Sons And Daughters Of Earth:Ten Worlds' AU(AV:T; no Whatever)/B5 AU(sort of)/GINO/BSG Crossover Fic

[U.P. Cinnabar]

2275.02.12 18:29:00 GMT

The shrilling of the klaxon, and Capitaine de frégate Natalia Laren's voice shouted "Stations de combat! Stations de combat! Skipper to CIC, tout suite, Skipper to CIC, tout suite!" over the 1-MC sent Capitaine de vaisseauSyuzen Syuzyenka Ivanova scrambling from the sofa in Astronef de la Nations Féderées Gennadi Ivanovich Koniev's wardroom, and up the ladder leading to the 10,000-ton Churchill-class heavy patrol cruiser's Combat Information Center.

"Ma Capitaine," the photinics tech, Quartier-maitre de 1re classe Etienne Hollande, as S'yuzen took her station, and sealed up her suit,"Marine d'Etoile base at AD Leonis reporting possible multipleenemy Chernekov radiation signatures, at plus fifteen by fifteen-t'irty, one-'undred AU downrange, and closing at 3,000 kips. Base wants us to intercept and investigate."

"How many is multiple, Quartermaster?" S'yuzen asks.

"Radar and electromagnetic spectrum telemetry indicates approximately 221 distinct contacts, Madame," was Hollande's reply.

"Suka!" Syuzen whispered, as all stations reported in:

"Aux Con secure. Reporting multiplex fire online, point-defense arrays, green boards."

"Engineering standing by to retract radiators. Green boards."

"Navigation calculating intercept; hyperdrive online, standing by to execute Theta jump."

"Helm cancelling decel for AD Leonis Base, flipping ship; all decks, 50G counter-burn in five."

"Guns. Mounts Alfa One and Alfa Two, Bravo One and Bravo Two, Charlie One and Charlie Two, Delta One and Delta Two, Echo One and Echo Two, Foxtrot One and Foxtrot Two, green boards."

"Missile deck. All missile bays show green boards."

"All spaces report secure," Laren said to Syuzen, from her station at her commander's left.

Syuzen nodded.

"Quartermaster," she asked Hollande,"what else can you tell me about those contacts?"

"Telemetry from largest contact indicates it is between five and seven million tons; am detecting possible weapons power signatures, though I cannot tell for sure at this range. Vessel has launched ten smaller bogeys, approximately ten to twelves tons apiece."

"Colonial, then," Syuzen concluded, as Capitaine de corvette Simone Montigny announced,"Navigation to all hands, prepare for Theta jump, I say again, prepare for Theta jump."

Then, she stabbed a red key on the nav station's virtual keyboard, the Koniev whined and shrieked, Syuzen's teeth rattled, and the ship jumped.

Day 42.Yahren 38 Post-Holocaust(PH) 12:11:06

"Battle stations!' came entirely too easily from his lips these days.

Colonel Starbuck, executive officer of the Battlestar Galactica in the five yahren since Tigh's death, stood behind a man he used to know, as the klaxon howled, and the bridge lighting turned blood red.

"Stand by all laser batteries," Apollo further ordered."Ready all mega-pulsars; arm all air-to-air missiles!"

"Positive shield," Starbuck ordered, the armored shutters closing out the view of the inbound spacecraft on the main screen."Launch all remaining Vipers."

"She's a warship, all right," the Galactica'sstrike commander, Captain Sheba, reported."Sensors detecting charged laser cannon, missiles, and railguns. She'll be in range of the fleet in approximately five centons."

"Then," decided Apollo summarily, "we have no choice—"

"Commander—"

It's "Commander," these days.

Not "Apollo."

Not for a long time.

"—we don't even know who they are," Starbuck insisted.

"It doesn't matter who they are, Colonel," Apollo wearily replied."We have a fleet that can't wait, until we're all blown out of the sky, before we decide whether or not that ship out there is hostile."

"Unknown vessel maintaining course and speed," the flight officer reported.

"Galactica to Silver Spar Leader," Apollo said.

"Commander!" Starbuck objected.

"Captain Sheba," Apollo said, ignorning his executive officer,"your squadron will engage that ship."

"Apollo?" Sheba asked.

"You heard what I said!" Apollo snapped.

"I heard," his wife whispered in reply.

"Lords Of Kobol, forgive us all," whispered Starbuck.

2275.02.12 18:31:48 GMT

"They're coming in on attack vector!" Capitaine de corvette Ansel Holloway reported from Tactical, as the ten fighters on Koniev's master holodisplay burned toward intercept."Estimate twenty seconds to point-defense zone."

"Stand by to—" Syuzen started to say, before a study of the tactical holodisplay at her left hand revealed several anomalies.

Those fighters were each armed with a pair of lasers...similar to those Koniev used for point-defense.

They'd sting like hell, but they certainly lacked the punch of the missiles and 30-millimeter railguns the Colonials' Vipers are armed with.

Supposedto be armed with.

These fighters might look like their Vipers, telemetry showed they weren't packing KEW of any kind.

"Helm," Syuzen ordered,"two seconds at fifty grav, hard right and down! Continue evasives! Tactcal, hold all fire for my mark, but continue calculating firing solutions! Engineering, button us up! Intel, weapons fit on Bogeys One through Eleven?"

"Bogey One," Lieutenant de vaisseau Julia Tavernier reported,"appears to be armed with lasers, of various types, and antimatter-catalyzed thermonuclear ordinance."

"Skipper," she added, not believing her own intelligence assessment,"according to what the sensors are saying—"

The red CIC lighting dimmed briefly, as three of the ten fighters simoultaneously scored minor hits on the Koniev's fifty centimeters of tungsten-cryogenic lithium-depleted uranium armor.

"CIC, Engineering," reported Capatine de corvette Valerie Botsleidner,"no penetrations, no damage."

"—none of those craft are armed with KEW of any kind," the incredulous Tavernier continued with her report."But...but, they should be...."

"Thirty additional fightercraft now inside point-defense zone," Hollande reported.

"Maybe this is a new variant," Holloway suggested.

"Can't put meaningful laser firepower on a twelve-ton fighter," Laren stated."They have to use nukes or KEW; even the Colonials know that."

"Ma capitaine," Hollande stated still another anomalous bit of data aloud,"none of those other ships is armed. With anyt'ing."

"They do, Number One," Syuzen answered Laren."Intel, fighter complement of a Jupiter-class battlestar?"

"Normal complement, eighty Vipers, forty Raptor multi-role SWAC ships," was Tavernier's instant and immediate reply.

"And," Syuzen observed,"I see no Raptors, and only forty 'Vipers.'"

"Cherenkov radiation pattern," Hollande reported,"zero by twelve-five, 20,000 klicks downrange. It's 'eracles, ma Capitaine."

"Comms, tell Captain Leavitt to hold fire, but otherwise maintain offensive posture," Syuzen said."Then, bring the translation software on line, and put me on with Bogey One."

"Are you sure?" Laren asked.

"No," Syuzen replied honestly, as she said over comms:

42.Y38PH 12:13:47

"Attention, unknown battlestar off my bow," a woman's image said on the bridge monitor."I am the warship Gennadi Ivanovich Koniev, of the Nations Fédereés du Terre. We have assumed an offensive posture, but we are not prepared to engage at this time. I say again, we have assumed an offensive posture, but we will not fire, unless fired upon by your vessel. Please respond."

"She knows this ship is a battlestar," Apollo observed.

"Yeah," Starbuck was quick to remind his commander,"but she hasn't attacked us. Hell, she hasn't even engaged our Vipers, even after they scored hits on her."

"Those hits had no effect against her armor!" Apollo reminded him. "She knows our Vipers can't hurt her ship."

"Then, she should have tried her luck with the Galactica by now." Starbuck replied."Why hasn't she?"

"Maybe she—" Apollo started to say.

"Maybe," an exasperated Starbuck snapped,"just may be,for once, Commander, we aren't facing someone who wants us or the gallmocking fleet dead!"

"Are you willing to gamble the lives of everyone in this fleet on that hope?!" Apollo snapped, as he bent over the primary bridge console.

Starbuck bit back an insolent remark from an earlier self, and simply, quietly replied:

"Adama would have."

Apollo's flinched, tensed, as he stood up straight, fists clenched at his sides.

"My father's dead, Colonel," he coldly whispered.

"I was there,Commander," Starbuck softly reminded his commander.

A tense silence passed, as long, and as distant as the thirty yahren, since the Others first attacked.

Since they'd murdered Adama aboard their battlestar Galactica.

"Put me on comms," Apollo finally said to the flight officer.

"Standing by, Commander," the flight officer replied.

"This is Commander Apollo of the Battlestar Galactica," Apollo said,"to the warship Koniev. The fleet under my protection holds the last survivors of our civilization."

2275.02.12 18:34:07 GMT

"Before I endanger their lives," the holo of a visibly-careworn old man told Syuzen,"I want to know what assurances you can give me that you won't attack the micron we let our guard down?!"

"Am detecting over fifty t'ousand life signs aboard those ships, ma Capitaine," Hollande said.

"That confirms it, Skipper," Tavernier commented."According to Intel, the Colonial battlestar Galactica was last known to have been commanded by William Adama."

"That's not William Adama," she then stated the blatantly obvious.

"Another alternate reality," Laren remarked."Bozhe moi,was one not bad enough?!"

Syuzen mused for a moment.

Remembering.

Sixty-one years ago.

When damn fools had triggered the alien artifact now known as the Ring of Fire in the Solar Oort Cloud.

And, chertov Colonial battlestars had come boiling through the resulting space-time anomaly like a swarm of rats, hellbent upon holocaust.

"Maybe we won't have to fight this one," the commander of the AdNF G.I. Koniev said aloud, as she keyed the comm button.

"Unless we trust each other, Commander," she plainly stated to this Apollo,"the answer to that is no assurances at all."

Silence, the older man's dark eyes hard, dead at the same time, a greying blonde man behind him telling him,"she's right, Commander, we—"

The older man put up his hand up to silence his subordinate.

"You identified this ship as a battlestar," he accused."How did you know what we are?! How do I know you aren't in league with the Others?!"

"Others?!" Syuzen asked, wanting clarification, before answering.

"The Other Colonists," Apollo replied, breaking off every word. "Are you of the same tribe as them?!"

"I don't think we are, Commander," Syuzen replied, almost certain she knew who these "Others" are,"and I won't insult you by asking you that same question.

We have, for the last sixty-one years, been at war with a human nation who uses craft similiar to your own as their primary capital warships; they call themselves the Twelve Colonies of Kobol—"

"Dear Lord!" whispered the blonde man."Commander—"

Again, Apollo motions his subaltern to silence.

"—have to check our intelligence to be sure," Syuzen finished,"but I think we might have a common enemy, if not a common cause."

Another silence, as Apollo was forced to contemplate this possibility.

When he spoke again, it was as if the words were being dragged from him by rack and thumbscrew:

"I think...I think we might have at that, Captain. I'd like to discuss that, aboard the Galactica, if that is acceptible to you."

"Of course," Syuzen replied, as Apollo terminated communications.

"Is that...wise, Skipper?" Laren asked.

"Probably not, Number One," Syuzen replied,"but I'm going anyway. Helm, cease evasives, and match vectors with Galactica; all hands to remain at combat stations, until further notice. Number One, you have the ship and the conn."

[U.P. Cinnabar]

It should be noted that I screwed up. It should be "commandante," instead of "capitaine," and, there is my God, and my ass, but no "my captain," as they say in the French Navy. Since I can't edit that post, I'll fix it in the rest. Apologies.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

2275.02.12 18:43:00

The ten Fusiliers Marins came to attention, when Syzuen entered the chamber at the foot of the ladder leading to one of Koniev'stwo Komet assault shuttles docked externally to the mast between the sphere which was the ship's main section, and the spiky ball holiding her antimatter-fusion reactors and torch.

"At ease," Koniev's commander told them, after returning their salutes.

She fussed with her dress black and golds a final time, adjusted the saucer cap on her head, and ascended the ladder, the section of Fusiliers Marins following her, with their commander, Lieutenant de vaisseau Alice Graves, being the last to climb up into the Komet's troop deck.

Not much room on a 50-ton assault shuttle's troop deck for anything other than jump seats bolted to the downward-hinged deck on either side, Syzuen buckling herself into one nearest the cockpit, checking the restraints, even as Alice checked them herself.

"All secure, commandant," the commander of Koniev's Fusiliers Marins company said, before belting herself in across the deck, and telling the Komet's pilot to "undock, and none of your usual insanity this time, si'vous plait. We have the Commandant with us, and I don't think she wants to be smashed like a bowl of eggs, n'est ce pas?"

"You never let me have any fun, capitaine." was the expected reply from Premier-maitre Alisha Roberts, as the young(and technically-insane)pilot undocked her ride from Koniev, and, with the gentlest nudge from the Komet's torch and RCS thrusters, she matched vectors with a waiting squadron of "Vipers," as they escorted the shuttle to the Galactica'sportside flight pod.

Syzuen was patched into the Komet's sensors through her wearable, and it was an effort not to flinch, as she saw the battlestar through the shuttle's forward cam.

It's not one of their battlestars, the thirty-two year veteran Marine d'Etoile commander had to remind herself.

As difficult as it is not to see that, and think of all those closest to her that the Kobold bastards had taken from her.

She sighed, heading off the tears, trying to anyway.

Fourteen years.

Talia's death at Wolf 359 still hurt.

Not as much, now, maybe, with Sondra in her life, but still....

Another sigh.

She could go on like this for hours, and not just Talia, but Marcus, Ganya, Commandant Sinclair, her parents.

But, now wasn't the time for that.

She wiped her face with her handkerchief, as the Komet entered the Galactica's port landing bay, and Syuzen took a last, deep breath to steady herself, as the shuttle touched down on the deck.

42.Y38PH 12:23:14

Commander Apollo of the Colonial Battlestar Galactica fussed with his blue dress uniform, squared his shoulders, and forced all memory of the acrimonious, just-concluded Council session from his mind, before he stepped off onto the deck of Landing Bay Alpha, a score of warriors at his side, as the alien shuttlecraft and its escorting Vipers settled gently onto their landing skids.

The sergeant commanding the score ordered the warriors to attention, as a hatch swung open on the shuttle's belly, a ladder lowered, and ten of their warriors, wearing black dress uniforms and blue berets, and brandishing rifles of some sort, formed a rank directly opposite the score of Galactica's own warriors, as the woman he'd talked with descended onto the landing deck, turned on her heel, and came to attention in front of her warriors,

"Capitaine de vaisseau Syuzen Ivanova, of the Koniev," she introduced herself.

"Commander Apollo, of the Battlestar Galactica," Apollo said, as Ivanova and he firmly shook hands.

"Pleased to meet you, at last, Commander," Ivanova then said.

"Welcome aboard the Galactica, Capitaine de vaisseau."

"Commandant, if you please, Commander," Ivanova replied."And, thank you."

Apollo nodded, then reluctantly said,"if you'd please come with me, Commandant, the Council of the Twelve—"

Even more useless now, than when the Colonies had fallen in the first place, he silently remarked.

"—are eager to meet with you."

"The Council of—" Ivanova started to ask.

"The leaders," Apollo explained, lying through his teeth the entire time,"of our Colonies. Before our worlds fell to our enemies, the people of each colony would elect a represenative to the Council, and, from among themselves, elect a President."

Ivanova and he stepped onto the lift leading up into the Galactica's main decks, as he elaborated further:

"My father was the only member of the originial Council to survive the Holocaust; the fleet—over 200 ships crammed full of every one we could get, before the Cylons came—elected another eleven Councillors to take the places of the ones who'd been lost."

And, since that day, Apollo bitterly observed,they had done nothing except hinder Father at every step on our journey.

Until the day they sent him to his death.

42.Y38PH 12:25:00

"Well," Starbuck forced himself to joke,"hello, stranger."

"Starbuck," Boomer—Sire Boomer these last thirty yahren—said, the now-Council member joining Galactica's second in command at the bridge command console.

"Starbuck," he said, without further preamble,"you have to try and talk some sense into—"

"The Commander and I," Starbuck, not facing Boomer, replied distantly,"haven't been on speaking terms for a long time, you know that, Boomer."

"Doctor Williker's team has been translating the communications you received from that ship out there—"

Now six ships out there, all big balls attached by long spines to somewhat-smaller, spiky balls, but....

"—the word 'Terre,' " Boomer continued,"is a word in one of their languages which means 'Earth.' "

"Earth?" Starbuck said, dubious."As in, the lost thirteenth tribe, Earth? That Earth?"

"That's...yeah," Boomer replied.

Starbuck was silent a long time, as he contemplated this bitter irony.

Finally giving voice to it:

"Almost forty frackin' yahren, Boomer, forty gallmocking frackin' yahren, we've been running, fighting, bleeding, and dying our way across the stars, and finally, we meet people who may be from this lost tribe we started out after so long ago.

At the exact point, when many in the fleet stopped believing they even existed."

"For a while," Boomer took his time to reply,"I wasn't so sure myself, old friend."

"Neither was I," Starbuck admitted.

"Apollo..." he started to add, trailing off.

"There isn't much he believes in, anymore," Starbuck started over."He believes in Earth only somewhat less than he does in the Council of Twelve."

"I can't help you, Boomer," he said, the weight of yahren and sadness tinging his words.

"I don't even know if anyone can help him."

42.119 Anno Colonidae(AC) 19:40:31

"I have solid DRADIS contacts," Warrant Officer Gavin "Whizzer" Whitehead reported,"and sensor telemetry."

"I think," Whizzer added,"we found them, sir."

"I think we have, Whizzer," acknowledged Lieutenant Peter "Junkyard Dog" Goodman, as he studied the Raptor's DRADIS and sensor returns.

"Now, we can call in the Galactica, and finish the frakking job," Junkyard Dog added, a not-unjustified sense of triumph coloring his voice,"and give those gods-damned Terrans a bloody nose at the same time."

"Let's head back to the barn," he said, already plotting the FTL jump back to Galactica and the rest of her battlestar group.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

2275.2.12 18:51:15

"Burn 'em!" snapped Capaitaine de frégate Natalia Laren over her wearable's mic, even as one Koniev's four 200-nanometer ultraviolet-wavelength lasers reached out from the Delta Two mount to slash through space, an invisible beam shaft of hot light ripping through the Kobold Raptor an instant later.

But not fast enough.

"They transmitted just before they went up, commandante," the watchstander at comms reported.

"Chert bozheny," Natalia swore.

"Inform the Skipper," she then said. "The Heracles, as well."

It was to be expected; with the former Centauri outpost in the Epsilon Eridani A system—a Theta jump away from AD Leonis—now a Kobold fleet base, their discovery of these other Colonials would've happened sooner or later.

She'd just rather it had been later.

So it will be sooner, then, she mused, accepting what she couldn't change,how much sooner, only God and the Kobolds themselves know.

With that in mind, and the ship's radiators withdrawn into the hull, she uses her station's multi-function display to echo the master engineering board.

Heat's nominal, for now, she pondered.For now. We can hold out for another fifteen, maybe twenty minutes like this, but, that's also fifteen to twenty minutes less that we'll have, if the Kobolds show up now, and it comes down to a fight.

On the other hand, if I order Engineering to extend the radiators, as I know Val's going to ask for in a few moments, and the Kobolds show up, those would be the first things the bastards target, and we'd be in the shit for sure.

Can't even flip a coin, she further muses.Diamagnetics only work to counter the ship's thrust, when the ship is under thrust, so no articifical gravity, and the coin would just float and become a potential hazard.

She nods her head a bit.

Err on the side of caution, or err on the side of prudence, either way, it's still a mistake.

But, I've made those before, haven't I?

"Engineering, Combat," Natalia said over comms."Extend the radiators and stand by. Hollande, keep a sharp eye on your passive suite. Scream in my ear at the first whiff of Chernekov radiation."

"You will know about any Kobolds, before they do, ma commandante."

"Dans la Marine d'Etoile," Talia reminded Hollande—a relatively recent transfer from the Armee de l'Air,"il y a mon Dieu et mon cul. Pas 'mon capitaine.' "

"Mais la Commandant est notre Dieu, et vous etes sa main droite, n'est ce pas, commandante?" Hollande joked.

Natalia quirked her mouth .

"Mind your boards, Quartermaster," she admonished him.

2275.2.12 18:51:18

"You see, Commandante," their leading scientist, who'd introduced himself as Doctor Wilker, explained,"we believe all Humans came from the same mother civilization, which flourished on the planet Kobold hundreds of thousands of yahren ago.

We know, for sure, our Twelve Colonies were founded by twelve groups of colonists—"

"Tribes," Apollo testily said, as he stood behind the head of the table in Galacitica's Council chambers, Wilker pendantically droning on:

"—or tribes, who escaped the cataclysm which overcame our mother world.

We believe—rather, our sacred text, the Book of the Word—"

"Relying on myths and legends," commented Apollo,"was what put our people in the felgercarb in the first place."

"Language, please, Commander," admonished a handsome, patrician woman in a long, simple dress, as she sat nearer the foot of the table."Our guest—"

"If I could be allowed to continue," Wilker snapped.

"Yes, Doctor," Apollo cynically replied,"by all means, please continue regaling our guest with fairy tales and fantasies."

"The Book of the Word," a distinguished, older black man, also simply dressed, said from the head of the Council table,"tells of a thirteenth tribe which set out from Kobol during the Cataclysm, toward a planet called Earth."

Syzuen, seated along the bulkhead nearer the foot of the Council chambers , and, frankly was about to fall asleep from sheer boredom, sat bolt upright at the man's last word.

"Earth?!" she replied,"As in...Earth?!"

"It's a fable," Apollo bitterly reassured her."Nothing more, even if some in this room are too foolish to realize—"

"Commander," the black man snapped,"may I remind you that the 'fools' to whom you refer are the Council of the Twelve?!"

"And," was Apollo's nasty retort,"as the President well knows, I am painfully aware those fools of whom I speak are our people's elected represenatives."

"You would do well to remain aware of that fact, Commander," the black man cautioned Apollo.

"Oh, I am, Sire President," Apollo coldly stated."Only too well."

It was at that point Syuzen's wearable bleeped for her attention.

"Commandante," the holo of one of Koniev's comm techs said.

"Please excuse me," Syuzen said to Apollo and the assembled Councillors."This should only take a moment."

"Of course," the Council President said, as Syuzen got up from her chair, and stepped outside the Council chambers.

"Ivanova on line, go!" she said, her 2ic's holo taking the place of the watchstander at comms, Natalia delivering bad news with her usual indecent haste:

"We've just burned a Kobold Raptor, Commandant. Tavernier suspects it was just one of their usual recon patrols into our system, but, they know about our visitors who are like them, but not them."

"Shit!" Syuzen softly interjected.

"Which is what we're going to be in for, and soon, I suspect," Laren told her flat out.

"Yeah," Syuzen replied. "Alert Base Command, and you'd better let Earthdome itself in on the loop."

"Done and done, Commandante," was the kind of answer Syuzen had come to expect from her second.

42.Y38PH 12:45:18

Boomer took no time at all to corner Apollo and demand:

"Apollo, what in Hades has gotten into you?!"

after Ivanova had left the Council chambers.

"I could ask you all the same question, Sire President," was Apollo's taut reply."I'm sure our guest has more important things to do with her time than to be put to sleep by ancient tales and fables about this lost thirteenth tribe."

"Commander," Wilker nasally said," 'Terre,' in the language these Humans call French, translates directly to 'Terra,' and, as you know, 'Terra' is Gemmonese for—"

"We thought the same thing about Terra almost forty yahren ago!" Apollo reminded the others. "And, we were wrong, then, weren't we?"

"Commander—" Wilker started to say.

"WEREN'T WE?!" Apollo demanded.

"We were," Wilker conceded.

"And," Apollo further demanded of this so-called Council,"just how many of our people were killed unnecessarily by the Eastern Alliance, because this Council thought they knew better than my father about how to treat the prisoners Starbuck and I captured on Paradeen?!"

"Those were holdouts from their lunar colonies," Siress Telia said,"who refused to recognize the peace—"

"The peace that only came about, Siress," Apollo reminded the Gemmonese Councillor,"because we intervened in their war."

"As I recall, Commander," Telia has the gall to tell him,"you and Colonel Starbuck had a hand in that, same as your fa—"

"The Ship of Lights manipulated all of us into doing their dirty work," Apollo replied, not wanting to even think about John and his fellow so-called superior beings, whose short-sighted manipulations had resulted in the fleet having to fight their way through Eastern Alliance destroyers and Cylon base ships.

"No one could have predicted," the Tauran Councillor, Sire Geller, spoke up,"that Leitner's faction would refuse to lay down arms, and turn on their own leadership."

"Oh, no," Apollo sarcastically said,"of course not, Sire Geller. Why should I, or anyone else, expect the Council to show a little bit of foresight?"

"Apollo," Boomer then slowly said,"the cold, hard fact of the matter is it's irrelavent whether these humans are the thirteenth tribe or not. We have to find a place—"

"We have to keep going!" Apollo hotly insisted.

"Apollo, we can't!" Boomer said."The fleet is falling apart at the seams; every ship, every ship, Apollo, is worn-out—"

"Not the Galactica!" Apollo protested, even knowing he was being dishonest with himself and these...Councillors.

"Especially the Galactica," Boomer replied."She's been in space and on active service for five hundred yahren, Apollo, and hasn't seen a Fleet yard in almost forty. As the only warship in the fleet, she has had to bear the brunt of every battle we've fought; her systems are failing, and our ability to fabricate replacement parts and make repairs to her, let alone the rest of a fleet of ships not even meant for deep-star travel in the first place, is all but gone now."

"Then, we move on," Apollo said,"to the next star, find an uninhabited world as similar to Caprica as we can, and colonize it."

"Until we have proper star charts of this region of space," Wilker spoke up,"that would be unwise, Commander. These people have been fighting the others for sixty-one of what they call years, however many yahren that translates into."

"He's right, you know." Ivanova said, as she stood by the hatchway.

"In our civilization," Apollo snapped,"it is generally considered bad manners to eavesdrop on a conversation, Commandante."

"Mine as well, Commander," Ivanova replied,"but, rude or not, I happen to be right. This system has no habitable planets, just mining stations and the Base, all of which are orbital facilities, and, of the four nearest stars, two have as many habitable planets as AD Leonis, and the others are already colonized. I can have the nav charts uploaded to your ship's computer network—"

"Not an option," Apollo flatly rejected, remembering too well the damage the Others' innocously-named Command Navigation Program had wreaked on Galactica'scomputron during their first engagement thirty yahren ago .

"Commander!" Wilker objected.

"No, Doctor," Apollo reiterated. "And, we won't establish a colony amongst those who are not of our tribes, Commandant."

"Apollo, my—" Boomer started to say.

"I'm sorry, Commandant," Apollo added,"but the cold, hard fact of the matter, as our esteemed Council President would say, is you are not us.

You can't be trusted.

And, I won't endanger my people's survival by trusting you.

Even if that means going against those here in this room."

42.119AC 20:05:08

Admiral William Troy Adama, third of his family to bear that name in recent memory, stood over the alien thing lying there bruised, sobbing, and ashamed of the abomination she was in his sight and the sight of the Gods.

He sneered, as he looked down on the Centauri whore who'd forced him to purchase her, whispering,"you still want more, don't you?!"

"N-no," the bitch dared lie and blubber to him, Adama rewarding that dishonesty the way his grandfather had taught him to reward all those who lied , whined and puled instead of accepting their inferiority and accountability before their masters and the Gods of their masters.

She continued whining, sobbing, begging and pleading, as he administed loving but firm judgement with his belt to the spoiled, entitled, little Centauri bitch, until she finally got the hint and shut her filthy mouth.

"Admiral," came his XO's voice over the comm.

Adama walked to his desk and depressed the com button.

"What is it, Hoshi?" he asked.

"We've just received a comm from Raptor 949, " Lieutenant Commander John Philip Hoshi answered,"assigned to recon in the—"

"I am aware of their assignment, XO," Adama chastised his exec."Please get to the point."

"The fleet of the Dark Ones," Hoshi replied."Raptor 949 reported they were in the AD Leonis system, shepherded by several Terran warships."

"Frak," whispered the second Adama to hold command of the battlestar Galactica.

"That is good news, Mister Hoshi," he remarked.

Finally, Adama thought,finally, we can finish what we started thirty years ago, what my weakling of a father lacked the stomach to do, put paid to the Ones who were not Us, and hurt the Terran scum in the process.

"Has Command been informed?" he asked.

"Not yet," Hoshi replied,"and we lost contact with Raptor 949 immediately after we received their comm."

"The Terries probably caught them, and burned them out the sky," was Adama's casual reply."What of it?"

"Indeed, sir," was Hoshi's reply.

"Did their comm provide enough data to successfully plot an FTL jump?" Adama asked.

"Negative, sir," Hoshi replied.

"Then, they deserved what they got for their incompetence," Adama concluded."Have the the gunstar Baldur spin up its FTL drives, and jump to AD Leonis as soon as her navigator can plot the course; I'll be in CIC shortly. Adama out."

He terminated communications, smiling, as he whispered:

"Soon."

[U.P. Cinnabar]

2275.02.12 19:07:02

Haut Amiral du Terre Edward MacDugan sighed, as he sat in the Secretary-General's office, and went over Koniev's report, and Ivanova's update to that report, again.

"I agree with you, Mackie," remarked Albert Bester, head of the Direction Sécurité Exteriéur.

"Can you stop doing that?!" MacDugan irritably asked.

"I still haven't learned to read minds, Mackie," was Bester's flippant reply."Reading body language, on the other hand, is just routine intelligence work."

"At least," the annoying little man just had to add,"I think so."

"Besides," he concluded,"we're all thinking the same thing; this is a less than ideal first-contact situation."

"Yes," Londo Mollari, special advisor to the Secretary-General on xenobiology, remarked,"yes, it is, Mister Bester."

"But," the ex-Centauri noble remarked, his voice catching as he spoke,"was your first contact with the...survivors...of my people and the Narns any more ideal?"

"They're refugees," MacDugan acknowledged,"same as your people—and the Narns—were, when you arrived at Orion VII with the Kobolds on your ass over forty years ago."

The veteran Marine d'Etoile flag officer closed his eyes a moment, trying to will away the memories.

"And, your people took us in, yes?" Mollari prodded. "Even in spite of the cost to them. To you, MacDugan."

Damn you, MacDugan silently cursed.

His brightest and best student, a man—a good man—who'd been a son to him, had died leading Enterprise's squadron of Starfury gunships against the Kobolds and their Dilgar pets, never realizing his full potential.

"We knew who your enemies were, Londo," Bester again gave voice to McDuggan's thoughts."All of your enemies, and all of their capabilities, two things which remain unknown quantities with these other Colonials. Ivanova's report mentioned extensive combat damage to their battlestar, and fighting with an 'Eastern Alliance,' of whom we are ignorant, as well as the Kobolds.

Which beggars another question: Why would the Kobolds concern themselves with a relative handful of ships and those aboard them?"

"The same reason my people enslaved the Narn, before we were thrown together out of necessity, Mister Bester," Londo replied,"simply because they exist."

"The basic reason for any war, Albert," McDugan found himself in reluctant agreement."Our own history tells that same sad tale over and over, when you look past the politics, and the ideology, and all other excuses we have found to kill each other, and to damn near take Earth down with us."

"Yes," whispered Londo.

"Unfortunately, I have to agree with Mister Bester as well," the uniformed commander of Earth's military then said."We don't know who all their enemies are, or their capabilities. What he didn't mention was that we don't know what made them refugees in the first place."

"Or who," Bester remarked.

"Or," MacDugan said, forced to agree with Bester as well,"who."

"We got ourselves into this war," he reminded the Centauri,"brought them down on your people, and the Narns—"

Cost John, and Lord only knows how many other young men and women over the last six decades, their lives.

"—because we found a shiny thing, and started fucking with it, in spite of all good sense, sixty-one years ago, and we still know damned little about that."

"We do know," Suzannah Gennadiya Luchenko, Secretary-General of the Nations Fédérée, her back to her three closest advisors, her eyes not necessarily on the view of San Roque afforded by the window of her office in the Earthdome reservation, slowly spoke,"they've nowhere to go, much less any gurantee of leaving the AD Leonis system under their own power."

"Yes," Londo replied."Ivanova's report made it clear the ships of these other Colonials are all but worn out, including their battlestar."

"That report, Madame Secretary," McDugan reminded her,"also mentioned their commander not only didn't trust us, but refused to even try and trust us."

"I see," the Secretary-General, still looking out into the darkness, added,"each of you failed to mention their people's beliefs concerning Earth."

"Fables," Londo said,"nothing more."

"Fables," Luchenko reminded Londo,"many fables, anyway, have a basis in fact, even amongst your people and the Narn, Londo."

"Fables or no," Bester said,"that is still another concern, culturally and socially, as well as militarily. They know about Earth, and they believe we are descendants of this lost thirteenth tribe of theirs. Of course, as to the latter, we have had well over three hundred years' of empirical data and scientific research which says differently, but, that will not stop those holding extreme viewpoints on that subject from giving voice to their opinions."

"Or acting on them," Londo said."And, they bear some superficial resemblance to our enemies."

The Secretary-General of the Nations Fédérée breathed deeply.

"We've needed no more reason to hate and kill other human beings," she said,"than 'because they exist.' That has been part of what being human meant, for as long as we have been human beings, yes?"

"For my people as well," Londo remarked.

"And, yet," Luchenko added,"we took your people in, the Narns as well, because you had nowhere else to go, even in spite of the problems we knew it would cause. "

"And, no matter the cost," MacDugan whispered, still thinking of the man John Sheridan could have become.

And, the man he had been.

"That," Luchenko whispered,"is also part of being human."

She turned and looked McDugan straight in the eye.

"Right, Mackie?" she asked, as Edward McDugan rose to his feet, found his voice, and told his Commander in Chief:

"The Vesta will leave for AD Leonis within the hour."

[U.P. Cinnabar]

2275.02.12 19:09:11

Commander Apollo having found himself "too busy," following the Council session, Syuzen had been handed off to the older blonde man she'd seen in the initial communication with Galactica.

This Colonel Starbuck naturally had not understood her quip about Moby Dick, but otherwise seemed open and friendly enough, a marked contrast to his Skipper.

"This is the starboard energizer room," Starbuck explained, as they stood on a catwalk overlooking machinery and control panels."Galactica has two such rooms, both of which provide the battlestar with power and propulsion for both sub-light and light-speed travel."

"The last," he added,"is kinda misleading; the name originates from a long-standing assumption amongst our scientists that one had to accelerate to the speed of light in order to exceed it. The assumption was eventually disproven, but the name stuck."

"I understand," Syuzen replied, unable to avoid noticing the patchwork, rough welds, and obvious jury-rigs and nonfunctional machinery and controls in the space below.

"The energizers use a thermonuclear reaction," Starbuck explained further,"involving the fissioning of atoms of an exceptionally energy-rich variant of an element we call tylium, inside a liquid form of another element we call hydrium, hydrium being a basic element of stars and space itself."

"Hydrogen," Syuzen remarked."We call it hydrogen."

"Ah," Starbuck replied, nodding his head.

"This tylium, though," she added,"I never heard of."

"You may have," Starbuck offered,"but your languages may have a different name for it."

"If it helps," he added,"the variant of tylium we use releases gamma rays when fissioned."

"I know what gamma rays are," Syuzen replied, smiling."So, this tylium, then, is the power source for your lasers?"

"Yes," Starbuck said."Our lasers, especially the big mega-pulsars in the Galactica's spine, use solid tylium rods for their power cores."

Hafnium,or one of its isomers, to be more precise, Syuzen concluded,what the earliest fusion reactors used, before the development of practical antimatter generation and storage methods in the 2100s.

"You...." Starbuck then said, changing the subject to one obviously unpleasant for him."You'll have to forgive Commander Apollo. The last thirty yahren, especially the last five, since he took command of the Galactica and the fleet, have been...difficult for him."

He sighed.

"It hasn't been easy," he added,"since we left our Colonies; we've struggled nearly every step of the way, lost a lot of good people."

Syuzen nodded.

"Why are you running?" she asked."The Others?"

"No," Starbuck replied, forcing himself to continue:

"For a thousand yahren, we were at war with a race called the Cylons, or rather, with their android servants, who'd turned against their creators, and decided that all organic life was offensive to them.

We'd fought nonstop, with no end and no clear victory in sight, just...relentless death and destruction, until finally, the Council of the Twelve, over Adama's objections, sued for peace, with one of their own, a warrior as renowned as Adama—Apollo's father—a man named Baltar, from the colony we called Gemmenon, serving as our envoy to the Cylons' Imperious Leader."

Starbuck paused a moment, sighed, continued:

"Negoiations started after we'd lost—thought we'd lost—the Pegasus and the rest of our Fifth Fleet at Molecay, and lasted five yahren, at which point we were down to twelve battlestars, one each commanded by a member of the Council; you see, in our culture, we didn't believe in leaders who sent others into battle, but took no part in the fighting themselves.

But, even warriors tire of war, Commandante. If President Adar, Lords rest his soul, had had one failing, it was that, and who can judge him for being tired of a war without end?

For that matter, even the most devoted warrior, if he does nothing but fight for survival, will do whatever's necessary, including betrayal and murder, to ensure his own survival."

Syuzen jumped ahead of Starbuck's narrative, and asked:

"Do you think that's what happened to Baltar?"

"Only Baltar can answer that," Starbuck replied sadly,"and, he died thirty yahren ago. But, I've watched a man I once considered a brother grow old and weary with the passage of time and, these last five yahren, with the weight of our people on his shoulders, and I often find myself wondering what made Baltar do what he did."

"Not," he added,"that it excuses his actions, Commandante, don't get me wrong, nothing excuses being a party to the annhilation of your own people, and the reduction of the survivors to a hunted, rag-tag refugee band doomed to never see home again."

"But," he whispered,"I often wonder."

42.Y38PH 13:12:18

"Haven't you had enough, Captain?" Lieutenant Bojay asked.

"Frack off," Captain Sheba, strike commander of the Galactica, replied, as she ordered another mug of ambrosia, just so she could drink that down like water as well.

So, she ordered another, as she often did in these centars between missions.

It wasn't as if anyone she knew was waiting for her in the quarters she shared with Apollo.

Sheba breathed deeply, looking into her mug, remembering.

Apollo and she had been mutually antagonistic at first, possibly because they had been so much alike, so passionately loyal to their fathers, to their battlestars, and to their squadronmates; love, mutual affection, that had only come with the passage of time and battles together.

In particular, after the fight with that last Cylon basestar thirty-seven yahren ago, after Apollo and Starbuck's danagerous mission to infiltrate that ship and disable its sensors to allow Galactica and her Vipers to destroy it.

Apollo had been hesitant, at first, to seal himself to another woman, and who could blame him, Serena's death over Kobol had still been a raw wound then, and he'd been hesitant to feel that kind of loss a second time.

Of all people, it had been Starbuck who'd convinced him to commit, after Cassi and he had sealed following that mission, to everyone's surprise, including Starbuck's.

At least according to him.

Another deep breath.

It had begun with Adama's murder by the Others thirty yahren ago, his sister's death in the ensuing fight, Baltar's sacrifice in saving the fleet, and, finally, Boxy's being killed in action five yahren ago, in the battle which had seen her husband take Tigh's place as commander of the Galactica.

The man she'd been sealed to so long ago...wasn't there anymore.

Nor was their marriage.

It hurt like frack, but what could she do about it?

"Sheba," Boomer said, as he appeared at her table,"we need to talk."

"About?" she asked, as she started to rise from her chair.

Boomer sat down instead, telling Bojay,"if you'd excuse us, Lieutenant?"

"Of course, Sire President," Bojay replied, getting up from the table and leaving the officer's club.

"What do you want to talk about?" she repeated her question.

"Apollo," he replied.

"We don't talk much these days, Boomer," she whispered.

"You have to try and get through to him," Boomer insisted."You know this fleet can't continue the way it's going."

"I know,"she said, putting her drink on the table in front of her."Apollo refuses to see that."

"He has one thing on his mind," Boomer said,"and, one thing alone, and that's survival, what he thinks is survival, and he's determined to survive, even if he has to do away with the Council of Twelve."

Sheba sat up in her chair, eyes wide, almost instantly sober.

"You'd think...no, Boomer, no, Apollo would never—"

"If it was your father, or Adama," Boomer slowly replied,"I'd agree. Even when Adama opposed the Council, he never openly sought to undermine them; same with Cain, Sheba, his disagreement with Adama aside, his last act before taking on Baltar's three base ships on his own was to ask Adama's blessing."

And, Sheba remembered,when Adama had relieved him of his command, my father accepted that, without complaint, even if he hadn't agreed with it.

"They both knew," he added,"what your husband's forgotten, that, without the rule of law, we cease being a civilized people."

"I know that," Sheba whispered, the tears coming in spite of her, as she was almost certain what Boomer would ask of her next.

It wasn't as if she hadn't dreaded this very conversation for the last five yahren.

"I've known Apollo," Boomer slowly said, tears running down his cheeks," fought alongside him and under his command for far longer than I've served the Twelve. But, I can't ignore the law, even for his sake. When the Council votes to relieve him of command, I have to vote with them, regardless of my personal feelings toward him."

"'When?'" Sheba asked.

"Not 'if,'" Boomer conceded."He essentially threatened us with mutiny in front of our guest, demonstrating his outright refusal of any other course of action other than continuing onward, even knowing the state of our fleet.

And, the people of the fleet, as well as the Convenant of the Twelve, are to whom we on the Council are beholden. Lords know, we've made our share of mistakes, Sheba, especially with the Eastern Alliance, but we try."

"I know you do, Boomer," Sheba whispered.

"You want me to try and reason with Apollo, before you have to intervene for the good of our people. Break him for the good of our people," she added.

"It has come to that," Boomer sadly admitted."And, as much as I don't want it to, that is what will come to pass, if we don't do something to head that off.

Sheba, the fate of fifty thousand people outweighs the pride of a single man, but I'm not prepared to sacrifice that man just yet. Especially not Apollo."

Sheba nodded her head.

"I can't promise I can persuade him," she said quietly."All I can promise is that I will try."

"All I can ask," Boomer said, as Sheba excused herself, rose from the table, and walked out of the officer's club.

42.Y38PH 13:12:18

"I've nothing to say to you, Lieutenant," Apollo said to the man who'd gotten his son killed fighting the Others, after he had the nerve to greet his commanding officer."You're dismissed."

"Commander," Lieutenant Dillon said, as he turned on his heel and walked out of Landing Bay Alpha.

"Lieutenant Jolly," Apollo then said to possibly the only warrior of rank he could trust,"you and I need to talk."

"I'm listening," Jolly replied.

"The Council is going to move against me, take my command, and, more importantly, doom everyone in this fleet to the same fate they doomed our people to almost forty yahren ago," Apollo told him. "You're the only warrior of rank I can trust, and the only one I know will do the right thing."

"What about Starbuck?" Jolly asked. "Or Sheba. Or—"

"Starbuck's with them," the commander of the Galactica spat."Sheba's with them. Bojay flew with my wife back aboard the Pegasus, and they're still close, possibly even closer than I want to believe. And, Dillion...."

"Dillion's—" Jolly started to say.

"—an incompetent who shouldn't be commanding a squadron, wouldn't be in command of Blue Squadron, if he weren't Starbuck's son," Apollo made perfectly clear.

"We need to move against the Council," he added, a moment later,"before they move against me, and, for that, I need warriors who'll take orders from me, who haven't forgotten their loyalty rests with the fleet, not with a Council who has consistently betrayed them for the last thirty-eight yahren, who sold our people into extinction at the hands of the Cylons, and turned the handful of us who survived into a hunted band of refugees led onward by the lie of a thirteenth colony."

"You don't believe these other humans," he indicated the knot of black-uniformed warriors gathered around their shuttle,"are our lost bretheren?"

"I believe the Book of the Word was...inaccurate where Earth was concerned," said Apollo,"and that my father...my father wanted to use that inaccuracy to give those few we managed to save some measure of hope to steel them for a journey he knew would have no end."

"I want you," he then told Jolly,"to take a warrior score, disarm those troops over there, and have them transported to the prison barge; I will do the same for Ivanova."

"You don't know if they'll interfere with what you're planning, Commander," Jolly said somewhat hesitantly.

"And, you don't know if they won't," Apollo told him."We'll release them and their shuttlecraft once we're safely out of this star system, but they will be insurance that their friends will allow us to leave this star system in the first place."

"After you've detained Ivanaova and the others aboard the prison barge," he added,"we will arrest the Council, and any warrior suspected of loyalty to the Council, and, after a court martial, put them aboard the prison barge, where they can do no further harm."

"And, if they refuse to be arrested?" Jolly asked.

"The survival of this fleet is more important than any single life," Apollo replied,"especially the life of a traitor.

If they resist, do what's necessary. Understand?"

"I understand," Jolly replied.

"I knew you would, Lieutenant," Apollo said.

[Jedi Commisar]

(AV:T; no Whatever)/GINO

So what do these parts of the title stand for?

[astrospace2020]

very good story so far , cant hardly wait for the next chapters

[U.P. Cinnabar]

very good story so far , cant hardly wait for the next chapters

The edited and cleaned up story can now be foundhere. I'll add to it, when I can. Thanks.

(AV:T; no Whatever)/GINO

So what do these parts of the title stand for?

Nothing any longer. It started out as an AU of both the universe of the tabletop game Attack Vector:Tactical(AV:T) and the remastered BSG, but it mutated beyond that.

The Whatever is the unexplained event in the AV:T verse which led to the disappeance of Earth and its entire Solar System.