming his hands down on the desk in front of Governer Miral Shkan.
"You're exaggerating Commander. I realize there may be danger around; after all this sector is mostly unknown to us. And after what we found on the dead world, yes, you and Admiral have every right to be on alert. However, tell me Commander, what do you know about the systems that surround this one?" Governor Miral Shkan asked.
"Frankly I don't know much, except the probes and scouts we sent that visited a few neighboring systems, nothing more," Commander Krasner said.
"Precisely. Let's say, we encounter those harvesters. I mean we encounter them here. Sooner or later they will come here after all. Where do we go, where do we hide? There are no underground bunkers and shelters to hide the people that are currently on Avalon. They are not being built, since all resources are going to future habitats for survivors. I told Admiral Stryker that we need to have one more planet, to terraform it if needed; in case the Cylons or these harvesters find Avalon. To hide and protect our people. But he refused. My duty is to protect the civilians, as is yours and it may look like this was done risking the safety of the colony, but on the other hand it could protect it if we know what is around us. I gave Commander Salveng orders not to engage the harvesters, and he will avoid them at all costs," Governor Miral Shkan said.
"That may not be enough Governor. He may avoid contact, but if they get his ship on scanners they will engage him and possibly destroy the Battlestar Sword. The Battlestar Sword is our best defense that is now nowhere to be seen at Avalon leaving us with a gaping hole in our defenses until it hopefully returns," Commander Krasner said.
"Best defense? Excuse me, but what about Invictus and the rest of the gunstar fleet?" Governor Miral Shkan said angrily.
"Invictus is more of a mobile base and shipyard than a ship itself, and with all those docks and addons it is not mobile anymore. It can serve as a fortress and base of command, but it can not move and it cannot intercept the enemy. Additionally, gunstars do not have the firepower of a battlestar nor its number of fighters. You risked the safety of this Colony Governor, and I must report this to Admiral Stryker," Commander Krasner said.
"Go ahead, I did what is best for our people. I will tell the Admiral what I told you," Governor Miral Shkan said.
"I hope you are right Governor," Commander Krasner said.
Edge of the Coronet system
Battlestar Sword passed by each planet and their moons, but none of them were capable of supporting life. The ship was at condition one since Commander Salveng didn't want to be caught off guard, especially not in unexplored territory. Only the alert fighters were out, flying in formations of two or three all around the battlestar. While all the other squadrons were on standby in case they were needed.
"So far so good Commander," Colonel Chelys said.
"Don't get complacent, we have no idea what we may find out here. This system has too many planets and moons," Commander Salveng replied.
"Dradis, is there anything out there?" Colonel Chelys asked.
"Nothing sir, all clear," the dradis officer said.
"You worry too much Commander; it's a big, cold, and clear system," Colonel Chelys said dismissively.
"I don't know, but I have a feeling that something is watching us. Something is out here, call me paranoid but I simply know," Commander Salveng said. From his childhood Salveng had always known when someone was watching or following him, he had a sixth sense that simply told him this. He was right, at least this time, something was following them and observing the unknown ship that had shown up in the system looking around.
...
No one on the Sword noticed that they were in fact being followed. There was a long dark ship, barely seen in the darkness and light of the space. It followed the battlestar in deadly silence. It was invisible on dradis and other sensor systems. Even invisible to the naked eye at long range. But the ship was actually painted black, with many of the ships parts having reflective dark panels on the hull that deflect any kind of light and thus made the ship invisible. A stealth system, definitely more advanced than anything the colonials had.
On the top of the ship was a small observation deck, in severe dark blackness with the only light coming from the stars outside, however there was an emergency blue light on the edges of the floor.
There were two men inside, both humans. Dressed in a dark blue uniform, both men wore badges of unknown origin, dark in appearance like they were made from obsidian.
One of the men spoke, "Do we know anything about this ship?"
He was tall with dark hair, his green eyes like two malachite gems staring into the abyss, watching the Battlestar Sword as she slowly cruised toward the edge of the system. In colonial terms he was in his mid fifties. The second man was younger, maybe in his late twenties, and he was also tall with brown eyes.
"Nothing, it jumped into the system about two hours ago, and from that time it passed from one to another planet in the system, scanning and moving toward the next one. It also passed near two dozen moons. The ship has an interesting design, I would say it would be perfect without those two large pods on each side of the ship. I believe it's for fighters and smaller support crafts. From our sensors, the ship is very well armored. But other systems are relatively primitive. Kinetic energy weapons - though even as primitive as they are they can create pretty large amounts of damage in everything they hit, missiles - large amounts of them, and from the radiation signature the ship's carrying nuclear weapons, probably within small yields; five, ten, maybe twenty megatons. There's a point defense grid that's clearly created against fighters and missiles. The ship is not equipped for a fight against shielded targets, only ships as well armored as itself. It's sensors are primitive, however advanced enough to detect any FTL movement in the system, and maybe beyond. And the ship has an FTL drive based on a large fusion reactor connected to smaller batteries that power the ship's main and secondary systems," the younger man said.
"Your opinion about the ship's mission?" the older man asked.
"From the looks of it, I would say it's a military ship with a large number of fighters and support crafts. Clearly a mix between a carrier and battleship. Now about it's mission, this ship looks like it can be used in many tasks; from military, civilian, and exploration. Spying though is definitely not it's purpose due to it's large size and it's high energy emissions; even if they shut down every non essential part of the ship," the younger man replied.
"Anything familiar about it?" the older man asked.
"Actually yes, zoom in on section one-seven," the younger man said as the screen he was looking at zoomed in on the Sword's back; between the cannons there was a colonial logo, red with golden strips on each sides.
"I recognize this, the last ship we encountered in the Dothali system had the same symbol except it was green and yellow instead of red and gold. And that one was five times bigger. This ship belongs to the same people as that ship. With one exception; the ship we encountered was called Sanctuary and was powered by an anti-matter drive, but had similar armaments and defenses like this one, on a larger scale. This ship doesn't posses anti-matter engines," the younger man said.
"But that is not so important, what is important is the fact that it belongs to the same people: humans. If I had to guess, this is the sign of the twelve colonies of Kobol," said the older man, pointing at the red-gold sign on the Sword's back.
"We haven't been in colonial space for almost thirty years. Why would they be so far from home?" the younger man asked.
"Exploration probably, we detected similar emissions in a nearby system. One of our ships confirmed the presence of a few large objects in orbit of one of the planets, and lots of signs of life on the surface of the planet. We believe it is a colony," the older man said.
"Again I must ask, why would they risk to come so far from home and make a colony here? From all the parts of the galaxy, in this the most dangerous area," the younger man said.
"Probably because they do not know about the dangers lurking here. Their technology is primitive, but they are capable of defending themselves from the Harvesters. Unfortunately they've already encountered them," the older man said sadly.
"They have?" the younger man asked in surprise.
"Yes, but we will leave this for another time. We will continue to follow this ship. We have a chance to observe our long lost brothers and sisters," the older man said.
"If they really are humans from Kobol, when will we make contact with them?" the younger man asked.
"Soon. We need to inform the council about this first," the older man said.